Renee Read online

  Julian’s home was Renee’s place of refuge. She found comfort there, and if she could have, she would have moved in and started her life over from scratch. Every night, while she was in her bed, fearing that Curtis would walk in, she would tell herself, Only a couple more hours and you’ll be back at Julian’s.

  And hours later, curled up in fifteen-year-old Julian’s arms, Renee eyed the Notorious B.I.G. poster on his bedroom wall.

  “We have to tell someone, Renee. If not, I’ll kill him. I promise. I’ll wipe him off this earth in the blink of an eye.” Julian’s head lay on top of Renee’s, and all he could imagine was Curtis taking his last breath.

  For as long as Julian had known Renee, Curtis had been raping her, and she had refused to tell a soul. He had begged her to tell someone, or at least allow him to tell someone, but she wouldn’t have it. She wouldn’t even talk about it. She had always told him that he was her getaway, and while she was away from her nightmare, she wanted to enjoy her paradise. But Julian pushed her now to tell someone, no longer able to accept her abuse.

  “No. Soon I’ll be off to college, and this will all be nothing but a dream.” Renee buried her face in Julian’s chest and took in his scent, allowing herself to drift off into a faraway land.

  “You think I’m playing? You think I won’t kill for you?” Julian said a few minutes later, breaking the silence.

  Renee sat up. Her black hair flowed past her shoulders. “You’re not built for that,” she told him, smiling. “You’re the good guy.” She tried to lighten the mood and be done with this depressing conversation, but by the look on Julian’s face, she knew that he was not letting it go.

  “I’m serious, Renee. Open your mouth, or your mama will be picking out that black dress.” Julian’s eyes were chilling.

  Renee had never seen this side of him and honestly didn’t know how to take it. She placed her head back on his chest. “Promise me something, Julian.”

  “What?”

  “Promise me that you’ll never leave me, that you’ll always protect me. And promise me you will never allow anyone else to hurt me. My daddy is gone, so you’re all I got.”

  A tear dropped from Julian’s eye and landed under Renee’s, giving the illusion that she, too, was crying. “I put that on my life.”

  A year later, at 2:00 a.m. one morning, Renee wound up on Julian’s doorstep, soaking wet. Her hair clung to her face, and the moonlight revealed her busted lip and black eye. The thunder made her jump as she stood and waited for someone to answer the door.

  Life had just gotten worse. That night Curtis had not been gentle and calm when he raped her. He’d been rough and angry, to the point of nearly choking her to death. She rubbed her neck and tried to will the pain away. His handprint from when he’d choked her was still visible. While fighting for her life, all Renee had been able to think of was Julian telling her countless times before that she needed to tell someone, and that if she didn’t, he would kill Curtis himself. When she’d been on the verge of death tonight, it had hit her. If she didn’t tell someone, Curtis may actually kill her. Battered and broken, Renee had dragged herself next door to Julian’s house. Her mind was made up. She was going to break her silence.

  Julian’s mother, Veronica, opened the door, wearing a housecoat and a headful of rollers. She gasped when she saw Renee.

  “Renee! What happened to you?” Veronica pulled Renee into the house and took her in her arms.

  She didn’t know what had happened to Renee, but her heart told her it was rape, every woman’s and every mother’s worst nightmare. Renee melted in her arms. Her mother never hugged her, so to be in the arms of a mother figure broke her down. Hundreds of tears dropped from her eyes and onto Veronica’s floor. They cried in each other’s arms for what felt like an eternity. No words were spoken, just pain.

  Julian watched from the stairs as his mother and Renee embraced. He knew what had happened and why Renee was there. He walked over to them. When Renee opened her eyes and saw him looking at her, she knew what she had to do. She pulled away from Veronica and opened her mouth. The words fell out like skeletons from a closet.

  “My stepfather, he rapes me.”

  After Veronica called the police and a rape kit was done on Renee, Curtis was arrested and found guilty of raping a minor. He was sentenced to ten years in prison. Renee didn’t know why she did it, but when the lawyers and the police asked her if her mother knew about the rapes, she lied and told them no. Renee would never forget the look in her mother’s eyes when she told the fib.

  Sheila was sure that after she had walked in on Curtis raping Renee and had left the room while her child cried out for her help, Renee would sell her down the river. To hear Renee tell everyone in a very believable tone that her mother had been completely unaware of the abuse shocked Sheila.

  After Curtis was sentenced, Sheila’s appreciation of Renee not telling on her quickly faded. She put Renee through hell and treated her twice as badly as she had when Curtis was home. Renee had taken her husband away from her, and Sheila wanted revenge. Every day Sheila verbally abused Renee, and when she wasn’t doing that, she acted like her daughter didn’t exist. Renee was her personal whipping boy, the object of her verbal abuse, and the one she forced to provide maid service.

  “I hate you. I wish I had never had you.”

  “You act like you didn’t want it, didn’t like it, but we all know you did. You fuckin’ slut.”

  “Your father must be rolling over in his grave, watching over your slut ass.”

  “Why don’t you do us all a favor and just die!”

  Those were only a few of the things Renee would hear from her mother, her look-alike, on a daily basis.

  “Where were you?” Renee repeated.

  Julian snapped backed to the present and looked into Renee’s eyes. It killed him that he hadn’t been there for her, but in his mind, he had been protecting her, like when he was younger. He had set out to exterminate the evildoer, Curtis. With him still breathing, Renee would never live happily or be anything other than a shell of her former self.

  “Protecting you,” he whispered.

  Like a deer in headlights, Renee stood still and her eyes grew wide. Then what remainder of control she had left, she let go of. Julian did not see where she was coming from, did not understand what she was saying. In her mind, he was lying to her, saying whatever he could to place himself in a better light. With lightning speed, she grabbed the lamp on the nearest nightstand and threw it at him. The crystal and gold lamp flew in Julian’s direction, and he ducked and watched it shatter against the floor.

  “You liar!” Renee screamed. Her veins bulged on her forehead and neck, and her eye twitched. Her caramel skin had turned beet red. “You were out fucking some bitch, when you should have been here!”

  Renee searched for something else to throw. Her eyes landed on the two Chinese stress-relief metal balls that Julian kept at her house, and a sly smile touched her lips. She swiftly scooped up the balls, and then, one by one, she threw them at his head with the accuracy and force of a major league baseball player. Julian dodged the pitches and listened to the loud sound of the balls bashing holes in the wall behind him.

  “I hate you!” Renee’s arms shook, and her body jumped slightly. The tough image of herself she had built over the years was unraveling.

  Julian stood there, watching layers of the protective shell Renee had created around herself peel away, leaving her raw and vulnerable. He had never meant to hurt her. He had left to better her life, not complicate it. The answer to giving her peace and getting rid of her past was in Jamaica, so that was where he’d gone. Looking at her deconstruct now, he wondered if he had simply added to the problem instead of working toward eliminating it.

  Julian slowly walked over to Renee, who continued to rant and rave, scream, punch, and kick the air. She was so involved in her tantrum that she never noticed Julian approaching her. Finally, when it was too late for her to dodge him, she saw him
standing in front of her, his arms outstretched.

  “Don’t touch me!” Somehow, she managed to jump out of his reach, but Julian closed in and tried again to hug her.

  Renee became so angry, she couldn’t speak and couldn’t move. She was frozen, stuck in a time when they were teens and he had undeniable control over her—control she craved, appreciated, and valued. He wrapped his arms around her. Embarrassed and exhausted from all the yelling, she fell into him, her fist weakly punching at his chest.

  “You promised me,” she whimpered. “You promised.”

  There wasn’t much in life that Renee was proud of, but she was proud of Julian. So if he failed her, she had nothing, nothing to look forward to, and nothing to call her own. Renee wrapped her arms around him and held on tight, vowing to never let him go. Love wasn’t easy, and neither was life. Life was too harsh, too cold, and too lonely for her to let go of her best friend and her one and only love. Life had already taken away her father. She couldn’t lose Julian too.

  He rubbed her back, his hand making soft circles, causing her body to relax and release all its tension. She placed her face on his shoulder and, as she had done when they were kids, inhaled his scent. He still smelled the same, like cocoa and shea butter. She had missed his scent this past month, and now she took it all in, trying to make up for lost time.

  Wrapped so tightly in one another, they both felt Julian’s phone vibrate in his pocket. Neither of them moved. They let it ring and go to voicemail. This was their time.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her. “You may not understand, but you soon will. Trust me. Just trust me.” He held her tighter and kissed the top of her head, and Renee stared into space. She had no choice but to trust him. He was all she had. Their love was what pumped through her veins into her heart.

  Julian lowered his head and kissed Renee. The fullness and moisture of his lips on hers moved the earth and rattled everything back into place. He grabbed her by her chin and looked in her eyes. No words were necessary. Their kiss had said it all. Renee pushed her lips against his and savored another kiss. She had missed him and didn’t want to fight anymore.

  After what felt like hours of kissing, they stood in each other’s arms and rocked back and forth, the motion as soothing as a summer day after months of winter. Renee closed her eyes and inhaled his scent again. When she opened them, she saw Jared staring at them from the doorway. Just hours ago, she had been in Jared’s arms, caressing his skin. She looked at Jared for what felt like an eternity and then turned away and buried her face in Julian’s shoulder. She stood like that until Jared went away.

  Chapter 15

  Lincoln was beginning to lose his mind. It was day two, and he still couldn’t get in contact with Julian. All he had was his cell phone number. No address, no home number, no nothing. Just a cell phone number, which was looking just about useless. The very first time he dialed Julian, the called had been ignored, and ever since then, his calls had gone straight to voicemail. Lincoln threw the phone on his bed in frustration and placed his face in his hands.

  This can’t be happening. Page wants to kill Renee, and there’s no way I can warn her!

  Lincoln picked up his phone and dialed again, but just like the last time, his call went straight to voicemail.

  “Leave a message,” Julian’s voice said on the other end of the line.

  Lincoln was becoming frantic. His legs shook, and he was sweating profusely. After his recent conversation with Page, Lincoln had become suspicious about Page’s feelings toward her sister. One night a week later, he had overheard her talking as he passed her bedroom on his way to the bathroom. He’d figured she was on the phone, and he’d been curious as to what she was saying and to whom she was saying it, so he’d stood by her bedroom door.

  “That dumb motherfucker talking about I got nothing on my sister. Motherfucker must not know about me! She ain’t got nothing on me. That whore! I hate the bitch. I hope her ass is rotting away somewhere. Putting my daddy in jail! Do she know how lucky she is to have slept with him? I’d give my right arm to sleep with him, but no, she had to have him. So much for me being Daddy’s little girl,” Page said.

  Lincoln tiptoed to the house phone and slowly picked up the receiver. All he heard was a dial tone. As he went to place the receiver back on the cradle, he saw Page’s cell phone lying on the living-room couch. She definitely wasn’t on the phone.

  It’s only nine p.m. There’s still time for a nineteen-year-old to have company, he thought as he made his way up to Sheila’s bedroom.

  “Baby, does Page have company?” he asked when he’d closed the bedroom door behind him.

  Sheila took her eyes off the TV and placed them on Lincoln. Every time she looked at him, it amazed him how much she looked like Renee.

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I just came from downstairs a few minutes ago. Before I came to bed, I went in her room to say good night. She was already in bed. Why?”

  “I thought I heard her talking to someone.”

  “Probably on the phone.” Sheila directed her attention back to the television.

  Lincoln headed back downstairs and stood next to Page’s bedroom door. At first, he heard nothing and figured she had fallen asleep, but when he turned to walk away, she started to talk again.

  “She just couldn’t leave him alone. Had to have the one man I want. The one man I need. Why does it have to be so difficult? Why can’t I just have my cake and eat it too?”

  Suddenly, there was a long pause. Without warning, Page’s cat Phoebe walked between Lincoln’s legs, pushed the door open, and walked into her bedroom. The door stood open a crack.

  “Hey, Phoebe. How’s my girl?” Page asked.

  Lincoln peeked through the crack and saw just what he expected: Page was alone.

  The next night, when no one was around, Lincoln was ready to give Julian a call and tell him everything he’d heard. He made his way down to the finished basement and was about to press the last numeral of Julian’s phone number when he heard someone descending the stairs.

  “I’m telling you, it’s not only worth your time, but your money too,” an unfamiliar voice said.

  “That’s good to know, but refrain from talking until we get to the basement,” Page replied.

  Lincoln hid in the closet and prayed that Page wasn’t so paranoid that she’d check every inch of the room before she spoke. He cracked the door open just enough to see Page walk in and sit on the couch. A female followed behind. He couldn’t see her face. All that was clearly visible was her fire-red hair. The young woman sat down, her back to the closet. Page crossed her legs.

  “So what’s so important that you had to come to my house at eleven at night?” Page asked.

  “I found your sister.” Lincoln could tell the young woman was smiling when she said it.

  Page quickly sat up. The look on her face was priceless.

  “What do you mean, you found my sister?”

  “I mean, your search is over. I not only know where she is, but who she is.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Little Miss Renee also goes by the name of Jordan, and in case you’re wondering if I’m talking about the drug dealer Jordan, who has the streets of New York on smash, then you’re oh, so correct.”

  At first Page was shocked; then she slowly became angry.

  Lincoln was surprised. He knew little about Renee’s situation. All he knew was that she didn’t get along with her family and had moved away without them knowing.

  “You have to be shittin’ me.” Page dropped her head and looked back up at the redhead. “So you’re telling me she’s here in New York?”

  The young woman nodded, and Lincoln saw her body shift a little to the side. “Here’s where she rests her head.”

  Lincoln pressed his face against the closet door, afraid he would be seen. It was obvious that she had given Page a piece of paper with Renee’s address on it. He stood in silence
, anxious and holding his breath, waiting to see if one of them would say the address. He needed to know it.

  “She’s at—” the redhead began, but Page cut her short.

  Page lifted her hand, her eyes on the paper. “I can read.”

  After a second of staring at the paper, Page slipped it in her pocket. She placed a hand under her chin and sat there, deep in thought. By the look on Page’s face, it was apparent that she wasn’t happy.

  Finally, she faced the redhead and opened her mouth. “You’ll get your money.”

  The redhead nodded and then got up and walked toward the stairs.

  After Lincoln heard the young woman walk up the stairs and the front door close, he watched as Page continued to sit on the couch in the basement. She sat so still that Lincoln wondered if she was still alive. She didn’t move, seemingly not even to breathe. After ten minutes of no movement, she took the piece of paper out of her pocket and looked at it.

  “Right under my damn nose all this time. Damn, bitch. You’re good, but not that good. Because when I see you, you’re dead.”

  She folded the paper up into little squares, tucked it back in her pocket, and left the room.

  Later Lincoln searched the house from top to bottom, looking for that piece of paper, but came up empty.

  Sitting on Sheila’s bed now and constantly getting Julian’s voicemail was stressing him out. He had left so many messages that Julian’s mailbox became full. Lincoln clutched his phone in his hand and held it against his head. Slowly, he lowered it and dialed Julian again.

  “Leave a message.”

  Lincoln lowered his head in defeat.

  “I have to get him. If I don’t, Renee is dead.”

  Chapter 16

  Renee knew she was acting bipolar. One second she was all lovey-dovey with Julian, and the next she couldn’t stand his guts. It was an emotional game of tennis. Back and forth, the mood swings went. She had yet to get over the fact that Julian had abandoned her, but she couldn’t deny that she was happy he was back where she could see and touch him. Now Renee felt a lot more balanced. Julian was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, but she didn’t know how to express that she was in love with him without experiencing pain. Her past was her roadblock. It had forced her to drive down misery lane and isolate herself from the big, happy world, which she considered foreign and out of reach. The more she thought about it, the more she knew she would never be happy, because she wasn’t open to it. And if she did find happiness, keeping it would be a battle she wouldn’t easily win.