JUNE 2018

SONG: Family portrait by P!nk

  "One step. Two step. Three step. Five step. Come on kids, do it with me!" Larry the dancing salsa man instructed me.

  "Come on, sing it with me," he started,"shake those hips and dance the salsa!"

Creep, I thought. It was Friday night, and as usual, I was sitting on my couch watching some of my old salsa tapes I used in the third grade.  Mom had bought them while she was going through a dance faze, and had wanted us to try out multiple dances. Including, salsa, belly dancing, ball room dancing and hip hop. Let me just say that watching my mom trying to drop it like its hot is not something I ever want to experience again.

I shiver as cold air comes out of a vent above the couch, and get up to go get a blanket out of my room. It's quiet in the house, and I can feel a slight chill fall across me. It got creepy in the house at night, especially when I was alone. I guess I should be used to it by now, seeing as mom always worked late at the office on Friday nights and dad was out of town a lot, but sometimes I still got spooked. I was suppose to go to my friend Karen's for a sleep over, but she got sick, so it was just another lonely night, inside, by myself.

I jump as I hear a loud noise coming from the foyer, then a door closing. What if someones broken in? I think to myself. My palms start to sweat and my heart beats faster than normal at the possibility of there being someone in the house. Quickly I run to my parents room  across the hall. Throwing the door to their closet open, I grab the base ball bat my dad liked to keep in case of an emergency. With my heart pounding wildly and the bat held high, I slowly slip back into the the living room.

  "Mom!"I call,"Is that you!"

I inch around the corner and head to the foyer. What I see nearly takes my breath away. Thud. I dropped the bat, the wooden stick hitting the carpet with a muted sound. There in the foyer, stood my mom, the woman I looked up to the most, kissing someone who was not my dad. 

  "Mom? W-w-what are you doing?"I whisper.

Not quite understanding what I was seeing.

No.

I thought. It couldn't be. She turns around to look at me, a expression of surprise and guilt written on her face.

  "Oh, honey! what are you doing home?"

  "What am I doing here? What am I doing here! that's all you have to say to me!"

My mom could be a jerk sometimes, I knew, but this. I never would of thought she could do something like this.

I looked up to look at my mom again, thinking I had seen wrong, only to find my vision blurred with tears. I hadn't even noticed I was crying.

  "I jus- if you don't tell him, I will." I knew this would tear dad apart, but I couldn't just look him straight in the face every day for the rest of my life, without telling him. I just couldn't.

   "That's just it," she started," your dad already knows."

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hope you enjoyed the first chapter!!!