In the Skin of Dragon

Chapter 7: Car accident

“Where are we going?” My mom asked me. Kendra picked us up this afternoon and we went to the city. Till now, I still haven't told mom where exactly we are going because it was supposed to be a surprise and also a present for her. The evening was just for her.

“You will see soon. I promise.” I smiled at her excited to see her face when we arrived. “Kendra?” My mom tried the other tactics, knowing that nothing would make me tell her where we were going, so she tried to turn to my best friend and her second almost adoptive daughter. “I am sorry Astrid. I can’t tell you. Ella would kill me.” Kendra uttered back and I could see how her lips were twitching as she was trying to hold up the laugh. She was also excited that we were taking my mom out because of the schedules we have; we are rarely spending time together and when I said to Kendra a few months ago that it was already several years since my mom was last at the cinema, she immediately suggested going there on her birthday. After that, we took my mom to dinner.

I know, I know. We don’t have that much money to spend on what I could possibly do. Next week is my mom’s birthday and she will be working, so I don’t have a chance to take her out directly on her birthday. I collected as much money as I could and Kendra wanted to help, so we put our money together and found out that we should have enough for a little dinner out at the cinema. We have been planning this for some time now.

“You two are unbelievable. Torturing old lady.” My mom said, whining about us, but I could not help and erupted into a laugh.

“Mooooom. We are not torturing you but we prepared a surprise for you, this as a first, and second, you are not old.” I shook my head in disbelief at her acting skills. She was amazing when it came to playing how painful she felt. Especially if she was trying to play on my string of love for her.

“Where is my cute sweet little girl who always cares about me and tells me everything will be alright when I was hurting and when I was sad.” She started whining again but I knew she was just acting. It made me remember those days when I was keeping something from her as a child. She always put this act on and the only thing I could do was to run to her, hug her, kiss her, and tell her everything she wanted to know.

“That was before I learned how amazing an actor you are mom,” I told her and this time Kendra also could not hold her laughter any longer and burst into one. “You two are hilarious. I love this relationship you two have. I wish to have one like this with my mom.” She said and the last sentence she said brought sadness into the atmosphere. I know she didn’t mean it like that, she didn’t want to disturb our sweet moments, but at that moment I was feeling sorry for her. Kendra’s parents were nice and caring and they were able to do anything for their kids, but even though I loved them too, they were not the same as my mom. My mom was awesome in many things. She was a loving and positive person who I seriously admired, hoping that one day I would be able to be the same as her.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart. You have us as your second family. Your mom has her husband and your brother to care about, so she needs to divide the love between more people. I have all of my love only for you two.” She said, lovingly patting Kendra on her head. Sometimes I feel that Kendra is my real sister and my mom is her mom too.

“Thank you, Astrid. I didn’t mean to complain or anything. It is just I never saw any other families having this kind of relationship with their kids.” Kendra explained and my mother nodded to her. “I understand. Well, you change a lot of things when raising a kid alone and you want to give your kid everything you can.” My mom explained and I somehow felt guilty.

“Alright. We are here.” Kendra said instantly, turning to my mom wanting to see her face when she saw where we were. “No way.” My mom squeaked out. “We don’t have money for this.” She said almost immediately back. “Yes, we have mom,” I said happily unbuckling my safety seat belt and getting out of the car. I opened the car door for my mom and she was meanwhile trying to unbuckle her safety belt, still staring at the huge CINEMA sign.

“Come on.” Kendra encouraged her by looking right at her. My mom's expression was priceless. Water started to collect in her eyes and I knew she was fighting tears of happiness. The cinema was not something special, but when she was talking about it there were some strange sparks in her eyes and soon, from her story, I caught a glimpse of why. The last time she was at the cinema was with my father, before I was born.

I still don’t know what exactly happened to him, if he died or simply left her and at that moment I didn’t care. I wanted her to know that she didn’t need him to do the things. She can do them either alone or always with us.

“Let’s go, mom. The movies will start soon and we still need to pick one.” I told her to take her hand and lead her away from the car door so I could close it and Kendra could lock the car. Once everything was ready, we headed straight inside the building to the posters so mom could choose the movie.

“You need to choose one mom,” I told her and she took turns to look at both of us. Kendra confirmed my words by nodding to her and pointing back to the posters on the wall where each movie currently available was introduced and vaguely explained, so we sort of knew what kind of movie it would be.

“I guess this might be nice.” My mom pointed to one of the posters far on the left and, with Kendra, we looked at each other and started to laugh. It was a drama we were hoping my mom would choose. For me, it didn’t matter that much which movie, but since there were no animations today, I had to go with the regular movie, so the drama was the best choice from the offered ones. I was not in the mood for elf romance or dragon superheroes, which were the regular movies played in TV or cinemas to show us how amazing those races were.

“What is so funny?” My mom asked, looking confusedly at us. “We were both hoping you would choose this movie Astrid,” Kendra said, still with a smile on her face, and we both took her under her arms and went to the cashier to buy the tickets.

Sadly, there was no extra money for popcorn since at the cinema it was extremely expensive. For the price of the popcorn here, I could have almost five of the microwave pockets of the taste I wanted, which means five times more popcorn. The price of the drink was even more hilarious here, but none of us care. We took our tickets and went to our places.

The movies were supposed to start in about fifteen minutes, which means we came just in time not to wait for too long.

Once the movie was finished, I could see the smile on the face of my mom. Our TV was nice and the sofa was comfortable, but since our TV was not one of the expensive ones, the sound was not awesome and the colors not as amazing as in the cinema. So, watching a movie here was something relaxing and sort of luxurious compared to our small TV. I was really glad mom enjoyed that.

“That was better than I was expecting,” Kendra stated dramatically. It was the first time she gave recognition to any other movie than horror. “I can’t believe my ears. Did you just say that the movie was good?” I asked her, surprised, and I tried to exaggerate to make it sound dramatic, since it was the first time I heard something from her.

“No. I just said it was better than I expected.” Kendra said, putting on her cold tone, which meant no matter if she liked the movie or not she would not be going to admit anything. We were waiting until the crowd would disappear so we could leave the seats and go to a restaurant. The one we chose with Kendra was not particularly famous nor the best, but it was not expensive and the food was decent. Plus, they had seafood for a good price.

“Where to go next?” My mom asked curiously and we both winked at her. “That’s another little surprise,” I told her to take her again under the arm, same as Kendra under the second arm, and we led her to the restaurant. We decided to walk since it was not so far from here and the weather was still nice and warm.

“This is a nice evening, girls. Thank you.” My mom said as we were walking away from the cinema. “Most welcome mom. I am sorry we can’t do this exactly on your birthday since you will be at work during that day, but we tried our best to make this day special for you.” I said hug her on the way and my mom pressed a kiss at the top of my head. “You two are real sweethearts.” She said while placing the kiss at the top of Kendra’s head too. She was not taller than us but she kindly lowered her head for her to be able to reach.

“I hope you are hungry because we have already chosen the meals and I confirmed we are on the way, so once we are there everything should be ready,” Kendra said, seeing the restaurant in view. “You two are something.” My mom said emotionally as she saw the restaurant. As I said, it was not one of the most expensive nor the most famous ones, but I knew my mom loved this one. I remember we were there when I was younger and when she still had some savings she could use. Not to mention, when I was still below twelve, my mom was getting support from the government as a single mother. This is at least what I was told. She never told me where exactly the money came from and I just recently learned that there is no such thing as support from the government for humans.

“You are welcome,” I said joyfully, pulling us inside because I was starving already. We were given a place and right away they started to bring the food on the plates. We asked for three empty plates so we could take from the food what we wanted since we were planning to share three different meals. Grilled shrimps, fish, and calamari were one of the meals. Second, one stewed beef and the last chicken with the mushroom white creamy sauce. We asked for two plates of rice and before they managed to put the last plate on the table I was drooling from the amazing smell. I didn’t care about the stomachache I knew I would have from mixing all of this food and I saw the expression of Kendra or my mom. They didn’t care either.

“Bon appetit.” We heard from the waitress as she gave us a nice smile and left us alone. It is really funny as those meals are considered luxurious for us humans, but to be honest, except elves, no one else eats the mushrooms. Dragons would never touch any of those meals except the beef stew, maybe.

“Oh my God. This is so delicious.” I was melting from the taste of the soft mushroom sauce. Now I was sure I was going to suffer after those meals, but I didn’t care. I took a bite from each of the plates which sent me right away to heaven.

“You are right. The food is amazing.” Kendra said, also taking bites of everything. We looked at my mom and she had tears in her eyes. “This is the best food I have ever eaten.” My mom said completely moved to tears. “Thank you, girls. Seriously, thank you.” She was thanking us as we were all eating and enjoying the meal.

I have to say walking to the restaurant was a good idea. We were so full that we needed to walk back to the car, otherwise I am not sure how we would manage to get out of the car later. I swear if I could just roll on the ground I would. That is how full I was.

“Let’s go home and drink coffee?” I suggested, since I felt tired and the only other option was to walk a bit more. “I think that’s an amazing idea.” My mom said, still happy about the surprises we had prepared for her.

We were on our way home when we heard sirens somewhere from behind us. “Pull to the side.” My mom told Kendra and she obliged. We were waiting since in the mirror we saw blue and red lights, which meant guards were behind, but something was strange. It looked like there were cars in front of them and they were closing too fast. I turned around to see that there was a big car, probably a jeep or something, in front of the guard’s car which the guards were trying to stop. Another guard’s car appeared in front of us. “I don’t think this is a good spot to stop. Maybe we should move in?” I asked worriedly. Our car lights were still on but I could already recognize that, compared to the car they were chasing, our car was simply too small and fragile and, for some reason, I had bad feelings about that.

Just when the chased car was behind us, another guard’s car appeared out of the blue on our left. It was hiding in the dark at the house and instantly blocked the road. In horror, I was watching as the driver of the chased car panicked and turned his wheel to the right, which meant right at us. My vision went black right after he hit us directly.