Page 50 of Church Girl
“What’s wrong, ma?” Von lifts his head. “Where did you go just now?”
“Nothing. Nowhere,” I answer each of his questions in order and reach for him, to drag him back down and continue what he’d started.
But me fisting his shirt doesn’t move him. Literally.
“What I say about lying to me?” He squeezes the back of my neck in warning, and my sex reciprocates with a spasm of its own. I close my eyes against the backlash of pleasure, and I could cry for the loss of his mouth. “Either tell me to mind my business or you don’t feel like talking about it, but don’t fix your mouth to lie to me.”
I part my lips to tell him it’s none of his business—hasn’t that been preached to me for years?—but something halts the words. I stare at him, struck silent with the truth and the instinctive warning to be quiet both vying for dominance.
On one hand, I’ve been raised on the commandment that what happens in our house stays in our house. On the other hand, though... I’m tired of silence. I love my father with all my heart, but sometimes he contradicts what he preaches, and those occasions seem to always be to his benefit, not mine. God gave us voices not only to uplift Him but also to be truthful. Loving. And by not using mine, I’ve hurt myself. And only He knows how many others.
I lick my lips. “I—” My throat constricts as if it’s aware of my intention and is intent on saving me from myself and my father’s wrath. “I was...thinking about my uncle,” I whisper although it feels like the admission is propelled out of me like a bullet.
Von doesn’t speak, but his eyes narrow, roaming over my face, searching. I don’t know what he sees, but one moment he’s looking at me, and in the next, his hands are on my waist and he’s yanking me off my seat, over the console and onto his lap. I straddle his powerful thighs, and the slight pull in my own has arousal beating inside of me like a separate heartbeat.
His big hand cups my chin, tilting my head up so I have no choice but to meet his gaze.
“Head up, Liyah.” His low voice is a deep, resonant rumble in the silent car. “Tell me why you were thinking about your uncle while I was kissing you.”
Jesus, when he puts it that way...
Shame tries to crawl through me, but I shut that down. I’ve fought hard and long not to take on that burden. I’ll be damned if I allow it to place its crushing weight on me now.
I’m not that eleven-year-old girl anymore. I haven’t been in a long time.
“When I was younger, my uncle David visited us. He lived in Norfolk, so I didn’t see him often, but he was always fun and nice to me when he did come to Alabama. Where my father was strict, he was easygoing. Where my father was always busy with the church, he spent time with me, and I loved the attention. I loved him. One day, I came down with a bug, and that evening my parents left me with him to attend Bible study. We sat on the couch and watched all my favorite movies, and at some point, I fell asleep. I woke up to him...”
My heart shudders then pounds as if I’m right back there in my parents’ living room. The metallic flavor of panic floods my mouth. I swallow it down, afraid to close my eyes. Afraid of the images my brain will supply in this moment.
Two hands cradle my face, and I latch onto Von’s strong wrists as if he’s my lifeline, the only thing preventing me from tumbling into a bottomless abyss.
“I got you, Liyah. Finish it,” he roughly urges.
I nod, a breath shuddering out from between my lips.
“I woke to him trying to get under my pajama pants. My top was up over my—” I cut off the rest of the sentence, digging my fingers into his skin. “But I don’t remember if he touched me there or not. When I realized what he was doing, I slapped at his hand, pulling free of him. I fell on the floor, kicking at him and screaming. He tried to grab me, shushing me, but I wasn’t listening. I was so terrified, so hurt. This was my uncle, and I was old enough to understand what he’d tried to do. I ran to my bedroom, locked the door and didn’t open it until my parents got home. I tried to call both of them, even knowing they probably wouldn’t answer because they were in church, but I needed them. But the calls went directly to voice mail. The next two hours were the scariest of my life. I didn’t know if David had left or was still in the house outside my door just waiting on me to open it. I pushed my dresser in front of it just in case and hid between my bed and bedside table. It seemed like forever, but when my parents finally came home, I couldn’t move. All that time praying and hoping they would get there, and I couldn’t go to them.”
I’d been frozen, afraid of...everything. That Uncle David was still there, that he’d lied to them about why I’d locked myself in my room. Afraid they wouldn’t believe me. Afraid they would.
I almost bend my head, but his hands, still clasped to my cheeks, and his order to keep my head up prevent me from doing it.
Keep going. Get it all out once and for all.
“When my parents realized I was in my room, my mom convinced me to open the door. And as soon as I did, I fell on her, crying. When I got the story out, my mother lost it. I’d never seen her lose her temper or yell. And then, she screamed and ran to the kitchen. Before my father could stop her, she grabbed a bottle of wine off the counter and went upside David’s head with it. I truly believe she would’ve cut him with the broken bottle if Daddy hadn’t intervened. My father kicked him out, and I’ve never seen him again.”
“Good,” he snaps. His touch to my face remains soft, but there’s nothing gentle about the brutal anger in his voice. “I wish your dad would’ve let your mother slice him up. If it’d been Gia, he wouldn’t have walked out of that fucking house at all.”
A coldness turns his gray eyes to chips of ice. I shiver, believing him. But anyone who would touch a child deserves all that and more. I have no sympathy for those monsters. Sometimes murder and theft can be justified, mitigated by certain circumstances. But not violating a child. There was no forgiveness in me for that.
“What happened after that? Did your parents press charges?”
“No,” I murmur. “Mom wanted to. She was on her way to get me dressed so we could do just that, but my father stopped her.” And this is the source of my shame, my hurt. “He told her going to the police would only be inflicting more harm on me since I would have to retell what happened to strangers at the station and then possibly in a trial. Also, how would it look that the pastor’s brother tried to touch the pastor’s daughter? And David had onlytriedto molest me. He didn’t go through with it because I’d woken up.”
“He didn’t know that,” Von growls, his hands dropping away from my face, falling to my hips. His fierce scowl doesn’t intimidate me. Not when it’s on my behalf. “He can’t say for certain what happened before you woke up, just like you can’t. Not that it fucking matters. He’syour father. Fuck how it would look. Fuck everything but making that piece of shit suffer. It’s his job to protect and support you through reporting it.” He glances away from me, a muscle in his jaw jumping beneath his beard. “Man of God or not, your father’s lucky he’s in Alabama, because I swear to the God he supposedly stands for, I would stomp a hole in him right now for failing you.”
For a moment, I’m lost for words. His anger nearly singes me, but it doesn’t frighten me. It...warms me. Though nearly fifteen years have passed, his reaction soothes the jagged edges of something my father broke when he put his church and reputation before me. Because that’s exactly what he did. Yes, he’d kicked his brother out and refused to have anything else to do with him, but he’d also silenced me, making his eleven-year-old daughter feel that if she confessed what happened to the authorities or anyone outside our immediate family, she would be responsible for the negative backlash.
I’d been turned from victim to potential perpetrator.
