Chapter One
Chanel
“Where the hell were you?” my mother shrieked from down the long hallway. My parents fighting late at night wasn’t a particularly irregular occurrence. It was the only time my father was usually home. Showing up late at night was his norm. And normally, I would put my headphones on, or do my best to cover my ears with my pillow to drown out the noise of their arguments. But this night was different.
Dressed in my brand-new silk pajama dress, I rose out of bed and walked to my door, pushing aside the birthday balloons that I’d begged my mother to allow me to keep in my room. I peeked out into the dark hallway and heard loud yells coming from my parents’ bedroom.
I thought about returning to my bed and letting my parents have it out about my father’s failure to show up to both my school recital and tenth birthday party earlier that evening. I knew eavesdropping wasn’t “polite,” as my mother always said. However, something else was pushing me as I opened the door just enough to squeeze my small body through and tiptoe down the hall. I glanced at my brother Jason’s closed bedroom door as I passed, wondering if their arguing disturbed him as much as they did me. Listening, I didn’t hear any stirring coming from his room. By now, my parents’ voices had quieted, but I could hear them more clearly, now that I was closer.
“You missed her recital and birthday party while you were out with one of your whores!” my mother ranted. Their bedroom door was slightly ajar, and light from their room streamed into the hallway. I made sure to stay out of the light that might cast a shadow and possibly alert them to my presence. I wanted to overhear, uninterrupted. I too wanted to know what I’d done that could make my father miss a recital I’d been excited about for weeks, and my birthday. My mother had gone overboard, since this was my tenth.
“You’ve been on this earth a full decade, princess. We need to celebrate,” she’d said as we shopped for party decorations.
Honestly, I wasn’t interested in having a huge party. A few friends over for cake after my spring recital was all I’d wanted, but my mother insisted. I was more excited about singing the lead role in the recital. I’d practiced for weeks. Told everyone I knew that I was going to be singing. Among other songs, we were doing a rendition of the popular “Spice Up Your Life” by the Spice Girls. I loved singing and wanted everyone I knew to see it. I begged my mother for a month beforehand to ask my father to come.
“She wanted you there! Why couldn’t you do this one thing for your daughter?” my mother pleaded.
“You mean, for you,” My father retorted.
“No, I mean for Chanel! She’s your child too!”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? I know she’s my damn child!”
“You know what the fuck it means!”
My eyes bulged. My mother never cursed. She said it was improper.
“Watch your damn mouth,” my father countered.
“No, Elliott! Don’t tell me about my mouth. Chanel wanted you there, and you couldn’t pull yourself away from whoring long enough to be there for your child! What type of man does that?!”
“I never wanted her any fucking way!” he roared in response. “You knew I never wanted a second child, but you were under some misguided notion that having another baby would make me love you more. Don’t pull that unfit parent shit on me when you’re the fucking one who only had another child to try and force some happy family that never was!”
My entire body stiffened as his words pierced my heart with all the venom in his voice. I began shaking with sobs that I refused to let out. I clamped both hands over my mouth and slumped against the wall, unable to support my body weight on my two legs. I couldn’t hear anymore. I couldn’t bear the brunt of more vicious words. I needed to flee back to my room where I was free to let my tears fall.
Stumbling a little, I managed to hold onto the wall to guide me back down the hall to my bedroom. Still shaking, I made it back to my room, eased myself through the door, and closed it behind me. I stubbed my toe against the glass ornament that’d been used to anchor the array of balloons. I didn’t even feel the pain, as the throb emanating through my chest hurt more than anything I’d ever felt.
Tossing myself on the bed, I wrapped my pillow around my head, covering my ears to drown out any more of my father’s painful words. It was no use, of course; I’d already overheard the most painful words any child could hear.
He’d never wanted me.
****
It hadn’t been just a dream.
It was a memory.
I realized this as I sat up in bed, panting as the alarm on my phone blared. Blinking, I looked around my bedroom, trying to remember where I was. My breathing normalized and I remembered, that I was now in my room, in the home that I’d bought. I was no longer that ten-year-old girl who’d begged her mother to ask her father to attend her school recital.
Reaching over to my nightstand, I turned my phone off and threw the covers off me. I dragged myself to the bathroom across the hall and almost gasped when I looked in the mirror. Below my eyes remained the huge dark circles that’d been there for three weeks now.
Three weeks since my life turned upside-down.
Three weeks since I’d gotten a decent night’s rest.
Three full weeks sincehewalked out on me.
If I wasn’t dreaming about the night of my tenth birthday, I was having even worse nightmares of staring at my bruised and bloodied face from the night I called the police on my ex-fiancé. In that dream, I’d be looking at my marred face in one second, and then peer up into the face of my former client, Anne Marie, as blood gushed from the bullet wound in her forehead. Then there were the nights I dreamt about trying to save her son, Noah, with my hands covered in blood as he begged me to save him.
