First Love

by Tiya Rayne

  “Thank you, Pop! I think I will stay for dinner.”

  Tears fall from my mom’s eyes and my father smiles offering me a seat in his blue recliner.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I danced to the rap song playing on my phone, looking down at the picture I just took with my Nikon. I snap another picture of Peyton chasing her little cousin Keaton, while ten month old Kendric spun in circles trying to keep up with them. All three kids were laughing and giggling. I couldn’t resist taking pictures.

  I got back from Luke’s room about 4 o’clock this morning. Thank God everyone was still sleep. I finally crawled out of bed at noon after Kyra and the kids got back from the park. My body was tingling with the best type of soreness. Luke and I spent most of the night enjoying each other’s body. I lost count of the orgasms I had. Shortly after the first time, I awoke to Luke’s head buried between my legs. Luke always ate my pussy like it was his favorite meal, last night was no different. I cried out as he sucked my clit into his mouth. He then crawled up my trembling body and slid into me so deep my eyes crossed. That night was all about slow and deep.

  “You’ve been in a good mood since you woke up this morning, I need whatever you had last night.” My brother’s voice says from behind me.

  I turn around and face him with a bright smile.

  “Trust me, you wouldn’t like it.” I giggle at my own joke.

  I pull my phone out of my pocket and turn the music off. When I look back up, Langston is staring at me.

  “What?”

  He shakes his head. “I think this is the first time I’m actually seeing my sister.”

  I look down at myself. Cut off shorts, a simple black t-shirt with the words Flawless across the chest and flip flops. Nothing that different from what I’ve worn before.

  “I’ve had this outfit on before.” I comment.

  “No, it’s not what you’re wearing.” He shakes his head. “You’re laughing, making jokes, taking pictures.” He nods to the camera in my hands. “This is the Zora that I remember. I didn’t know how much I missed her until just now.”

  I guess I can understand what he means. I’ve been so guarded the moment I stepped back in South Carolina. Always waiting for someone to say anything out of the way to Peyton, that I haven’t allowed my family to get close to me. I can admit that.

  “I’m still me, Langston. Life has just found a way to pick me up and sit me on my ass.” I joke.

  Langston laughs. “Mama always said it would one day.” We both laugh then turn towards the sound of Peyton’s laughter. She’s fallen to the ground and both cousins are lying on top of her trying to tickle her.

  “I don’t know if anyone has told you, but you truly have done an amazing job raising her. She’s a great kid, sis.”

  His words clog my throat. If I never got another compliment in my life, this one is the greatest one that can be given. My biggest fear in my plans to run was that I would find some kind of way to mess up my child’s life. I still struggle with that fear. The fear that she will hate me or resent me for the life I chose for her. I did all I could to be perfect for Peyton. I know I never will be. Langston giving me that one compliment was all I ever wanted to hear.

  “Thank you!” I say turning to him.

  I know he can see the sincerity in my eyes as they water with unshed tears.

  Langston wraps his arms around me and pulls me into a tight hug. We stay like that for a moment, enjoying each other’s warmth and familiarity. Langston was my first protector. Even during those troubled times, he never understood my relationship with Luke and didn’t agree with it, but he still wanted nothing to happen to me. The one time he was home from school, I came home crying after being jumped in the school bathroom. He took one look at my messed up hair, scratched face, torn clothes and busted lip, and went through the roof. He was ready to go to my school and fight everyone.

  Langston pulls away from our embrace and looks down at me.

  “Since I took the entire day off to hang with my baby sister, how about we have a little fun.”

  “Sounds great!” And for the first time, it really did sound good. Maybe Lang was right, I was the old Zora today. “What did you have in mind?”

  He gives me a sneaky smile that has me hesitating. What did my brother have planned?

  ******

  The sound of laughter breaks out through the living room again. Kyra is leaning over in her seat clutching her stomach as she laughs.

  “No, Zora. I’m not doing this.” Langston says tossing the torn piece of paper down on the table.

  “Don’t get mad now. You knew the rules.”

  One of the things we always enjoyed when we were growing up were the family game nights. Once a week we would sit down as a family and play a game. I was known for changing the rules of old games to make it more interesting. Blind Pictionary, Angel of death Monopoly, partner Monopoly and hostile takeover Monopoly were all my ideas. The family pretended to hate my made up rules for the classic games, but they never refused to play them. No matter how crazy I made the game.

  “She’s right, Lang,” Kyra says covering her mouth. “You landed on her property. You either have to pay the fee or do the dare. We’ve all had to do it.”

  My brother’s only mad because he’s losing now.

  “Yep, Uncle Lang! I had to do the chicken dance while singing my ABC’s, you have to do this.” My daughter’s giddy voice says across the table.

  I think Peyton is having more fun than anyone.

  “Fine.” Langston stands to his feet. “But I swear if I see anyone’s phone out I’m quitting.” We laugh off his threat. “Close your eyes boys.” He says to his smiling sons.

  Slowly Langston starts singing the lyrics to Beyoncé’s single ladies while doing the famous dance moves.

  I’m laughing so hard I have tears in my eyes, and Kyra can barely breathe. When Langston gets to the part where he’s popping his one hip, we are interrupted by the sound of my father’s voice.

  “Langston, son, are you alright?”

  Langston startles and immediately stops dancing. At this point Peyton and I are clinging to each other in laughter, I’ve even started snorting. The entire living room grows quiet. When I open my eyes, I find both my parents and Langston staring at me in shock.

  “I haven’t heard that laugh in forever.” My father says in awe. His eyes are misty.

  His comment sobers me up. I pick up the dice from the game board ready to finish the game.

  “Hey Grandma! Hey Grandpa! What are you guys doing here?”

  I look back up, mom is looking down at her feet and I notice my dad has a small shoe box in his hands.

  “I wanted to talk to your mother, but I’d rather sit and join in on the game.” My dad says placing the shoe box down on the sofa table. “You don’t mind do you, Zora?” He looks over at me expectantly. If I said I did mind, he would be devastated, but he would give me my space.

  Since I had been home I was slowly letting my family back in my life. My mom and I keep bumping heads, but I have at least been trying to spend time with her. My father on the other hand, has not had the opportunity. Whenever he walks into the room, I quickly find a reason to leave it. When he tries to hold a conversation with me, I usually reply with short answers until he catches the drift and drop the conversation. I think of all the people that hurt me back then, my father hurt me the worse. I thought the world of the man. He could do no wrong in my eyes. The end of my relationship with my father, wasn’t the hurtful words, the threats of sending me away, the way he turned his back on me when I needed him, or even him demanding I get an abortion. The love I had for my father died the day his hand flew across my face. The day he looked down at me after slapping me and walked away. That is the day he shattered our relationship to a million tiny pieces. And honestly, I don’t know if I can fix it, or if I want to.

  My silence after his question has gone on so long now that the room has turned uncomfortably quiet. I guess wi
th my lack of response, my father had his answer. He picks up the box off the sofa table.

  “Actually, I should probably head back home.” He looks at me a moment longer and I turn away from the hurt in his eyes.

  I look to my brother and his eyes are on me. I can tell Langston wants me to let them join, but I also know that Langston understands my pain. He simply nods his head at me, letting me know that he had my back regardless of what I decided.

  My father turns around and heads for the door.

  “We’re playing Dare Monopoly.” My voice breaks at the end of my sentence belying the strength it takes for me to say those few words. It wasn’t the words that required my strength, but what the words meant. They were me opening up the door that I had long ago closed. The door I never had any intentions of opening again.

  My father turns back around, his eyes water as he places the box back on the sofa table. He nods as he takes a seat on the love seat beside Kyra.

  “I’ll grab you a chair, Mama.” Langston says, as he goes to the dining room to get a chair for my sniffling mother.

  That afternoon, we played Dare Monopoly, Music Charades, and many more of our classic game night games. We laughed and joked and for the first time in eight years, I didn’t think about the pain of my past.

  I was in the kitchen with Kyra helping her put away the clean dishes when my father’s voice cut through our laughter.

  “Zora? Can I talk to you for a minute?” I turn to him to find that same shoebox in his hand.

  “You can go,” Kyra says. “It’s only a few more dishes. I can put them away.”

  I smile at my sister-in-law. My first opinion of her still stands, she is a sweet person. I place the cup I’m holding back down on the counter and follow my father out of the kitchen and into the built on sunroom at the back of my brother’s house. My dad sits down at the rectangular table and I sit across from him. He places the shoebox on the table.

  “Open it.” He nods towards the box.

  I pull the lid off the box and inside of it are a bunch of newspaper clippings. The first one I read had the solid black words, Four Black Teens Found Dead by Bridge. The date of the article was 1977.

  “What’s this about?” I ask my dad as I look through the box of pages and pages of newspaper clippings.

  I pull out a blurry black and white picture of three white men smiling cheerfully. They had that crazy 70’s hair and porn star mustaches. What stood out the most in the picture is the background. Although the photographer meant to only capture the smiling faces of the three white men, he also caught the painful faces of the black families in the background. I pulled the clipping up closer to me when something caught my eye.

  “Is that you?” I ask looking at the picture of my father as a little boy.

  He nods.

  “Bobby Bennett, Jermaine Carter, George Carter, and Tracy Jenson.” He quotes the names off as if I would know who they were. “The four teens that were hung from that bridge.”

  I look back down at the newspaper taking in the picture again.

  “They were out riding in Bobby’s father’s new station wagon. Enjoying their night out on the town when the police pulled them over. They asked the cops in court why they pulled the boys over, their reply was that they looked suspicious. That was it. No other cause to pull those four young men over.” My dad goes on to say and I can tell by the anger on his face that even after all these years he was still angry with that reply. “After pulling the boys over, the first officer said that Bobby was being uncooperative and hostile.” Dad shakes his head. “Everyone that knew Bobby said that he was the calmest person they knew. They beat those boys so bad that they were unrecognizable. And as if they hadn’t done enough damage, they strung them up with rope and hung them from the bridge.” I gasp and drop the news clipping he had just handed me. It was another one of those blurry black and white photos, but this one was even more haunting with the dark shadows of four bodies hanging from a bridge.

  “For three weeks the black community was in mourning. We thought some crazy Klan men had come down here and did this. There was no way any of the people we saw everyday could have done something this terrible. My father was the lawyer hired on to the case. He told me how frustrated he was that the police didn’t seem to be doing their jobs. That’s when he took the story national. It got the attention of some big wigs in the state capital and they put fire under the police asses, even bringing in outside help. That’s when all the evidence started to come out. When the three cops were fingered as the suspects, the town split in two. Initially it was a victims versus suspect split. But, it slowly turned into a black versus white. The trial didn’t help matters. By the time the not guilty verdict came through, the tension in town was as thick as your mama’s fresh bread. Everywhere you went folks were getting into arguments and fights. The day of the not guilty verdict, was the final nail in the coffin. For years, black people stayed on their side of town and white’s stayed on theirs. We hardly interacted, even in places as public as schools and hospitals. Eventually, we learned how to coexist again.”

  He looks out at the yard. Staring off in space.

  “I wanted you to see those clippings, because I want you to know why I acted the way I did to you and Luke.” His head turns back to me. “I’m not absolving my actions. No, what I did and said to you was deplorable, but I wanted you to know that at the time I felt as if I had reason. The thought of you with him, no matter how unfounded my thoughts were, was like watching you chose the side of those cops. All I saw was the smug smile on their faces as they got away with murder. My father never fully recovered from losing that case.”

  “Dad, I never knew all of this.” I point to the clippings. “It’s deplorable and unfortunately things like this still go on today, however, this had nothing to do with Luke.”

  “I know that now, Zora. But at the time I couldn’t distinguish him from the events. I tried baby, believe me I tried. Do you remember that day I banned him from coming to the house?”

  I will never forget that day. It was the first time my home had been threatened. Someone had put a dead squirrel in our mailbox. It nearly gave my mother a heart attack. My father went through the roof. I was so shaken that I called Luke over. Like anytime I called, he came running. I didn’t even let him get out of the truck before I was in his arms crying and shaking. He held me like I was going to be stripped from his arms. My father came out of the house with my sister and mother on his heels yelling for Luke to get away from me and never come back. I pleaded with my dad not to make Luke go, but my dad wouldn’t hear it. That’s the day he told me that if I ever saw Luke again he would wash his hands with me. He would never spend another dime on me and would send me away to my Aunt’s house. I looked my father in the eye and told him that I didn’t care about his money, but I would die before I let him take me away from Luke. I could hear Luke behind me pleading with me not to say that. He told my father that he would leave, just don’t send me away. I meant what I said that day, and I think my father knew it. It’s why he constantly threatened to send me to Ashville, but never did. Luke was never allowed back to my parent’s house, but we didn’t stop seeing each other.

  “I remember that day.” I reply, shaking off the memory.

  “That’s the day I knew I was going to lose you over him. I knew that if I kept pushing you, you would disappear from my life. Even though I knew this, I couldn’t help but keep fighting you.” He sighs long and hard. “I refused to listen to you back then, Zora. I refused to put aside my hatred and anger, and because of it, I lost my daughter. I lost you long before you left. Finding out what you went through with Tyrik.” He shakes his head and anger clouds his eyes. “Hearing you tell that story and knowing that you didn’t tell me because…….” He close his eyes and shakes his head. “I failed you. I imagine the story with Tyrik isn’t the only thing you must have gone through alone.”

  “That’s just it, I wasn’t alone. I had Luke with me every step of
the way. Luke would have given his life to protect me.” He tried numerous times.

  “I’m glad you had him. He really did love you.” It wasn’t a question, but I answered it anyway.

  “With all his heart.”

  For a moment my father just stares at me.

  Finally he says. “Tell me about him. Tell me all the things I should have had the decency to ask about him back then.”

  I don’t know exactly how long my father and I sat out in that sunroom and talked. Although the conversation started about Luke, we ended up talking about everything. I told him all about my friends in Chicago. I talked about my Photography, he was so proud of me and even took the time to look through my work. We talked a lot about Peyton and her childhood. By the time he and mom finally left, I felt like my father and I had started to mend our broken relationship. We were getting to know each other all over again.

  ***********

  After having such a great night with my father, I had no idea why I was back at this door. But the moment it opened and Luke’s smile greeted me, I didn’t ask the question again.

  “You came back?”

  “Looks like it!”

  He runs his eyes up and down my body before sinking his teeth into his plump bottom.

  “On the bed, hands and knees.” He demands, stepping away from the door for me to enter. I giddily walk into the suite. Once again we were playing with fire. Eventually one of us wasn’t going to survive this game of Russian roulette we were playing with our hearts.