A Deep Dark Secret

by Kimberla Lawson Roby

Most of all, she wondered why she couldn’t bring herself to tell anyone about her own situation. She wanted to tell at least someone, but she knew she’d be in deep trouble. She knew she’d end up in some scary foster home and would probably never see her family again. She knew everyone would disown her and that she’d be worse off than she was already.

  She knew she was trapped with no possible way out and that there wasn’t a single thing she could do about it.

  Chapter 6

  TODAY WAS ANOTHER DAY, BUT JLLLIAN STILL COULDN’T shake what had happened less than twenty-four hours ago with her father. It was all so unfair, and she was so distressed over it. She’d even, for the first time in years, considered missing school because she hadn’t wanted to face anyone. What she’d wanted was to lock herself in her room, climb back into bed, and hide from the rest of the world. Which had been an okay idea until she thought about her father and how if he found out about it, he might just slip home from work. Needless to say, taking a chance on that was out of the question.

  “What I’d like for all of you to do tonight is spend some time writing about something you feel very strongly about,” Mrs. Peterson, Jillian’s English teacher, said. “You can write anything you want as long as it’s written with genuine feeling, and I want it to be at least two pages. Then, over the next two days, I’ll have everyone read what they’ve written out loud to the entire class.”

  Jillian loved writing and couldn’t wait to get started. She wasn’t sure what topic she’d choose to focus on, but she knew it would be either the dangers of smoking or parents who abuse their children. She was thinking more about the latter because no matter how many years had passed, she never forgot about the little boy who had lived next door to her and her mom and how his father would get sloppy drunk and then beat the daylights out of him and his mother. Jillian had been only six, but she remembered all of it, and it always saddened her when she heard about any child being physically abused. There were times when she even had to admit that while her own situation with her father was unbearable, at least he never left her with any scars or bruises. At least she was a lot better off than little Bradley had been, and she should probably just be thankful for that.

  “What if the subject we want to write about isn’t something we want to read in front of the whole class?” one girl wanted to know.

  “Then you might want to choose something different, because for this particular assignment, I want you to work on your writing and also your presentation skills. When you get up in front of the class, it won’t be the same as if you were giving a formal speech, but I still want you to get used to the idea of sharing your thoughts and feelings with a medium-size group of people.”

  Dawson, the class clown, a boy Jillian had shared sixth-grade English with last year, raised his hand next.

  “Yes, Dawson.”

  “Mrs. Peterson, can we write a lot more than two pages?”

  “Of course. Is that what you’re planning to do?”

  “No, not me. But last year whenever our teacher would tell us to write a couple of pages, Jillian would always turn in at least a thousand of them. She would write so many pages that we could barely see Mr. Stevens’s face once she sat them all down in front of him! Isn’t that right, Jillian?”

  Just about everyone in the class laughed, and Jillian couldn’t help laughing with them. Dawson was clearly exaggerating, but she also couldn’t deny that she always wrote a lot more than they were assigned.

  Mrs. Peterson looked at Jillian and smiled. “Well, that’s actually a good thing. Writing was always my favorite thing to do when I was young, too, so, Miss Jillian, I’ll be looking forward to reading every word.”

  Jillian smiled back at her and for some reason she really liked Mrs. Peterson. She’d liked her from the very first moment she’d met her last Monday, and she’d known right away that she was going to be her favorite teacher this year. She was very pretty, looked as though she was maybe in her late twenties, and there was no doubt that she really loved her job. Jillian had already thought about how she couldn’t wait to get started on her paper, but now she couldn’t wait to see what Mrs. Peterson would think of it once she finished it.

  When the buzzer rang, everyone scattered like ants, leaving the classroom in a hurry. Jillian was almost out the door when Mrs. Peterson stopped her.

  “Jillian, do you have a second?”

  “Sure, Mrs. Peterson.”

  “So, you like to write a lot, huh?”

  “Well, sort of.”

  “What kinds of things do you enjoy writing? Poetry? Do you write about your own life in a journal?”

  “No. I never, ever write about my own life,” Jillian said more loudly than normal, and she could tell that Mrs. Peterson seemed a little taken aback.

  Jillian quickly tried cleaning up her tone and hoped Mrs. Peterson hadn’t suspected anything. “Sometimes I do write poetry, though, but mostly what I write are short stories.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many do you think you’ve written?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe ten or so.”

  “That’s wonderful. Would you like me to read them sometime?”

  “That would be okay, but I haven’t written anything in a few months, so first, I’d like to reread them and make them the best that they can be before I show them to you.”

  “That sounds fair. Is there some reason you haven’t been writing lately?”

  Jillian knew exactly why, but she would never own up to it. She knew full well that it was all because of what her father was doing to her. It was because she had to spend a lot of her free time trying to figure out ways not to be home alone with him and a lot of time pretending that she had the perfect childhood—she had to spend a great deal of time creating her own real-life work of fiction.

  “I did a lot of stuff this summer, and now I’m in an after-school club and do some volunteering. Plus I do stuff at church with our youth department sometimes.”

  “That’s understandable, but if you like writing, maybe you could start back up by just committing thirty minutes per night.”

  “Okay.”

  “I also encourage all writers to write about their day-to-day experiences, because somehow I just think it’s good for the soul. It’s good practice, too, and you don’t have to write a lot. Even a paragraph or a page would be fine.”

  Jillian nodded.

  “Do you have a journal?”

  “Yes. Last year, my mom bought me this journal and pen set as one of my Christmas gifts, but I’ve never used it.”

  “Well, maybe you could pull it out and start adding a few entries.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Okay, well, you’d better get to lunch.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Peterson.”

  “You’re quite welcome, Jillian.”

  On the way out of her classroom, she practically bumped right into Kyle.

  “Hey, what’s up?” he said.

  “Hi.”

  “You said you’d give me your number today, so I figured I’d wait for you here.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh? Well, what does that mean?”

  “Nothing, really.”

  “Are you headed to the cafeteria?”

  “Yep, but first I have to meet up with Nikki.”

  “I’ll just walk there with you, then.”

  Jillian wasn’t sure why she felt so nervous, but she’d have been lying if she said she didn’t like Kyle. Ever since yesterday, she’d been trying not to, but she could tell she did.

  When they arrived at her locker, Nikki was waiting as planned.

  “So, are you still going to give me your number?” Kyle asked, and this time Jillian wrote it down on a piece of notebook paper, tore it out, and passed it to him.

  “I’ll call you this evening, once I get home from practice. See ya.”

  Nikki nudged Jillian and spoke under her breath. “I knew it. I knew you liked him, girl.”
/>   Jillian tried masking her smile. “Whatever.”

  “Just admit it, you’re feeling him just as much as I’m feeling Marcus.”

  “Are boys all you think about?”

  “You’d better believe it, because what else is there?”

  “School. Your education. And I can think of a lot of other things, too.”

  “Well, right now, Marcus is all I care about. He’s so mature and so, so cool. He doesn’t talk like the rest of these little boys around here, and he’s soooo cute.”

  Jillian rolled her eyes, but not so that Nikki could see her.

  “And I did tell you that he already asked me to be his girl, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, you told me,” Jillian said as they started toward the lunchroom. “But I just hope you know that once you become his girl, it will only be a matter of time before he wants you to have sex with him.”

  “And? Because I already told you, I’m ready for anything he wants me to do.”

  “And I keep telling you that we’re too young to be doing that kind of stuff.”

  “Girl, will you please stop being so serious?” Nikki said, chuckling. “I mean, young people have sex all the time, so it’s not like it’s some big deal.”

  Jillian disagreed but knew there was no way she was changing Nikki’s mind about this or anything else she was adamant about doing. They were best friends for life, but in some ways, they couldn’t have been more different, and it was better to change the subject altogether. “So, how was math class today?”

  AS SOON AS JILLIAN GOT HOME, SHE ATE DINNER WITH HER parents and Layla and then rushed up to her room to write her paper. For the rest of her school day, she’d been thinking about which topic to go with and had decided on the one about abused children. But as she tried drafting the first sentence, she realized she couldn’t find the words, something that wasn’t very common for her, since she always had a lot to say about everything when it came to writing.

  Finally, though, after sitting with her pen and blank sheets of paper, she wrote,

  What has been happening to me for the last five years should never happen to any child.

  Then, next thing she knew, one sentence quickly turned into another and then another, and before long, she had one full page. Then, without realizing it, she wrote ten more of them. Not once could she remember writing so many words in only one sitting, but it was as if it had all come pouring out of her, and she couldn’t stop it. She’d written without even doing much thinking, and it had felt quite natural.

  She turned back to the first page, preparing to read the entire thing, but the phone rang. She looked at the Caller ID screen and saw the words “Davis, Kyle.”

  She quickly picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  “Not much. What’s up with you?”

  “I just finished dinner, and now I’m getting ready to read my science chapters. After that, I have to write my English paper.”

  “I have an English paper to do, too.”

  “I figured you did. When I met you outside of your classroom earlier, I forgot to tell you that I have Mrs. Peterson, too. So I guess she’s giving both her seventh- and eighth-grade classes the same assignment for tonight.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “Mrs. Peterson is one of my favorites.”

  “I like her, too. A lot.”

  “So, have you written anything yet?”

  “I wrote some stuff just before you called, but that’s not what I’m going to turn in.”

  “Oh.”

  There was silence after that, but finally Jillian said, “So, is your dad’s name Kyle, too?”

  “Actually, it is. Why do you ask?”

  “Because I saw it on our Caller ID screen.”

  “Oh. Yeah, he’s Kyle Sr., and I’m Kyle Jr.”

  “Oh.”

  Silence again.

  Kyle sure didn’t sound as cool as he did when they were at school, and Jillian was a little surprised by that. He seemed almost nervous. More nervous than she was.

  “So, you know I like you, don’t you?” Kyle asked.

  “Yeah…I guess.”

  “I liked you from the first day I saw you, even before that day Marcus and all of us came over to your lunch table.”

  “I like you, too,” she said without planning to.

  “I could tell right away that you weren’t as silly as a lot of the other seventh-grade girls and even some of the eighth-grade ones, and I like that.”

  Jillian smiled.

  “And I can also tell that you’re nothing like your girl, Nikki.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you weren’t trying to be all over some guy who only cares about one thing. And it’s not like he only wants to do it with just her. Marcus has sex all the time, but he has pretty much no respect at all for girls that come after him the way Nikki is.”

  Jillian didn’t like what she was hearing, although she’d tried her best to make Nikki leave that boy alone. “I’ve already tried talking to her about Marcus.”

  “And that’s basically all you can do. But still, she needs to chill and stop trying to act so grown all the time.”

  Jillian wanted to agree with him, but she would never badmouth her best friend. She would never tell him the truth. That Nikki had been obsessed with boys for as long as she could remember.

  “So, are you able to have company?” he asked.

  “Yes, but not boys. Sorry.”

  “Sorry about what?”

  “Not being able to have you over.”

  Kyle laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Well, I guess because I don’t know that many parents around here who will let their twelve-year-old daughters have boys at their house, anyway. I was just asking, but I already assumed what your answer would be.”

  “Oh.”

  “We can just hang at school and talk on the phone just like we’re doing now.”

  “And you’re okay with that?”

  “Yeah. Definitely. But hey, I’d better go so I can get my homework finished.”

  “Okay.”

  “But I’ll see you tomorrow, though.”

  “See ya then. Bye.”

  Jillian hung up the phone and took a deep breath. She really did like him, and he seemed so much nicer than Marcus. She couldn’t wait to see him and talk to him again.

  Next, she opened her notebook back up and began reading what she’d written.

  What has been happening to me for the last five years should never happen to any child. Not ever. Not in a million lifetimes. Not even to the most terrible child on earth.

  Then to think that the first time my father molested me was the very day Layla was born. Daddy and I had come home from the hospital that evening and as soon as I’d changed into my pajamas, he’d come into my room and asked me if I’d said my prayers. Then he told me how special I was and that because he now had two daughters, it was very important for him to prove to me that he would never love me any less than he always had. He showed me by kissing me the way I’d seen him kissing Mom. I remember how I had backed away from him immediately, pulled the covers up to my neck as tightly as I could, and told him I wanted to go to sleep. Still, though, he pulled the covers away from me and insisted that there was nothing wrong with fathers and daughters showing their true love for each other and that fathers and daughters did this all the time. Again, I pulled the covers back up to my neck, but this time he told me how God punishes all children who don’t do what their parents tell them and that God always punished them in a very harsh way. He asked me if I wanted God to be angry with me, if I wanted him to tell Mom that I had disobeyed him, or if I wanted him to leave Mom, Layla, and me all alone. Of course, I quickly said no and the next thing I knew, he was reminding me about that commandment in the Bible—the one about honoring thy father and mother—and because I didn’t want God to be mad at me, I didn’t want to go to hell, and I didn’t want
Mom to have to take care of Layla and me all by herself, I gave up trying to fight him. I gave up, and Daddy slid his hand inside my pink Dora the Explorer cotton panties and promised me that all he was doing was tickling me.

  Then to think how happy I’d been to finally have a father. I was so excited. But now I know that when some adults say be careful what you wish for, they are right. I wished and prayed for a father all the time, but had I known the kind of father I was going to end up with, I would have stopped wishing and praying long before my mom met him. It is interesting how some people can appear to be the nicest, quietest, most caring people on the outside, but behind closed doors they are the most evil people you ever want to meet. They are a child’s worst nightmare, and in most cases, no one ever figures them out. No one ever suspects that some nice, quiet men who go to church every single Sunday morning and every Wednesday night and who have good-paying jobs are touching their daughters in places they shouldn’t. No one would ever believe that men like my father would even dream of forcing their nasty dingalings down their daughter’s throat and then telling her it’s no different than placing a piece of candy in her mouth. No one would believe that men like my father would tongue kiss their own daughter in her bedroom and then do the same thing with his wife when she gets home from work an hour later.

  Over the next few minutes, Jillian continued reading until she’d read the last word and then fought back loads of tears. She’d been well aware of all that had been happening to her since second grade, but it hadn’t been until this evening that it had become so much more of a wretched reality. She was only twelve years old, for God’s sake, so what was her father thinking? What was it that had drawn him to her in the first place? What in the world was making him want to do such sinful and shameful things? To a child who was only in seventh grade?

  Jillian closed her notebook, the one she would now have to find a good hiding spot for, wiped her face with both hands, and asked God to please deliver her from this craziness. She begged Him to fix whatever was wrong with her father so that from this moment on, he would no longer come into her room when her mother wasn’t home, making her do things she didn’t want to do. She prayed that from this day forth, she would finally be able to live a happy and very normal life—the kind of life she could be proud of and extremely thankful for.