Page 42 of Carter's #Undoing

Fifteen

SERENITY

Sixteen years ago …

The momentI stepped into my house, something didn’t feel right. I glanced into my mom and Rodney’s room, but it was empty. Everything in the house seemed in order, but I just had a funny feeling. Unfortunately, the feeling was my new normal when I came home.

It was finally the weekend, and although I hated to feel like I was taking advantage of the Maddens, I wasn’t safe here. There was no way I could be at my house an entire weekend. Carter hated when I came here at all without him, but I hadn’t seen my mom or Rodney’s car in the driveway, and all I’d needed to do was grab a few more clothes and be out of the house before either of them returned. I shot Carter a quick text telling him I’d walked to my house and would be walking to his soon.

Typically, when I was left home alone when I was younger, I’d made sure to peek down the basement stairs and check all the closets. However, since I was trying to make a quick exit, I hadn’t done any of that as I began changing out of the clothes I wore to school to put on something more comfortable.

I’d only taken off my top when my closet door swung open and I was tackled onto my bed. I screamed at the top of my lungs when they cut off the light, hoping that someone would hear me as I felt my jeans being pulled down along with my panties. It took a while for me to realize that I was also being punched in the stomach and that there were two people involved in this cruelty because there were two sets of hands.

I was yelling and kicking, my mind a mess at what was happening to me. I wasn’t sure if someone had spilled something on top of me or if it was spit mixed with sweat, but the wetness smelled foul and wrecked of bodily fluids.

I’m not going to win this.The thought was so terrifying, I almost didn’t want to believe it. I wasn’t giving up, but it felt impossible to fight two people who beat me in strength. So I started praying. I prayed hard enough to drown out the hands that were invading me between my legs. I prayed hard enough to ignore how painful the punches felt to my stomach.

I asked God for any and everything, a part of me feeling as if I’d left my body and was watching this happen to someone else. What had I done to deserve this? What should I have done differently in life to avoid this moment? Did my stepdad really know so many police officers that no one cared about my side of the story or did I not speak up enough when it counted? Was this all my fault for not being cautious enough?

I didn’t know when he’d arrived, but the voice that cut through my racing thoughts was the saving grace I hadn’t known I’d be given until he was pulling them off me.

“Run to my car, Serenity.”

Carter. It was Carter.

I grabbed my pants, shirt and his keys, throwing on my clothes as fast as possible before racing to the car as he fought my attackers. My adrenaline was running, partially from being shook, and the other part from anger.

As I sat there in Carter’s car, I barely registered my mom’s vehicle that was parked a little farther down the street. When I did, I tried my best to hold back my tears to focus on the situation since I wasn’t in the clear yet.

Did she plan this?Her car being nearby made this feel pre-meditated. I’d never liked my mom much, but I didn’t even know who that woman was anymore. She wasn’t Betty Taylor. There was no way that crazed woman I lived with was my mother.

And if she was, how could someone hate their own child so much that they would do the very things they were supposed to protect their child from?

Present…

I didn’t knowI was reliving a nightmare until I slowly opened my eyes and spotted Carter sitting on the side of my bed, gently shaking me to wake me up.

My hand went to my cheeks that were damp from me crying in my sleep.

“She really was helping him, wasn’t she?” I asked in disbelief, my voice still groggy.

Carter studied my eyes. “Was your nightmare about that night?”

I didn’t respond, but asked again. “Was she?”

He nodded. “Yes. When I got there, she was holding you down while Rodney tried to rape you.”

I closed my eyes. “And they spit on me when they held me down. She’d also been the one punching my stomach, right? Before she helped Rodney remove the rest of my clothes?”

He nodded again, clenching his jaw in a way that meant he was getting upset, but trying to hold it together to answer my questions. “I assumed when you didn’t mention it when we talked about it, that you hadn’t remembered. Or maybe, hadn’t wanted to remember and I didn’t want to remind you. Serenity, you know your mom was sick and Rodney was her downfall. She’d never been a good person, but crack can drive a sane person to do malicious shit. Especially when a man like Rodney gets ahold of a weak-minded person.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that I’ve spent the past sixteen years only thinking about the parts that didn’t make me sick to my stomach. The parts I had to bury so deep I didn’t remember them until now. I used to cry myself to sleep not just because you were gone, and not even because Rodney had tried to rape me, but a combination of everything, and the fact that the woman who was supposed to protect me had failed her child in every way possible.”

“Serenity, if I could take away your pain I would,” he said. “I should have been there to help you pack up some things. I knew what you went through in that house and I still kick myself for not getting there sooner.”

“But you got there when it counted,” I reminded him, my mind drifting back to that nightmare. “When they held me down, I asked God to show me mercy. I actually prayed for it to be quick and for it not to change how I felt about intimacy. I prayed for my mother who didn’t know how to love me and for my father who left me with a woman like her. And I’d even prayed for Rodney as his spit from slurring his words after one too many drinks landed on my face and body. I’d thought that if I prayed for everyone involved, psychologically, I could get over how badly they were trying to break me.”

“But they didn’t,” he said. “They didnotbreak you.”

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