Page 1 of Kaya's King

PROLOGUE

Kaya

Kaya, age 11

I swallowedthe tears that wanted to fall as I walked down the dirt road toward the trailer park where I lived with my mom and grandma.

I was so excited this morning when I went back to school after the break. Money was tight in our house since Mom was disabled, leaving Grandma as the primary breadwinner. She was a seamstress at a local factory and would rework clothes thatwe found at the second-hand shop in town by hemming them and mending them until they looked somewhat new, so I had a decent wardrobe for school. Granted, most of the time the clothes weren’t brand new off the rack with the original price tags, but they were new to me, and I was glad that she had the tailoring talent needed to make sure I didn’t look like I was homeless.

Somehow, she had gotten her hands on a bunch of cute graphic and button-down shirts, as well as jeans and worked her fashion magic. Opening up the wrapped boxes with handmade bows at Christmas, I was amazed at what she’d done and thanked her profusely. She even took scraps of fabric that the factory was going to discard and crafted a cute handbag for me to hold the wallet, comb, and lip gloss that were nestled in my stocking. According to her, I was becoming a young lady and needed to have a purse to carry my essentials. She even put in a ten-dollar bill, so I had money in the event I saw something I wanted or needed. Not that I ever went anywhere besides school and straight back home. However, I was going to see if she’d take me into town this weekend so I could get a new sketch pad and some more colored pencils. I saw a discount coupon in the newspaper ad section which meant I could hopefully find some good deals since art was my passion.

Today, though, I went to the girl’s restroom to fix my ponytail since Bobby Graves had pulled it loose during class. While in there, I was looking in the mirror after applying my lip gloss when Keisha, Barbie, and Dawna came walking in. Three of the biggest bullies at Mt. Oak School and for whatever reason, they had decided in kindergarten that I was their favorite target.

“Oh, look, it’s the trailer park trash princess,” Keisha sneered, while the other two giggled. I mentally counted to ten, like mygrandma suggested, only the anger and hurt welling inside of me had reached the tipping point.

“What have I ever done to you to make you treat me like this?” I questioned, standing my ground. I was shaking inside because sometimes their verbal taunts turned into physical altercations, but I was done being treated like I was dog shit on the bottom of someone’s shoe.

“You were born,” she snorted. “That’s it, nothing more and nothing less.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder like a snotty diva before scanning me over from my feet to my head. “Plus, you don’t have a father, or at least you don’t know who he is, and if I’m not mistaken, the shirt you’re wearing is one that my mom donated to the second-hand store.” Her taunting had me fisting my hands, ready to snatch a handful of her hair and toss her to the ground like the bitch she is.

No matter how upset I was with her belittling, her words managed to hurt and had tears welling up and threatening to overflow at her cruel taunts. I didn’t have a father anymore because he was killed in the accident that disabled my mom but apparently facts weren’t important here, only making me look like a cretin. Not only that, but I still bore the scars from the surgery I had on my leg that was mangled when the car rolled over and crushed my limb, reminding me of what I lost that tragic day. I was always self-conscious about the slight limp I had when I walked because it made me feel like I was less than whole. I knew how lucky Mom and I were to come out of that multi-car pileup alive. .

We survived a horrible accident that claimed the lives of three people, my daddy included. Vague memories and pictures were all I had left of him now and hearing her trash him like that set me off. “Fuck you, Keisha!” I shouted. “You don’t know anythingabout me or my life because you don’t care enough to find out. And quite honestly, your opinion doesn’t mean a damn thing. So, what if this is one of your old shirts? So fucking what? There’s nothing wrong with being frugal, nothing at all.” I felt like some kind of warrior standing up for myself, like in the books I loved to read as I shouted at her. The shocked look on her face told me I was in for some payback later on down the road, but I was on top of the world at that moment and I was going to ride that high.

“Wow, such vulgarities, Kaya. Maybe you need your mouth washed out,” she replied, a gleam of satisfaction shining in her eyes. Before I knew what was happening, or had a chance to react, the other two girls snuck in and had grabbed my arms, pinning them at my sides while Keisha shoved a bar of soap deep into the cavern of my mouth before dunking my head in the sink and turning the tap on. “There, that’s better. Ladies don’t use foul language like that.”

As I emerged from the basin, flinging water everywhere but eternally grateful that at least my tears weren’t as noticeable, I scoffed, “I never said that I was a lady.” Rushing from the restroom, I crashed into Foster, my friend and neighbor from the trailer park.

“What happened to you?” he asked, horror on his face at my outward appearance.

“Keisha,” I snapped, practically running to the nurse’s office so I could get myself cleaned up.

I was so engrossed in kicking the rock that was in my way that I didn’t hear Foster come up next to me until I saw him out of my peripheral vision. “Foster, you scared me,” I exclaimed.

“Didn’t you hear me calling your name?” he asked. “Are you okay?” His tone was persistent, which made me angrier.

“As okay as I can be considering what happened today,” I replied, waving my hand down the front of my shirt. After the bathroom altercation, I had cleaned up in the nurse’s office then gone back to my scheduled class. Somehow, however, despite me being hyper-alert to Keisha and her minions, they managed to get indelible ink on my pretty pink shirt, ruining it. Once again, despite the undeniable proof, the teacher did nothing. I didn’t understand it, either, because our school allegedly had a zero-tolerance policy regarding bullying and assault, but despite that fact, as well as plenty of witnesses, nothing has ever been done.

“We’re getting out of here someday, Kaya,” he promised. “Me and you, together.” He was my best friend, which wasn’t saying a whole lot because we were two of the oldest kids in our trailer park at eleven and twelve.

“Maybe,” I muttered, convinced I’d be in the same place ten years from now. Grandma wasn’t very old; she had my mom before she was twenty, but having to take care of her daughter, her granddaughter, and keeping a roof over all of our heads was drastically aging her.

Kaya, age 13

“Do you think your mom is in heaven?” Foster asked as we skipped rocks down at the pond.

“Maybe? Is there even a heaven?” I replied. My mom had finally succumbed to the damage that the accident caused, developing an infection that went septic. Today, we buried her, leaving meand my grandma all alone. I wasn’t sure how to feel since last year, my mom had suffered a stroke rendering her unable to speak.

“Well, if there is, I hope she’s there with your dad,” he stated, awkwardly patting my shoulder. The million tears I had cried earlier reappeared.

“Thanks.” What else could I say? The last two years had sucked, both at school and at home. Without the comfort of my art, I think I’d have run away and found greener pastures elsewhere.

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” Foster suddenly announced. “Come on, let’s go get it.”

I followed him back to his house where he unceremoniously handed me a bag from the local art store. “What is it?” I questioned.

“Open it, silly. I know it’s after your birthday, but I was finally able to save enough chore money to get you something,” he said.

Since gifts were a rarity except for at Christmas or my birthday, I carefully pulled out the tissue paper and gently set it aside, gasping when I saw what was tucked inside the bag. “Foster,” I whispered, choked up as I pulled out the sketch pads and a new set of colored pencils. “I don’t know what to say right now.” Once again, I was brought to tears at his thoughtfulness. He was always doing little things for me to cheer me up. Not in a boyfriend/girlfriend kind of way, more like good friends. “Thank you. My pencils were getting too short to use.”

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