The day I first noticed the young boy I would soon call my son was the same day I set foot in my new home town. After over 10 hours of driving, following a giant moving truck - two drive through meals, endless flicking through the radio, and absolutely no sleep - I finally arrived in the city of Woodcrest, Maryland.
The stories that I had heard about this town being beaten down were somewhat disspelled once I actually got to explore the city. It was just an average little town with a few restaraunts in general places and small stores everywhere you looked. The apartment complex I decided to make my home neighbored a small neighborhood that looked like it housed no more than at least 70 residents. The houses were small, therefore giving me the impression the apartments would be even smaller. The apartment complex in general resembled more of a small hotel you'd see if it were centered between some cafes or something. The inside of the houses were just large enough to fit a small living room, a kitchen, two small bedrooms and a bathroom. My bedroom, as small as it seemed from the outside, was just big enough for me to have a bed, a dresser, and maybe a bedside desk for a lamp - all of them needing to be small, of course.
I had a dog, as well. I called him Renegade; he was a medium sized pit-bull mix that I had taken in when he was a stray. He was living proof that a pit-bull was not a dangerous dog, even if he was a mix-breed. He behaved like any other normal dog: eat his food, lounge on the couch for a while, go outside for business and excersize every now and then, and fall asleep at night only to repeat the cycle again the next day. He didn't take to the apartment very quickly, but it eventually dawned on him that we would be here until I could get my hands on enough money to afford an actual house. If that meant finding the shittiest job in town just to ring in some dough, so be it. The first few hours of my new life here seemed to fly by like the wind on a warm summer day. I spent a lot of time setting up my living room and placing all my dishes where they needed to be. My mother - back in Indianapolis - gave me about 5 trash bags full of pots, pans, and other essential kitchen utensils I would need in a kitchen. She also lent me some of her best clothes and some family photo albums so I would be taking a little piece of home with me. My father - who, surprisingly, was more upset about my decision to move away from home than my mother, but accepted that I was old enough to be on my own - lent me an older couch we used to have in our living room, a working TV with directions of how to hook it up, and some parting words that would stick with me forever: "Don't be afraid to be afraid, sweetheart. Your fear isn't meant to push you down, it's meant to push you to try hard." It was cheesy as hell, but at the same time, it just seemed so right.
Once everything was set up to my liking, I glanced at the Hello Kitty watch that was a Christmas gift from my mother one year. It was only 7 o' clock, which wasn't bad considering it felt like I had been working all day. I was tired and hungry, so I decided a run to the gas station nearby was well deserved. I grabbed some money, gave Renegade a hug, and left the apartment. The gas station was within walking distance, so I just walked instead of getting in my car and driving there. I was just walking up to the front entrace when I bumped into a little kid. I looked down to get a good look at him, but the first thing that caught my eye was his giant hair; it was like cotton candy, a big serving of dark brown cotton candy. The second thing that caught my eye was the look on his face. The frown stuck there as though somebody had taken super glue and glued his mouth in that position forever. The rest of his appearance was just general stuff; dark skin, brown eyes, generic clothing. Not really a big deal.
I realized immediately that he was also looking over me, scanning, observing, looking for something. I couldn't help but ask myself what about me made him observe so closely. Was it the scar over my left eye? Or was it that I had one blue eye and one green eye, the blue eye being caused by an incident that happened when I was a baby? It was easy to tell a ton of questions were racing through his head, but I guess he didn't ask because we were complete strangers at the time. "Pardon me," the words flew out of my mouth unexpectedly. I didn't expect to excuse myself for running into the kid, but I thought it would be nice to give the impression that I wasn't some stuck up bitch who got all emotional over a small bump. "Don't worry about it," he answered, his voice rather flat and emotionless. I nodded my thanks to the kid and held the door open, allowing him to go inside first. For a minute, he just looked at me as though there was still something about me he was trying to find. He then nodded his own thanks and walked in the store, going on about his business as if our encounter hadn't happened. I thought to myself, funny how things worked out that way; You meet somebody, and you feel like there's some kind of connection, but in one moment, it's all over.
When I returned home, my small bag of snacks in one hand and my key in the other, I was greeted by Renegade padding up to me, sitting at my feet. My mind instantly went back to when he was a younger pup; my mother spent forever trying to get him to calm down when someone was at the door. All of the training she gave him paid off. "Good boy," I muttered just loud enough for him to hear, patting his head.
I went through the snacks in just a little under 20 minutes, sitting in complete silence on my couch and enjoying the peacefulness. Everything was fine until about 11 o' clock that night, when I heard my neighbors stumbling into their apartments. From the sound of it, most of them were drunk. As I lay awake in my bed that night, I thought I could hear a couple right next door to me having sex. Renegade growled when he heard them, and of all the things I wished I could've done, all I could do was pat his head and tell him to take it easy.
It took a while for me to finally be able to let my eyelids droop. The bed was comfortable, very soft. Once I was able to get myself in a secure position, it wasn't long before I unconsciously found myself sound asleep.