Chapter 1
Dionne Henry
The Weight I Carried
“Dionne, open the door, baby. Why you doing this shit? Open the door so that I can talk to you,” Tank said to me, as his voice pressed against the door, low and shaky, as if he was trying to pull me back to him.
I was hurting right now. Truly broken. For years, I have played so well at pretending that that night never happened to me as a little girl. One look at the picture in the photo album that Tank had shown me, and seeing his father, was a reminder to me that it did happen. It happened, and the reminder broke me apart.
As I was down on the bathroom floor, with my knees pulled to my chest, breaking down, I had the palm of my hand on my chest because my chest was aching. I could tell by the long, shallow breaths that I was taking, not being able to catch a rhythm, that I was indeed having a panic attack.
“Ima kick the door in if you don’t open it for me, Dionne. Just let me come in, so I can talk to you,” he continued to plead.
I’ve been in this bathroom for about five minutes now. After the cat was let out of the bag, I just remember pushing myself away from his embrace, letting Tank, and his mom know that I needed a minute, and I went into the guest bathroom that wasdownstairs, locking myself inside. Tank probably honored me the first thirty seconds of isolation before he came, knocking on the door, wanting me to answer for him.
“I don’t… I don’t want to talk. I’m embarrassed,” I cried, my face soaked from the tears.
I promised myself that that vile part that happened in my life years ago was something that I would never speak about. My sisters, who I was close as hell with, who I literally told everything to, I promised that I would never speak on that secret. I wouldn’t tell it to Blake, and I damn sure wouldn’t tell it to my mother, either. It would break her.
“Open the door, baby. Please,” I could hear it in his voice that he sounded defeated with this situation.
As much as I was trying to push him away right now, I really did need him, so I reached my hand up, unlocked the door, and I quickly buried my face into the top that I was wearing because I didn’t want him to see me. I didn’t want to see him, either. I was afraid of the way he might view me. The way he might look at me. I couldn’t bear to see him.
The second I unlocked the door for him, I heard it turn, and I could hear when he stepped in, having his foot hit the tiled floor. I smelled him next. His cologne was strong, and powerful, just as it always was.
Next, the door closed behind him, and I even heard when he locked it. He immediately came over to me, and his hands went up under my arms, trying to lift me up, but I put up a fight, not wanting to be touched.
As if he was unfazed by the little tantrum that I was throwing, he still lifted me, and he carried me, taking me over to the counter, where he sat me down. I’ve never been this embarrassed before in my life, so my head crashed into his chest, as I continued crying, having my moment.
Tank’s hands went up under the top that I was wearing, and his cold hands went for my back, massaging me up and down, as he placed soft, gentle kisses on my forehead, letting me break.
“I’m the last person you gotta be embarrassed around, Dionne. You can tell me anything that you’ve ever done before in your past, and I would never side eye you because my past not pretty at all. The version that you’re getting of me isn’t shit like the version that I used to be five years ago. Also, the shit that you just told me out in the living room, that ain’t something for you to be embarrassed about. That nigga should be the one that’s fuckin embarrassed. Ima handle that though. He not going to be able to walk around freely knowing the shit that he did to you,” his voice was calm, yet it held a lot of aggression.
“I don’t want it to be handled though. I just want to forget about it. I’ve done good at forgetting about it. Can we just forget that I even told you that?” I asked, pulling my head away from his chest, using my hands to finally wipe my eyes.
Even though my head was no longer on him, I wouldn’t look him in his eyes. My eyes were everywhere in this bathroom, except for being on him.
My question made him suck his teeth, and his hands that were once in my shirt, was now removed, and he put them at his side.
“You think you’ve done a good job at forgetting it, but Dionne, you haven’t. Now that you’ve revealed this shit to me, every little thing that you’ve done since we’ve got together, now makes a lot of sense to me. I remember wanting to fall asleep with the TV on, and you wanted to sleep with it off, or with the volume turned low because you said you wanted to be aware of what’s happening around you, or outside of the room. The way you jump in your sleep whenever I get in bed after you. You had a nightmare the other night when you stayed at my house, too. When we first started fuckin around, you wouldn’t let me knowwhere you lived for shit. The way you move is like a woman that’s been through something, and she’s not trying to ever have that shit happen to her again. After what you just revealed to me, why the fuck would you even think that I’m supposed to just forget about it, and sweep it under the rug?” he wanted to know.
“Because I don’t want to fuckin bring attention to it!” I yelled, picking my hands up, and I pushed him back, so that he could move from in front of me, but of course, he didn’t move an inch. I felt like I’d pushed into steel, which is why his hard body didn’t budge.
Tank pulled down on his beard, eyes on me, really looking at me like he wanted to curse my ass out, but he didn’t. I was glad that he didn’t because it wouldn’t have ended well. I was already fired up, so the last thing that I needed to be doing was going at it with him.
Five minutes passed, and I’d calmed down and was no longer crying. Still, very much hurt behind what I had to reveal to him, but my face was dry of tears. My eyes felt swollen, so I already knew that if I turned around, and I looked at myself in the mirror, my eyes would reflect ones that were puffy.
“Can I ask you questions about it, and after you answer them, I swear I won’t bring it back up again,” he went on to say after about two minutes more of silence. Instead of me verbally answering his question, I just nodded my head, telling him that he could go ahead.
“Your mom know about this?” was his first question.
“No. I never told her. No one knows. Just you, and your mom,” I was honest, and he nodded.
“I ain’t putting the blame on her, but where the fuck was she when this shit happened?” I knew that question would be next, and I wasn’t upset at him for asking it. It was a question that was warranted.
“My mom wasn’t the kind of parent to bring men back to her house. The only men that I ever really saw at the house were my sister’s dad’s, and it would be brief, when they would come over, just to get their kids. My mom dated, and she did her thing with men, but we never saw them. She started dating your dad when I was eleven. She liked him a lot, and with that, she would drop me, and my sisters off with our grandmother, so that she could go out with him. That went on for a while, and then she eventually started bringing him to the house. She never left us in rooms alone with him though. She was always present. I was older, so I was the one that fully understood what was going on, so I was standoffish towards him. He really didn’t say much to me, and my sisters either, and back then, I don’t know if he was doing it, maybe because our mom told him not to, or what. I remember one night he was over, and I was in the bathroom. I had just gotten out the shower, and I was standing at the counter, with just my robe on, and I was brushing my teeth,” I went on to say, and then I paused for a little bit.
“I forgot to lock the door, so he was able to walk right in. I’ll never forget the way he looked at me. It was in a lustful kind of way. I was only a kid, but I knew the look that he had given me wasn’t appropriate. After staring at me for a few seconds, that’s when he apologized, saying that he didn’t know that I was in there. Now that I’m older, and I’m forced to think about that night, I now know that he was lying. The bathroom that I was in was the bathroom that I shared with my sisters, and he knew that he couldn’t come in there. He had to use my mom’s bathroom,” I finished, and my eyes had gotten a little misty, so the second that I blinked, a tear ended up falling.
