Roads Leading Back

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm glad to have such good reception over the prologue. I hope that this installment doesn't disappoint. Enjoy the chapter. Remember, reviews and/or constructive criticism are always welcome!


Roads Leading Back
Chapter One: A Dark Alley


“Jenn, when are you going to get over him?”

Jennifer didn’t turn away from the window. “Erica, you know I can’t. I know it’s been three months since James left, but I can’t forget him.” She looked down, away from the window. “I won’t forget him.”

Erica walked up beside her older sister. “I take it he’s written to you?”

Jennifer nodded. “I get a letter from him every week, and I’ve replied to each one immediately.”

“Have you told him yet that you’re pregnant?”

Jennifer shook her head. “I don’t want to burden him, or have him go all crazy wanting to come back.” She bit back tears. “I know Jimmy. He’d conquer Hell itself to get back to me if he found out I was carrying his baby.”

“How are you going to support it? You barely make enough to take care of yourself.”

Jennifer turned to her sister and smiled. “I’ll make it through somehow. Jimmy always said I could make it through anything.”

Erica smiled exasperatedly. “You really love him, don’t you?”

Jennifer nodded earnestly, her smile brightening. “I do, Erica. He always supported me the way Mama did before she died. He always believed I could make it through rough times if I put my mind to it.”

The faint sound of the front door opening and slamming shut cut off their conversation. “Erica! Jennifer! Where are you?”

Erica’s face went pale. “I already got dinner started, Jenny. Go on and get the table set. I don’t want Papa getting mad tonight.”

Jennifer nodded gravely and wordlessly swept out of her room and walked down the stairs silently, trying to calm down and hoping her father hadn’t been drinking before he arrived.


* * * * *


“You’ve been writing this girl letters all week? Is that what you do in your spare time?”

James laughed with a confused smile on his face. “Umm, guilty?”

“Jimmy, buddy, you moved out of that town three months ago. What are the odds you’ll ever see that girl again? And if, by some twist of fate you do, what makes you think she’ll still have feelings for you?”

“Mitch, you don’t understand,” James said, waving away his friend’s question and lining up his shot to connect the cue ball with the six. There was a crack of the two balls connecting, but the six remained on the table. “She and I had an amazing thing going on.”

“Did you have sex with her?”

James pursed his lips and looked away. Mitch noticed after he made his shot, sinking the ten. “Are you telling me that you’ve never even had sex with this girl?”

James narrowed his eyes as his friend missed sinking the fifteen. “I had sex with her once, and that was the day before I moved.” He lined up the cue ball with the six again, taking his shot violently and sinking the six. “It was the last thing she ever gave me before I left.” He moved around the table and lined the cue ball up with the corner of the eight ball. “Eight ball, side pocket.” He pointed at the appropriate hole with the tip of his cue stick as Mitch nodded.

“Two years, and you guys have only done it once?”

James lightly tapped the cue ball, connecting with the eight just strong enough for the black ball to roll perfectly sideways and into the announced pocket.

“That’s how much she meant to me, Mitch.” He opened his hand, and Mitch slapped twenty dollars against James’ palm with mock agitation. “Want to go for another round?”

“Nah, that’s the rest of my gambling money for the week,” Mitch said with a grin. “Rent’s due next paycheck, and I can’t afford to waste any more cash.”

“What about another game, just for kicks?”

Mitch was about to answer when James’ phone buzzed angrily. He took the phone, raising a finger at Mitch to hold on.

“Hello?”

“Jimmy.” The voice was a hoarse whisper, but he recognized immediately that it was his mother. “Jimmy, I need your help. Please…”

“Mom, I’ve already paid what Harold wanted. I can’t afford to give any more money.”

“It’s not about money,” his mother whispered quickly. “I need your help, Jimmy. Please…please just come home.” Without waiting for an answer, she hung up.

“Rain check?” Mitch asked.

James nodded, staring at his phone. “Yeah, rain check.”

“What’s up?”

“It was my mother.”

“The same woman that paid more attention to her current husband than her own flesh-and-blood son?”

James nodded. “Something’s wrong, though.”

Mitch began to catch on. “I’ll give you a lift, and I’ll park outside. If I see shit flying, I’ll call the cops.”


* * * * *


Mitch parked his SUV past the walkway up to the white two-story house.

“I’ll keep an eye out,” Mitch said. “Find a way to open the curtains. The second I see fists fly, I’m calling the cops and busting you out of there.”

James shook his head. “Don’t, Mitch. I don’t want you getting mixed up in this.”

Mitch visibly shivered as he looked at his friend’s face, screwed up in bottled anger.

“This is between that son of a bitch and me.”

Without another word, he left the SUV. Concerned for himself and his friend, Mitch took his cellphone out of his pocket and flipped it open, dialing 911 but waiting anxiously to press the ‘Send’ button.


* * * * *


Erica couldn’t help glancing at her sister, who ate her dinner quietly as if she were alone.

“What is your deal, Erica?” their father asked as he slammed the empty beer bottle on the table and wiped the beer head from his mustache. “Why do you keep staring at your sister like that? Did either of you do something stupid?”

Erica quickly looked down at her plate of food, slightly ashamed at being caught. “No, Papa.”

He pounded his fist on the table. “Out with it! What’s your problem?”

Without missing a beat, Jennifer picked up the salt from the end of the table across from Erica and handed it to her younger sister.

“That’s all,” she said flatly, continuing to eat.

Their father looked suspiciously from one to the other before he resumed eating. “I’m having…a friend over tomorrow night,” he announced flatly. “Someone I met the other day.”

There was only silence as Erica and Jennifer nodded their heads, not daring to look up at him.

“Jennifer.“ He waved his empty beer bottle at his older daughter. “Get me another beer.”

Erica shot up. “I’ll get it, Papa.”

Their father slammed the amber bottle on the table and gripped his younger daughter’s wrist violently. “Sit yourself down, you little brat. I asked your sister to do something for me. If I wanted you to get something, I’d have asked you.”

Without a word, Jennifer got up and disappeared into the kitchen. As soon as she was gone, he leveled an angry glare at Erica and waved a threatening finger at her.

“Whoever I ask to do whatever around here will do it, no questions asked,” he hissed. “If I ask her to take my pants off, she’ll do it. If I ask you to suck my cock, you’ll do it, no questions asked.”

He turned back to his plate as Jennifer returned to the dining room, gently placing an opened beer bottle by her father’s plate and leaving again to dispose of the empty bottle. Erica suddenly felt chills all through her body, followed quickly by the thought of feeling dirty. Why did Papa say that, she thought. That’s so disgusting…

“Jennifer,” her father suddenly said as she returned to the dining table.

Erica just barely noticed a flicker of dread in her older sister’s eyes.

“You’ve been wearing some really loose clothing lately, not the regular crap you or your sister usually wear.” He took a long drink of his beer. “There a problem?”


* * * * *


James cautiously walked into the living room to see his mother huddled in one corner of the couch, an ice pack in a zipper-lock bag in one hand and placed at the side of her head.

“Jesus, Mom,” he said, quickly running to the window and opening the curtains a little before sitting down beside his mother. “What the hell happened?”

She shook her head violently. “Don’t touch me, Jimmy. Just…don’t touch me!”

He lifted his hands away. “All right, all right. I won’t.”

She picked up a piece of tissue paper from the box at the end table and blew her nose. “Ah…I’m sorry, Jimmy. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

He shook his head. “Don’t worry about me for now.” His face grew stern. “What happened to you? Who did this?”

She suddenly broke down. “Oh, Jimmy, baby, I’m so sorry!” She threw herself at him and held him hard. “I’m so sorry I neglected you! I’m so sorry!”

He held her at arms’ length. “Forget about me for now.” He gave her another stern look. “Did Harold do this to you?”

Her face contorted into a look of fear, but she nodded dumbly.

“Where is he?”

She suddenly shuffled away from him, curling up in dread. He turned around just in time to see the shaft of a hockey stick as it smashed him deftly between the eyes. He fell over by the couch, groaning.

“Your stupid mother doesn’t know when to keep her damn mouth shut,” he spat. “Just like you, she hasn’t learned her place in my house.”

James slowly got up, licking blood from his upper lip. “If you don’t remember, my mother bought this house alongside you.”

“What does it matter? Your mother’s just doing everything I say because I have the cash to make sure she lives the sweet life.” Harold grinned. “She’s just a dumb gold digger like every other woman.”

James balled up his fists as he began to see red. “Is that how you see it?”

Harold laughed. “Of course. All women are just idiot broads that’ll get on their knees and start drooling at the sight of a dollar. Your mother and that trailer trash whore that you went out with.”

“You take that back,” James threatened.

“Oh, what are you going to do? Hit me?” Harold snorted. “I broke your arm before. I can break the rest of you.” He inclined his head past James’ shoulder. “Like your mother.”

James suddenly rushed him, slamming him into the wall and driving the wind out of him.

“Not this time,” James snarled. He raised a fist as if to hit Harold when he saw lights flash in his eyes and he suddenly felt the cold hardwood floor on his back.

“You’re such an idiot,” Harold spat. “I can’t believe you just keep coming back for more.” He slashed at James’ head with the blade of the hockey stick, cutting a gash across James’ right temple. “You might as well stop trying to act all high-and-mighty trying to defend your mother when you know that she was in the wrong.”

He raised the hockey stick high over his head. “This time I’ll make sure you don’t forget one lesson: Don’t ever mess with a real man, because a real man will beat down anyone who gets in his way.”

As the hockey stick lowered, James grabbed at the business end with both hands, wrenching it from Harold’s grip. He shot up and swung it across his middle, catching Harold in his left side. As he grabbed his side in pain, James swung down, catching his stepfather in his left shoulder. As Harold doubled over, James began to ruthlessly pound Harold’s back with the hockey stick, cracking the stick clean in two with the last blow and knocking Harold unconscious.

He dropped the end of the stick he was holding and fell to his knees as police broke down the door, Mitch spilling in among them.


* * * * *


Jennifer could only hear Erica pleading helplessly as her father locked her in her own room.

“And if I hear you leave, Erica, so help me…” she heard her father threaten. Jennifer wanted to run to her sister and hold her tightly, knowing she was futilely beating on the door and crying relentlessly. Instead, she sat on her bed and stared at the door, waiting patiently for judgment to come barreling in through to her own room.

It came as a violent swing open, followed by an abrupt slam closed.

“What in the damn hell did you think you were doing sleeping with that boyfriend of yours, huh?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat, considering whether to honestly answer the question.

Her father backhanded her across the face. “What? Have you gone dumb on me?”

She held her cheek lightly as she straightened herself from the blow. “He had to leave,” she answered defiantly. “He left against his will. He wanted to stay, but he didn’t have enough to support himself.”

“Dumb bitch!” He backhanded her again. “So why did you go and get yourself knocked up? Huh?”

“I didn’t expect to get pregnant, Papa,” she replied quietly. “I just…”

He sneered. “Oh, I get it. You wanted to give him something so that he’ll never forget you?” he asked in a mocking tone. “How sweet.” His face screwed up into one of pure anger. “Now you’ve gone and made the stupidest mistake of your life. How can you live with yourself, knowing that?”

“It wasn’t a mistake!” she cried as she stood up to face him. “I loved him, and he loved me! He was the best thing to ever happen to me, and he told me the same thing!”

He backhanded her again, forcing her to sit back down. “You really are an idiot, you know that?” He pointed a broken beer bottle at her. “There’s no such thing as love in this world. Men only care about sex, and women only care about cash.”

“That’s not true!” she screamed at him.

“Prove me wrong, Jennifer!” he demanded. “Has he sent you any money to provide for your kid?”

She shook her head numbly in reply.

“You never told him that you got pregnant, did you?”

She nodded.

“Why is that, hmm?” He crossed his arms as tears began to stream down her cheeks. “It’s because he’d stop writing to you if he found out, wouldn’t he?” He smiled cruelly. “Oh, don’t think I don’t know about those letters. I’ve played dumb since they started coming.”

“I never told him because he’d do whatever it takes to come back.”

“All bullshit,” her father scoffed. “So, what am I going to do with you now?”

“Just leave me alone,” she said with a sob. “I don’t need this, and neither does my baby.”

Her father snorted. “You’re right. That’s the only thing I can do.” He walked towards the door. “Pack your things. You’re leaving this house. If you’re going to take care of that kid, you won’t have enough to pay your share and your sister’s share of the rent.”

“You can’t do that!”

He turned back and hurled the beer bottle in her direction, missing her ear by inches and shattering against the window, making a spider web crack on one of the panes.

“You’re of legal age to live alone, Jennifer. Your sister isn’t. I want you out of this house by week’s end, otherwise I’ll have someone do an abortion for you in your sleep.”

He slammed the door to her room. Shaking, she shuffled the broken glass off her bed and laid down cradling her abdomen.

“This can’t be happening,” she whispered to herself, crying helplessly as she began to fall asleep to the sounds of her sister and her father arguing. She could barely make out what they were arguing about when she heard something hit the floor, followed by something so sickening that she heard ever so clearly.

“That’s right, bitch,” she heard her father moan over and over…


=[ End of Chapter One: A Dark Alley ]=

A/N: I hope you enjoy! I will write a little about this chapter on my Writer's Blog sometime this week to explain myself on a few things. Anyway, on to personal kudos…

born_to_do_it: Thank you for being so supportive of me and my work. I'm not sure if I'll write a back story on the main characters anytime soon, but I might if it works in with the story somehow…

naimahfosho: I've continued the story, and I hope you continue to enjoy.

7years: I'm glad you like the prologue, and it's kind of obvious now what Jennifer was insinuating at. As I told born_to_do_it I don't know if the past of these characters will come into play, but I will write about it should the opportunity present itself. Rest assured, however, that the present and future of these characters will be told to you and to all that read it.

That should be everything! Keep an eye out for more updates, and major thanks to all who reviewed!