Mira squeezed her eyes shut; her lips mouthed what I assumed a prayer to a God that wouldn’t save her here.
“I said play.” I cut into whatever she was mouthing off with no words coming from her mouth.
She opened her eyes, broken and defeated, butstill alive. She reached out with shaking hands and took the violin. For a couple of seconds, she pulled it to her chest and held it like it was the last piece of herself she could protect. She lifted it seconds later and pressed it under her chin. The bow shook in her hand before she played a soft broken note that cracked through the crisp air. I looked down at her chipped nail polish, I wondered if her feet looked the same.She’s poor, but rich in spirit…The thought made me crack a smile at her.
She played for me, and I stood watching her. My favorite owl, Snow, landed on my shoulder. She dug her claws in and looked at me with her big black eyes. She felt what I felt, her claws was the pinch that I needed to tell me I wasn’t dreaming. I felt a shift, a shift that I was sure she felt. I shut my eyes and peace came next…the same kind of peace that I felt weeks ago for the first time in a long time inside of that chaotic strip club that she considered a job. The longer she played, the more the wordforeverswam in my mind.
Mira was the piece that would become mine forever…didn’t matter if she liked it or not. That’s how life worked. One moment things are the way you like them to be…then the next… a shift that you can’t stop takes place.
WHEN IT RAINS IT POURS
“What isit about this one, Kenric? It’s a million other bitches. This one here ain’t worth it. Her background is fucked up, you really are doing her a favor and saving her. When your fascination is gone, you will realize?—”
“Bitches juice ain’t worth the squeeze, Tone…I can tell it just by looking at them. But her…” His words trailed off. His voice was deep and raspy; it penetrated through me although his voice was faint.
What about me?
I held my breath as my eyes wildly scanned the dark room that I was in. My eyes welled to the brim with tears as I felt my heart rate pick up. The slight headache that I felt coming backwasn’t worth me breaking down.So, his name is Kenric? I heard his men calling him Grand.
“Her complexion, curves, every inch…including her voice, seems…tasty.” He chuckled deviously.
I moved my mouth to scream but thought against it. It’s been three days since I’ve been stuck in a room full of owls.Was it illegal to have an owl as a pet in California?I saw them during the day, and at night their eyes seemed to glow.
“It’s count time, make sure they are all ready before I head down there. I’m not in the mood tonight.” His voice echoed off whatever hidden door he was behind.
“Oh…I want her to play for me. Let her meet Staress, y’all get her right.”
I licked my dry cracked lips then patted around the velvet couch that I had grown close to. Cucumbers soaked in vinegar was the only thing that I had been given to eat. It made me even more paranoid that this monster knew that it was my favorite thing to snack on, especially when I called myself dieting. I wanted real food, my stomach growled, and my lips burned from the acid of the vinegar. I hadn’t had a drink of water, or anything beyond the cucumbers.
Why me?I kept thinking over and over. Wasn’t shit special about me. Kenric friend was right. I wasn’t worth the charge of kidnap, technically he was doing me a favor if he didn’t plan to rape, beat, or kill me. Since I’ve been here past the three-day eviction notice that awaited me, I was sure all of my things, including Darius’ belongings was sitting out on the sidewalk in the rain.
I thought of my mother and wished like hell I could join her in heaven. I wasthirteenwhen the world decided I didn’t deserve a good life. The night my mom died, I was waiting by the window with my violin in my lap. She was coming in late fromher second job once again, and I was mad. I rehearsed what I would say because I felt like her jobs always came before me.
Momma worked two jobs to take care of the both of us. I never had a father. I used to tell myself that I didn’t need to know who he was. However, I knew that he was the one who gave me my big eyes since my mom’s eyes were tiny and slanted. I used to stare in the mirror and look for the ghost of a man my mom never spoke about. Whenever I would ask, she’d just say that I had her and that it was enough.
A knock came at our door that rainy night, I thought it was her. Instead, it was a man with sad eyes staring back at me. He told me that she was gone, a big eighteen-wheeler truck hit her straight on. The driver honked his horn to get her attention since she fell asleep behind the wheel. The man also told me that she died instantly and didn’t feel any pain.
For some reason, I felt like he lied to me. In my young heart, I felt like she felt the pain of it all. They buried her in a closed casket with lilies and roses that I couldn’t smell because of my congested nose from crying my heart out.
My family, her sister, brother, and cousins that I only seen on holidays stood behind me whispering. With no shame, they talked about what they were going to do, and how she didn’t leave a will. They already made up their minds that I was a lot to take in.
Next was foster care for me. That was hell dressed up in pastel-colored sheets and fake ass smiles. I went to different houses, that never smelled like home. I encountered different people who either ignored me or tried too hard to touch me whenever the lights went off. I fought and protected myself always no matter how weak I felt.
I also had the violin that was once my mother’s. Cherry wood, the varnish was worn where her fingers once pressed. She used to love playing it for me and taught me how to play. It was theonly piece of her that I had left, the only proof that I was once loved.
I would play it at night, in my bed letting the music fill the cracks in me. I constantly told myself that I would be okay and that one day things would turn around for me. When I turned eighteen, I left foster care with nothing but a trash bag of my belongings. My violin was my main pride that was worth something.
I thought freedom would feel like the sun on my skin, like the breath that I had been holding for years that I could finally let go of. My freedom was playing my violin at train stations for change. I used to imagine the clink of change going into my jar was all the strangers applauding me.
Then I met Darius, he made me feel seen and promised me so much shit that I let my guard down and trusted him. I was twenty, when we met, he never judged me for sleeping in homeless shelters. He saved me from that and helped me get into my first apartment that we shared together. It felt good hearing a man tell me that I was beautiful. The way he used to stare at me and treat me mended the broken heart that I carried around since momma’s funeral.
Six years later, things changed. Darius was the main one who changed. I went along with his change although I felt him slipping away. This last year, I felt him leaving me without saying it. Just from all the late nights of him being gone. Whenever he came home, his phone was always faced down.
What hurt the most was that he started to complain whenever I played the violin. He used to love me playing, used to beg me to play so he could self soothe and fall to sleep. The compliments stopped; I missed it all. Our closeness, the small things, like him slapping me on the ass whenever he walked pass me in the kitchen. The sex slowed down to once every couple of weeks if that. It felt like he was punishing me, I loved sex, it’swhat eased most of my tension and kept me feeling good. We used to have lots of sex and although it wasn’t the type of sex that I heard about from other women, it was good enough for me.
Darius no longer complained about me working two jobs. He stopped promising me that he would finally get his career job to take care of the both of us so I wouldn’t have to work. He promised me forever, along with kids. I shut my eyes and thought of our last conversation that stomped on the remainder pieces of my heart that he already broke…
I woke up to my clock screaming at me. My throat felt dry, and my body felt heavy. I only wanted to close my eyes for an hour but could tell I fell asleep after leaving my security job at the hospital. I looked at the clock, and it read eight thirty p.m. I sighed a breath of relief because I still had time to hurry to the club to play for a couple of hours.
