Chasing Leah (Journey #1)
C.A. Williams
Chapter 1
Leah
"Leah, are you almost ready?" I hear my roommate and best friend, Ally, shout from the hallway of our brand new apartment, well brand new to us anyways. She knows the answer to that question almost better than I do. I sigh and slip on my new heeled black boots over my skinny jeans that add a little bit of height to my petite size and throw a black jacket on over my royal blue tank that Ally says matches my eyes perfectly and accentuates my chest, just what I need. Dab a little cherry red lip gloss on; straighten out my dark curls as best as I can and I'm ready, I guess.
My door creaks open and in pops a blonde head with streaks, red this time, the color seems to change almost daily. Her outfit would look wrong on anyone except her, pink kitten heels with neon green leggings and a black leather mini skirt paired with some kind of rainbow top, I'm pretty sure she made using duck tape, but no one would ever know. She can pull off anything and she has the body for it too with her willowy figure.
Ally has been my best friend since my first day of high school at Lairmont High, after my Mother of the decade ditched me with my 70 year old grandma for some guy named Tank and yes that’s his real name, I made a point to ask. He was one of her regular customers-translation, an alcoholic, what a winner. Just another guy in the long line I had seen coming and going through the years, including my father whose identity she was never quite able to pin down. The last image I have of my mom is her legs slung over the back of Tanks motorcycle riding down the dirt road my Grandmas farmhouse was on and she never looked back.
"L? I know you really don't want to go, we could stay here and have a girls night, watch some sappy lifetime movies, paint our toes...," Ally looks at me with her big blue eyes, accented by neon green eye shadow, a huge smile plastered on her face. And I know she would be happy to do just that, but I promised myself I wouldn't ruin any college experiences together and our first party would definitely be on that list. I'm sure Ally has a real list actually stashed away in her room somewhere, each item just waiting to be checked off.
“Absolutely not Ally. Just because I'm not a social butterfly like you does not mean we can't live it up." Drinking really wasn't my thing. After years of watching my mother stumble up the steps to our small one bedroom apartment that was located conveniently above the skuzzy bar she waitressed at, I just didn't see the appeal and normally had a three limit max if I did drink. Plus I had enough responsibilities to worry about.
I still remember the morning that changed my life heaping even more responsibility onto my shoulders than was already there. I was the one who made sure rent was in on time, made groceries stretch as far as possible till the next paycheck came in, made sure the electric stayed on which did get turned off from time to time if Moms tips were low.
I had been crunching on some stale cereal before getting myself off to school that morning in the tiny kitchenette that was crammed into the small space we had. I had scrubbed the heck out of the place when we first moved in two years before that, but there was no way to fix something that couldn’t be fixed in the first place.
Mom came stumbling in still dressed in her barely there work “uniform”, if you could call it that, from the night before. Her jean cutoff shorts seemed shorter each shift she worked and she tried to see how tight her low cut tank tops could get, I think she had some kind of competition going on with the other waitresses there. Let’s see who could look the sluttiest, winner gets best tips and maybe a sleazy guy thrown in. Woohoo!
“So,” she said as she lit up a cigarette and puffed the smoke of her Marlboro lights in my face. I scootched my chair away as far as possible. She had smoked ever since I could remember but that didn’t mean I would ever get used to the smell or that I had to like it. “I’m pregnant,” she blurted out with another puff of smoke, reaching for the box of cereal. I think I choked on my cereal a bit before looking over at her in disbelief well not so much disbelief I was kind of always waiting for this day. With all the men it was bound to happen. I just wasn’t ready for it.
“So are you going to go to the clinic and get it taken care of then?” I asked wondering why she was being so nonchalant about the whole situation. I really wasn’t for abortion but I couldn’t see another human being brought into the world by my mother.