Page 24

Jessikah

Watching movies and eating popcorn. What more could a girl want?

Maybe a man that sees her. One that knows she has been through hell and back and still tells her that she is beautiful.

Still wants to throw her against the wall, wrap his hand around her throat and make her scream so loud the neighbors check on her.

“I wonder what happened with her?” Tina asks, her eyes watching Crowne as she silently cries in her sleep.

“Please don’t leave me,” she whimpers in her sleep. “Please, Lynx, I promise I’ll do better.” She sobs and starts to shake.

My eyebrows raise, and I look at Tina. Mouthing, “ Did she just say Lynx?” She nods as Crowne starts whispering again.

“Meet me in the kitchen,” I state, slowly standing from my couch and limping my way to the kitchen. My mind is running on the possibilities that could have happened with him and her.

“Don’t let your mind make up things. We don’t know them that well,” Tina states, placing her hip on the counter and leaning into me.

“I know, I know. My mind has been running crazy since he dropped us off. It’s playing a game of not it with my demons that were already there.

It’s a complete mind fuck. Like am I that bad of a woman, scratch that.

Am I that bad of a human being that I can be passed over multiple times by men who pledged to love me.

” I shrug my shoulders. I can’t be the only one seeing this.

“Let’s go back in there and watch our movies. Let her wake up with people she trusts surrounding her. Even if right now you are feeling a little unsure.” She reaches into the cupboard, grabs the box of white chocolate macadamia nut cookies and heads back to my living room.

Standing there for a few minutes, alone with my raging thoughts and unhealthy images.

Wallowing in the self pity party I have going on.

“Jessikah Gorman, you are a beautiful, curvy woman. You survived something that would have killed another. He doesn’t get to define you!

” I say, my voice strong as I swipe at the lone tear that rolled from my eye, down my check and was ready to drip from my chin to the fabric of my white shirt.

Standing straight, I walk into the two-piece bathroom and look in the mirror.

My eyes are glossy. You can tell I am on the verge of tears.

Leaning over, I splash cold water on my face, grab the towel and pat dry.

When I make my way back out to the living room, Crowne is awake and her eyes are watching me. She is trying to assess what happened while she was sleeping.

“What did I say?” her voice is hoarse, like she spent hours crying before she showed up at my door.

“It was a nightmare,” I state and sit beside Moose, rubbing his head as he looks back at me.

His eyes trying to figure out if he needs to curl into me, or if he can go back to sleep.

Leaning in, I place my face in the fur of his neck and kiss him.

He is my good boy, and this life would be so damn hard without him.

He stands up, stretches, circles as he finds his comfy spot, and then opts to lie down, placing his head in my lap.

“I have never told this story to anyone. I need you guys to keep it between us. It’s something I stopped talking about, because the hurt it caused not only to me but to Lynx.

” She drops her head and takes a deep breath.

Her hands shake as she lifts them to run her hands through her hair.

Her fingers becoming entangled in the knot on the back of her head from sleeping on the couch.

“Listen, Crowne, you don’t have to tell me anything. I get it. Probably more than most of the people around you. So, if you want to keep your secret, you keep it close to your heart. If it doesn’t feel right to tell people, then you don’t tell anyone,” I tell her, grabbing my cup of tea.

“You know about R.O.Y.A.L?” she asks. My head snaps toward her, nodding as the memory of the nurses helping me escape the abuse.

“R.O.Y.A.L stepped in when my mom tried to kill me. When I was thirteen, the thirteenth boyfriend, she was on in the same number of days and decided I was the one he wanted. He didn’t think my mom was tight enough.

He also liked that I fought him. No matter how many times I called for my mom, she would show up and tell me the reason he was doing it was because I was just too beautiful.

That beautiful bitches deserved everything they had coming to them.

” She stated, continuing on with her story.

Her eyes brim with tears that are threatening to spill over.

“Did you tell anyone?’ I ask, placing my mug on the counter and watching as Tina comes closer to me.

“I told everyone who would listen. Every time child protective service came, she would make it look like I was a problem child with issues. Issues she was having trouble getting under control. When the report would get back to the school, they would always send me to the counselor. My recollection of events was always so vastly different from what my mom would claim. They could never piece together where the disconnect was. Hell, I have a cousin in Mobile, Alabama that I would call and tell him what was happening. He would listen and try to send people to protect me. But they always listened to my mom.” Her eyes connect with mine.

Nodding, to encourage her to move forward.

“On the day when I turned fourteen, my mom and her newest boyfriend decided to have a party. None of my friends were invited. The people who showed up were people my mother owed money to. Her payment to these men and women was one hour with me. In that hour, they could do anything they wanted to me. They were supposed to treat me like they would treat her.” She leans her body against the wall.

Her body shaking as she recollects the sexual abuse and torture she went through.

“I was covered in cuts, bruises and had so many broken bones I couldn’t move.

My left eye was swollen shut from a punch the last woman had landed on my body.

When she was done, she told me the next man was worse and would want to take my ass.

She wished death upon me before she pulled open the door and left.

My hands are covering my mouth as tears roll down my face. How can anyone treat their daughter like a used rag. Tina sobs, causing Crowne to lift her head, but her eyes are distant.

“That is where things in my life changed. The next person through the door was Paul. Apparently, my mom owed him money for drugs she promised to sell but instead snorted. When he closed the door and turned around, he expected to find my mom strapped to the bed. When he saw me, broken, beaten and left for dead he lost it. He spent the entire hour with me on the phone. When the knock came at the door, he told them to fuck off and that he would be done with the bitch when he was done. The person stopped knocking on the door. He told me he was going to rescue me right there and then and the only thing I had to worry about was living my life in the best way I could as a fourteen-year-old child. He placed me in black jogging pants and a black hoodie. Just as another knock came at the door, telling him that his times up, a bird whistle sounded, and a woman appeared at my window. She told me her name was Shark, and she was there to get me to safety. I cried. She swooped me up into her arms and carried me down the ladder and into a galaxy purple SUV. There was a lady behind the wheel that didn’t talk, and I was never introduced.

As soon as Shark closed the door, the woman stepped on the gas and we flew away from the house I was brought home to but had turned into nothing other than a house that terrorized me.

” She finally wiped her eyes, but she never lifted her head.

“Crowne, I am so sorry you had a mother that treated you like that. Mothers are supposed to love you and cherish you. But I don’t get how Paul became so important in your life?” I ask, curiosity getting the better of me.

“It wasn’t the last time Paul saved me. My mother came back each year until I turned eighteen.

On my eighteenth birthday, I had the RCMP involved in a case against her.

As soon as she contacted me to set up a meet, she was arrested and charged with everything the police detective could throw at her.

Trafficking, child prostitution, sexual assault on a minor, and everything that would put her away for life.

It was because of Paul that I was able to learn about standing on my own two feet.

He paid for and put me in everything that would teach me to protect myself.

He started out as my foster dad, but fought the system to adopt me.

I was nineteen, and he was twenty-nine when he finally got the papers that said he was my parent.

He is my family,” she states with conviction.

It isn’t he is family because of the club; he is family because he adopted her.

Standing there and listening to her story, remembering how he was with all the members of his club. I knew Paul was different. He was a man’s man, and one that scared the absolute shit out of me.

“Paul is my dad, but he is also my President. I fought for my spot at the table because it was my dream to sit beside the man that saved me. To have his back, just like he had mine,” she said, walking toward the kitchen door.

She looks over her shoulder, lowers her eyes to the ground and then disappears out the back door.

I should have followed her. I should have made sure she was safe. But it was something I would learn later is what I should have done.