by Tia Hines
At first I wasn’t really paying attention to it, but when the whole pat-down process seemed more like fondling than a pat-down, I shoved his hands off me.
“Is there a problem?” he yelled in my face.
“Yeah. You’re feeling all over me like I stole something!” I yelled back. “I didn’t steal nothing.”
“Yes, you did, and it’s on you somewhere.”
“Nothing’s on me. I didn’t take nothing.”
Lucky for me, the pregnancy test had dropped while I was running.
“Strip to your underwear. I don’t have time for games.”
“What?” I asked, confused.
“Listen, I don’t have all day. Either you strip so I can confirm that you didn’t take anything, or I call the police and they come down and lock you up. Simple as that. You make the decision, but I ain’t got all day.”
I thought about my choices. Notifying the police was definitely out of the question. If a strip search had to be down to avoid me being locked up, then I was going for that.
I started taking off my clothes slowly.
“How old are you, by the way?”
“Thirteen.”
“Thirteen?”
“Yeah.”
“You ain’t thirteen. Don’t lie to me.”
“Yes, I am.”
“What grade are you in?”
“Eighth,” I responded, taking off my last bit of clothes. I was down to my bra and panties.
“You done?”
I looked at him like he was crazy, as if I wasn’t two articles shy of being naked.
He giggled. “Excuse the question. I’ll search your clothes first.”
I watched him as he bent down and went through my clothes.
“You must have ditched what you stole.”
“I told you I didn’t steal nothing.”
“Please, don’t spare me the truth,” he commented as he stood up. “Spread your legs and put your arms out,” he demanded angrily.
You know he wasn’t right for doing this to me. What was he going to find on me, seeing that I was half-naked. He definitely had another agenda, but I was too scared to question it.
“And you did steal something. I saw you take it.” He nonchalantly slid his index finger through the seat of my underwear.
I jumped, feeling funny.
Then he proceeded to pat my legs down. How much more patting of me did he need to do? I practically had no clothes on.
“Almost done,” he said. He walked behind me, patted my arms, unhooked my bra, and gently squeezed on my breasts.
I took a deep breath, and tears came to my eyes. He was fondling me, y’all, and I was too scared to do anything about it. So I just stood there.
He ran his hand down my sides, caressing my waist. Then he slipped his hands inside my panties and gripped both my ass cheeks. “All right, you’re free to go. You’re clean.”
I stood there in awe like, What just happened?
“You don’t wanna leave? You want another pat-down? I’ll be glad to give it to you,” he joked.
I didn’t think anything was funny. He had just violated me. I was dumbfounded and didn’t really know what to do.
“You need help putting your clothes on?”
I shook my head no and started putting on my clothes. I couldn’t believe it. He had just gotten a cheap feel. In Walgreens. Pervert! I hurried to get my stuff on. I had just zipped my pants when the door opened.
“What we got here?”
“A thief.”
“Age?”
“Thirteen.”
“What she take?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t find it. I think she ditched it when I was chasing her.”
“Did you see her ditch it?”
“No.”
“Well, let her go. There’s nothing we can do. You know we can’t search minors anyway.”
I swung on my coat, took one last mental picture of the predator, and hauled ass. I pushed my way through the man standing in the doorway, got outside of Walgreens, and burst out into tears.
I was in a daze. I was thinking about my aunt and the way she treated me. Malik and the way he screwed me over. My mom ditching me. Greg being swooped away by God. All that came to the forefront of my mind. I thought I was about to lose it. I couldn’t think of anything good about myself or anything good that someone had done for me. I felt as if I had “Violate Me” written all over my forehead. I began to hate people more, and I was beginning to hate life. I needed a change quick.
I managed to pull myself together to go back up to school, where Jen was out front socializing.
When she noticed me, she ran over my way. “Oh my God! I was so scared. I was just telling Clayton what happened. I didn’t tell him about what we stole though. How did you get away? What happened?”
A mental picture of the violation came to mind.
“Whatever. Nothing. You got the test?” I asked softly.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing!”
“Something’s wrong. What happened?”
“Nothing! Do you have the test?” I yelled, agitated.
“Yeah, right here. Calm down.”
I started crying.
“What happened, Desire?”
“That man . . . the man . . . ”
“Who?”
“The security guy . . . he made me take my clothes off.”
“He made you take your clothes off?”
I nodded my head up and down as I wiped my eyes.
“Did he do something to you?”
More tears fell.
Jen embraced me. “Oh no, Desire.”
“He didn’t like rape me or anything. He just like felt all over me,” I cried. “He was a fucking pervert.”
“It’s okay. Calm down,” Jen soothed.
“I hate people!”
“No, you don’t. You just feel like that now. It’s okay. Everything’s gonna be all right.”
I wiped my eyes as Jen’s words soothed me.
“Come on, let’s go inside the school.”
I pulled myself together as we walked inside the school. We headed straight for the bathroom. It was that time, y’all!
Jen reached in her pocket and handed me the test. We stared at each other like, This is it.
I went into the stall, followed the instructions, and came out to wait. I handed the test to Jen, so she could spill the results.
While we waited, I prayed to God that if he made my results negative, I would never have sex again in my life. Ever. I told Him I’d become a nun, sacrifice myself to Him, and all this crap. I should have known better though. You can’t negotiate with God. Who was I fooling? Whatever He wanted to go down, it did, and that’s how it went.
Jen confirmed a plus sign. I was now pregnant with Malik’s baby.
Chapter 12
Pregnant, pregnant, pregnant! I couldn’t bring myself to believe it though, so I told myself I wasn’t. Yup, I went right ahead and took my pregnant behind to track practice. Jen tagged along because she was trying out. She thought I was stone crazy to go on as if it was nothing. It didn’t matter to me though ’cause, like I said, I didn’t want to believe it. So I didn’t.
I got into practice with a clear mind, geared up, ready to run. I did my laps and exercises, no problem. Then it was time to get busy. My specialty in track was running the fifty, so my main practice consisted of sprinting. I was holding up for a while, but as soon as the coach blew the whistle, memories surfaced, and that was it. I lost it. I couldn’t stay focused.
I kept thinking and thinking and thinking. It was like a live nightmare. My thoughts wouldn’t go away. I was hearing cries, seeing Greg lying in his coffin, and Malik giving me the finger. I was freaking out. And it showed in my running too.
Coach immediately became unhappy. I was already on his shit list for the trouble I was getting into, and now I was fucking up his practice. He lashed out at me, leaving spit on my face and all. A
nd he kicked me out of practice.
I didn’t mean to mess up. I had tried to stay focused. I really did, but my burdens were too heavy. I was only thirteen, y’all, and carrying half the world on my shoulders.
After I got kicked out of practice, I stuck around in school to wait on Jen. In the meantime, I used the last bit of money I had to try to get in contact with Malik. I called him from the pay phone at school. He picked up but told me to call him back.
I waited for about fifteen minutes and rang him back. Again, he said call him back in ten minutes. I wasn’t trying to kick it with him over the phone. I was just trying to tell him what was up.
I gave him his ten minutes and called back, but of course you know the bastard didn’t answer. I couldn’t even call him back, since I had used up my last bit of change. I waited like thirty more minutes before Jen was let out of practice.
“Oh, I didn’t know you were going to wait for me,” she said.
“Might as well,” I responded, feeling depressed.
Jen rubbed my back. “Desire, it’s okay.”
I was pregnant at thirteen, y’all. Eighth grade. What the hell was okay about that?
“Did you call Malik to tell him? You need to tell him, because you should not be dealing with this on your own.”
“I called him like three times, and he kept telling me to call him back. And just now he didn’t pick up the phone. I was trying to tell him, but he never gave me a chance to get a word in.”
“He’s trying to avoid you. Go to that nucca’s house.”
“I’m not going over there.”
“You go over there to have sex with him, but you can’t go over there to tell him that you’re pregnant?”
“I’m scared.”
“Desire, this is no time to be scared. This is serious. You got a baby up in there. Go to his house and tell him. He can’t avoid you face to face.”
“You gonna come with me?”
“I can’t. I gotta be home by four thirty. I’m on punishment, remember?”
I took a deep breath and thought, Just go ahead over there and get it over with. I couldn’t wait until school the next day to tell him because I wasn’t trying to put my business out there like that. I didn’t want to chance a bad reaction from him in front of an audience.
I had an hour before I had to be home, which was enough time to make the trip. I got my bus pass out and hopped on the bus. It took me about twenty minutes to get to his house. The walk from the bus stop was all of two minutes, if so much.
When I got to his doorstep, I saw this girl crying hysterically. It startled me.
Before I could turn around to be on my merry way, Malik came out of his house. He went to touch the girl to comfort her, I guess, and she yelled out, “Don’t fucking touch me, you HIV-infested bastard!”
I remembered that three-letter STD from a pamphlet I got at the clinic. HIV was the one that couldn’t be cured. Now, as I stood there and remembered this stuff, nothing dawned on me like it should have. My mind was scrambled. I just stared at Malik and the girl in a daze. I snapped out of it quickly though when Malik yelled out at me. I didn’t even know he had seen me.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
I looked at him in awe. I don’t know why, because I did know him to be an ignorant bastard.
The girl glanced over at me. She jumped up in Malik’s face, pointing her finger at me. “Oh, is that one of the little bitches you were fucking while I was away at college? Huh, Malik?”
Homegirl started to mimic Malik, while screaming at the top of her lungs, “Baby, why you so worried about what I’m doing? You know you my only girl. I should be worried about you away at college. And all this time you were the one fucking around!”
Before he could respond, she hauled off and smacked the living daylights out of him, causing his head to snap to one side, and they started fist-fighting.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. He had actually hit her back. They were like two boxers in a ring, no lie.
I got out of there. I couldn’t watch anymore. He didn’t want me there anyway, so sticking around would have only made matters worse. The girl probably would have tried to fight me, and I wasn’t about to be the next in line to get rumbled on. On top of that, imagine if I’d told her why I was there. Yeah, we all would have definitely been fighting. Shoot, I probably would have gotten double-teamed, and I wanted to avoid all unnecessary drama. I turned right around and walked my black ass away like I had no business being at his house.
During my bus ride home, I thought about what I was going to do. Memories flashed back about my aunt telling me to never step foot in her house pregnant. I was a flat-out disgrace. Someone had a curse on me, I swear.
I had to make a decision though, and my mind was made up. I wasn’t going to cause my uncle any more hardship. By 2:00 A.M. that morning, I was planning to be gone. My bags were going to be packed, my Dear John letter was going to be written, and I would be out of their hair.
As soon as I arrived home, I went straight upstairs to my room and started packing a runaway bag. While I was in the process, my aunt wanted me to go to the grocery store for her to get some things she needed right away. She didn’t have any cash on her, so she gave me her bank card to get some money out of the teller. That was a shocker. She was trusting me, the liar and the no-good niece, with her bank card. Wow!
She was a bit hesitant at first, but I assured her I’d be right back. I wanted to get her what she needed, so I could come back and finish packing.
I got to the store and bought what my aunt needed. On the walk back home, I thought long and hard about the whole pregnancy thing and where I was going to stay once I left home. I thought about the essentials: money, clothes, food. I was thinking, How am I going to do this? Am I going to live on the street and out of my bag until the baby is born? What am I going to do?
I made it halfway home then I realized that I couldn’t go back. I turned right back around and began my journey as a runaway. Auntie Linda wasn’t getting her groceries that night, or her ATM card.
Chapter 13
I wanted to call Jen and fill her in on my new plans to run away, but then I decided against it. I didn’t want any type of leads to my whereabouts. I roamed the neighborhood for a while just walking and thinking, not knowing what the hell I was going to do. As it got late, I hopped on the bus to Ruggles Station and got on the Orange Line.
I rode the train all the way to its last stop, Oak Grove. I stayed on as it rode right back to where I had started. I had no idea where I was going, what I was going to do, or how I was going to survive. Then I remembered I had Auntie Linda’s bank card, which meant I had access to money. So, of course, I thought about getting a room.
I got off the train at Back Bay Station. I figured that would be the best area for finding a hotel. There were mad hotels in that vicinity. I stopped at the ATM in the train station to take out more money. I didn’t know how much a room would cost, but I figured three hundred would be more than enough. I felt bad about taking my aunt’s money, but that feeling quickly sailed away after I thought about all the shit she’d done to me. Shoot, she practically owed me.
It took me no time to browse the area and step inside the first appealing hotel, the Sheraton. I was amazed to walk inside of such an unspeakably beautiful hotel. I had never seen anything so richly decorated or delicate in appearance. What can I say? I had never been inside a hotel before, so I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know where to go, who to see, or what to do.
I saw people with luggage coming in, and I figured I’d just follow them. That led me to the reception desk. I stood in line to get a room, thinking the process was going to be easy.
“Hi. What can I do for you?”
“Ah . . . I need a room.”
“Okay,” she said, typing into the computer, and then glanced up at me. “Are you here alone? Do you have a guardian with you?”
“No, I’m getting the room for myself.
”
“How old are you?”
“Sixteen,” I lied, and it still wasn’t good enough.
“Honey, where are your parents?”
“I just need a room for the night. I have money.” I pulled out my knot of twenties.
“Ah, young lady, no, this is not—”
“Please, I just need a room for the night. Don’t you see I have money?”
“I’m sorry. You’re not of age.”
“I can pay for a room, please. I have nowhere else to sleep tonight.” I gave her the sad puppy-dog face.
“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do. Why don’t you try Tween Street Inn? It’s a homeless shelter for teens. They can probably help you better.”
I stepped out of the line to let the people behind me go next. It was sad that the damn receptionist didn’t even care about where I was going to lay my head that night. She could have helped me out. She could have given me a room, instead of sending me to a damn teen shelter.
I ended up sleeping on one of the little couches they had in the lobby. I didn’t intend to do this, but in the midst of my thinking, I’d dozed off.
“Miss! Excuse me, young lady!”
I opened my eyes as I felt someone tapping me.
“You cannot sleep here. Have you been here all night?”
I looked up and saw this tall, pale, skinny white man whose name tag said: Asst. Manager, Jacob. I jumped up. “No, no. I was waiting for my grandmother to come downstairs.”
“What room is she in?”
“Huh? Oh, I’ll just go get her.”
“But I can call up to the room for you.”
“No, no, I’ll go back up. I just remembered I left something in the room anyway. Thanks.”
I got up before he could ask me any more questions and got on the elevator to the tenth floor. I got off and walked down the hall, acting as if I was going into a room. He wasn’t following me or nothing, but I was just trying to play it off, just in case.
I saw the maids in the hallway pushing their little buggies. Most of the room doors were open too. I peeped into one of the rooms they were cleaning. The room was spacious, and the bed looked awfully comfortable. It was calling my name. I wanted to just drop dead on it. I wasn’t shy about asking to do so either.