Copyright © 2020 by Jessica N. Watkins
Published by Jessica Watkins Presents
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Without limiting the right under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
About the Author
I. Title Page
Prologue
Seventeen Years Later
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
Maya Bradford
Damien Coleman
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
Damien Coleman
Maya Bradford
Tempest Murphy
Damien Coleman
5. Chapter 5
Damien Coleman
Maya Bradford
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
TWO DAYS LATER
Maya Bradford
Three Months Later
Chapter 9
DAMIEN COLEMAN
Chapter 10
Damien Coleman
Maya Bradford
Chapter 11
Damien Coleman
Two Days Before the Engagement Party
Chapter 12
THE NEXT DAY
Maya Bradford
THE ENGAGEMENT PARTY
Tempest Murphy
Chapter 13
DAMIEN COLEMAN
Chapter 14
TWO WEEKS LATER
Damien Coleman
Chapter 15
Two Days Later
Damien Coleman
Four Months Later
Chapter 16
Damien Coleman
Tempest Murphy
Chapter 17
Nina Eze
The Wedding
Chapter 18
Damien Coleman
Chapter 19
Tempest Murphy
The End
Other Books By Jessica N. Watkins:
Jessica Watkins Presents
About the Author
Jessica N. Watkins was born April 1st in Chicago, Illinois. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts with Focus in Psychology from DePaul University and Master of Applied Professional Studies with focus in Business Administration from the like institution. Working in Hospital Administration for the majority of her career, Watkins has also been an author of fiction literature since the young age of nine. Eventually, she used writing as an outlet during her freshmen year of high school, after giving birth to her son. At the age of thirty-two, Watkins’ chronicles have matured into steamy, humorous, and gritty tales of urban and women’s fiction.
Jessica's debut novel Jane Doe spiraled into an engrossing, drama filled, and highly entertaining series. In August 2013, she signed to SBR publications, which ignited her writing career with the Secrets of a Side Bitch series. Click the buttons to the right to view each book in detail!
In 2014, Jessica began to give other inspiring authors the opportunity to become published by launching Jessica Watkins Presents.
Jessica also speaks to youth concerning topics such as overcoming obstacles, teen pregnancy, being a teenage mom, etc.
Jessica N. Watkins is available for talks, workshops, and book signings. For bookings, please send a request to [email protected].
Prologue
Tempest Murphy
I was ten years old when the fire broke out.
I will never forget that night.
There are a lot of things from my childhood that my mother tries to remind me of, things that friends from school remember that I can't. The fire, however… I will never forget not one detail of that dreadful and deadly night.
My parents lived in a small house on the eastside of Chicago. They were both bringing money into the home, but we were still below middle class. My mother worked in janitorial services at the W Hotel downtown. My father was a young hustler.
Chicago winters are very brutal. Heating a house can get expensive. That night, it was freezing in our nine-hundred square foot single-family home. My daddy and I were under a blanket on the couch, watching The Little Mermaid. I loved that movie. It was my utmost favorite animated film. For three years, I had watched the bootlegged DVD so many times. Each time, my daddy watched it with me. I, in particular, loved the part when Ariel sang “Part of That World”. I knew every single word of the lyrics.
“‘When's it my tuuurn? Wouldn't I looove! Love to explore that shore abooooove? Out of the sea... Wish I could be… Part of that woooorld.’”
“Sing, baby,” my father encouraged my off-key sing-along, smiling at me from the couch, wrapped in the blanket that we had just both been under in attempt to keep warm.
I loved my father. I was a true daddy’s girl. Since my mother had the legit, full-time job, I spent most of my time with my father because he was the one to take me to school, pick me up, attend my assemblies, and take me to McDonald’s.
I was his only child, so, between my mother and me, I was his favorite as well.
“Shit!” My mother's dramatics tore my eyes away from the small television in our tiny living room.
In fear that she would make me go to bed, I hustled towards the couch, ending my personal concert, and sat next to my dad. He covered me up, keeping me warm from the frigid air in the house.
“What’s wrong?” my father’s deep rumble asked her.
She frowned as she played with the thermostat a few feet away from my father and I. “The fucking hot water isn’t working. I don’t have time for this shit. I can’t be late for work.”
My mother worked the midnight shift. However, to make sure that ends met, she often did overtime, as she was that night. She was going in four hours early.
A devastating expression replaced my father’s once jovial one. “Shit. You check the stove?”
My mother’s face was still gathered with frustration as she replied, “It’s not working either.”
“Fuck,” my father groaned. “No wonder it’s so damn cold in here.”
My mother’s eyes slightly rolled upwards towards the ceiling. “I’ll get the space heaters.”
Watching her stomp off, I could see regret fill my father’s eyes. “I’ll hustle up on some bread in the morning and make sure I pay the gas bill tomorrow.”
Yet, my mother said nothing. In response, all I could hear was the shuffle of her gym shoes against the carpeting as she gathered the space heaters.
Sucking his teeth slightly, my father unraveled himself from amongst the blanket. “Let me go help your mama. You got thirty more minutes, and then it's time for bed.”
It was then my turn to suck my teeth. “Daddyyy,” I whined with a pout.
“I don’t wanna hear it, Princess. You have school in the morning.”
“Okay,” I mumbled.
He watched my pout with a loving smile. As he stood, I could feel the shadow that his massive body cast over me.
My father was like a handsome giant to me. We had the same smooth chocolate brown skin. We lived amongst junkies and alcoholics with degenerating bodies and appearances. That’s why my father’s perfect white teeth, long dreads, and beard stood out to me so much. He had a gorgeous, mature face that my moth
er spent much of her time keeping other women out of.
However, my mother always bragged about how loyal and dedicated he was. He loved her just as much as he adored me. They were my parents, but also my idols for love. Even at ten years old, I just knew that I would marry a man just like my daddy.
“Tempest!! Tempest!!”
I shot straight up. My father’s thunderous shouting had scared me out of my sleep.
My eyes blinked rapidly as something thick and harsh swam into my airways, causing me to gasp for air. As I fought to breathe, I also began to panic once I saw the smoke and flames that framed my doorway. The curtain that posed as a door to my bedroom was now a veil of violent flames. The cracked pink paint that covered the walls was now melting amidst the blaze.
“Dad—” My cries for him were cut off by my gasps for air as the profuse, black smoke flooded my lungs.
I started to cough so violently. I had never felt like that before. I couldn’t breathe. Even gasping for air hurt.
“Tempest!! Tempest!!” I could hear him bellowing frantically on the other side of the barrier of fire.
I couldn’t see him, but I felt him near me.
“Temp—” I got so scared when his voice suddenly vanished. Just like that, he had gone silent. All I could hear was the violence of the flames and my own desperate wheezing.
Feeling the hysteria building, I jumped to my feet. I looked around the four inflamed walls that were surrounding me.
There were no windows.
My only means to escape was the inferno in the doorway.
I was a child. I didn’t know what to do. So, I ran. Towards the flames. Through them.
My skin… The closer I got to the doorway, the more scorching the heat felt. Yet, I never felt any pain. I only felt intense heat as I sprinted through the flames. In my childish mind, I thought of the lion that jumps through the circle of fire at the UniverSoul Circus.
However, unlike that lion, I would not come out unscathed.
Chapter 1
TEMPEST MURPHY
I felt a sense so heartbreaking while sitting across from Derrick at the table at Steak 48.
I had once been excited about this weekend. Though we were engaged, Derrick lived in Miami, while I was living back in Chicago. We had met in high school, but we didn’t start dating until college when we ran across each other on social media. Instead of relocating back to Chicago after he graduated, like I had, he had taken a job in Miami. It was a great opportunity for him, but it made me feel even more insecure about our relationship.
He had, however, given me a half-ass invitation to move to Miami. Still, I wasn’t comfortable uprooting my entire life and relocating to Miami, until I was sure that he really wanted to be with me. I’d felt as if he had confirmed that by putting a ring on my finger six months ago.
His proposal had been just as weak as his invitation to move to Miami. Yet, I had taken it because he was the only relationship I had ever been in. Derrick, though evasive and sometimes outright mean, was all that I knew.
We had never been the most loving couple, but I had been feeling an uneasy distance from him for the last month or so. His calls were becoming farther in between, and he appeared to be annoyed with my very presence.
“Derrick…”
He was even annoyed by me saying his name. He attempted to hide his grimace behind his Versace, gold marble reading glasses. However, I had spotted the slight snarl amongst the fine, curly hairs of his extended goatee the moment his full lips had curled upwards.
“Humph?” he merely asked. His right, bushy, soft angled eyebrow raised towards the hairline of his curly top fade as he took a sip of the D'usse in his Brandy Snifter.
He was so distant and cocky.
I fucking despised it.
I’m not going to front as if we had had the most glorious, romantic relationship for the last nine years. Honestly, it had been a struggle since day one. When I was a child, my father had instilled such confidence in me. He had told me daily that I was a beautiful, brown-skinned queen. He’d taught me that my melanin was like a prize that very few girls got the honor of receiving. I looked like my father, who I thought was a gorgeous black man. His high cheekbones had been handed down to me, as well as his dark chocolate skin. We had the same striking eyes and awkwardly shaped full lips. We were exact replicas, so, even at ten years old, I was confident in my looks.
Then the fire happened.
When that space heater caught fire in my bedroom, it caused an inferno that not only killed my father, but also demolished my self-esteem.
When I panicked and ran through that engulfed doorway, I suffered fourth-degree burns on my arms and chest and third-degree burns on my face. The panic and fear of being on fire had only lasted for seconds before I passed out.
The excruciating agony of recovery started the moment I’d come to in the pediatric ICU at the University of Chicago Hospital.
While mourning the loss of the first man that I fell in love with, I lay in a hospital bed for months in unmeasurable pain. I was actually appreciative that my father had passed in the fire because, had he survived, he would not have been able to live with himself. He would have blamed himself for what happened to me. At ten years old, I had learned that being on fire was not what was painful; it was the healing process that was grueling for any adult, so for a child, that pain was inconceivable.
Fourth-degree burns cause your flesh to melt to the muscle or bone. Third-degree burns remove nerve endings and eliminate all sense of pain. However, the aftermath is unbearable. The dead skin being scraped off daily was a living nightmare. Having fresh burns shaved off of your skin, at most, hurts just as bad as you’d expect, just one hundred times worse. The local anesthetic injections when they had to debride the infected burns was nothing any human, especially a child, should ever have to suffer.
Even as the affected areas began to heal, leaving keloids and massive scarring all over my arms, chest, and face, I also suffered from intense insecurities. As a child, I was the victim of grueling bullying. I had been called every cruel name in the book. Growing up in Chicago, every child has thick skin. The bullying made me tougher on the outside. However, on the inside, that confidence that my father had given me diminished every time some girl pointed out my scars or a boy was disgusted when he heard I had a crush on him.
As I grew up, I started to hide them. Even though I could cover the scars on my face with makeup, the disfigurements on my arms and chest could only be covered with long sleeves and turtlenecks. In the day and age where body image is everything, where women are being praised for perfect bodies bought in foreign countries, I’d always found it hard to fabulously flaunt my scars.
I wanted to be that disfigured woman who owned her flaws. I admired those type of women, which I had only come across on social media. I was subscribed to their YouTube channels. I watched them frequently, praying for the type of self-esteem that would catapult me into marriage and childbearing, but it had yet to happen for me.
I had had a few lovers in my life. Those encounters were short-lived because I would either run away from them because of my fear of revealing my scars to them or I would get wasted so I could have sex without taking off my clothes and never talk to them again. When Derrick had expressed interest in me online, it was safe to flirt because he wasn’t in my presence for me to hide from. When I did show him my scars, it was somewhat easier since it was on Facetime, rather than in person. He wasn’t the most attractive man. Therefore, I knew that his willingness to commit to my ugliness was because his immaturity felt as if no one else wanted him, and it was the same for me. I felt ugly too, as if no one else would ever want me, so I obliged. However, money, status, and a beard can change a man’s life. The older we got, Derrick’s self-esteem catapulted, while mine continued to deteriorate. He started to hide me and make me cover my scars. He never owned them as being a part of me. He merely overlooked them. He never acknowledged them or made love to them, which made my in
securities worsen over the years we had been together.
Because of that, there were certain obstacles in our relationship that we had yet to overcome. I would avoid going to certain events with him if I couldn’t hide my scars. I cringed when beautiful, flawless women were around him. I tried my best to mask those insecurities because I knew they only gave me additional ugly features, but sometimes, they won.
Still, Derrick had proposed. Because, besides my scars, I was a great woman. I had ensured that I had all of the boxes checked because I knew that being taken seriously, respectfully, or beautifully would be an uphill battle. Therefore, I had to have my shit together. I was educated. I had recently graduated with my Master’s in Business Administration. I was in a sorority. I had just acquired an administrative position in Human Resources at a property management company in downtown Chicago. However, the position didn’t pay nearly what my degree had been worth. I aspired to do more than sit behind a desk until I reached retirement age, however. I had dreams of starting my own skincare line. Because much of the skin on my upper body was flawed already, with ragged and raised flesh, I took meticulous care in the parts of it that weren’t damaged. I had been so engrossed in perfecting the skin that was healthy that I had some great recipes for shea butters, scrubs, toners, and masks. Getting my degree had not been my passion, but I knew that it would help me run my own skincare line… once I got the money to finance it.
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