Trapped By You

Dian'sTip

I was certain his gaze followed me up until he left the room, and I was left speechless and half excited to run home and tell my sister the news.

I'd gotten home a few past 12 and mom was already asleep, but Penelope was still up, she usually waited for me to get back from work before going to bed.

"You're home" she said when she saw me.

"With so much news as well" I tell her and she beams.

"Come on, let's go to our room" she dragged me along. Penelope and I shared a room while mom had her own, when dad passed, we would usually sleep in moms room with her because we knew she got lonely sometimes.

"So...? What happened, tell me," Penelope urged.

"Well my–"

"Is there any bad news?" She cut me off.

"No there isn't" I answered and she nodded stating I continued. "Okay, so first off, my boss at the restaurant gave me a raise and he said he'd pay me twice a week cause I'm on of his best employees" I start and Penelope cheers.

"And?" She asked, urging me to continue with the news I had to give her.

"Well, someone tipped me with $20 cause I was pretty" I say.

"Girl or guy?" Penelope asks with an arched brow. "It was a girl" I said and she smiled. "And... there was this little girl who gave me $32 because according to her I looked like I needed it" I say and that doesn't necessarily make Pen smile.

"You look like you needed it?" Pen repeated. "I mean, I'm glad you got the money but ouch"

"Pen, it's not that big a deal, I have been paying less attention to physical appearance lately so it's fine, oh and you would never believe who I saw at the hotel today,"

"Who did you see!"

"Xavier Wilson" when I said that Pen almost fell out of her seat. "Yup, and he was just staring at me, I was staring at him too until some other cleaner fell and broke a few things, but even as I rushed to help her I could feel his eyes burning into my soul"

"Oh my gosh, the rumors are true, he does take souls... I wonder why he decided to leave yours intact" Pen thought speaking more to me than to herself and it made me chuckle.

"I'm gonna go to the bank tomorrow to cash the check and have them transfer it into our saving account, for now ima gonna hit the hay" I said and she hummed in response.

"I got fired" Penelope said just as my head was about to hit my pillow but I wasn't exactly surprised, Penelope had terrible patience for the jobs she applied for.

"We'll find a fitting job for you in the morning" I said.

"You're not mad?" She asked shocked by my calmness.

"I understand why you're getting fired, it's fine, we just need to work on your patience and find a fitting job that doesn't make you lash out," I said but deep down I knew Penelope knew finding another job was going to be hard.

I dreaded waking up the next morning but I had to anyways because I had work. It was 6:11am so I had time to make breakfast and freshen up for work. I decided to make pancakes since they were moms favorite. At 7am, both mom and Pen were awake and seated at the kitchen island while I gave them their pancakes. I had only a couple minutes left to spare, so I sat with them and ate the pancakes as we talked. "I have to get going now" I said as I finished up the dishes. "Alright dear" mom replied. "Penny, when are you leaving for work today?" Pen couldn't reply, I bet she hadn't told mom she lost yet another job. "I..." Pen started and looking at moms face, she already knew. Mom sighed and rubbed her temples. "How did you lose this one?" Mom asked and Pen breathed out. "I just... can't stand people sometimes" Pen said and I laughed. "That just means you can't work the same hours I do," "About that Didi," mom had the most random nicknames for us. "Why don't you quit one of your jobs? You need some more rest," "Mom, I'm fine, I was actually thinking about getting weekend jobs tha–" "No, we said no weekend jobs" Pen cut me off. "Yeah I know but it'd be better if I–" "No weekend jobs Diana" Pen cut me off again and I sighed. I knew if I got weekend jobs I'd be out of the house more often which meant I wouldn't have as much time to spend with them as I did. But I also knew the reason why they said no weekend jobs was because we lost dad on a weekend.

He was on his way to work on a Saturday, he had weekend jobs and was busy most weekends while he only made time for us during weekdays, he tried his best. We weren't exactly rich but we were comfortable while he was around. I was 23 now, so we lost him 3 years ago, I was almost in my last year of college while Penelope was still in high school. He'd been saving money for her college tuition too but when he died... we'd lost it all. I had a small job at a flower shop, it was the pay there at fed me. Pen was 15 so dad was against her working, and moms health was fine back then cause dad kept it all under control, she worked, but she did that from home. His death was so unexpected, considering that I was all the way in New York, studying at NYU, it broke me for days but mom insisted I didn't come back till the break started. We'd spent a lot of money on his funeral even though we had tried to keep it basic. Mom didn't have any family left other than her older brother who was married to some lady she didn't like so he wasn't at the funeral and dads only family were his two younger sisters who were happily married so it was a small gathering but a lot of money was spent. But now it was just the three of us, Pen was graduating high school in a few weeks, and moms health wasn't getting any better, things were harder. With my three jobs I earned a lot but not enough. I wanted Pen to go to NYU as well because she'd find a lot of opportunities, opportunities I didn't pay attention to cause I thought my dad was going to take care of us, now he wasn't here anymore and all I could do was regret.