Free Underneath It All by Erica Mena Page B

comfort myself the best I could and eventually I fell asleep.
                  The next morning my first thought was to go back to New York. Up until that point I had developed an attitude of having done everything on my own and now I had to let my pride go in order to give my son a fighting chance. I wanted to give him a better way of entering the world and I knew that if I stayed, his chances were slim to none. As long as I remained with Raul the abuse would continue and worst of all I may end up losing him. I didn’t want that to happen and just the thought of it brought tears to my eyes. I shipped a few things back home and I packed what I could carry and I left.
                  When I got back to the Bronx I stayed with my sister Lisa and got my doctor’s and everything in order. I made all the necessary appointments and was trying to get things back on track. My stay with Lisa was very short lived because we didn’t get along at all during my pregnancy. Both of us are Scorpios and we have our own way of doing things and after a while it became too much.
                  Lisa is a little obsessive with the way she organizes things in her house; everything has its own place, has to face a certain way and it frustrated me because not only was it already hard being under someone else’s roof but now I had to deal with all of her annoying habits. She got mad at me for moving something of hers and not putting it back in its proper place and the argument almost turned physical. I was pregnant so I wasn’t about to fight her. Instead, I just grabbed some of my things and walked out.
                  I had just left Raul and I wasn’t sure how I was going to provide for myself, I wasn’t really getting along with my family and now I had just walked out of my sister’s house in the rain. For the first time I really felt like I didn’t know what to do with my life. In the past I was able to deal with things as they came because all I had to worry about was myself but I couldn’t do that anymore.
                  I called Ralph; Lisa and Linda’s father, who was like an uncle to me. I was hesitant on calling him at first because I didn’t want to involve anyone else in our business and I didn’t want to burden anyone with all the drama that I had going on. After weighing what little options I had, I gave in. He instantly asked where I was after hearing how distraught I sounded and when I told him that Lisa and I had gotten into a fight, him and his wife Francis offered to come and pick me up and take me back to their house.
                  Back at the house we ended up talking and I caught him up on everything that had been going on. I was comfortable opening up to him because of the relationship we had and although I didn’t know his wife that well she was really warm hearted and accepted me with open arms. They were kind enough to offer me a place to stay until I had the baby and although I didn’t want to intrude, I also had no where to go so I humbled myself and gladly thanked them for their hospitality.
                  I needed support and I needed to be in an environment that wasn’t hostile so I could make sure this was an easy pregnancy for King. I ended up calling Raul and we spoke for a few hours. I found that people will always say whatever they need to in order to get you to do what they want and for the first time in his life he apologized. I know now that the only reason he did that was so I would come back to him. He said that he would be going to Miami to look for work but regardless of what he was saying I knew I had to stay in New York.
                  I had the vision of us making this family thing work and a big part of me still held on to that hope. After I turned down his offer he started giving me the cold shoulder again. Days would go by and he wouldn’t call or check up on me. I was really sad because