The first thing that alerted me to Jerome's return was the sound of the front door upstairs slamming. I tugged on the leather strap around my neck for the millionth time. It didn't budge an inch.
Above me the lights came on illuminating the room and Jerome's heavy steps banged down the stairs. He carried bottles full of water and bags containing fast food.
“The dark made your attitude any better?” He asked with a slight hint of spite that only someone who knew him for as long as I had would have caught. There was nothing to read in his expression. To someone else watching he might as well have been asking for the time.
I crossed my arms in silence and avoided his gaze. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of a reply.
He shifted gears straight into anger. “Well fuck you then! You ain't getting nothing to eat if you ain't gonna talk... To think I got you something good... You going to play me like that? Shit, you lucky I don't beat you straight into next week.”
Play you? It seemed unbelievable how he could be this messed up. His world was upside down.
I lay into him frustrated. “Beat me straight? Look at this, you animal. Look what you've done!” Frantically I rubbed my face, making sure to get off all the thick foundation that still coated my black and blue eye. Each wipe agonized my swollen skin.
“Nah.” His eyes turned unable to see his handiwork.
“Look. Look at me! Look what you've done to me. This is the kind of man you are! Giving his woman a cheap shot for not agreeing to fuck other people! You know how fucked up that is? Yeah... You've been treated terribly!”
Jerome's eyes didn't keep with mine. He didn't want to look and face up to the reality of what he had done. Before me he was more a scared little boy than the so called tough man who punched me. He paced up and down the room before finally picking up a folding chair from the side of the basement and taking a seat. Minutes passed as he tapped his foot on the floor in thought. He took long and drawn out breaths from his smoke.
With each passing second the lack of response infuriated me. “Well? Come on tough man. What have you got to say?”
He leaned forward and spoke into his hands. “I... I had to...”
“You had to?” My blood boiled while I tugged at the chain desperate to get at him. “You hit me and left me lying. Without any feeling. Without any remorse. Without a care in the goddamn world. You had to? Say that again. I fucking dare you.”
“Yeah,” he spoke up, louder this time. “I had to. I ain't having a woman tell me no – to anything. What would I be if I did that?”
“What's going on in your head you sick murdering psycho? Was asking me that some kind of fucking test? We were together for seven years. What games are you playing?”
“I ain't no punk ass nigga. This is how you've got to do it. How I have a relationship.”
I sighed disbelieving. “Are you that fucked up?”
He sunk back into his hands. His muted words crept over to me, “I don't want you to leave me... What you said about us being through... I don't want it.”
“Too bad.” I stood incredulous. “Ignoring what you did to that poor cop – snuffing him out like an ant... Ignoring what you've done in bringing me here... I've been your punchbag for... too long now. Too many painful years to count. Listen... Jerome. Not any longer. I don't care what your mind has planned, bring it on! At this point it doesn't matter. I don't care about you. What we had for a relationship. I don't even care about what you're going to do to me... We're done. And nothing will ever change that.”
Jerome's eyes welled with tears. “Cassie... Don't act like that... You're my woman... Please don't leave. We good together...”
Once, much earlier in our relationship, he had got like this. Begging and pleading for me to forgive him and stay after the first time he hit me.
I remember it like it was yesterday. It was our first major argument about a year in. I caught him texting a girl on his phone behind my back. He couldn't understand why I would be so upset. It was almost like he demanded total faithfulness from me, yet couldn't dream of holding himself to the same standards.
Then, I still had enough will power to tell him to shove the relationship up his ass. The second the words came out of my mouth he hit me. Full force and straight to the chin. His reasons? That I dare to pick his beeping phone up while he was in the bathroom.
I came to with him begging me on the verge of tears to take him back. He seemed so sorry. So honest. So authentic.
'It was a one off, baby child. I'm not like that. I've never been like that. I'm in a crazy head space right now. You mean everything to me. My life and my world. I'll never do that again.'
I'm sorry to say that I believed him.
Looking back on the time we spent together since, I've often thought he punished me for making him apologize. In his mind he viewed it as showing weakness. Being a 'punk ass nigga', as he would say. I figured he lost power then and with it his ego took a body blow. From that day forward he was always too excessive in trying to break the fight from me. Reacting with violence quickly at any sign of dissent. Of course, now is different. I didn't fear him any longer. He held no power over me.
“Me and you are done!” I hissed at him like a banshee. “Think you can scare me by bringing me here? Think you can change my mind? Think again! I'm not worried at all... For all I care you could kill me right now! Death would be better than listening to your threats! All that matters is I can die happy knowing that you mean nothing to me.”
He pounced to his feet and tossed the chair across the room towards me. “Bitch! How dare you talk to me this way? I'm your fucking man. I picked you up from from that strip club and have given you all you got. You'd be worthless! You would be nothing without me! Can't you see that?”
“With you Jerome... I am nothing.”
He stood in front of me fixed to the spot. He breathed heavy with each of his fists gripping and releasing. He was livid. Unstable. On a knife edge and ready to slash out.
I sighed, resigned to what fate may bring, and sat down on the floor as calm as any Buddhist monk. “Come on... If you're going to do something, do it... There's no point in drawing it out.”
His gaze fell and he said something that wasn't audible.
“What's that? I can't hear you.”
“I'm... I'm in the right.” His bottom lip trembled. “Why-why couldn't you just listen?”
“Because... you're a fucked up low life who controlled me for so many years with fear.”
He didn't like what he heard.
Immediately he stormed at me and grabbed a handful of my hair pulling me upright. “What the fuck you call me? Low life? I ain't some thug. I'm more than that.”
“Get the fuck off me!” I raged and shoved him away from me. One show of force was all it took to make him back down.
“Cassie... I'm---”
“I don't care! Jerome, you're nothing but a bully. A messed up bully who can't even see what he's doing... Can't you see how stupid you're acting? One minute crying for forgiveness. The next lashing out because I call you a low life and not a somebody?”
He went from heartache to anger in a flash, and now he was back to heartache without understanding a word I said.
Jerome collapsed to the floor on his knees and appealed once again, “Why couldn't you just be the way I wanted you to be? We have it good, me and you. You're my woman. The world's treated me bad all these years, but we on the up.”
“Don't come near me!”
He pulled the envelope full of the motorcycle club's cash out of his back pocket and flicked it through his fingers for my benefit. “Look-look how much we got. We can start fresh with this. You and me. There's enough to move out somewhere new.”
“No... Nothing you say can change my mind... I don't care about the money. It's not about money or anything else. It's about you. Nothing can make me forget the past we've been through. What you've done... Even when you have a stack of Boyd's thousands.”
; Boyd...
The word made him livid. The crocodile tears that flowed from his manipulative eyes disappeared and were replaced with fury.
“Bitch! Bitch!” He jumped to his feet biting and lunged at me. He screamed and wrapped both hands around my neck. “You worthless fucking whore!”
But I didn't cower. The fight was on.
I dug my nails into his tense arms and kicked out at his shins possessed with the urgency of survival. I wrestled struggling to get free doing all I could, but, in the end, I was no match for him. For all I gave, for all I scratched, his hands wrapped harder and harder. There seemed to be no limit to his strength. Quickly my vision turned fuzzy and pinpointed. The world and everything in it became distant...
Jerome choked me out.
Only when the ringing in my ears started and he began smacking the side of my cheek while I lay against the wall did I realize.
“Wake up! Wake up!” His words were muffled to the sound filling my ears. “I want you to hear this bitch! I need you to hear this! You going to give me that shit again, bitch? You got more than that coming up!”
He meant it. All pretense of apology disappeared. The only thing left in his mind was the need to punish.
The feel of his grasp lingered on my throat. I coughed and spat blood across the floor. Each wretch sending a painful shiver down my half-closed airwaves.
“Now listen up, whore!” He pressed his knee hard down across my breasts and locked me down. “I ain't getting through to you. I understand that. Now what I'm going to do is leave you here. Leave you with this food. Your favorite...”
I swiped out in vain trying to knock away the cold fries he poured over my face. He emptied the bag with obvious enjoyment.
“...I'll give you some time to think about what you've done. And I goddamn hope your stupid ass wises up and starts listening to sense I preach. Next time I ain't going to be so forgiving. I can assure you of that!”
I shook the fries from my hair while struggling to lift myself upright.
“There's a burger there too, but I'll leave that for you to unwrap.” He burst into laughter and the sound of his cackling followed him towards the stairs and out of the basement.
Coughs may have punctuated every word, but I screamed in defiance at his fleeing form. “You talk shit, but I don't think you've got the balls to do anything. Jerome - do it now you pussy fuck! Do it now! You're not scaring me for any longer!”
Inflamed, he rushed back down. “I ain't doing nothing! And let me tell you what, if I can't get you back bitch! I'm gonna make you suffer. You're going to hate every goddamn second of your shitty excuse for a life! But not now... I'm leaving your ass here while I go to the city with my money and my coke. I'm gonna have some me time for a few days. When you're eating from the stone cold dollar menu on the floor, I'll be partying! You better think about how you're going to survive on what I've left for you... Now enjoy watching my black ass leave you in this mother fucking dungeon!”
The grin on that smug asshole's face cannot be described. He might have done a one-eighty and walked right back up those stairs, but his pleased leer seared into my memory and still didn't disappear when he switched off the lights and slammed the door.
The hatred it set off within me blotted out everything else...
~ Chapter Seventeen ~
Our last full day together...
It was late on a Saturday. Well, late for when you're that age.
All of us had been playing out all day, though the grounding my mom and dad gave me the week prior forced me to head back for the ridiculously early hour of six. If you could have seen my face that day I'm sure it would have been a picture of grumpiness and frustration. I couldn't get over how everyone was still playing out while I was already in bed. To make it worse, they were having a special night at Boyd's watching horror movies. Mr Vendrell was often away on business, they kind – as an outlaw - he didn't exactly go into, and without a mother around Boyd's house was often free. Everyone was there tonight watching the scariest Boyd's cable could offer. He told me to climb down from my window and join them once it got dark, but I didn't have the nerve. How my parents would react if they found out was scarier than any horror movie.
At close to eleven I was still tossing and turning in bed. Part of my grounding was being tucked in at seven-thirty every night after dinner. I wasn't used to going to bed that early and getting to sleep was next to impossible. I was around thirteen and it felt like an attack on my growing maturity.
Though the second I did start to fall asleep a pattering against the window of my bedroom woke me up. Stones against the glass. It was Boyd's calling card.
I rushed from bed in my long nightshirt and carefully opened the window as quietly as I could. “Boyd?” I whispered down. “Boyd?”
My room was at the side of the house with nothing but trees to the side and the neighbors place in the distance. The lamps from the street didn't quite reach this far and all I could see was darkness. There wasn't any reply down below and I quickly began thinking that the whole thing had been a half-waking dream.
“Boyd?” I whispered down once again slightly louder and tried my best to peer down. The night was cool and chilling me to my bones.
“Boo!” A voice sounded to my left.
I yelped and fell to the floor. Jumping back up, Boyd was sitting in the tree by my window laughing his head off. I grabbed his striped t-shirt and half-pulled him through the window. With my blood pumping, I scolded him in low tones. “God! You nearly gave me a heart attack! What do you think you're doing hiding by my window?”
He was bent over, laughing so hard that he looked like her was on the verge of tears.
“Come on!” I punched him in his shoulder.
“I... I couldn't help it. I knew how scared you'd be.”
“You evil...” I playfully slapped him on his shoulder until he calmed down.
“OK. OK! I'm sorry... Forgive me?”
I sat back down on the bed. “You'll have to do a lot to make up for that.”
He reached into his jeans and pulled out a plastic bag. “Popcorn?”
I snatched it from his hand. “Is it salted?”
“Yeah, only salt. I know how you can't stand butter on it.” Boyd sat down next to me.
“Have fun tonight?”
“Yeah. We watched some old movie called I'm a Teenage Caveman, or something. It was about a neanderthal chasing up a school. You would have liked it.”
I swallowed a huge mouthful of corn, more than I could handle. “I bet Anita freaked.”
He grinned. “She did. She hid behind the couch from the start. She wasn't in a good mood.”
“Why?” I kept eating.
“Shaun says Kenny asked her out.”
“What's wrong with that?”
“She said he was horrible and she wouldn't be seen with him if they were the last two on Earth. He's too fat for her apparently.”
“That's cruel. Poor Kenny. He doesn't deserve that.”
He nodded, “She told him that before when they were coming to my place. I guess it explains why he sat there saying nothing all night.”
“He OK?”
“Yeah, Shaun and me talked with him when everyone else left. Told him he can do better.”
“He can. She---”
Boyd stopped me mid-sentence by placing a finger across my lips. His furrowed brow told me something was up.
He's coming! He mouthed silently to me before ducking down out of sight beside my bed.
I sat there confused, still unsure of what was going on, until my door creaked open.
My dad stood in the hall wearing only a pair of boxer shorts. “Still awake, honey?”
I cleared my throat, nervous that he would recognize that Boyd was hiding just feet from him. My parents were great, but they would have killed me if they discovered I had boys in the house. That was a huge no-no for them.
I gulped, then answered, “Yeah. You know how it is. Can't get to s
leep?”
“At your age?” Dad looked about the room, “You eating?”
He couldn't see anything except me. The only light on was my small bedside one and it didn't provide much light. Of course, I had made the error of forgetting about the open bag of popcorn in my lap. I glanced to the floor where Boyd's grinning face looked up at me. He was half tucked under the sheets.
“Yeah... I know you don't like me eating up here, but I stole some popcorn from the kitchen after dinner as I was still hungry.”
“I know what you mean, kid. Mom's vegetarian meat loaf weren't the best. Salted?”
I pushed my hand down the side of the bed and forced Boyd's head under while dad walked in. “You... You want some?”
“You know it. Salted's my favorite.” He reached over and took a large handful. My old man was a big man with a big appetite to go with it. In one grab he devoured nearly the whole bag. “That hit the spot.”
“Yeah... You off to bed now?”
“Yeah. Your mom will kill me if she doesn't get her beauty sleep.” He leaned over and kissed me on the head. “Night, kiddo. Remember to close that window. I don't want you getting a chill. Love you.”
“I will. Love you too dad.”
I watched while he left my room and closed the door. Me or Boyd didn't dare move again until the door to my parent's bedroom shut.
Boyd ducked up, “Wow I can't believe we got away with it.”
“Tell me about it. I've never had goosebumps this big. Feel.” I took his hand and placed it on my forearm.
He ran his fingers up and own my arm, “Huge. They almost feel like mosquito bites.”
“Hey!” I punched him in the shoulder again. “They are not!”
“C'mon Cassie – little Princess Cassie – you know I didn't mean it like that.”
We stopped talking and each stuffed our faces with the popcorn.
Boyd and me were spending a lot of time away from the others recently. We would seek out any moment where it was only the two of us, with him regularly inviting me over or him coming over here. It wasn't intentional or anything, it just happened. At thirteen I doubt either one of us could have vocalized what we were feeling, but the puppy love was there and already growing. I suppose that if he hadn't have left only days after it would have blossomed into something, like these things do. But it didn't. And the past is the past.
FOUND: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel Page 12