Eventide

Mark A. J. Cristobal

Prologue: Memoirs of a Gangster

It’s raining. It’s always f*cking raining here in this cursive place. No wonder mom took me away from Forks. Dad should have left the service or petitioned to be reassigned elsewhere when the divorce began. At least mom had the sense to settle on L.A. but then again, it wasn’t exactly as the movies portrays it to be. Look at me, my folks expected me to grow up like a typical reserved and traditional country girl. But hell no, not me. Not here on Inglewood.

Coming here after the divorce at only six, I guess my mom’s biggest mistake was to enroll me on 68th Street Elementary School. It was 1993 then and of all chances I ended up meeting Arod Watumba aka Lil Skitz, one of the youngest member of the ETG. Naturally I joined the gang and my mom’s dream for me ended there.

Involved on a 7-11 shoot-out at the age of ten, thanks to Lil Skitz we got off in time before the pigs… I mean the cops came. I went to juvie at thirteen and lost my virginity two days after that from no other than Lil Skitz himself. When we got out, mom decided to move us to Phoenix, Arizona but after only a week I took off and hitched my way to Lil Skitz’ crib. Working as a runner for the ETG’s bosses, Arod earned enough to at least get me back to studying. Despite his delinquency he’s still a good guy with real dreams for our future. We were living in together in his hood at W 69th, home of no other than Kody “Monster” Scott, one of the most notorious members of our gang.

At exactly my 16th birthday mom came with the police, took me back by force and had my Arod locked up in jail for as many law suits as my mom could think of. I rebelled and went deeper into drugs and mom struggled far and hard to endure my behavior. I subsided by the time I was 17 when slowly but arduously, some sense got into me. We finally started to get close again. And just when I was at ease with our relationship, she called father and after a long talk, mom told me I am going back to Forks to live with him so she could join Phil, her new husband on his work on France. I was already tamed enough not to react like I did back in Arizona but the old wound was slightly reopened again. We parted in bad terms.

As for dad, well, it was rather awkward. But something deep inside me tells that something different awaits me here. Had I had any idea what it would be I would have used a more… vulgar word for what happened to me on my return to Forks.

But enough talk sh*t. It began when I met the Cullens…