by Tiya Rayne
I followed his directions as I waited at the patio door for him to reappear. When he finally did, I cried out. Jackson was covered in blood, but I already knew it wasn’t his blood. It belonged to the black dog that was in his arms.
I slid the door open for him as he carried her limp body into the house and into the living room. He didn’t care about the blood he was dripping on his floors, all he cared about was the dog in his arms.
“Is she breathing? Do I need to get towels? Shouldn’t we take her to the hospital?” I was firing off questions like a mad woman.
Jackson kneeled on the floor before his fireplace and placed Lady’s body down on the ground before him.
“Jackson don’t just stand there let’s take her to the hospital.” I was crying.
He shook his head, his shoulders slumped.
“It’s too late.” Those simple words stole my breath.
I fell to my knees at his side. We both stared down at Lady’s still form. Jackson’s body shook as he broke down beside me. I wrapped my arms around him and he dropped his head on my shoulder and cried.
After we called the police to report the incident, we buried Lady under a small tree in Jackson’s backyard. She was wrapped in her favorite red blanket. By the time we went to sleep, it was eight am.
TWENTY-FOUR
I stood in my bathrobe rocking little Charlie to sleep. He was three months old today. It was his first time getting to spend the night with me. I was supposed to get all three kids, but Devin wanted to keep the girls to spend alone time with them.
It took eight in a half weeks to fix my house. The holes were patched, the walls repainted and the furniture and front door was replaced. Jackson even saw to upgrading my security system along with adding cameras and motions lights around my house. I was finally home and I felt safe again.
I placed little Charlie into the crib I had redone for him. I always kept things at my house for my godchildren when they were babies so that Devin wouldn’t have to haul their stuff over when I kept them.
I turned around and Jackson was leaning against the door frame of the bedroom watching me closely. A smile on his face.
I loved to see that smile. It was even better now since I didn’t get to see it often. Not since Lady. Her death took a toll on Jackson, he tried to hide it from me, but I noticed it. For a moment I feared he was going to realize I was too much trouble and drop me. The police hadn’t been able to prove Cliff was behind Lady’s death but who else would do it. Thankfully, since Lady’s death, Cliff has gone silent again. I prayed to whatever higher being there was, that Cliff had went back to whatever hell he came from.
Even Eli had said it’s been harder than he planned it to be to get information on him. He said that Cliff’s family wasn’t talking to anyone.
I placed my finger to my lips and he smiled as I tip-toed out. I shut the door behind me.
“He’s down like a light.” I joked.
Jackson just stared at me with that amazed look on his face.
“What?”
“You’re incredible.” Jackson said as we headed into my bedroom.
I checked the camera on the baby monitor to make sure little man was still ok.
“You’ve cleaned up baby vomit, changed diapers, and even dodged a very close call with a trail of piss.” I laugh at the reminder of little Charlie taking a shot at me earlier.
Jackson walked up behind me and wrapped his arms around me placing a kiss to the back of my neck. “You’ll make an incredible mother one day.”
My body tensed tighter than a guitar string. I slipped from Jackson’s arms and headed into the bathroom.
“What do you want for dinner tonight?” I called back into the bedroom where I left him. “I could really go for Thai.”
Jackson appeared in the doorway of my bathroom. He had that look in his eyes, the one he got when he was thinking over something.
“Char, why’ve you never had kids?”
I continued to dig through my bathroom drawers in search of nothing in particular. I was thankful my back was to him. I didn’t want Jackson to see how his question affected me.
“I’m about my business, Jackson. I don’t have time for kids.” I said forcing a laugh.
“Come on, Char! You spend all your free time with your god children and little cousins. You have time. Plus, I know it had nothing to do with needing a man, because I’ve met at least two of them that seemed more than willing.” He laughed behind me before continuing on with his line of questioning. “So what is it? Do you not want kids?”
I turned to face Jackson, my irritation growing. “Why all these damn questions?”
Jackson watched me closely. Those prying eyes reading me. I hated how he was looking at me, like he knew what I was hiding. This wasn’t the first time Jackson had started to ask questions that I didn’t want to answer. Every now and again he would pry into my past.
I placed a smile on my face and tilted my head to the side. I stepped up to him placing a hand on his chest.
“How about, we not worry about having kids, and instead we practice the act of making them? I haven’t had your dick in my mouth since this morning before little Charlie woke up.” I reached for the waist of Jackson’s pajama bottoms. He stepped back dodging my touch, glaring down at me.
“Why is that every time I mention kids, you change the subject? What aren’t you telling me, Charlice?”
I threw my hands up and walked around him to the bedroom. With my back to him, I said. “Nothing.”
I lied down across my bed and spread my legs, allowing him to see the sexy red thongs I was wearing tonight.
He shook his head. “I’m not some high school kid that you can distract with pussy, Char. Answer my question.”
I rolled my eyes, fully done with this conversation. “This is bullshit! Why are we even talking about kids…..Where are you going?” I asked when Jackson started grabbing his pants off the chair in my bedroom in a fury.
“I told you from day one I wasn’t going to play your fuck boy.”
“You’re not.”
“I want a relationship with you.”
“What the fuck do you think we’ve been doing for seven months?”
Jackson stopped his rushed dressing to turn and glare at me.
“We!” He shouted, before bringing his voice back down. “What we’ve been doing? I’ve been sharing everything with you, from my fucked up past to all my time. I’ve been opening up to you so you could get to know me and hopefully fall in love with me. But you’ve been peddling out information like it’s the last box of candy on Halloween. If your fucking life story was water and I was a plant I’d be dead from drought. Every time I try to get to know you, or take our relationship to the next level you pull back or throw your pussy at me. I’ve done everything to prove that I want to be with you. I love you, Char.”
I was startled at the words. I never thought I would care to hear those words come out of anyone’s mouth ever again, but here they were and I wasn’t sure how I felt about them.
Jackson shook his head. “I can’t do this anymore. This one step forward two steps back dance is tiring. After all the shit we’ve been through, you’re still keeping secrets. If you can’t answer one simple personal question then…” he threw his hands up and let them fall back at his side.
“Oh so you’re going to leave?” I said climbing off the bed to stand in front of him. “All that bullshit about fighting for me and I’ll wait for your heart, Char. That’s all bullshit now?”
“I promised you I’d fight as long as the end goal was your heart, but I don’t think you want that. I think you enjoy watching me pour my heart out to you while you give me nothing.”
“Well fuck you, Jackson! Sorry I’m not moving fast enough for you now. You know what? Just get out. I should have never let your pasty white ass in my life in the first place.”
Jackson stared at me. I could see the anger in his eyes, but it was what I didn’t see that bothered
me. There was no hurt or sign of relenting. My heart stuttered and started to beat faster. Jackson turned his back to me for a moment and I watched him, waiting for him to tell me to knock it off, or to get my ass back in the bed because he and I were not done, but instead he grabbed his shirt off the back of the chair and pulled it on.
“Fine! You win.” He grabbed his shoes off the floor and walked out of my room.
My feet were glued to my bedroom floor for a second. Then it hit me. My anger built up.
“Fine!” I shouted following him out of the bedroom not thinking about my godson sleeping in the next room. “And don’t even think of crawling your ass back to me.” I followed him down the steps shouting at his back. “We both know you will never be able to stay away from this pussy. You will be right back at my door after you realize your homely little ex and her dry pussy can’t do shit for you. So take your ass own, Jackson. I….don’t…..need….you.”
The more I shouted the less he reacted. When he got to the bottom step he stopped just long enough to put on his shoes. I continued to yell hurtful words at him.
“This is why I don’t fuck with white men. As soon as you leave I’m going to call up a fine brother to come over here and….”
Jackson spun around so fast I had to take a step back. He marched over to me with a look of pure rage. I continued to keep my ground. I’d never show him or any damn man weakness. He stood in front of me, nostrils flaring, and that vein in his neck throbbing. For a moment he just stood there, then he held out his hands. When I looked down, my spare key was in his palm. I didn’t take the key, I just stared at it, my heart beating rapidly in my chest as if it had sprouted wings and ready to fly off. Jackson flipped his hand over and the key fell to the ground at my feet with a clunk. When he turned and walked away, a feeling came over me. One I haven’t experienced since I was sixteen. I started to breathe heavily, my heart raced. The feeling of someone pressing on my chest hit me, followed by that feeling of not being able to breathe. My eyes watered as I tried to fight to gain control.
“Please!” I gasped out. “Please don’t leave me, Jackson. Please don’t go.”
Jackson pivoted around on his heels. I clutched a hand to my chest as my panic attack took full control over me. I felt his strong arms wrap around me and lift me off my feet.
“What’s wrong, Char? Baby, tell me what’s wrong.”
The slow leak tears turned into whole body shaking sobs.
I buried my face in Jackson’s neck.
“Please don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.” I kept repeating the sentence over and over.
Jackson held me close to his chest as he carried me back up the stairs to my bedroom. The closer we get to my room the easier my breathing became and the less my body shook. Jackson sat on the bed with me in his lap.
“You have to give me something, Char. I can’t keep doing this with you.”
“You won’t want me when you find out the truth.” I mumbled the words against his flesh, still burying my face into his neck.
“Look at me.” He demanded.
I pulled away from him and slowly looked into those calming eyes.
“There is nothing you could tell me about you that will make me not want you.”
He was lying. It’s ok, he didn’t realize he was lying. He believed that what he said was true, but I knew that he wouldn’t stay once he heard my story.
I climb out of his lap and pace the floor in front of him. I’ve only admitted this truth to one person, and that was Sean. But even he didn’t know everything. He didn’t know all that I was about to tell Jackson.
“I don’t have kids, because I can’t have them.”
Jackson climbed to his feet to reach for me, but I stepped away. I needed to tell him all of this before I changed my mind. Before I lost my courage.
“I can’t have kids, because when I was sixteen, I had a partial hysterectomy. A uterine rupture caused by trauma. The doctor had to take my uterus in order to save my life. I still have my cervix and ovaries, but no place to carry a baby.”
“Charli, I’m so sorry.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me into him.
I went easily, allowing him to hold me tight. We stayed like that for a moment. Allowing my truth to penetrate. This was a turning point in our relationship. It could truly make or break us.
“What caused the trauma?”
This was the question I wished he didn’t ask. The question that I dreaded, the one that was going to change how he felt about me. I stepped away from his arms and took a seat in the chair across from him.
“It was probably the wire hangers I had shoved up there a few times.”
Jackson looked as confused as I figured he would be. “Why would someone do that to you?”
I sighed and rubbed my hands through my hair pushing it out of my face. “Because doctors ask a lot of questions when you bring your eleven year old in for an abortion.” I kept my eyes on the wall as I explained to Jackson just how fucked up I was and why I would never get the opportunity to be a mother.
“I didn’t know I was pregnant that first time. I just remember being sick one day at school. The nurse called my mother and explained that I wasn’t feeling well. Nita had already figured it out. She didn’t even panic. She picked me up from school around noon and by the time the school bus dropped off Eli, I wasn’t pregnant anymore. She told me that she was helping me. She said that when she got pregnant with me, Grams and Papa wouldn’t let her get an abortion, but she was going to help me. I remember lying in the back seat of her car thinking, why help me now. If she really wanted to help, she would make him stop. She wouldn’t leave the house every time he came over. And when I cried and begged her to stay and help me, she wouldn’t walk away.
When I turned fourteen, I got pregnant again. This time I discovered it first. I cried for days after I realized what was wrong. I was too afraid to tell Nita. I hurt for so long after that first abortion. I knew I didn’t want to keep his baby, but I just didn’t want to go through that pain. This time, after it was done, I remember him and her arguing in the living room. She told him that if he was going to keep getting me pregnant, he was going to have to pay her more because she couldn’t afford all these abortions. Can you believe that? She didn’t ask him to stop, she just didn’t want to have to pay for his fuck ups.”
I stopped for a minute allowing that to set. My mother didn’t care that I was being raped and molested, she just didn’t want to use her money to clean up the mess.
“I was sixteen the last time it happened. I had made up in my mind that I was done. I wasn’t going back to that house and letting that woman torture me. If I was going to be a single mother living on the streets, then that’s what I was going to do, but I refused to go through that procedure again. I was probably about five months pregnant before he discovered my secret. He was pissed, like he had any right to be. I remember he smacked me so hard that day my lip started bleeding. He blamed me for trying to ruin him, said that he loved me and would never give me up. He always talked about how much he loved me. That he did what he did because he was in love with me. He even told Nita that we were in love with each other. I was too young to know what love was, but I knew that wasn’t what I felt for him.
That day, he called Nita and she dragged me to that woman again. I cried and screamed. I even promised them that I wouldn’t tell anyone how I got pregnant if she let me keep it. I just didn’t want to go through it again. But Nita wouldn’t hear of it. I knew immediately afterwards something had gone terribly wrong. I was nearly doubled over in pain, I couldn’t even stand up straight. Blood was everywhere, it just wouldn’t stop. The pain had gotten so bad that I started vomiting and eventually I blacked out. I still don’t know what made Nita take me to the hospital. I figured she would have let me died and finally been done with me. When I woke up, doctors told me that I almost died, and that the only way to save my life was to take my uterus.
Like a lot of little girls, I had dreamed of
being a mommy, Jackson. I’d picked out names and features I’d hoped they would have. I was convinced that I would have three, all boys. At sixteen years old those childhood dreams were ripped away from me. When I finally left the hospital, I went to stay with my Grandparents. Nita and I have not spoken since the day she sat beside my hospital bed as the doctor told me that I would never be able to carry my own child.”
The room was quiet after my confession. The warm tears continued to slide down my face. My awful secret was out. No one knew my secret, no one but the people involved. I wanted to take this dirty truth to the grave, but here I was, telling Jackson. I was allowing him into the darkest part of me. The part that I covered up with a fake smile and a tough exterior.
I turned to him and his eyes were bloodshot. His hands were fisted on his knees and he looked like he was about to explode.
“You told me on that first coffee date that your mother loved men.”
I should be shocked he remembered that. We haven’t talked about my mother since that coffee date six months ago. But this was Jackson, he pays attention to everything, especially when it’s about me.
“Was it one her men that hurt you?”
“It was a long…..”
“Don’t.” One simple word spoken with so much authority, gave me no option of denying him.
“No, it wasn’t a boyfriend. Nita would never allow that. She was stingy and would never share her men. My story is a little more fucked up.”
I took a deep breath, allowing a moment to build up enough strength to say a name that still haunts me. The mention of it still made me nervous and gave me nightmares.
“It was my uncle Martin.”
I could almost hear the ticking in Jackson’s jaw as he bit down so hard I was sure his teeth were cracking. The room was silent. I wasn’t sure if Jackson was just processing this, or trying to come up with the best exit speech. I wouldn’t blame him. This was a lot of shit to deal with. I was raped by my uncle from the age of six to sixteen. I had a crazy ex-lover stalking me and torturing Jackson, and to make matters worse, I couldn’t even give him kids. Any normal man would run for the hills. He would pack up his shit and get the hell out of town. I wasn’t worth a relationship.