healing-hearts

by Yvette Hines

  “It’s been a long time, Yasmine. I thought I’d surprise you.” He entered the house, but didn’t come any further.

  “Well, I’m surprised.” Wanting her children far away from Blake, Yasmine turned to Charmagne and asked, “Can you take the children upstairs and stay with them?” Then for extra measure she added, “Mr. Richardson should be home any moment. If you could stay a little longer until he gets here?” It was a bluff for Blake’s benefit, and she prayed it would work.

  “That’s no problem.” Charmagne eyed Blake pointedly.

  Yasmine could see a curious look cross Charmagne’s face, but she chose to ignore it. The sooner she got the twins away from Blake the better she would feel.

  Yasmine gave the children a reassuring smile as they walked up the steps.

  “No greeting with a kiss? Is that any way to treat your long lost brother?”

  Yasmine turned to him; she wouldn’t show him fear as she had done over the years they had been together. She would lean on anger, it was an emotion she could deal with, and hopefully draw strength from until she could convince him Jason would be home, and get him to leave.

  In an angry whisper she proclaimed, “Blake you are not my brother.”

  “You’re right, I’m not.” He began walking around her living room like it was his, eyeing the pictures of her and Jason and then turned and faced her. “I thought it would be a little awkward for you if I said I was your husband.”

  “Blake, why are you here?” Yasmine chose to disregard his statement.

  Blake sat down on her couch and got comfortable as if he had planned to stay awhile.

  “I was in the neighborhood and decided to stop by.”

  “You shouldn’t have, Blake. There’s a restraining order against you.”

  “Is there?” He leaned forward and picked up the wedding album off the coffee table.

  Yasmine reached over and grabbed it out of his hands.

  “Yasmine, you’ve developed such bad manners since we’ve been apart.” Leaning back again appearing unfazed, he asked, “Is that what your new husband is teaching you?”

  “I’m not going to discuss my life with you, Blake. I just want you to go.” Yasmine finished off her sentence between clenched teeth.

  “What are you afraid of, that I might find out all your dirty little secrets?” He let his voice drop to a whisper.

  “I don’t have any secrets.”

  He gave a cryptic laugh. “Oh, everyone has things they’re hiding, Yasmine. And you’re no different.”

  Yasmine remained silent, not wanting to fuel any further conversation.

  “You have beautiful children, Yasmine. Too bad you couldn’t bear them yourself.” His statements were followed by a tsk tsk sound.

  Yasmine swallowed the lump in her throat; she couldn’t help but feel a little nervous when Blake brought up the children.

  “Blake, my husband will be home any minute and you don’t want to be here when he arrives. I’ve told him all about you and he won’t be happy to find you here.”

  “Jason, right?” Blake declared.

  Yasmine’s heart began to sink. This wasn’t a random visit Blake was making. He hadn’t just recently tracked her down, he knew too much.

  “How do you know what my husband’s name is?” Yasmine held tight reins on her emotions.

  Lounging back with is arms spread, he revealed, “I know everything about you, Yasmine. Did you think that I would just forget about you...about what we had? Did you think I could just let...you go?”

  Yasmine watched his calm posture, but wasn’t fooled—this was the Blake she had always known, the one that had haunted her life for so many years.

  “Blake, I’m warning you. Leave before I call the police.” Yasmine backed up and stood by the phone on one of the end tables. “You know you’ll go to jail with the order against you.”

  Standing, he pretended to walk toward the door, but he stopped when he stood in front of her. “Funny thing about restraining orders, Yasmine. There’s a time limit for them and if they’re not updated, they’re no longer valid.” Taking a step closer to her, he sneered, “I guess you were too caught up in your perfect little fairytale life to worry about it.”

  Yasmine’s heart dropped. How could she have been so stupid not to renew the order?

  Reaching behind her back for the phone, Yasmine stammered, “B-B-Blake, Jason will be home. Please, for your sake, leave.”

  Blake threw his head back with roaring laughter. “My sake! Do you take me for an imbecile? Jason hasn’t been here for well over a week. He’s been living back at his apartment.”

  Oh, no. She realized. “You’ve been spying on me.”

  Standing this close to him, she recognized when pure evil entered his eyes, his pupils dilated, glassed over and zoomed in on her.

  “I know everything, Yas-mine. I know how you would hate for that pretty social worker to find out that you and your darling Jason have been lying to her and the system. They would snatch those children right from your sweet little hands. Just like you did to my baby.”

  Before Yasmine knew what was happening he leaned down and snatched the phone cord from the wall. Then reached up and touched the side of her face with the same hand. When she jerked her head away, he said, “You’re not scared of me now are you, Yas-mine?”

  Yasmine remained silent. Partly because she knew that anything she said to him would only make him more mad and because she was afraid and she didn’t want to show it.

  “I bet you want to scream, don’t you Yas-mine, but you know it would bring your nanny and those two sweet children downstairs. Do you want them to meet the man that should have been their daddy?”

  Yasmine turned and looked directly at Blake. “You could have never been their father, Blake.”

  Yasmine watched him flinch as if he had been slapped. Then he advanced toward her even more. Yasmine began walking backwards until she was against the wall and couldn’t move any further.

  “You’re right, Yas-mine. I couldn’t have been their father, because I would have given you a baby the right way.” He placed his hands on both sides of her head, moved closer so his body was pressed against hers and his breath rippled across her face, his voice lowering to a sinister whisper, “You miss that don’t you, Yas-mine? You miss me being inside of you, consuming every aspect of your very being? I was your first lover. I taught you everything you know and you whored yourself out.”

  “No...” was all Yasmine could get her tight throat.

  That one word croaked from her throat seemed to take Blake over the edge. He wrapped his hands around her neck and scoffed, “You had everything with me. I loved you.”

  With each sentence, Blake’s hands seemed to tighten around her windpipe even more. Automatically her hands grasped at his in an attempt to pull them away from her. Yasmine couldn’t stop the tears that built up and spilled out of her eyes.

  Blake leaned in even closer and dragged his tongue across her lower lip. “I was making you into my perfect angel, Yas-mine.”

  The only thing that stopped the instant bile that entered her throat from exiting her body, with the feel of him licking her mouth, was the tight squeeze of Blake’s hands holding her neck.

  Blake continued to ramble on, but Yasmine could barely hear him, her ears felt as if they needed to be popped and she began to see spots in front of her eyes and found it hard to focus. She knew she was going to die, she could feel her life being taken from her.

  “You are mine, Yasmine. I will never let anyone else have you. You...will always...be miiine.”

  Fleetingly thoughts crossed her mind of her best friend telling her that Blake only had control because she gave it to him. Yasmine started to pray as she used her last ounce of air and the personal desire to survive, to raise her children and to feel Jason’s arms around her again. She shrieked, “Nooooo,” as she jerked her knee up forcefully and made contact with his groin.

  Blake yelled and unexpectedly loos
ened his grip completely. Yasmine slide to the floor in a heap, pulling at the collar of her shirt in an attempt to fill her lungs with air. When her vision began to clear, she saw Blake’s limp body lying on the floor with Jason straddling him and pummeling his face.

  Yasmine could hear the fierce growl that came from deep within Jason.

  ~ML~

  Jason was in a rage. He had walked in and only paused briefly at the unexpected sight of some short, stocky Hispanic guy, not much taller than Yasmine, tasting her mouth. He’d been jolted into action when he realized the other man was holding her by the throat against the wall.

  The man had been too centered on his task to be aware of what was going on around him. Jason had punched the other man on the side of his head, causing him to lose his hold on his prey.

  Jason used the other man’s surprise against him and grabbed the man by his throat with one hand and began hitting him with his other one; using all of his force. When the other man briefly lost consciousness and fell to the floor, Jason still continued his assault. At some point he had begun to register the sound of police sirens advancing, but it wasn’t enough to stop him.

  It wasn’t until he heard Yasmine calling his name repeatedly in a hoarse whisper and the gentle touch of her hand on his back that he halted his attack.

  “Jason...” was all she had to say as he moved toward her and pulled her into his arms.

  His hands moved of their own accord, checking and searching her body for any signs she had been wounded anywhere else. “Did he do anything to you? Are you hurt anywhere else? Who is he, Yasmine? How did he get in here? Why didn’t you call me?”

  Yasmine gave him and his arsenal of questions a watery smile, but before she could tell him any more than she was fine, the cops burst into the house.

  “Put your hands up where I can see them!” the lead cop of the three standing in the doorway commanded as he held his weapon out and aimed at them.

  “We received a call from a Charmagne Shakoor—”

  He was cut off by Charmagne running down the stairs saying, “That’s me, officer, I’m the one who called.”

  The first officer took a minute to check her identification and make sure they got the scope of what had transpired, telling Jason and Yasmine they could put their hands down once they had discovered that Blake was the culprit.

  The officer walked over to a moaning, bloody Blake who was curled up on his side.

  “I want to press charges, officer. I just came by to visit an old friend when I was accosted,” Blake whined.

  “Yeah, yeah. You can give me your side of the story when we get down to the station.” The cop did a quick check of Blake, making sure nothing was broken that would keep him from walking. When he was satisfied Blake’s only injuries were to his face, he helped him up and signaled the other cop to cuff him.

  A third cop stepped forward and began to recite Blake his Miranda Rights as they escorted him out the door and to the waiting police car.

  The first cop, whose nametag displayed Officer Hughes, walked over to them. “I’m going to need all of you to come down to the station and file a report.”

  Charmagne was the first to speak up. “Officer, I have the Richardson’s small children upstairs. Besides I have very little information to give, can we talk now?”

  Officer Hughes agreed and excused himself to step to the side with their nanny and jotted down her statement.

  “Where are the twins?” Jason asked Yasmine, not seeing them anywhere.

  “I had Charmagne take them upstairs as soon as I saw Blake at the door.” Fresh tears began to hover again on her bottom eyelids as her voice quivered. “I didn’t want him anywhere near them.”

  He pulled her into his arms. “You did the right thing. Everything will be just fine.”

  Officer Hughes stepped over to them again. “Do either of you need to go to the hospital?”

  “I’m okay.” Jason tilted Yasmine’s face up to his and inquired if she wanted to go.

  “I don’t need a doctor. I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure, Mrs. Richardson? Those are going to be some nasty bruises soon.” Officer Hughes used the butt of his pen and pointed toward her neck.

  Jason watched as Yasmine’s hand reached up and rubbed the column of her throat. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay, I’ll see you both down at the station.” After seeing that both of them understood his orders, Officer Hughes exited the house.

  Yasmine turned to Charmagne and embraced her, saying, “Don’t know how I could ever thank you enough.”

  “It’s okay, Mrs. Richardson. When I saw the look on your face when you recognized who was at the door, I knew something wasn’t right. So, I put the children in the playroom and stood at the top of the stairs to make sure everything was okay. When I started to get an eerie feeling from the way he was talking to you I tried to reach Mr. Richardson first, but he was not in his office. So, I called the cops.”

  Jason had forgone doing his statistics after the meeting with his boss and had decided to come by and spend time with the children, then go back to his office. He was glad that he did, otherwise there was no telling what would have happened to Yasmine by the time the cops got there.

  “We’re very glad you did,” Jason confirmed.

  “If you don’t mind, Mr. and Mrs. Richardson, I’d like to go home now, but I’d like to take the children with me,” Charmagne requested.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Yasmine reassured her.

  “I know I don’t have to, but I figure it would be better than you carting them down with you to the station. Besides, you need your rest.” Charmagne crossed her arms under her ample bosom. “So, I’ll take them home then drop them off at daycare in the morning.”

  “What do you think, honey?” Jason looked at Yasmine.

  “That’s fine. I want to go up and see them before we leave, though.”

  “You see them, I’ll call my husband and pack them a few things for tomorrow, we’ll tell them it’s a slumber party at my house.”

  The three of them went up the steps together to the second level.

  Yasmine grabbed a lightweight jacket from her closet and pulled it on, then zipped it all the way up so the kids couldn’t see the bruising that was beginning to appear.

  When they opened the door to the playroom, a small radio was playing a CD of children’s preschool songs just loud enough for the kids not to hear anything on the other side of the door. Joshua was the first to notice them, he came storming to them chanting, “Jason, Jason.”

  Jason picked him up in a bear hug, and the realization of how much he had missed them came welling up and surrounded his heart.

  Joshua broke the contact then leaned over for a hug from Yasmine, and asked, “Is your brother gone?”

  Smiling so as not to alarm the child, Yasmine informed the twins, “He wasn’t my brother, sweetie, he was just a friend playing a trick.”

  “Was it funny?” Jessica asked as she set her dolls down and walked over to them.

  Yasmine embraced her still holding Joshua in her arms. “I didn’t think so at first, but now I do.”

  Jason knew that she meant now that he was in police custody and would be going to jail for a long time.

  “Are you going somewhere?” Jessica, who was very observant, asked when she saw Yasmine was wearing a coat.

  Jason stooped down on his hunches before them. “We’re going somewhere, but guess where you two get to go?”

  “To the moon, maybe?” Joshua, Mr. Adventure yelled, making the sound of a shuttle blasting off.

  “Not yet, Joshua.” Jason answered, laughing at the child’s wild imagination. “You’re going to a sleepover at Mrs. Charmagne’s house.”

  “Can I bring my dolls?” Jessica asked.

  “You can pick one.” Yasmine told her and followed up with, “And remember when she takes you to daycare in the morning you have to leave it in the car.”

  “Okay.”
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  “Can I take a truck?” Joshua roared.

  “A small one, and—,” Jason began to tell him.

  “Leave it in the car.” The little boy finished in a singsong voice.

  Laughing, Jason reached out and tweaked the little boy’s nose.

  ~ML~

  When they arrived at the station, Yasmine and Jason were escorted to separate rooms for their statements.

  Yasmine’s took the longest, as she had to give the cops the background history on her and Blake. She also informed them about the phone call she had received months back and the letter he had sent her.

  When Detective Marshall, who interviewed her with Officer Hughes, asked if she still had a copy of the letter, Yasmine felt guilty. She had not only thrown it away, but shredded it, too.

  The cop asked her why she hadn’t informed the police that he had made contact with her or made sure the restraining order was reinstated. She told them that she had just thought he was trying to scare her. She had neglectfully assumed he wouldn’t try to visit her. Besides, she had been so preoccupied with everything that was going on in her life she didn’t have time to think about Blake and what he may or may not do for long spans of time.

  The cop had her fill out another restraining order, for herself and the children, just in case Blake happened to get an amount granted to him at his bond hearing, and was able to post bail money. Even though Detective Marshall didn’t think it was likely, considering the case, and Blake’s behavior.

  Twenty-three

  “I don’t want to leave you by yourself.” Jason expressed his concern once they had returned to the house and were standing inside the front door.

  They were facing each other, but not touching. Jason had not touched her since he had helped her into the car at the police station.

  “Good, because I don’t want to be alone,” she announced.

  It seemed as if an eternity had passed before Jason reached a hand out and brushed her bangs back from her forehead. She was letting her hair grow out, but kept the front short, just for this purpose. Yasmine closed her eyes welcoming the familiar touch of her husband’s hands.