I hadn’t been standing on my street for more than a few minutes the next night when red and blue flashing lights lit up the buildings around me, and I heard an all-too familiar, high-pitched, whop whop.
I whirled around, a grin already on my face as I stared down the Raleigh patrol car coming to a stop not far from me.
Lifting my hands in the air mockingly, I stood still as I waited for the officer to either approach me or speak to me over the PA system in his car. My smile froze, and I had the sudden urge to cry when he stepped out of the driver’s seat.
Jentry . . .
The need to tell him what was happening in my fucked-up life was as strong as the impulse to cry. It was enough to consume me. Wreck me.
I wanted to relieve my shoulders from some of the weight and let him bear it for once.
But it wasn’t as easy as that. It never had been. It never would be.
Jentry accepted the perfect life when we were eight years old.
To him, I was just a person he once knew. A person who now disgusted him.
To Jentry . . . I needed to leave the life he disapproved of behind. As if it could ever be that simple.
What he’d escaped was nothing compared to what I’d suffered.
Nothing compared to what I was chained to.
I could feel it bubbling up as he walked closer . . . the laughter and madness. The taunts making their way to the tip of my tongue. They were there, mixing with my need for Jentry to fix a lifetime of horrors.
Make it go away, Jent.
You’re weak.
“Officer Michaels,” I teased. “To what do I owe this wonderful pleasure? Let me guess, you missed your whore sister? Because you and I both know I sure missed you.” I giggled wildly when his jaw ticked.
“Put your hands down, Jess,” he said with a low, firm tone.
“What? Don’t want to pat me down for drugs this time?” I cocked my head and sent him a look like I thought he was adorable. “I told you they weren’t mine. Oh, wait, because they weren’t. And why was that? Because there weren’t any drugs. Like I told you there wouldn’t be. But you didn’t believe me, did you?” He started to speak, but I continued over him. “I mean, why would you? It was me. And in your mind, I’ve graduated from prostitute to addict.” I clapped gleefully. “I bet you’re so proud.”
“Jess,” he barked.
And there it was . . . my own, sick addiction.
The need to push him until he snapped.
The need for him to put an end to the madness.
My hands fell as the shaking began deep in my bones. A rush filled me unlike any high.
Unable to stop myself, I inched closer to him, the taunts hot on my tongue with each step. “You gettin’ mad, Jent?”
Make it go away.
“What does it feel like when you get angry?”
Does it feel as horrible as this does?
“That rage inside you. That darkness . . .”
Does it make you hate yourself the way I do?
“What does it feel like?”
Make it go away, Jentry.
He sighed and gave me a placating look, and my panic at seeing that calm wash over him threatened to choke me.
I wanted to scream at him until he lost it. I wanted to hate him for being able to find a calm that I would never know again.
Weak. So weak.
“Jess, turn around. Put your hands behind your back.”
My head swung roughly as I swallowed back that panic.
“Oh, no, no, no. I don’t think I will. You just came driving up on me while I was walking down a street. No reason for it. Completely unwarranted.”
Jentry’s eyes begged me not to make him do this, but still he bit out, “We got two calls in the last half hour that a girl with your description has been going up to random men on this street, offering herself.”
The absurdity of the claim was enough to force a laugh from my chest. “That’s not how I work. They come to . . .”
My face fell and a chill spread through me.
I reached for Jentry but he stepped away, putting his arm out to stop another attempt.
“Hands behind your back.”
“I’ve only been here for a few minutes,” I hissed. “Jentry, don’t take me.”
“Jess, don’t make this harder than it already is.”
“You don’t understand,” I yelled. “You can’t take me. You have . . . to . . .”
Dread filled me when Jentry turned me around, giving me a clear view of the familiar black SUV on the opposite side of the street, about a hundred yards away. “Fuck you,” I screamed, struggling against Jentry as he put handcuffs on me. “Fuck you.”
“Calm down, Jessica,” Jentry said as he pulled me toward his car.
“I belong to no man!”
There was a deep sigh from behind me. “Jess, I can’t handle your crazy tonight.”
I belonged to no man.
Make it go away, Jentry.
I slammed my head back into my brother’s face, a wicked laugh bursting from my chest when all I wanted to do was scream and cry.
“Goddamn it, Jessica.” Jentry forced me the last few feet to his car and shoved me down onto the hot hood. “Damn it,” he growled.
“You feel that, Jent?” I asked, taunting. “You feel that anger? It’s always been inside you. You ruin everything you touch. How’s that little wife of yours? Ruined yet?” I continued, blinking when my eyes burned. “You can’t run from who you are.”
Make it go away.
The pain.
The madness.
Momma’s addiction.
The men in that car.
The others watching in the dark.
Losing the only man who mattered.
Everything.
Get mad, Jentry . . . and make it go away.
Jentry forced me up from the hood, and I shot one more glare at the black SUV as he pushed me toward the back of his car and roughly helped me inside.
“You can’t arrest me,” I said on a rush before he could shut the door behind me. “He wants me arrested so he can prove he owns me.”
For the first time in our lives, Jentry looked at me like I’d actually lost my mind. “Jesus Christ, Jessica, what the hell is wrong with you?”
“The men in that black SUV over there,” I said, jerking my head in the direction of the car with its lights off. “They follow me. Stalk me. He said I belong to him.”
Jentry searched my eyes for a moment then turned to stare at the vehicle. “No bullshit?” With another careful look directed at me, he blew out a calming breath. “Okay, Jess. Okay.” With that, he shut my door, and I watched as he crossed the street to walk calmly to the car I’d sat in just the day before.
I held my breath as he shined his flashlight in the windows, but my stomach dropped when he cupped his hands on them and peered inside. After circling the SUV and standing in front of it for a few minutes, he walked to where I sat in his patrol car with a frustrated look on his face.
“Why I let you talk me into that . . .” he said once he was in the driver’s seat. “Ran the plates. It belongs to a woman in her forties.”
“No, he—”
“One day you’re gonna let me help you. One day, Jess. And I hope I don’t see or hear from you again until that day comes.”
If only he understood that I’d been trying to get him to help me for years.
It just wasn’t the help he wanted to give.
He wanted to save me. To make me better. To give me a life he had.
I was waiting for him to make it all go away.
Because when you’re chained to this life, there is no making it better. There is no saving.
There’s surviving . . . and there’s dying.