Im not afraid of dying , Im afraid of never living.

These are the words spoken by simone a twenty one year old woman to the man who would change her life forever. Never look back tells the tale of a shelthered young girl who becomes a woman through hardships, addictions, love and lost from the cool hills of st.andrew to the grim crime soaked streets of Kingston the story is set in Jamaica.

I cant tell you the exact moment I knew I had outgrown my community, maybe its because from the very beginning I had never belonged. I was always a mystery to my parents to all the people around me to tell the truth. dat simone the old women at church would say, always dat gal got har head in the sky but was there any thing wrong with dreaming, anything wrong with wanting more, with not being satisfied with what was the status quo, with wanting more than a tiny house in the hills and a little piece of land to plant , everyone in my community thought so, with the exception of anna she was my only real friend in the village in the evenings when we could get away from our chores we would meet under a huge mango tree and we would talk about our dreams what we wanted to do, and of how we would never remain tied to the repitive life we now lived, or at least I would say all this anna would look up to me with the light of the beautiful setting sun shining in her large eyes and smile her quick smile, she would laugh and say Oh si si what a way you can dream eh! and I would laugh and slap her and run of so she would chase me into the coming twilight home. Everyone in the village said that we were the most beautiful girls in the community, but the truth was Anna was the beauty her skin was the colour of the sweet sticky caramel that was found in our favourite chocolate bar, her teeth white straight and her hair straight and dark as midnight when the street lights were out. And her laugh a clear tinkling sound that was capable of causing anyone who heard it to laugh or crack a smile.Yes she was the beauty the one everyone looked at and tried to pocess the year we turned nineteen was a suppose to be a pivotal year for us for we had sworn that when we turned 19 we would leave the community to live in Kingston we would be great models become rich and would turn up our noses at everyone we had ever known from mt mavis. The night of my 19th birthday I ran out to meet Anna under the tree as usual I found her sitting there quietly the gently breeze blowing the thin material of her dress against her body. I Pack my tings. I told her gleefully dancing in the wind I leaving on the six o clock bus no matter what. She looked at me silently her eyes usually so bright dull and filled with what I now saw as weariness, I not coming. With those three words I was down the wind was out of my sails I was grounded. why she looked down and cradled her belly the stomach I had always envied I looked and noticed what had been in front of me for so long. you pregnant how you fe pregnant ! I wailed