Page 66 of Awakening
I didn’t flinch. I didn’t ask questions I didn’t want answers to; instead, I just listened. Dro wasn’t a pour-your-heart-out type of man, so the fact that he was talking? I gave him the space to do so and just listened.
“He hurt your mother, didn’t blink when threatening you, and tried to end my life. I wish I could bring the bitch ass rat back to life just to end his life again, slowly and torturously.”
For a while, we just sat—no more confessions, no tears, just a father and daughter torn apart by someone else’s choices, trying to stitch together something worth keeping.
“I should’ve been there,” he said.
“You were a kid too,” I replied, “Trying to survive and provide.”
He nodded, “Still, I’m so sorry, baby girl.”
I rested my head on his shoulder, and for the first time in years, it didn’t feel like something was missing between us. Maybe this was what healing looked like, ugly, honest, but whole.
Yanna and Dana were curled up on my living room couch, wine glasses in hand, listening intently as I recounted the therapy session with my mother, siblings, and Dro.
“I still can’t believe it,” I said, voice barely above a whisper, “She didn’t leave because she didn’t love me orwant me; she left because one of Dro’s old associates, Jarvis, raped her.”
Both women froze, wide-eyed. The silence held heavy until Dana reached out, wrapping her arms around me. Yanna followed, sandwiching me between them.
The tears that had been sitting at the brim of my eyes finally fell. “The bastard didn’t stop there,” I added. “He threatened to kill her while she was pregnant with me, and Dro, if she said anything. Can you imagine the torment of having to be around someone who harmed you and act like they didn’t? And to make matters worse, he showed up at the hospital when she delivered me and woke up to him in the room holding me while Dro ran out to get her some dinner.”
Yanna gasped, “I had no idea.”
“Neither did I, and now? I want to get to know her without all the pain and anger and keep building a relationship with my siblings, and continue working through the pain in therapy.”
“I’m proud of you,” Dana said, rubbing my back.
“We both are,” Yanna added.
The heaviness began to lift as the conversation shifted to my weekend in Monaco. Laughter bubbling up as they teased me about getting fucked real nasty on a yacht, claiming all that was left was the mile-high club. I told them how I almost fainted meeting Stephanie Travers and Brielle Banks, as if I were some fangirl fresh out of puberty.
“Is that why they made it to the opening of Olive & Oak?” Dana asked, smiling.
“Yep. I figured, why not? We’d been texting and keeping in touch. They even invited us to a race.”
“Not my baby is an ‘IT’ girl, I know that’s right,” Yannagushed as she kissed my neck softly.
Just as the mood was shifting to something charged and sensual, the doorbell rang.
I stood slowly, wary, and walked to the door. My heart dropped, and anger rose as soon as I saw him through the peephole.
Colson Hawke.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, blocking the doorway with my body.
“We need to talk, Ja.”
“No, we don’t. Nicknames are reserved for people I fuck with, and you’re not on that list. And how the fuck did you get my address?”
He stepped closer, his voice tinged with desperation. “You keep acting like what we had meant nothing.”
“Because it didn’t,” I snapped.
His face twisted. “Wow. So that’s it? You really gonna act like you didn’t love me?”
“You loved yourself more. Enough to cheat and bring back a baby.”
“I made some mistakes—”
