Growing up

As more time passed, we were getting the hang of things indeed and l decided to go back to school. My brothers were grown enough and responsible enough to manage to keep their bedroom tidy and to start preparing dinner while l go to school. Of course day school was out of the question so l was going to attend night school, which was two hours and was a better option since l couldn't spend the day at school. I felt like night school was going to be more effective anyways than day school, because l had attended day school all my life. I knew that the pace in which the lessons moved was very different, night school had limited time so there was no time for play, only serious business. Day school, on the other hand, stretched on from morning till afternoon so there was plenty of time to relax and enjoy in between hours. I guess the teachers at day school also knew they had enough time to cover the whole syllabus so they never had to rush. At night school, the tutor would only cover the necessities, and the rest, we had to put in the work on our own. This wasn't much of a challenge because night school was mostly made up of grown ups, people with responsibilities who would be giving school a second chance and at the same time parenting. As such, there was no room for joking around when it came to night school. During the first days of attending night school l would come back home exhausted and all l'd want to do is, get in bed, sleep and wake up after at least two days. Pity l couldn't have that since l would then have to calculate my earnings for the day, see if the business was still on track or not. As more time passed, l began to manage better, l almost felt like a natural. I was growing up and men had started hitting on me, it was becoming a bother. I understand that my body was coming out really fine, l mean, what with the fine, fine ass, pointy, round boobs. I was a true reflection of my mother, it was like the more l grew up, the more I looked exactly like her. Each morning I stood in front of the mirror, l felt like l looked a whole lot more like her than l did the previous day. I have never been a fan of haircuts, so I kept my hair long, conditioned and shampooed. With cute, puppy-like brown eyes, almost too big for my liking, neat and well defined eyebrows and lashes that I kept smoked black. I had grown up watching my mom do it and I got to imitate her almost every chance I got-so applying mascara onto my lashes wasn't part of my teenage problems. I particularly didn't like wearing lipstick, felt like it was too hard a job as l'd have to keep checking if it hasn't washed off, or if it hasn't smeared onto my clothes or something like that. My nose was well built, or so l'd like to think, not too pointy, not too flat and dare l say, l was beautiful. I liked mostly the fullness of my virgin lips, full and and round, and the corners of my mouth would turn up whenever I smiled. My lower lip had a bit of color and I liked chewing on it. Despite all my attempts to wear my hair long and carry myself like a lady, I still looked young, even younger than my actual age. I liked smiling lots, perfect white teeth showing and my lips turning forming a curve accompanied by some appearance of tiny dimples that would never show unless l was legit smiling. I wasn't too tall or short. I was, according to me, the average height of any girl my age, but from what l would hear people say, and as it would later turn out, I did fall under the group of tall ravishing girls. As l was still developing, I felt like I would need a strategy and guidance in order not to fall into the same pit that most of my classmates had fallen into. Thank goodness the ever-so-lovely  Mrs Fletcher was still around to help guide me. She would tell me to be open to her, give her as much information as l had gathered, describe a guy to her and from what l say, she would know whether l should run or stay and entertain him. See, with these kinda things, total honesty is the way to go, luckily I had never had any problems with that part of my personality. And I knew the time would come when l needed to get involved with someone, go out on dates and the like. All l asked of fate was to let the man who would deflower me be worth it.

Time flies-before I knew it, l was sixteen and all grown up, the legal age of recognition by even the state itself. My mother again wrote to us to wish me a happy birthday, l now had a phone but she didn't know that so she still used letters. Her letter did hint on the fact that she knew what they did was painful, and unforgivable, but for me to completely shut her out and not respond to any letter of hers, was "extremely harsh", l read. I didn't think l had anything to say to her, so many things had changed and one letter wouldn't even cover half those things. Nonetheless, l thought what harm could writing back to her do? Too bad l got stuck before l even got to the third sentence. You know l felt like there was something solid that was stuck in my throat as l wrote to her. I wanted to tell her how much we missed them but the thought of it just ripped me up to shreds before I could even put it down. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes, my view became blurry, one bat of an eyelash, tears would stream down my cheeks. I told myself that I cried enough when they left us, so now l wouldn't cry nomore. With that in mind I aborted mission "write a letter to mom", forced the tears back and moved on. That night l realized just how much pain they had put me through, and what hurt me the most was the realization that I had never really worked on it. I had just been suppressing it all the way through. Due to that incident, I knew my parents would occupy my mind over the coming days so l decided its time for me to meet new people in my life. Take my mind off my tragedy, go out for some fresh air and have dinner with a guy and with friends also. So l decided to call my new friend, Jo-Anne and take her up on her long standing offer for me to come for a sleepover. She was overjoyed and started making plans instantly. I asked Mrs Fletcher to take care of my brothers for the night and she was obviously more than happy to do so. Little did l know that as fate wouldn't have it any other way, that would turn out to be the night that l meet him...