I raise my hand to my mouth to stop the sobs. I’m such a fool. “You can have him for now, but he’ll be back. In the meantime, sweet dreams,” she says and she hangs up.
I bring the phone back down and just stare at the screen in shock, sobbing with my hand still covering my mouth. I hear a noise at the door and when I look up, there stands Rocky.
He walks in and closes the door behind him and locks it. He walks around my bed to me. He hasn’t even reacted to seeing me crying. I follow him with my eyes as he sits down on my bed next to me with his back to the headboard. He reaches out for my phone and I’m so shocked I just hand it to him. He looks at the screen and shakes his head and then hits a couple of buttons and puts it to his ear and waits. “You stupid fucking bitch. That was a mistake.” I can hear Kelly laughing. “Kelly, you’re going to pay for making her cry.” I hear her laughing stop and I hear her saying something but he hangs up the phone and tosses it onto the nightstand and then scoots down on the bed and pulls me to him. I try to resist but he yanks me down and my head drops hard on his chest. I’m physically shaking and he pulls me into his arms and rubs his hands up and down my back and kisses the top of my head. “Sorry about that, baby. I don’t know what she told you, but I can only guess. I’m going to take care of it. Don’t worry.”
I think back to her calling me a virgin and that she saw my marks on him. There’s only one way she’d know that. He told her and she saw them. I lift up on my arms, turn my face to him and demand, “Get out!” He doesn’t move, but he’s staring at me in my eyes. “It’s over, Rocky. Over! I can’t deal with all of this. This is too…” before I finish my sentence and I don’t even see it coming, he slaps me.
The slap is so hard it knocks me off the bed and onto the floor. I turn over to my hands and knees and start crawling for my bedroom door. Right as I start to stand and reach for the doorknob, Rocky grabs me and throws me back to the bed and traps my hands with his and covers my body with his so I can’t move. “Shhh…Baby, I’m not going anywhere. Do you really want to wake up your grandma? She was sleeping soundly when I came in. How about we don’t wake her and just talk this out quietly? Sound okay?” I shake my head in agreement but he doesn’t move. “You’re going to let me explain?” I nod again. “Okay, then. Nothing happened with her. I didn’t touch her. She’s fucking with you. Tomorrow we’ll talk more. Tonight, we sleep.” He undresses and settles us under the covers. He falls asleep almost immediately as I lay awake for a while, but eventually I sleep too. When I wake up, he’s gone and I don’t hear from him for two weeks.
Chapter 10
It’s been two weeks but I’m still finding it hard to breathe and relax. I’m constantly on guard. I have no idea where he is but what I do know is it’s not over. I try to put on a brave face for everyone. I can’t let them know what’s going on and I feel like such a failure.
While at work today an old friend from school came in, Lucky Miller. We talked for a few minutes, catching up on life and he told me how sorry he was about my grandpa and offered his condolences. He looked great and seemed really, really happy. He told about his wife who is expecting their second baby. Life seems to be moving along in a wonderful direction for everyone except me and I only have myself to blame. Before he leaves, he gives me hug.
When I get home from work I change out of my uniform and throw on some yoga pants and an old Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt that I love and head for the porch swing. It’s Wednesday night and my grandma should be heading out soon for her women’s church group meeting, so it’s me and my latest book. I haven’t really been hungry lately, but I grab a bag of pretzels and I’ve been nibbling on one for a few minutes now as I absentmindedly stare down at the pages of my book, seeing and reading nothing.
The sun has set so it’s mostly dark out except for the moon and the light coming from inside the house. I hadn’t even realized I was sitting in the dark. I turn to the porch screen door when I hear it squeak and I see my grandma walk out with her purse and keys in hand. She looks at me and frowns. “He’s a jerk if he doesn’t know what he gave up.” She walks over and gives me a shoulder squeeze. “There’s a lot of fish in the sea, honey.” She starts to leave, but pauses. “You want me to stay home and we can tear through a couple of gallons of rocky road ice cream?” That actually makes me smile but then I see car lights coming up the drive. Oh shit. I recognize the sound of the car. It’s him. It’s Rocky. With my eyes still following the progress of the car I tell my grandma, “You should go on and leave or you’re going to be late for your meeting.” My eyes haven’t left the headlights and I see the car stop and idle for a few minutes with the headlights directly on me. I shield my eyes but I don’t look away. The car turns off and then the lights. I’m blinded by the light now, but I hear the footsteps coming towards the porch. Finally my eyes adjust enough for me to see Rocky walk up to my grandma and lean down and give her a kiss on the cheek. “Hi, Mrs. McGinty. I’m Rocky. Nice to finally meet you.”
Well, that melts any anger she had towards Rocky away and she actually blushes. He knows what he’s doing. “Where have you been? Jaycee’s been miserable and I don’t like that.” She starts down the steps. “I was just lecturing her on there being other fish in the sea, so if you want her, you need to do right by her or you’re going to lose her.” She walks up to her car and opens the door and starts to get in when Rocky calls out to her, “Yes ma’am. I’ll do better. And, Mrs. McGinty, I’m taking Jaycee to my parents’ for dinner. If it gets late, I may keep her with me tonight rather than drive back, if that’s okay.” My grandma waves him off. “Of course. Jaycee, honey, I’ll see you tomorrow then. Love you, and y’all have fun!” And she gets in the car but before she closes the door I call back, “Love you too, Grandma!” but I don’t think she hears me. She closes her car door and drives off and Rocky sits next to me on the porch swing and puts his arm around my shoulders.
“How you been, baby?” and he leans down and kisses me on my lips but I don’t respond. “Not this again, Jaycee. Seriously?” He stands and pulls me up and into the house. I feel numb and just follow him. I don’t know how to care about anything right now. I guess part of me just wished he’d stay away forever, closure or not.
As he pulls me into my room he sits me on the bed and walks to my closet and starts going through my dresses. I see him pull one down and then kick a few of my shoes around that are lined up along the floor. He reaches down and grabs a pair and then comes back and tosses a simple black wrap-around dress and a pair of dove gray toeless heels on my bed. “Get changed, baby.” I look at the clothes and at him. “Jaycee, I told my mom I was bringing you for dinner and now she’s made a big deal out of it, and even my dad is going to join us, so I don’t have time for this. Get changed.” There’s no way out of this, so I stand up and walk towards my bathroom when he walks up behind me. “No, baby, here. Change here. I want to see you,” he says and he lifts my sweatshirt up and over my head and then turns me towards him and looks at my bare chest. I reach up to cover myself but he stops me and puts my hands back down to my sides. “God, Jaycee, I’ll never get over how perfect you are,” and he kisses me. I force myself to respond as he pushes my yoga pants down. “As much as I’d like to stay here and catch up, we have to go. As soon as dinner is over, we can catch up, okay?” he says and he pushes me towards the bathroom.
I grab my bra from the pile of clothes I’d left in the bathroom hamper from earlier when I changed from work. After I change into the dress he picked for me and then slip on the shoes he’s chosen, I go ahead and brush out my hair and leave it down. When I walk out he turns and smiles. “You look beautiful, baby. Come here.” He turns me so my back is to him and I see his hands come forward with something hanging from them and then I feel it hit my neck and chest. “Lift up your hair for me.” I reach behind me and pull my hair up and I feel his fingers grazing my neck as he fastens the clasp. Once it’s fastened, he reaches up and brings my arms dow
n so my hair falls back down and walks us forward to my mirror. It’s a silver necklace and pendant. I stare at it and it’s beautiful. “It’s a Celtic cross with an emerald in the center,” he says and he reaches around and touches it and then looks at me in the mirror. Our eyes meet. “When I saw it, I knew I had to get it for you.” I’m so confused. He goes back and forth from sweet and loving to scary and violent. I keep eye contact and smile. “Thank you Rocky. It’s beautiful. I love it.” I look back at my reflection and reach up and touch it with my fingers and smile. “You ready, baby?” I smile, feeling shy. “Yes, let me grab a few things for tonight and a change for tomorrow and then we can go.” At that, his face lights up with a smile. Once I’m packed, we head to the door and I lock up and we head for the car.
“Pick a CD, baby. Your choice.” I start going through them and grab Jason Aldean and hand it to him. After he loads it, we sit back but he looks at me in question. “You have a favorite song on here or something?” I frown and look out the window. “What, baby?” he asks, and he grabs my hand. I look over at him and whisper, “Yes. ‘See You When I See You.’ It reminds me of my grandpa.” He gives me a sad smile and then lets go of my hand and picks up the CD case and looks to the back. When he finds out the track number he reaches down and switches it to that song and then grabs my hand again and pulls it to rest on his thigh. I stare out the window thinking about how much I miss my grandpa. I thought time healed the pain of the heart, but I think that’s a lie. I know that’s a lie.
We turn up the road to his home and pull into a circular drive where he parks and turns off the car. I’m staring at everything in awe. It’s huge, with giant white columns and huge double doors at the front entrance. I see a detached four-car garage down a small path. The front of the property is solid live oak trees. Beside the front double doors are beautiful stained glass windows and the light from the inside of the house is shining through them, lighting up the front porch in the colors of the stained panels. He catches me looking around and smiles. “My dad,” he says, and he shakes his head. “We used to live in a smaller, more modest home but the further he went up in his career the more he changed and bought into the ‘keeping up with the Jones’ ’ bullshit. It’s why I like the cabin. It’s more what we were before...” and he trails off. I look back at him and say, “It’s beautiful, but so is your cabin.” He seems to be off in his head somewhere for a moment and he almost looks lost but then snaps his eyes to mine. “Well, let’s do this,” he says and he leans down and looks out my window at his house and then gets out and walks around to my door and helps me out. This is the Rocky I met at the dance hall, but for how long?
When we walk into the foyer I look around. There’s a beautiful chandelier hanging down from a vaulted ceiling and a wide staircase heading up to a balcony on the second floor. Off to the right there’s a room and the door is open with the light on. I hear a chair roll back and a man’s deep voice call out, “Rocky? That you?” I see a shadow coming towards the door and then an older version of Rocky steps out, dressed in gray slacks and a royal blue button-down shirt. He has reading glasses perched on his nose as he looks at Rocky and then me over the rims of the frames and then finally takes them off. He’s very handsome with the same gray eyes and light hair.
“Hey Dad,” Rocky says, and they shake hands. “This is Jaycee McGinty, my girlfriend.” I look to Rocky and smile and he catches me and smiles back. “Hello, Ms. McGinty. How are you?” So formal. “Um, hi Dr. Jennings. I’m fine, thank you, but please call me Jaycee, sir,” I say, and his dad gives me a smile. “Well, Rocky, I have to admit I’m pleased. She’s very pretty.” He winks at me and I blush. Rocky drops his arm around my shoulder and starts to speak when we hear a woman calling out, “Rocky?” I notice his dad tense and look upset but then he turns to Rocky and says, “I’m finishing up paperwork, call me when dinner is ready,” and he walks back into his office and closes the door.
I look back to the hallway that leads off the side of the staircase and I see a beautiful blonde petite woman come up in a wheelchair and she’s grinning ear to ear. “Hey Mom,” Rocky says, and I see him smile lovingly back at her. “Mom, this is Jaycee McGinty, my girl. Jaycee, this is my mom, Lina Jennings.” His mom smiles and claps her hands and then reaches one out to me and takes my hand. “Gosh, you sure are a pretty girl,” she says, and she smiles at Rocky and then back to me. “Welcome to our home. Rocky, bring her in the kitchen and y’all grab a glass of wine while I finish setting up for dinner and we can chat.”
When we walk into the kitchen I see another lady there who’s helping her prepare everything. Rocky introduces her as Lucy, a long-time friend of his mom’s, and after we say hello she starts going back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room setting up for dinner.
Rocky’s mom shares that she talked to Linc, Rocky’s brother, earlier in the day and he’s planning on a visit soon. “Rocky, he still wants you to come up for a visit. He misses you. I sure want to go. I can’t wait to see all the animals.” Her smile is infectious and I find myself smiling at her enthusiasm. She loves her sons. She glows talking to Rocky or talking about Linc. “That sounds awesome, Mom. I miss him too,” and he gives a sad grin, which she returns. “Go call your dad, Rocky, so we can eat.” Rocky’s been watching his mom move around in the wheelchair and I can tell it hurts him to see her like that. “Sure, Mom,” and he leans in, gives me peck on the cheek and says, “I’ll be right back.”
Rocky comes back in with his dad and we all head off to the dining room as Lucy tells everyone goodnight and leaves out the side door. Rocky and I sit across from each other. It’s a smaller table and I’m assuming because of the size of the room, some leaves were removed to make it smaller and easier for Mrs. Jennings to get around in her wheelchair.
We just sit down when there’s a loud bang and then I hear a woman yelling. Not just yelling, but yelling for Rocky. I sit stunned when a female who looks about my age stomps in. She has bleach-blond hair pulled back in a high ponytail. Her eyes seem almost black and she’s wearing tons of makeup with thick eyeliner. Her nails are long and painted red, and she’s wearing super-tight jeans, a halter-top and stripper heels and mismatched jewelry anywhere she can.
”Aw, how nice. A family dinner? So this is your little virgin, Rocky?” She says while looking between all of us.
Oh my God. I’m humiliated and look down at my lap and my eyes begin to water. I chance a glance at Rocky out of the corner of my eye and he’s shaking. I watch as she looks at him and back at me. “What did I tell you, you fucking bitch?” Rocky, who’s staring down also, puts his hands to the table and starts to push his chair back when he finally looks over at his dad. Mr. Jennings shakes his head but finally speaks: “Out! Now! I’m making a few calls and you won’t like the result, Kelly.” And with that his dad stands and reaches for his phone off the table. He walks out and I watch as Kelly blanches for a moment, fear briefly showing, following him with her eyes but then she turns back to me with hate. I look to Rocky’s mom and she looks mortified but also very sad. “Kelly, we’re having a private dinner. I’m sorry, but I’m going to need you to leave. You can stop by another time.” His mom wheels back like she’s going to escort her to the door. I look back to Rocky and then to the woman, Kelly.
Quick as lightning, Kelly makes a move for me. I scream and scoot back in my chair and stand up to move away, but before she can even take one step, Rocky is up and grabs her by the throat and slams her to the ground. Before he can get away she kicks and punches at him and although she seems violent and out-of-control, what I see next scares the shit out of me even more. When she kicks at him again, he backs away to avoid getting hit. She jumps up and starts coming at me again. Rocky’s mom tries to get in between us and when she does, Kelly knocks Mrs. Jennings over and the wheelchair falls on top of her. Rocky looks back at his mom and loses it. “Are you fucking crazy?” and he pushes Kelly so hard she falls. She goes down but after a mom
ent she’s up and moves to fight him again, but he knocks her down again. This time she goes down harder and I hear head slam against the floor. What in the hell? I watch as her arms and legs go slack and fall to the ground and she finally stops moving. I see blood on her face and she looks unconscious. I rush to Mrs. Jennings and lift the chair off of her and then try pulling her up, but she’s too heavy for me. Mr. Jennings pushes me aside. “Jesus, Lina, are you okay? It’s okay Jaycee, move, I got her,” and he picks her up and carries her off. A few minutes later he comes back and grabs her wheelchair. He stops next to Rocky and looks at Kelly and just shakes his head. “I told you to handle her—now get that piece of trash out of my house and make sure she knows her luck just ran out.” Rocky doesn’t look at his dad. He just nods as his dad walks off.
“Rocky?” I walk towards him and I can see Kelly starting to open her eyes and she looks up to him. “Kelly, you are such a stupid bitch. Chance after chance and you just keep pushing me.” He reaches down and lifts her up and starts walking her to the door but she starts pulling against his hold. He stops abruptly and turns them both back to look at me. “Come here, Jaycee,” he booms. His voice scares the shit out of me so I do what he says. I slowly walk closer. Kelly doesn’t look like too much of a threat now, but I’m cautious. When I get as close as I’m comfortable with, Rocky grabs her by the chin and pulls her head up so she’s looking at me. “Kelly, let me lay it out. You’re nothing but trash. Yeah, she was a virgin. She’s clean and pure and now she’s mine. You’re used and dirty and always have been. You’re worth nothing more than a fuck, but she’s worth my love, which she has. Make no mistake—my mom and Jaycee—I’ll kill for them, and you just came for them both. Your time is up.” She seems to be in a daze but then something sparks in her eyes. She’s looking at my chest, my necklace, and before I can protect myself or my necklace she reaches across and rips it from my neck and cuts me with her nails. I scream and jerk back and cover my chest but when I look down I’m bleeding.
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