Makayla Eastwood

By Ari Rouse

Makayla Eastwood is a young woman in her late twenties with a passion for teaching. She is forced to cope with life’s treacherous uncertainties of the loss of her mom and the deceit of her fiancé. Over time, she has become burned out at work and needs a fresh start. When an unlikely opportunity arises for her to explore her teaching craft internationally and leave the repetitive cycle of overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated services gives her a new drive and no choice but to leave family and friends behind.

While living in the United Arab Emirates, she developed financial freedom, a sense of self, and a desire for love and children. A failed relationship in the US leads her to open herself to an interracial bout with love, but it turns her world upside down after flying thousands of miles for a surprise visit.

Could love, family, and kids be what she needs? When destiny has different plans for Makayla during her lowest moment, how could she resist? She meets an unexpected man who has positioned himself in many ways than one to give her the world and open her mind, heart, and soul to love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669839385

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Copyright © 2022 by ARI ROUSE.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 07/25/2022

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Bunt Out

Chapter 2 Hell

Chapter 3 The Fresh Start I Needed

Chapter 4 Open Your Heart

Chapter 5 The Talk

Chapter 6 Make the Best Out of It

Chapter 7 Enjoying My Day

Chapter 8 Trust Issues

Chapter 9 Unbelievable

Chapter 10 Saying Bye, for Now

Chapter 11 Back to Reality

Chapter 12 Hey, Sis!

Chapter 13 You and Me

Chapter 14 Why Are Goodbyes So Hard?

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CHAPTER 1

Bunt Out

D avonte, please have a seat. It is my second time asking you to sit down and start writing your essay. Damn, this is the third goddamn time this week I’m covering Mrs. Smith’s English class. Her ass never got shit planned for these kids to do! Everybody knows that Devonte’s ass is bad as hell. He is damn in a fight almost every other day and over stupid shit. His momma refuses to get his ass tested, knowing he probably needs to be on an Individual Educational Plan (IEP) from birth. Yet Mom is so concerned that the other kids will pick on him. Lord knows he got problems.

I have been teaching at Sunview Charter Middle School for three years now, and I am burned the fuck out! I have had long days, large classes, staff meetings about nothing, and long nights grading paper after paper. How am I supposed to have a social life with a work schedule like that? Worse of all, there is no actual pay increase. Our salary has gone up by what feels like pennies. Then there is always the office drama. Coach Wilson is out here messing with every new thang with two legs and large breasts. Then there is the dog-and-pony show when these district visitors come out to the school and not let us forget having to deal with mean-assed Principal Johnson. Every time she walks down the hall, the kids scatter like roaches like in that 1996 movie Joe’s Apartment. Shit, so do I! She’s mean for no reason. But I get it, having to be responsible for almost twelve hundred inner-city school students, coming from primarily single-parent households, some taking care of themselves, rape victims, gang initiations, and the infamous abandonment issues. I’d be mean as hell too. But every holiday, she made it a mission for everyone, including herself, to participate in the annual Sunview Charter Middle School Debutante Award Ceremony. The kids loved it, and so did our parents and staff. Every year we raised well over ten to fifteen thousand dollars and the proceeds were used to buy food and gifts for all of our students. One year, our local basketball alumni Samuel De Jesus came to hype up the event. That year we brought in almost thirty thousand dollars. I should know. I proudly served on the events committee. There is no way I would have missed out on an opportunity to be in his presence, smell all that manly juice and get to talk to such a handsome brother. It was expected to be life-changing.

Not only has work been a challenge, but so is my personal life. Mom had been in and out of the hospital. I was completing my master’s degree at night all while trying to hold on to a relationship with Will that isn’t going anywhere. It was stressful! Why do I even bother? He decided to take a truck driving job hauling his ass across the country while I was at home paying these damn bills. Sometimes I wish there was an easier way out.

How could I leave him? Have you seen what men these days go for? How can I compete against those pretentious younger South Floridian women who spend hundreds of dollars of their parents’ or sugar daddy’s dollars on surgical augmentation, beauty, and clothes? At twenty-six, I had managed to keep a professional job, had no kids, and I am about to complete graduate school, but this shit is hard!

After COVID and the way my check has been looking, I might need to put a little gratitude in this attitude and make this shit work with Will. I mean, you girl is a size fourteen curvaceous black beauty, all-natural, who wouldn’t give two shits how she went into Publix on a fly. With all this shit going on, who got the energy or time to look cute going into the store to grab bread and some Boar’s Head ham?

Working at my second inner-city school and hoping to make any minor change by working harder seemed like a rat race. Making twelve hundred dollars every two weeks ain’t shit. Rent alone was $1,500 between my twin sister and me. My graduate books cost seemed to get higher every time I went into the college campus bookshop. Sometimes I think stealing them would be more advantageous. But I can’t risk the three months left before graduating on petty theft of all things. It’ll all be over soon. Well, one part of the rat race will.

It’s December 3, and mom isn’t looking too good. She’s becoming distant yet needy at the same time. She wants her breakfast, lunch, and dinner like clockwork. By the time I leave my work and get to the nursing home, it’s damn near 5:00 p.m. Mom wants her dinner by 5:00 p.m. sharp and has begun to complain about the nurses not doing their fucking jobs. Now I’m already stressed about work. I’ve got deadlines for class, and now this? Fuck this! I’m going to lose my shit and take it from zero to ten if they keep messing with my nerves. Sasha and I had decided to put her into a nursing home due to our failed attempts of being unable to afford in-home care. Yes, it was another expense. It broke our spirits having to tell her she was moving into a nursing home. Sasha and I couldn’t maintain full working time, school part-time and afford care for our mom. The nursing home was our best option, given that the government would help. This meant carving out at least three days out of our already packed schedules to visit her in the home.

When the pandemic kicked off, Sasha and I, both teachers, were barely making ends meet. The extra tutoring that we both did on the side to help pay these bills and to