DARE-TO-LOVE-TRUTH-AND-DARE-DUET-COLLECTION-by-Lylah-James-pdfarchive

my ears. I felt things I shouldn’t have.
Turning around to face them, I leaned against the door
and crossed my arms over my chest. “Speak.” One word. It
was all she needed.
She gripped my father’s hand, her eyes glassy. “When I
met your father, he didn’t have any food to eat.”
Wh – what the fuck?
She kept talking, before I could say anything, as if she
was scared, she’d lose whatever courage she had to speak.
“I remember that day very clearly. We were neighbors, and
he came knocking at my door. He asked my parents if he
could have a plate of food, or even a loaf of bread, to feed
his younger brother.”
Younger brother? My father has a brother? I have an
uncle? How the hell did I not know this? My mind spun, and
I blinked several times.
“You see, we came from a shitty neighborhood. From the
slums. You could easily describe it as a slum part of New
York City. We barely even had electricity or warm water,
because we couldn’t pay for it. We’d eat canned food that
we could get from the community church or the food banks.
That night, my family barely even had food to feed
ourselves. My mother turned Brad away. After my parents
went to sleep, I sneaked out of my room and went over to
his house. I brought him two slices of bread. He broke
down and cried. He was fourteen, I was eleven. He quickly
fed his brother and only took two bites himself. I learned
that they hadn’t had any food for two whole days.”
My mother paused, as I sunk to the floor, my legs
suddenly feeling weak. I wanted to call her a liar, but I
could hear the truth in her words, the rawness in her voice.
This was real. My parents were poor… and I never knew.
They never told me anything about their pasts or their
childhoods. We never… talked.
I sat on my ass and stared at my parents, finally
realizing that they were truly strangers to me.