Life Is a Game or Is It?

By Mona Lysa

Life Is a Game... Or Is It? Is the journey of one woman on whom life throws a series of bad blows. Although painful events kept coming her way and knocking her down, with a little bit of faith and a whole lot of prayer, she was always able to push through.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524511692

Mona Lysa

Mona Lysa is a native of Chicago and currently resides in the state of Florida. She retired after seventeen years of being a police officer and moved to Florida to pursue her dream of becoming a writer in hopes of helping women realize that, through prayer and perseverance, you too can do anything you put your mind to.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Just sitting here listening to my son Caden tell me how he just asked his father Rashawn to help him out with a financial situation that he and his family is in right now, and that weasel as usual, snakes his way out of helping! This just goes to show that nothing will ever change with that man. I use to think this man was my savior, because the way my childhood was, he was always there for me…

During my teen years you couldn’t tell me that my name wasn’t Cinderella, because I was the maid, nanny, cook, housekeeper, delivery person, nurse, and big sister all under the title of DAUGHTER! My mom Lucinda was the laziest, most ungrateful, and meanest person I knew, well aside from her husband! My friends in school would always ask me to go to the dances, the games or just anything that the school was having, my answer from my mom, whenever I asked, would always be the same thing we’ll see after all your work is done! Now someone outside of my house would probably think, ok! Well, just do your chores and then let’s go! Hmmm… Well just let me take you through a typical Just do your chores! First I would have to come home from school, make sure I pick up my brother from his school and bring him home. Then come in wash the dishes, cook dinner, make sure everyone is fed, including my mom and step dad, make sure the rest of the house is straightened up, and my homework is done. Oh let’s not forget my store runs! Notice I didn’t say, store run because it was ALWAYS more than one time. She would send me for her daily cigarette run, then when I got back home she would say, oh I forgot, go back and get me a soda and some chips or whatever junk food she wanted. THEN when I got back she would typically laugh and say I’m sorry I forgot something else, like bread or milk or something like that. Now by this time it’s usually too late to be getting on the bus to go back up to the school, so guess what?? I can’t go!!!! Therefore after awhile I just stopped asking! I never felt like a normal teenager, because not only did I not have a child’s social life but, my mom was constantly slapping me in the face whenever she was upset. If I didn’t wash the dishes fast enough, I would get slapped! If I didn’t cook the chicken right, I would get slapped, if I didn’t wash the clothes right and they got bleach on them, I got slapped! If her and her husband got into an argument she would take it out on me, and I would get slapped! Well, in a way I guess that was normal, for me! My life was so much better when I lived with my grandmother Mary. She practically raised me till the age of 14yrs old, when my Mother married and took me away from her.

We moved out to the suburbs where we got robbed within the first couple of weeks of being there. Eldridge, my new step father, left out about 5am in the morning to go to work and I woke up around 7 something to get ready for school when I saw the floor model TV sitting next to the front door that was standing wide open. I looked for my mom to see if she was moving stuff around, but when I went into her room she was asleep. So I woke her up saying, Ma why is the TV by the front door? She woke saying, what do you mean by the front door? And I said, The TV is by the front door with the door open…" She jumped up, saw the TV, and called Eldrige to tell him that we had been robbed! I walked into my room thinking, I already don’t want to be here, but this makes it worse because we’re in a horrible neighborhood! If that wasn’t bad enough, my stepdad put a chain around the refrigerator so that we couldn’t go in and just eat food whenever we felt like it. With all of this going on in my home life, going to school was cool because at least it got me away from my mom and that house.

In my Sophmore year of high school, I loved music class because I loved singing and my teacher Ms. Thorn was super funny always calling everybody a bunch of dumb sons and daughters! Anyway, this one day in particular it was exceptionally great, because when I went to music class as I always have here comes this super handsome guy sitting next to me. Now I am a very shy person, so of course I didn’t say anything to him, but that didn’t stop him! He seemed like a popular guy, because he started cracking goofy jokes with everybody, and the girls were all laughing like he was Eddie Murphy or something! I’m thinking to myself really! It’s not that funny! Now of course when he realized I wasn’t laughing like everybody else, he started messing with me asking me things like what’s the matter, you don’t think my jokes are funny? I did, but I told him No! I think they are stupid! then he introduced himself as Rashawn and I told him I was Alex. He then made another stupid joke saying Alex? Isn’t that a boy’s name? I immediately got an attitude saying do I look like a boy to you!? He quickly said No! Actually you’re very pretty! Yep, attitude disappeared real quick! We started talking more and more, and I really started to like being around him but I knew that it wouldn’t work because of my mom, so I started playing hard to get. He would come to class everyday messing with me, till he eventually wore me down. When he asked me to be his girlfriend, it took me a while because I was afraid that when he found out about how strict my mom was and how my home life was, he wouldn’t want me anymore. But, even when I told him everything he still wanted to be around me, and that made me the happiest girl on the planet! My mom and stepfather weren’t too happy with this, so at first he couldn’t come in the house, we just had to sit on the front porch, but after a while he was eventually able to come inside the house and sit in the living room to watch tv. He stuck with me anyway even after seeing for himself how I was treated! I don’t know if he really loved me like he said or that he just felt sorry for me, but whatever the case it made me want him that much more!

These people that now called themselves my parents loved their drinking, drugs, and partying, so they went out every weekend and that’s when I would pretend Rashawn and I were out on our own date! Those nights were so perfect to me that I would just pretend for the time that we were alone nothing else mattered, even though I knew if my parents walked through that door I would be in so much trouble. Our little perfect evenings continued for months with them never catching us. However, one night we got a little too comfortable and what happened next would change me… Just like any other Friday night Rashawn came over to chill with me and watch some television. We went in my room to get more comfortable because we knew we had plenty of time. While watching TV, Rashawn began to kiss my neck then turning me toward him as he began to kiss my lips. My body started tingling, and feeling warm as I felt him run his hand down my back, then he began to move his hand down toward my personal lady spot. We had never gone this far before and my mind was saying, no, stop but my body was screaming yessss, please don’t stop. I was torn because I was scared, yet excited at the same time… Am I ready for this? Should I stop him? Will it hurt? Will my mom come in and catch us? Will I like it? Will it change us, or just me? So many questions were flying through my head, I just didn’t know what to do so I just laid there and did whatever came next. He then began to pull my pants off and then pulled his down. I didn’t know what to expect, will it be big? Will it be little? Will it be medium sized? Hell how would I know, I had only seen my baby brothers when I gave them baths, and it better not be that small! Then he pulled it out so I could see, but I couldn’t look so I just laid there with my eyes shut tight. When he started putting himself inside me all I could feel was pain, and I started thinking to myself, if this is how it’s going to be all the time, I don’t ever want to do this again. But then I guess my body started accepting the fact that I was becoming a woman and it started to relax. AND BAM! It was over!!! I didn’t know whether to be glad or mad! Then I heard him say, was it ok? I just looked at him and smiled a nervous smile and said yes. All the time thinking Hell, how was I to know if it was ok! I’ve never done this before! Then I thought, was it ok for him! It better be because I don’t know about doing this again!!! So we just laid there to cuddle for a few more minutes before it was time for my parents to come home.

The Next thing I knew was I heard my mom coming through the door sounding drunk as usual. I don’t know what she was saying, all I was thinking was Boy you better hide!! Rashawn jumped up and hid in my closet, just as I heard my mom open my door. At first I didn’t know if she had seen or heard him because she left right back out of the room. So I told Rashawn just to be quiet until they go upstairs to bed, then he would be able to leave. All of a sudden, Eldridge opens the door and asks me, Who else is in this room? I said nobody! He said again Who else is in this room Alex? and again I said nobody! So he stomped out of the room saying I bet Amein, the guard dog he got us because of the robbery, will tell me who is in there! I quickly told rashawn to go out the window before he brought the dog in!! Eldrige knew someone went out the window and took the dog out to sniff him out. He was gone for a long time and I didn’t know what was going on. Finally when my mom came to my room she screamed at me WHO DID YOU HAVE IN THIS HOUSE? WAS IT THAT BOY?! I said, Nobody was in here! So she just started smacking me in my face, until I just jumped in my bed and balled up under the cover. When she left out, I was so mad at her for constantly hitting me, that I just started writing on a sheet of paper, saying how much I hated being here and how much I hated being in this family and how much I hated my mom. At that moment Eldridge came into my room and caught me writing the letter and snatched from me to show my mom. Right in front her, he then told me to eat the whole sheet of paper! I looked at him like are you serious and then looked at my mom thinking, are you going to just let him do this to me? Then he shouted, Did you hear what I just said? I said eat the paper! As I put the paper in my mouth I started to cry because I couldn’t believe that a mom would let some man do this to her daughter. Not only did she let him, but they both stood there and watched and waited until I finished chewing and swallowed it! However, what they didn’t know was when they turned their head for a second to talk I snatched it out of my mouth and shoved it in my back pocket. I’m finished! I said very angrily at my mother! Eldridge said open your mouth and let me see! So I opened my mouth wide and stuck my tongue out as if I were doing it at him! They walked out, closed my door and went up stairs to their bedroom. As I laid there, my mind was racing with everything that had just taken place over the course of this night. Thinking things like, where is Rashawn? What happened to him? Did he get away or did he get caught? Why my mom would let this man, who is not my father, make me eat a whole sheet of paper? Not to mention, I just lost my virginity tonight and I don’t know how I feel about it! I cried myself to sleep and just prayed for Monday to get here soon so I could see Rashawn again!

When Monday came around and I saw Rashawn at school, he was really mad at me and wouldn’t speak to me. I was so hurt that I spent the day chasing behind him trying to get him to talk to me. Finally towards the end of the day I got him to stop and speak to me and he