by Lilly James
After around ten minutes, a lot of tears, and even vomiting, I got to my feet. Rubbing at my eyes, I made my way to the mirror and lent against the sink on my palms. As I stared at my reflection, I saw red eyes, black mascara underneath, flustered cheeks, and messy hair. What I also noticed was that I didn’t hate myself anymore. I wasn’t at war with my reflection, despising the person staring back at me. I was healing, becoming stronger. Not pretending to be strong on the outside and drowning on the inside, but actually, properly, becoming stronger.
I swiped the remainder of my tears from my cheeks, took a deep breath, and turned on my heel, ready to go back downstairs.
“Princess?” Parks exhaled my nickname from his lips in a rush as I reentered the room and marched to my side.
“I’m fine. I just had to have a moment.” I smiled weakly, settling back down into the sofa. Parks sat next to me, closer that time. Kissing my temple, he took my hand in his.
“Are you okay to continue, Evey?” Nia asked gently, her smile filled with compassion.
I took a deep breath and nodded firmly. “Better now than never.”
Nia agreed, rubbing her hands together in a prayer positon and carrying on, “How did you feel the first time he spanked you?”
I scratched my hand nervously as I approached the question honestly. “Confused. Turned on. I hated him. Hated myself.”
“Hated him?” Nia pushed.
“Because he loved inflicting pain. I hated myself because the pain satisfied me.”
“I knew she was hiding some sort of pain,” Parks said. The anguish his words held kept my focus in my lap. “Evelyn made me forget because I was so desperate to pursue her. Trying to claim Evelyn for myself was my goal. It was hard to try and adjust to that in the beginning, but I knew I couldn’t ignore the inevitable.”
“You harassed me.” I smirked.
“I wasn’t taking no for an answer,” he said.
“I should have got your annoying arse arrested.”
“Or you could have just put me in handcuffs yourself.” He raised his brow again. “Oh, wait…”
I smacked his leg and chuckled at the image of when I cuffed him to the chair to stop him following me. He had no way of escape and I took his control away from him. At the time Parks didn’t see the funny side. He ransacked my house like a bull in a china shop, then fucked me so hard I couldn’t sit down properly for days. But now it seemed he could laugh about it, and I loved that his sense of humour was making an appearance.
Nia ignored our display of teasing. “So what happened after he spanked you for the first time?”
“He acted like nothing had happened. I thought we should have at least talked about it, but nothing. When I told him to punish me again, out of curiosity, he had a feeling I was asking to be punished for another reason.”
“I can read a woman’s body perfectly. Their minds—” he shrugged, “—are still lost on me. However, I knew you wouldn’t tell me what you wanted to be punished for, but at least I got across that I cared. I said to you, ‘Let me soothe the pain, even if on the outside.’ I knew you were broken, Princess. And I was also aware I wasn’t the one to fit you back together. I told you two broken souls never make a whole.”
“That’s not true. Two broken souls can heal each other in ways you could never imagine.”
Parks took my knuckles and placed his lips upon them gently. “I am fully aware of that now.” His green gaze speared at my heart. It was an emotional look, a look of deep love, deep feelings, and a connection the two of us felt every second of every day. “I wanted Evelyn to submit to me,” Parks went on, then kissed my knuckles. “But I have submitted to her. She holds more power than I ever will.”
I bowed my head, tears escaping but for all the right reasons.
Nia smiled. “Both of you struggle with your issues daily, but being around each other helps a lot. You’ve had to deal with them individually, but now you both have each other’s issues to deal with too, and that’s difficult. But—” she pointed at us, “—you two are a damn good work in progress. Please excuse the unprofessionalism, but I’m so fucking proud of you both.”
Chapter Sixteen
“You saw Nia?” Harriet was standing in the room when I and Parks reentered after seeing Nia out.
Parks nodded once, then looked away from his mother and back to me. “We should eat.” He went to the kitchen, where he purposely busied himself.
“She’s helping us loads.” I smiled, sitting down on the sofa, hoping Harriet would do the same.
“That makes me so happy.” She smiled, then looked up and over at Parks. I knew he wasn’t looking at her from the way her gaze dropped to the floor and she sighed. “I better be going. I’ve intruded enough.”
“No, you haven’t,” I told her quickly, turning to Parks for support. He just shrugged and looked away from me. I groaned, annoyed, and then tried again. “Harriet, please stay.”
She waved her hand around, trying to knock back tears like swatting them with her hand would work. Parks’s frustrated groan had me scowling at him.
“Why are you crying?” He threw his hands to his sides. “Don’t you take any responsibility?”
“Wade,” I scolded, but he childishly threw down the spoon he was holding and stormed out of the room.
“He’s nice to me one minute and hates me the next. Same as my Jasmine.” She sniffed gracefully, pulling a handkerchief from under her sleeve. “My children can’t stand the sight of me.”
The moment she let out a whimper, we heard thunderous footsteps coming up the stairs. Harriet glanced over her shoulder towards me, confused as I was.
“Didn’t I fucking tell you to come home?” Clinton rounded the top of the stairs like a wild wildebeest and came to an abrupt stop at the top.
“Clinton?” Harriet gasped, stiffening in fear.
Clinton’s eyes were red, his balance just off point. He was drunk and quickly switched his focus to me when I walked to Harriet to be by her side.
“I don’t know how you got up here, but you need to leave. Right now.” My warning was a firm threat. I wasn’t scared of him, and I would patently protect Harriet from him.
“I am not leaving here without my wife,” he snarled, taking one step towards us. Harriet took a step back, but I remained where I was. Staring him down.
“She is not going with you.”
“Damn right she’s not.” I turned my head to see Parks walking back into the room, his fists clenching by his sides. He was wearing the expression of a madman, ready to tackle his father out of the apartment and out of his life.
Clinton turned to Parks and started laughing hauntingly. “Oh, my dear son,” he mocked, opening up his arms. “Come to have another fucking go? Weren’t happy with fracturing my ribs, were you? Almost breaking my fucking nose?”
“Doesn’t feel so good, does it?” Parks’s tone was acrimonious. “At least I never broke your ribs, just like you broke mine when I was thirteen.”
Clinton snarled. “You had it coming.”
Parks took a step forwards. “I had it coming? All because I didn’t want to play basketball for the school team? Yeah,” he scoffed, “good reason to break your child’s ribs, huh?”
Clinton stared into Parks’s eyes emotionlessly. “Why do you—” he prodded Parks in his chest, “—blame me for everything? Blame that slut who ruined our marriage.” He pointed towards Harriet, glaring at her like she was a piece of shit on the bottom of his shoe.
I looked across to Harriet. She was torn, looking at husband and son.
“Mom fucks your best friend and that’s my fault?” Parks roared. “Jasmine’s fault?”
“She fucked with my head,” Clinton yelled, spit firing out of his mouth. “Drove me to fucking drink. I had no one I could trust!”
I stood frozen, almost feeling like an outsider, imposing as I stared at father and son finally having it out. Even though I thought Parks shouldn’t have wasted his time, I knew it was a
long time coming, and it needed to be aired. I took Harriet’s hand and squeezed it to let her know I was there. She didn’t look at me but squeezed my hand back.
“So that gave you the right to abuse us? Every time you took the first glass of whiskey to your lips, you fucking knew you would drink until you couldn’t stand. You knew when you were drunk, then your belt came out to whip us with. Your fist, anything that would cause permanent damage.” Parks shook his head, revolted at his father, and stepped forwards, prodding him in his chest. “You are a fucking disgrace.”
“What about your mother,” Clinton yelled so loud his voice broke at the end of his sentence.
Parks turned his back on him, disbelief written all over his expression. He wiped his face with his hands, trying to compose himself before turning back to Clinton.
“Ever wondered why she betrayed you? You have never been there for her, never loved her like you were meant to. Never treated her like the wife you married and took those vows to love unconditionally.”
Clinton swallowed hard as he took in Parks’s words. Seemed like he wasn’t sure how to deal with the truth. Besides feeling pity towards Harriet, I felt even more pain towards the way Parks was pushing his own abuse and troubles aside to focus on his mother’s. He was more tortured by those thoughts of his father treating his mother and sister the way Clinton did than his own misery. His selfless and unstinting act added to those thousand reason why I loved him to the depths of my bones.
Clinton staggered to the sofa and sagged down onto it. “I gave her everything I could,” he said quietly, staring at the wall.
“Not your time or love,” Harriet cried, finally saying something. Her words startled Clinton from his daydream. Even though he seemed to soften as she spoke these words of truth, I still hated him, and I still prayed to the heavens that Harriet wouldn’t take him back.
“I was working to build our future,” Clinton told her, his eyes narrowed as if he was the most reasonable man alive. “And you were out spreading your legs.” He was starting to get angry again and validated my point that some people don’t change.
“You went back to him after you vowed not to and got pregnant, and you think that wouldn’t have ruined me?”
I glanced over at Parks, wanting more than anything to walk towards him, take his hand, and just let him know I was there for him. But he couldn’t take his eyes off his parents. Seething was much too little a word to describe the way he was glaring at them.
“You just don’t get it, do you?” Parks chided. “You’re in-fucking-sane.” He pointed to his own temple. “You don’t have the ability to understand what you put us through.” He thumped his chest hard with his fist. “Your own flesh and blood.” Clinton was about to get to his feet, so Parks rushed over and pushed him back down. “Sit the fuck down, shut up, and listen.”
Clinton’s nostrils flared, but he didn’t move.
Parks jabbed a finger angrily in Clinton’s face. “Tell me how the fuck you can call yourself a man when your children were scared to go to sleep at night?” Clinton’s eyes flickered, just slightly. “That’s right,” Parks went on. “Me and Jasmine were so scared, she’d come into my room. I would sit by the door, trying to block it just in case you came in. I would sit by the door because I knew it was the only way Jasmine would sleep.”
My hand went to my mouth, I closed my eyes so I could try and concentrate on not breaking into a sob as I pictured Parks as a small child, protecting his sister from their father’s abuse.
“We all walked on eggshells around you, afraid to look at you the wrong way, scared shitless of doing something wrong because we knew we’d get beat.”
“I was toughing you up.” Clinton shrugged. “It’s a big bad world out there.”
Parks threw his hands up to his head as he yelled, “You should have protected us! Instead, you abused us, forced us to do things we didn’t want to do. Mentally tortured us and shaped the way our lives are now.” He looked away from Clinton, shaking his head before looking back. “Do you know how hard it is for me to try and forget the things you did? I work my fucking ass off so I don’t have the time to remember, but when I do—” Parks threw his hands up again, then let them drop to his sides, “—I’m a fucking mess. But you see that woman there?” He pointed straight at me, and I froze, my cheeks filled with blood as I really didn’t want to be seen. “She stands by my fuckups. She is the only person that gets me. And you know what?” he scoffed like he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “I am the luckiest motherfucker alive because she has agreed to be my wife. And you know something else?” He pointed a finger in Clinton’s face. “I want you as far away as possible from my wedding day.”
My heart felt like it was beating a thousand times a second, and when I looked over to Clinton, his gaze was batting between the two of us.
“You’re marrying her?” He sounded outraged, but I didn’t care what he thought. “The woman whose unfortunate life was almost splashed across the press the other day? Are you out of your fucking mind? How dare you give that woman my name?” Clinton pointed a finger at me cruelly, and I wanted to go over and break it, but Parks stormed towards him and gripped him by the collar.
“What did you just say, you piece of shit?”
“You heard me,” he spat, goading Parks into hitting him. “You want that woman as your wife? She’s no better than me.”
Parks tightened his grip around Clinton’s collar, his other fist clenched. “She’s a thousand times better than what you’ll ever be. You’re scum, and I don’t know why the fuck I still allow a piece of shit like you to ruin my life.”
“Wade. Let him go.” Harriet’s voice was calm, trying to talk sense into him. He released Clinton’s collar slowly and then shoved him back into the sofa.
“Look at you,” Parks hissed, standing over his father, who was trying his best not to cower. “Once the top celebrity layer who was untouchable, now you’re a walking fucking heart attack. And you know what? I don’t hate you; I pity you. You ruined my life, but I will rebuild, unlike you.” He looked over Clinton’s body.
Clinton rose and threw his arm Harriet’s way. “What about your fucking mother? She started this because she couldn’t keep her goddamn legs closed.”
Harriet slapped Clinton across his cheek so hard, I felt the pain in my bones, heard the slap as she forced his head to turn. My mouth fell open at the shock, but secretly I was willing her on.
“What I did was wrong. I made a mistake. But the worst mistake of all—” she breathed in and dragged back tears, “—was standing back and allowing my disgusting husband to abuse my children right under my nose.” She placed a hand across her heart as if it hurt. “I know I can never have their forgiveness for what I’ve done, but all I know is, I will spend the rest of my life begging for it.”
Clinton stared at his wife in bewilderment. Baffled as to where her courage had suddenly came from. “What about the brat you gave up? Can’t get her back, can you?” He snickered.
“Maybe not.” Harriet stood firm, her voice almost croaking. “But I can start anew and amend all the wrongs I have done in my life. What do you have?” She looked him up and down, not in anger, but in pity. “You have no one. You will die a lonely, hated old man, and the only person you have to blame is yourself. Now—” she stepped into Clinton’s space, “—get out and don’t ever come back.”
“I can ruin you,” Clinton spat.
“Then bring it on,” Harriet threatened.
Clinton shifted on his feet, unsure of what to do, so Parks made the decision for him.
“You heard her.” He grabbed Clinton by the scruff of his collar and escorted him to the door, but Clinton couldn’t help himself.
“Have a happy fucking life with an alcoholic tramp.”
Parks threw Clinton against the wall like a rag doll and reared back his fist. Harriet rushed over to Parks and held on to his arm, pleading, “Wade, let him go. He’s not worth it, son.”
; Parks stilled his arm as he held it high, his fist clenched and his chest heaving. After coming to his senses, he quickly relaxed. “She’s right,” he said, releasing Clinton. “You’re not worth it. Not worth my time, my thoughts, nothing.” He leaned into his father’s face. “Because you are nothing.” Parks opened the door and glared at Clinton. “Now get the fuck out. I don’t ever want to see you again. Neither does my mother. You try and drag her down, I’ll fucking come for you!”
The second the door closed, Harriet’s sobs escaped her throat, loud and piercing. All the hairs on my body stood on end as she fell to her knees. Parks rushed to her side, sank down to the floor with her, and took her shaking body into his arms.
“It’ll be okay now,” Parks soothed his mother.
The rare and upsetting scene utterly overwhelmed me. I couldn’t watch. I took a quiet step back, then rushed upstairs and into the bedroom. My back hit the door, my head fell against the wood, and I cried. I cried so hard I had pains in my chest. I cried so hard my head throbbed. Watching Harriet finally having the courage to stick up for herself and her children after so many years was the most inspirational scene I had ever witnessed. Observing the way Parks told his father how much distress Clinton put him through, how his actions had shaped the way Parks had lived his life was a touching, but a harrowing moment to behold. I felt like I had just witnessed the new beginning of a family. Watched how they drew their demons out of the shadows and killed them once and for all. I knew it wasn’t going to be as easy as that, of course. Once you confessed, then it was time to heal. But healing was only the beginning for the Parks family, and I wished them more happiness than I would ever wish for myself. They deserved it. My future husband deserved it.