Page 13 of Mama Si's Paradise

Then the moment passed, and I was still there, lying on Annabelle’s couch, staring at the small cracks on her ceiling, her snores my own personal melody. I imagined making something similar in a piano. I pressed imaginary keys made out of air, and in my head I heard the music. I always heard the fucking music, and maybe that’s how I’d gotten here. Maybe that’s why I’d been so stupid as to follow Brandon to this place when I had nothing of my own.

But how was I to know that it would haunt me like it wasdoing right now? How was I to know how big a hole regret could open in my chest?

Sleep,I told myself. Just sleep, and then I could think tomorrow. Just sleep and then I could make up my mind when the sun climbed up in the sky again.

Except the moment I closed my eyes, all I saw was the Paradise. All I saw was Mama Si with the colorful eyes and those women lounging by the pool, others partying with pink foam, the music in the air, thefreedomthat clung to those walls. The same freedom that she promised me. Good ole Fall Hayes from Detroit, with no past and no present and no fucking future to speak of.Me.

So, when dawn came, it was useless to even try to tell myself that there was any doubt left. It was useless to pretend that I was okay with living in Roven, working two jobs with the very real possibility that I’d run into Brandon at any given moment. I’d run into him and his girlfriend, and I’d be reminded that nowshewas the one sleeping in my bed. I’d be reminded that I’d always put his clothes and his meals and hiseverythingfirst to make sure he looked his best when he went to work, just so his mistress could appreciate all of it.

How fucking comical—but I’d be reminded of it very often, I suspected, and I would not be laughing at the fact, either.

No, I’d want to pull all my hair out for allowing myself to get in this position in the first place. For putting my trust in another person the way I knew I ought to do only in myself. I knew this—I’d known since I first started to understand life. Since my grandmother repeatedly reminded me of how lucky I was that she hadn’t left me out in the street to starve when her daughter—my mother—died. Since she repeatedly reminded me that I was alive because she fed me and clothed me and allowed me to live with her in her trailer.

I knew I shouldn’t depend on anyone, but I’d told myselfthat Brandon was different. We grew up together. IknewBrandon.

Look at me now.

So, despite the part of me that fought me tooth and nail until sunrise, and despite every reason I gave myself as to why this was a bad, awful,horribleidea, my mind was made up. Despite my identity crisis, all parts of me agreed on one thing: no relying on anyone else ever again for anything. It was just me now, and I was going to make my own life somewhere far away from here. I was going to buy myself a house and a car—and a goddamn piano. I was going to go to school and be the best player the world has ever seen.

But to do that, I needed money. I neededfreedom.

And I’d already been promised it.

I told Annabelle I was going back home. As awful as that made me feel, I was looking to make this a bit easier on myself and I didn’t want to have to answer questions. I didn’t want her to know that I’d be here, in Roven still. I had coffee with her that morning, and I hugged her goodbye as I walked down the street, hurrying in case Brandon and his girlfriend came out of the building while I was still there.

Forty minutes later, I was in front of the golden gates of Mama Si’s Paradise—and I’d come to stay.

Regret slipped into me slowly,almost unnoticed.

I’d spent half the night staring at the ceiling and being sure of my decision, knowing this was the right path for me. I’d spent half the night preparing, yet now here I was, sitting in a chair that probably cost more than all the money I’d ever had, doubting my choices again.

It was that room—Mama Si’s office. It was the hallway outside it. It was the entire goddamnmansion, the way the woman who saw me at the door called it. The Paradise mansion, and I had come to tell its owner that I was staying.

If only I could stop sweating.

The door behind me opened, and I jumped to my feet, ready to start running. This place was full of predators, my instincts said. Full of them coming to devour me.

When I saw Mama Si’s face, that small smile on her red lips and the glistening in her eyes made of colors, the feeling only intensified. She was most definitely a predator—and I was the helpless little prey that had come running right into her claws.

Get yourself together!I told myself in my head.

I was just scared. She was only a woman. It wasn’t as bad as I made it seem.

“Fall Doll, you came,” Mama Si said, coming into the room so gracefully. Behind her was the same woman who’d been holding the umbrella for her yesterday. I hadn’t noticed anything about her before, too overwhelmed by the Paradise and everything in it. She was a bit shorter than me, round cheeks and long brown hair she kept tied behind her head. Big brown eyes that looked almost black and thin lips covered in sheer gloss. She wore a leather jacket and black pants instead of the blue uniform everyone else around here had on.

“Let me look at you,” Mama Si said, coming to stand in front of me, offering me her hands.

I don’t know why I reached out mine when the last thing I wanted to do was touch her. Fuck, the air smelled of roses again, so intense, and it held music in it, too. But the moment I put my hand between both hers—gloved—it felt like some of the heavy weight on my shoulders was lifted a little bit.

She looked as impeccable as yesterday, hair blonde and smooth, looser on the back, but the curls that framed her face were just as tight. She wore a dark blue dress this time, open in the front down to her belly button, showing off her breasts, the smooth skin of her chest and stomach. Hermakeup was flawless, like it wasn’t there at all—which was impossible. Nobody’s skin looked like that without foundation and contouring and powders and a million other things.

“You look afraid,” she then said as she analyzed me. “You look overwhelmed.”

I tried to talk, to tell her that it was just the nerves or something, but I couldn’t find my voice yet, not when she squeezed my hands like that.

“But you also look excited—am I right?” With a smile, she finally let go.

It was like a spell was lifted from me at the same time, and the weight I carried on my shoulders returned.

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