Chapter 5.2 – Revealing Secrets

Authors note: Please be mindful that this chapter is dark, and shouldn’t be taken lightly. If your easily offended, please don’t read it!

Two warnings in a row? Jeesh… I promise some good will come eventually.

Makenzie’s Point of View

“NO! Just leave me alone. I don’t want to talk to anyone!” I screamed through my tears. They were so freaking persistent! Why couldn’t they just go away and leave me alone?!

“Micki open this door right now!” Dad shouted, giving the door another pound.

“GO! AWAY!”

I grabbed my back pack and emptied it onto the floor, throwing clothes from my dresser into it. This was it, I was running away. I couldn’t take this life any longer! My nightmares, my “friends” … I just had ENOUGH! If I run away from my problems, maybe they’ll leave me alone for good.

As I was emptying another drawer, it hit me. What am I doing? How is running going to solve anything?

I let some more tears slid down my cheeks, and then let out a deep breath. I just couldn’t do this to myself. I was already a complete wreck. Why run from the only safe place I knew? That was just my anger and frustration talking. Inside I wanted to crawl up on my daddy’s lap and ask him to make it all go away!

“Please Makenzie. We just want you to tell us what’s wrong! We’re not leaving until you unlock this door.” Papa demanded, worry filling his voice.

I braced myself, then unlocked my bedroom door. My parents were standing beyond it with petrified looks on their faces. I guess I couldn’t really blame them. I would be afraid too if I had a kid and she pulled a stunt like that.

The second I stepped out of that room, I collapsed into my dad’s arms. I cried uncontrollably into his shoulder begging him to take away the pain.

“Pl-Please don’t let him hurt me!” I wailed, clenching tighter onto his shirt.

He pulled me back, and looked me directly in the eyes “Who hurt you?”

“Jeremy.” And from there, I told them everything. The nightmares, the way I felt when my sisters were taken from me,  the constant bullying in school, and the fact that Jeremy almost successfully raped me. Their faces said 1000 words. They couldn’t believe everything I was hiding from them, and honestly they were hurt. I felt so bad for making them feel bad! UGH! Why is everything so difficult?! Why can’t my life just be rainbows and unicorns?! 

***************

Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. I continued going to school, and told my parents to just drop everything that happened. I didn’t want to bring Jeremy to the police, and I sure as heck didn’t want them talking to him. I just wanted him to leave me alone, and for life to go on as “normal.” But you see? After that night Jeremy didn’t return to school. In fact, I haven’t even heard his name mentioned since.

I know it was weird, but I actually was… worried for him.

“Come on Mick! We’re going to be late for class… AGAIN!” Kim growled, demanding I follow her. I lowered my head even further, and tightened the grip I had around myself.

“You go…”

“Oh my god, we’re not doing this again Makenzie! Stop moping about Jeremy! I told you he probably switched schools, or moved. GET OVER IT!” She shouted, her voice echoing down the empty halls.

I turned from her and scoffed. “Just leave me alone…”

“Mick, where are you going!? You need to stop acting like this!  You lose friends and you gain friends. I’ve had to accept that in my life, and so do you.”

“Your a selfish jerk! How could you stand there and say things about him like that? It didn’t bother you the least that after that night he just, disappeared?! What if he’s hurt?” I snapped back, my anger at it’s peak.

“Makenzie-“

“Just save it, Kim. I don’t want to hear it.”

I didn’t understand why I had this need to defend him. It didn’t make sense to me at all! He raped me, and all I could think about was his safety? Where is my BRAIN?!

I walked into class late -as usual- and was given a dirty glare from the teacher. I slipped into the back row, and took a seat. Kim followed suit. She pulled a chair up beside me, and sighed “I do think about him. I don’t want to admit it… because I hate him for what he did to you. Just answer me this, Mick… Why do you care so much?”

I kept my eyes glued on my hands, and shrugged my shoulders. Honestly that was the same answer in my head. I had no idea why I cared… I just did.

Kim was going to say something else, but she was shushed by our science teacher. Thank god for that, because I was so done talking about this.

****************

After school, I took a walk to my usual place. Jeremy, Kim, and I would come here to talk about life, and get away from our problems. After what he did to me this place became a thing of the past. Kim and I continued to see each other now and again, but it just wasn’t the same. I couldn’t resist coming here today though. It was just one of those times where I needed a time to escape from everything else around me.

“Why did you have to mess everything up?!“ I whispered in a scowl under my breath “Everything was fine until you did that to me… why did you do that to me Jeremy?”

“If it means anything, I didn’t know what I was doing… when I did it.” A voice that sounded all too familiar came from my behind my head. The hairs on my arm stood up and my skin crawled with goosebumps.

Jeremy.

I sat there motionless, just waiting for his next move. I was scared and angry all at the same time. How dare he come here!

When he finally walked around the bench, and our eyes met, that’s when all hell broke loose! I thought that if I saw him again I would be relieved he was alive. Nope. Total opposite! I wanted him to die where he stood!!

“YOU JERK! Get away from me, before I call the cops!” I raged, my voice filling the air around us. He was lucky we were on the outskirts of the island, because people would have been turning heads.

“Makenzie please! Let me explain!” he quivered, his eyes glazing over.

Tears started pouring from his eyes, leaving me speechless where I stood. I wanted to continue to yell, but seeing him cry… it caught me completely off guard. What kind of rapist would cry? True criminals got a sense of thrill from their crimes… not break down and cry about them. What? I’ve seen a lot of crime shows.

“Explain what Jeremy? How you didn’t mean to rape me?!”

At the very sound of the word rape, his eyes just filled with more tears. “Micki… I- I didn’t know what I was doing. Even after I woke up the next morning, I found out what I did by someone who saw us in the hallway. He thought we we’re just being frisky, but as he started to describe everything to me, I almost threw up. It just brought back everything I wanted to forget.”

“Yea I’d want to forget if I raped someone too…” I snapped back, keeping at a safe distance. I still didn’t trust him. He wasn’t making any sense.

“I’m not talking about that night Makenzie! I’m talking about when I was young… what really happened to me.” he sighed, letting another tear escape his eye.

“Your not making any sense Jeremy! I met your parents, you have a great life.”

“Yea, except that their not my real parents.” he sniffled “This is something I should have told you along time ago.”

“But-“

“No. Just let me finish!” he retorted, his eyes filled with shame.

My eyes widened with anticipation. I had no idea what he was going to tell me, but I had a feeling it wasn’t anything good.

“Before I was adopted, and before I had what seemed like the “perfect life” I had another family- My real family. A mom, dad, and older sister. I remember how much my sister – Lissy – loved me. She was so proud to have me as a little brother, because for the longest time she was an only child. My parents couldn’t have anymore kids, or so they were told, but out of no where… came me. It was safe to say we were really happy.”

“I remember the last happy day in my life, also turned into the beginning of the life I grew to hate- No, LOATHE. I was sitting on the couch with my sister watching afternoon cartoons. Outside was cold and rainy, and my father was at work.”

“We were in the middle of discussing which cartoon was better, when our father stormed inside the house. We turned around and both watched as he began to break down. Muffled cries were coming through his hands, and after awhile of hearing the same thing repeated over and over, we got the gist that our mother had died in a car accident. He was informed at work, and came straight home after the news. That was also the day my fathers heart turned black, and he no longer cared about what he did or said.”

“The days that passed only seemed to grow worse. It started out where he would snap at us for every little thing, no matter what it was. He turned to Lissy the most because she was 15 and I was only 5.  He would scream and shout, and half the time I expected him to hit us.”

“I wish I could say that, that was the worst part but it wasn’t. He also took up drinking, and that’s when our lives became a living hell. Any time he picked up a glass of alcohol, fear would strike through my entire body. I remember every time, right before he took the first sip, he would start to cry. It was like he resented the very thought of doing it to himself, but he did it anyways.”

“Th-the drinking went on for months. There wasn’t a day that went by where my father wasn’t drunk. Always screaming, always threatening me and my sister. His mind was so in cased by alcohol that he started doing things. Bad things. He-He-He would make me watch as he… had sex with women. He told me it was the only way to make me a man! That if I didn’t learn I would be someone else’s toy. I would sit there and cry, with my eyes closed tight. Anytime he saw them closed he would scream at me, and threaten to hurt me. I could never forget that laugh he would use when he got pleasure from torturing us. The worse part about it, was the women he was with couldn’t give a crap about me there, because they were either drunk or high as a kite.”

“Then-then that one unforgettable day came. My father was about to drag me into the room, and sit me in that god-forsaken chair and make me wait for his whore to come over. But my sister, she had enough! My father had me by the wrist, and she stepped in front of the bedroom door, refusing that he make me go through that again! By now he was screaming for her to move, and his grip only got tighter. Being the young age I was I started to break down and cry. That’s when he slapped me across the face, and his ring on his finger gave me this scar I now have.”

“I fell back onto the floor, and my father gripped my sister’s pony tail and started punching her repeatedly in the face. The rubber band in her hair came out, causing his next swing to knock her to the floor. I was screaming and crying, wanting him to stop hurting her!”

“Even when she was down, he gripped her by the throat and kept hitting her! I was so scared for Lissy so I climbed to my feet, and pleaded for him to stop! Her whole face was covered in scrapes and cuts, and tears were streaming down her cheek. I could see she was trying to tell me to go, but I just couldn’t leave her. She was the only real mother I had now.”

“He dropped the hold on my sister, because my screams just kept getting louder and louder. He turned to me and with a scowl on his face he told me to get in my chair, that this was a show I didn’t want to miss. I watched as he picked up my sister and plopped her onto the bed in the other room. The only thought that ran through my mind was that he was going to do that to her! That she was going to be his next…”

“I forced myself into that chair, and watched as he stripped my sister down to nothing but her underwear. She was blacked out for a good 10 minutes until she finally came around. He smirked, and made her pose for him. Saying that he wanted this done right for me. My sisters eyes were yet again filled with tears, her face dripping with blood. My father started to undress and then slowly started climbing onto the bed. My sister eyeballed me, and for some reason I knew she was going to try and get herself out of this. The way her foot hovered so close to his chest, and the way she kept looking at me said it all.”

“I closed my eyes tightly, clenching my fist in my lap. I just wanted it all to be over! At that very moment I hated my mother for dying, and blamed her for what my father was doing to us! It wasn’t long until I heard the loud moans of my father from getting kicked in the chest. After that I heard them ruffling around the room, before there was a dead silence. I was so scared to open my eyes… and when I finally did, I wished I never had.”

“Because right before my eyes, laid my si-sister … dead. He didn’t even think twice about it. He just stared at her body, stumbled quickly over it and went into the living room for another drink. I was completely numb from head to toe. My heart was the only part of my entire body that I could actually feel, and it was breaking over and over. I tried to call out for my sister, but the only thing that came out was a soft cry.”

“If it wasn’t for that lady that passed our house on a jog, I would probably be dead. She told the police that she heard a loud commotion going on inside, and thought it would be best if they checked it out. And when they finally came, and saw that my sister was laying dead on the floor, my father was drinking, and I was crying to myself in a corner… he was locked up right on the spot.“

I stood, completely lost for words. Inside my heart was breaking over and over again for him. I had no idea he had to go through so much. Every time I tried to say something, nothing would come out.

“I’m sorry Micki. I really never wanted to hurt you. I stayed away from school, because I was too ashamed to even see you. I guess- I guess that when I drank all that alcohol my mind didn’t know what was reality anymore, and who I was anymore.” he cried out, his shirt stained with tears.”The very thing I hated my father for… I did too you… Please can you ever forgive me?”

“Ho-How come you never told me?” Were the only words that my mouth would let escape.
He wiped the tears from his eyes and stated “It’s not something you can just tell someone, Micki! That was a very depressing and hurtful time in my life, that I will never, EVER forget. It haunts my mind everyday. I can never escape the pain I feel for losing so much in such a small amount of time.”

I lowered my head in shame “I’m so sorry Jeremy. I had no idea-“

“Just save it. I’ve heard it all so many times before, I don’t need to hear it from you too. Like I always told you Micki, I know how you feel. I wasn’t far from you. I too have a darkness that never seems to leave me.”

“I-I don’t know what else to say Jeremy. This has been too much for me to take in, I’m sorry, but I really need to go.” I cried, my eyes filling with tears.

“No, wait…” he sighed, touching my arm gently “Please don’t go.”

“Jeremy! I’m not doing this right now. I really need some room to breathe, before I have a break down.” I shouted, pushing him away.

“Okay, but there is just one last thing I really needed to tell you. The whole reason that made what I did a million times worse…” he said softly, his eyes gazing into mine.

He stepped a couple feet towards me, and half-smiled at me. He took me by the arm softly, and pressed his lips carefully onto mine.

“I love you…”

Thanks for reading!

It’s official… that was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write. I hope this chapter makes sense to everyone as to what happened to Jeremy and why he did that to Micki. It’s not his fault… The whole memory of his father and sister, just played over in his head, and the consumption of alcohol, plus what ever else he had the party, separated him from reality. He wasn’t intentionally trying to hurt Micki, it just happened. Plus… Jeremy would never really want to hurt her, because he LOVES her.

Now… how Micki reacts? That’s what the next chapter is for 😉

-Sponge