KICKED OUT

"You will be sent the address and names of your clients every morning and the hours you have to be with them. Remember to take birth control pills." Ashley said, and Melody nodded.

"You will only get days off when you are in your menstrual cycle. Is that fine by you?" Ashley asked.

"Yes, queen." She responded.

"Good now, get out of my sight." Ashley declared. Melody pursed her lips and glanced at the rule book before turning her back on Ashley, with a sad look on her face. Dave pushed the door open and walked into the office. He walked over to Ashley’s desk and started packing the dishes. She tilted her head to look at Ashley.

"I will miss you, queen." She muttered. Ashley raised a confused brow.

"Don’t worry, you will get to see me once a month when we are having a Zoom meeting." Ashley muttered, rubbing her forehead with her thumb.

"Okay Queen, thank you for everything." Melody said and started walking out of the office with her teeth clenched. She was feeling weak. Her body was moving with the wind as she exited the office.

"Chris, just called, that your father has just been discharged and he has been taken to his house." Dave said, staring at Ashley.

"That’s good. I hope there is a nurse there to take care of him." she said.

"Yea, there is. Do you want to go to him?" Dave questioned.

"Yes, I want to check up on him," Ashley said and grabbed her bag. As soon as she saw the color of her bag, she was reminded of Calvin. His best color was red, and the bag was red. She battled her lashes. She held tightly to the string of the bag.

"Let’s go, Dave." She said, and her phone started ringing in her bag. She took out the phone and saw it was her mom calling.

"Hello, what do you want from me, Mary?" she asked rudely.

"Why haven’t you been picking up my calls?" Mary returned the rude tone.

"I can choose who I want to talk to mom, and you are not one of them, right now I am stressed because of my dad’s health." She said, frowning, her mother always carried this bad energy around with her, and it always made her angry.

"What happened to your father?" Mary asked concerned.

"Stop pretending. I know you don’t care about his health, so just go straight to the point Mary…" Ashley stated.

"…alright you got me, Ashley my darling. I am very hungry. I haven’t eaten for days." Mary said.

"Go and look for a job, old hag. Don’t bother me." Ashley said and removed the phone from her ear in an attempt to cut the call.

"Honey, Honey, please don’t hang up on me. Please hear me out. You are the richest bachelorette in the whole of Miami. What will people say if they find out that your mother died of starvation?" Mary asked.

"Nice try, mom, but no one knows that you are my mother, so... go look for a job." She said it slowly and hung up on her mother, shoving her phone into her bag.

*******

Melody got off of a taxi in front of Xander’s apartment and paid the driver. He handed her her change. She took it from him and put it inside her bag, sniffing the cheeseburger and snack she had stopped along the road to buy. She smiled and closed her bag, walking toward the doorstep of the apartment when she bumped into something.

She looked down and stepped back. To her greatest surprise, all her things were outside the house; her luggage, her makeup bag, everything. Tears welled up in her eyes.

"No, no, this can’t be happening." She muttered to herself, trying her best not to believe what was happening to her. Her bag fell from her hand and landed close to the other luggage. She dashed to the main door and started banging hard on it with her hands.

"Brother! Xander! Please open up!" She yelled, hitting the door as tears started streaming down her pale cheeks, but he didn’t respond. She continued hitting the door. The lights in the house were on, which meant he was home, and he had thrown her things out.

"Brother! Please don’t do this to me. I can explain." She said and stopped banging on the door. Her hands had already turned red. She looked around at the neighboring buildings. Everyone had already gone to sleep. She ran around the apartment to the nearest window, but it was locked, and she couldn’t get a view of the house because it was closed by a curtain. She put her hand against the blinds.

"Xander, please open the door for me. I know you are angry with me, but you can’t punish me this way," she said with her voice hoarse. She panicked and ran to the last window of the apartment, but it was also locked.

"Xander!!!" She yelled at the top of her lungs, but nothing happened. The lights in the house just went off. She knew if he saw her, he wouldn’t be able to do such things to her, so that was one of the reasons he didn’t want to see her. Her legs buckled beneath her. She fell to the concrete floor on her bum, with her hair falling to her face.

"Bro, please listen to me. You know, I don’t have anywhere to go. You are the only one I have. You are my only home…" She muttered, closing her eyes as the hot tears forced their way out of her eyes.

"Brother, don’t do this to me. You promised you would take care of me when our parents died." She whimpered and started crying continuously. Xander opened the blinds of the window a little to see her. He felt bad seeing her in that condition, but he wanted to do it to teach her a lesson and ensure she would always listen to him. He heaved a sigh, hearing her cries, and let go of the blinds. He shoved his hands into his pocket and fell on the couch with his hands crossed behind his head. He closed his eyes, trying to take a nap.