”When I was little my mom would bring me here all the time, like to just play around in the fountain and run around on the grass. I didn’t have many friends so I would pretend the kids playing around the fountain were my friends,” Alex said looking off into the distance.

”Sounds dumb, I know but this was my happy place. I would pretend I was anywhere in the world doing anything I wanted and it was the best days of my childhood.” Alex looked at Piper with a smile.

Piper noticed the smile from Alex and smiled back, but she knew this was hard for Alex to talk about. She could sense the tension in her body as she lay across her.

”We would come out here for hours and hours at a time and even though I would get lost in my little world of pretend I would notice my mom sitting on a bench with random people or walking around nervously, it always looked like she was doing something really important so I just stayed away from her ’til she was ready to leave. I never realized what it was she was doing until I got older…”

Piper couldn’t believe this ”stranger” was spilling all of her secrets to her. She felt incredibly fortunate to be here in this moment with Alex.

”…..what was she doing?” Piper asked softly.

”I walked in the house from school one day, I think I was in 4th grade, I don’t know for sure…” Alex said looking down.

Looking back up and focusing on something in the distance that seemed to help her get the courage to spill all of her secrets, ”…I walked in the doorway and my mom was there in the kitchen measuring out this white powder on the table. I assumed it wasn’t anything back then but it caught up to me pretty fast what it was. She sold cocaine and weed from our house and from the one place that’s home to my favorite memories as a child,” Alex said with a sarcastic laugh as she fought back the tears.

Piper took a big breath and wrapped both arms around Alex as fast as she could.

”Yeah…”Alex said with a sarcastic smile, ”my mom was a drug dealer…”