I placed my hand on my stomach and looked out of the window when he pulled up to the security gate.
Why the fuck did I decide to do this?
I mean it was my idea but now I was second-guessing my decision. Cyrus had been there way more than me. Maybe he should have come alone and just relayed my message.
I kept my mouth shut while Cyrus showed his ID and drove to the parking lot. My mind spawned a million scenarios once I read Hampton New Life Clinic as we walked through the glass doors.
“Hi, Mr. West. Nice to see you again. Here are your visitor badges.” The receptionist handed me one and then she gave Cyrus one. Mine was blank but she’d taken care to write Cyrus’ name on his.
“Do you just attract secretaries wherever you go?” I quizzed as I stuck the tag to my shirt. Once Cyrus officially let Cross Point, Jennifer the secretary seemed to fall off the face of the earth. Thankfully so, because I didn’t want to have to lose my shit over some woman who didn’t know how to keep to herself.
I learned after the huge ordeal with Leonard and Katie that smiling at another woman’s man was something you just didn’t do. Hopefully, Leonard learned his lesson too and wouldn’t entertain any more women while he was married.
Katie never did divorce him. Even after she knew he lied to me and told me they were divorced and that the condo was mine.
Whatever. She could have him.
I found the love of my life and I never planned to let him go.
“I have a special kind of appeal,” Cyrus joked as we walked through another set of doors. These led outside to a courtyard area where people were eating lunch.
He took me by the hand and walked me to a table where one woman sat alone with her back to us. She was busy staring at the lake. It was really pretty and there were rose bushes surrounding it. I wanted nothing more than to bury my nose between the petals.
Like she could sense us, she turned around and my mouth dropped open. I was staring at my mother. I knew it would be her face I saw once she turned around but I still wasn’t ready.
Concentrate Bellamy.
Focus on something else.
I shut my eyes and breathed in the sharp smell of freshly cut grass. That shit wasn’t working. I tuned my ears to hear the tweeting of the birds in the trees. Nope. That wasn’t working either.
“Bellamy,” she called out to me. My eyes popped open involuntarily and I looked at Cyrus instead of her. Anything instead of her.
“Just give her five minutes of your time, Bellamy. That’s what you wanted to do.” This wasn’t the mother I remembered. She looked so small and frail sitting at the table. She looked so at peace like she hadn’t ruined my life.
I pressed my lips together in hopes of stopping the tears. It didn’t work. They rolled down my cheeks, disrespectful and uncaring of my wishes.
You signed up for this, Bellamy.
“Hi,” I managed to creak out.
“Hi,” she sighed with relief. I sat down across from her and she leaned in a little. I leaned back. “Bellamy, I’m so sorry I left you. You gotta understand, I wasn’t in my right mind. I wasn’t in my right mind until Cyrus found me and brought me here.”
“You…left me,” I stammered.
“I know.” She nodded and looked down at her weathered hands. I started to wonder if agreeing to see my mother for five minutes was a mistake.
When Cyrus told me he got the address of the abandoned house she stayed in from Wilson, I turned my nose up. The compassionate side of me wouldn’t go the fuck away though.
When Cyrus asked if I wanted to go with him to get her from the filth she was living in, I declined. I listened to his stories every day though.
Every other night he came home with stories about how he’d found a rehab facility to take her to and how she’d get clean there if she really wanted it. I thought it was bullshit. Someone like he could never get clean.
But what if she could?
What if Wilson was the main reason she stayed high? He kept supplying her with money. I’d never been so happy to see someone get charged and sent to prison in my life. Wilson may not have gone to prison for screwing my mother’s head up but he damn sure went for sexually harassing and raping women. I’d take the win however I could get it.
Whenever Cyrus went to the facility to see my mother, he asked me if I wanted to go and I refused until he told me she’d been sober for six months. He told me she passed every drug test and it came back clean.
I thought maybe I could get some answers from her. Maybe I could get some closure. So, I agreed to see her for five minutes and there I was. Seeing her.
“Why did you leave me?” I asked. My voice didn’t belong to me anymore. I was the little girl trapped inside. I was seven-year-old Bellamy with dingy clothes, tangled hair, and shoes with holes in them.
I expected her to own up to wanting drugs more than a daughter but what she said wasn’t what I expected. “I couldn’t handle looking at you and knowing how you got here. I couldn’t get high enough to erase your father and I saw what he did to me every time I saw you.” Her voice broke and she sobbed into her hands.
Something twisted in my stomach. Something thick and knotted that left no room for breathing.
“My father?” I said, stumbling over syllables. She wiped her tears and nodded. “You never talked about him. Not even when you were high.”
“I know. I was getting high to forget. It wasn’t the smartest thing but it was the only fucking thing I had. I hated him. I wanted to kill him but I didn’t have the heart so…I killed a part of myself instead.
There’s no excuse for giving you up and God knows the shit you had to deal with as a result but…I was young, Bellamy. I didn’t know how to take care of no kid. I couldn’t even take care of myself. I tried for seven years and it was just too much.” Her voice was hoarse from years of abuse.
I turned my head away from her and pushed out a slow breath.
“Who was he? What did he do to you?” I asked her, my throat dry and sticky.
“When I was fourteen, my mother took me to Cross Point Church because she thought I was too fast and too disrespectful. I was still a fucking virgin. She just didn’t like the fact that boys were starting to notice me.
She took me to Pastor Wilson and…” her words trailed off and I thought I would be sick. “He said he knew how to deal with girls like me. So…that’s what he did. He dealt with me every fucking day. We sat in that stale office or his car or sometimes even his house if his wife wasn’t there.
That man raped me so many times I got used to it. He raped me until I didn’t get my period anymore.” My mother’s tormented eyes met mine. “I knew what it meant when you missed your period and I knew if my mother found out, she’d kill me. So I ran. Sometimes I’d come back after I had you but by then I was high all the time. I wanted to forget. It’s not an excuse, Bellamy but it’s the truth.”
Cyrus held me in his arms and I cried until my stomach turned over and over. “Wilson…is my father?” I asked.
“Yeah, he is. Wait, you know him? Oh god, tell me he doesn’t know you’re his.” Her lips trembled with fear.
“No. He doesn’t,” I said, wiping my eyes.
“I worked at Cross Point as a youth pastor, Miss Jordan. That’s how Bellamy and I met. Unfortunately, Wilson tried to…” Cyrus couldn’t get the words out but my mother didn’t want to hear them anyway. She shook her head and dabbed at her wet eyes. “Wilson is locked up for a long time for the things he did though,” he told her.
“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I fucked up your life and I’m sorry I never told you all this. I only wanted to see how you turned out and to apologize for everything. I won’t bother you or the baby once it gets here. In another few weeks, I’ll be out of here and in a small group home until I can live on my own.”
“That’s good,” I nodded, tears still clinging to my lashes. “I don’t think I could ever let you back into my life but…I’m sorry you went through
that. None of it was your fault.”
“Thank you, Bellamy. Hearing that means a lot coming from you.” She reached out timidly to touch my hand and I didn’t jerk away. “Promise me you’ll be a better mother to that child than I was to you and better than my mother was to me. Don’t just break the cycle. Blow that shit up.”
“I promise,” I said pulling my hand away. If there was anything I was good at…it was blowing shit up. I’d be the best mother I could and my daughter would want for nothing in any area.
Talking to my mother and finding out about my father didn’t take away all the old scars and pain but it did give me some closure and I needed that more than I knew. I couldn’t start a new chapter without closing the old one. It was time to move on and be better than the women who came before me so that Cyrus and I could raise a woman that would be better than I was.
I was determined to blow up the cycle for good.
The end.
Author’s Note
Thank you for coming along on Bellamy’s ride. She was wild and had a lot of learning to do but I think she turned out wonderfully. If you know me though, you know I have to explore the other characters in this book.
Pax, Crimson, and Declan are calling to me so it’s only right they get a book! If you want to be notified when it goes live, sign up here.
Other books by Danielle James
Twisted Series
The Twisted Series (Books 1-6)
Flowers Behind the Gates Series:
Flowers Behind the Gates
Sleeping Monsters
Power Trip
Death of a Rose
Garden of Secrets
LUCY Duet (Books 1&2)
Naughty R&B (A six story anthology)
Have Mercy
Dangerous Territory
Tortured Whispers
The Monarch Room
The Moreau Estates
Wisteria
Nocturnal Sins
Please stalk me online. I welcome it!
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http://www.missdaniellejames.com
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