Chapter 8: Carter

Ahliyah and I went shopping for junk food. She couldn't believe I didn't have any junk food in my cabinets. After she unpacked, she wanted to talk and spend the rest of the night eating junk food. We grabbed whatever junk food looked good at the moment. Ahliyah walked inside the apartment, pouring all the snacks into bowls.

She put the snacks next to us, smiling. " I want to play a 10 questions, but we'll be telling each other ten things that the people in our lives don't even know."

" What made you decide to play this game?" I asked.

She shoved some trail mix in her mouth, running her hands through her hair. " I thought that maybe we could find something about each other. We are living together after all." She said.

I started to get scared. I wasn't scared of talking about what happened, but I was scared of admitting it to myself. Ahliyah was right though, we had to understand each other if we were going to be living together. I breathed deeply, calming my nerves preparing myself for the game.

Ahliyah wanted to ask questions first. I tried not to worry about what she was going to ask and I thought about the questions I wanted to ask her instead.

" Why don't you have pictures of your family?" She asked.

" I threw them out before I moved here and they don't deserve to be in my apartment." I told her.

" Why?"

I sighed. Was I really ready to tell her everything. 'You need to tell someone.' I told myself. I needed to tell someone who wasn't Lorenzo.

" My step-mother verbally and physically abused me. I took the beatings because I thought it was something I did wrong, but I realized she was just hateful and mean. My father worked to much to notice anything was wrong. I was good a pretending everything was okay. " I said. It was actually really sad when I said it out loud, but I think some part of me wanted to say it, even if I didn't want to.

Ahliyah frowned and shoved the snacks towards me. " I.. I didn't know. My dad verbally abused me sometimes. I'm sorry." She said.

" It's not your fault. I'm learning to deal with it on my own terms. I'm glad to have you here though, there are some nights where I can't sleep. " I smiled sadly.

We talked about what happened to us and laughed. Somehow we found a way to smile through our pain. I found out that our situations were not different after all and that we were both learning how to cope with our trauma and figure things out on our own. The funny thing was that it was her first day staying with me and I was starting to have feelings for her.

It might be emotions or that I was in a vulnerable state. But, I liked her and I wanted to keep her with me as long as I could.

" You didn't have to share any of that with me. I know there is more you're not going to share right now, but I'll be right here when you're ready." She smiled. We are the rest of the snacks and we didn't play 10 questions anymore for the rest of the night.

I made breakfast for for Ahliyah the following morning, we sat at the kitchen island eating our breakfast in silence. After we ate breakfast, Ahliyah washed the dishes and the kitchen. She felt bad that she had to stay with me and decided that she'll help clean up until she could find a place of her own.

" Do you mind coming with me to run some errands?" She asked. I nodded. I didn't have anything else to do. I changed my clothes, putting on something decent and I looked in the mirror. I smiled at myself because I was proud of the person I saw in the mirror.

We stopped at the shop first, Elias complained when he seen Ahliyah and he followed her around the shop fussing at her. I didn't know the guy but I wanted to punch him. Ahliyah grabbed what she needed, grabbing my hand and pulling me out of the building.

We got back into the car, Ahliyah was running her hands through her hair and she looked like she wanted to cry. I sat there with her thinking about if we weren't in the car I would of pulled her in my arms, allowing her to cry if she wanted to.

" I have one more thing to do before we do something else." She said. Ahliyah put the address into my phone and I followed. I parked the car in front of a house, it was small and beige colored. No one looked like they were home. Ahliyah looked down at her hands and shuffled her feet.

" This is my dad's house. I'm supposed to check in on him and make sure he's okay." She smiled sadly.

She walked inside the house and walked out minute later. " I don't even know why I try. He has not been home since I got here and I know the day he shows up, I'm not going to know what to do. Thank you for coming with me though." She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes.

In that moment, I liked a lot more than I did before. I drove for hours not having a destination in mind, but as long as I got to spend the day with her, I was happy. When we got back to the apartment, Ahliyah went in her room and fell asleep.

I grabbed my journal from room writing how I felt and how I was feeling being in Ahliyah's presence. Being around her gave me hope of that light I has lost years ago. I could get it back and start over and reclaim some of the life I had before. I was going to come out of this strong and help Ahliyah too.