GoodBye

At the age of 8, little Onika only had one friend. His name was Safaree. They lived on the same block in South Side Jamaica Queens. He was Jamaican and she was Trinidadian. They played together every day. They went to different schools but Safaree was a year older and waited on her steps for her to come home but this day was different. It was her 9th birthday and Safaree wanted to surprise her with flowers and a card he made her in school. (He was only 9 give him a break!). Safaree waited with the flowers and card until the street lights came on realizing she wasn't coming home. Safaree went over to her house after school the next day. The door was wide open. He walked in and saw everything was gone. He sat in the middle of the floor and cried, realizing he lost his best friend and didn't even get to say goodbye.
Weeks had past and Safaree had been loosing memory of her. He didn't want to forget her but slowly it was happening. One day she left a sweater at his house. He slept next to it every night. Mama Samuels didn't like to see her son sad but she couldn't tell him the truth about what happened to Onika. Yes she knew the truth. Because their kids were so close the parents had no choice but to communicate. Although Onika didn't talk about her father much that's the reason they moved to Queens in the first place. He was very abusive to them so when she finally escaped him in Trinidad she could only grab Nicki in time leaving her sons behind with their father but she wasn't to sorry about that. He would never hurt the boys. Her father, Robert, never stopped searching for them. Finally he found them and forced them to go back to Trinidad. There was nothing they could do. She could see the sad look on their faces as they got into the cab with all their bags in the trunk. The tears staining the face of a young girl she was so use to seeing happy. That was the last time she saw either of them.