Brielle wasn’t given to making snap decisions. Especially when it came to people she loved. She hated to hurt anyone’s feelings and she’d been in love with Damon Hamilton for a long time. She needed time to think about what he’d told her.
“I’ll understand if you don’t want to be my girl,” said Damon. “I won’t be mad or anything. Just don’t hate me.”
Brielle sighed.
“I could never hate you,” she said, a little sadly. “But, I need a little while to think about this.”
“That’s straight,” said Damon, but he didn’t look like it was. He looked like he’d lost his last friend. Students were starting to file into the school building. The halls were getting to get noisy. Damon stood up.
“I gotta go,” he said and sighed. “I’ll call you. You can tell me then if you want to be my girl or no. If your answer is no, I’ll leave you alone.”
Brielle was silent, looking down at her lap. Damon Hamilton had just said that he wanted her to be his girl, didn’t he? She should be glowing inside, but all she felt was confusion.
He reached out and tilted her chin up with one finger.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Okay,” she said with a slight nod.
Sasha
‘Note to self: Next time I run away, have someplace to run to.’
It was her second week in the shelter. Sasha kept to herself and rarely looked at the other residents. They mostly returned the favor but smiled at her or spoke in quiet soothing voices whenever they passed her in the hall. There were six other women and two children, a tiny boy and girl who sat in the room with their mother and never came out if there was anyone else in the common room.
A few of the women were married. All were hiding from some knuckle dragger. Everyone one of them had bruises and pain filled eyes. Sasha looked into the mirror and stared back at those same eyes; eyes that had been dry for a week but still felt swollen from weeks of crying. Sasha wished that she had her make up. Red lips and smoky eyes would make her feel more real and less like she was about to disappear into despair. She washed her face and combed her hair and put it into a ponytail. She headed to the kitchen for breakfast and group therapy.
“Good morning,” she said to the women standing at the stove, cooking eggs.
“Hey Chica, you feeling a little better, today, eh,” said a short Latina women who had the biggest chest that Sasha had ever seen. She was pregnant, too and sported bruises on her arms and legs. Sasha wondered why she didn’t keep the bruises hidden under her clothes, yet the woman was always wearing some variation of a sleeveless house dress.
“My name is Theresa.” She smiled shyly.
“Sasha.”
“It’s nice to finally meet you, eh?”
“Yes, hi.”
“Let me introduce you to everybody, officially, yes?” said Theresa.
Breakfast consisted of fried eggs, bacon, toast and milk, which Sasha hated but forced herself to drink. The circle of women spoke to Sasha gently as though afraid that she would break if they spoke harshly. They didn’t act curious, as though they had already heard her story. After breakfast they walked as a group to the big shabby meeting room, where everybody took a chair and dragged it into a circle.
When they were settled in the circle, Gail started off the meeting.
“Today,” she said. “We are going to talk about choices.”
“What kind of choices we got?” asked a tall white woman, who said her name was Heather. She was missing the teeth on the right side of her mouth so her words sounded slurred. “We in the shelter hiding from maniacs who want to kill us.”
Every one of the other women murmured in agreement. Sasha listened but couldn’t really relate. She wasn’t a battered woman, was she? She wasn’t really that afraid of her mother. After hearing some of horrific stories the women shared, Sasha felt like a fraud to even be in the shelter. She tuned back in to the conversation wafting around her.
“I feel like, you know,” said Theresa. “Like it was my fault. If I hadn’t made him so mad, he wouldn’t hit me. I could go back home.”
The other women hooted her down.
“Yeah, keep believing that,” said Heather. “You end up with a grill like mine.”
“Or worse,” said the black woman, pointing to her scarred face. “He got mad because I talked back. He got mad if I didn’t answer quickly enough when he asked me a question. You didn’t do nothing to make him mad, y’ all.”
Sasha eyed the scar with revulsion. It ran from one eyebrow all the way to her lip and pulled at Avery’s face so that one side drooped.
“Sasha,” said Gail. “You haven’t shared anything with us all week. Do you feel comfortable telling your story, today?”
Everyone leaned forward eagerly, supportive and gentle.
“It’s okay,” said the chubby white lady with dimples. She was Suzie. “We all have a story to tell.”
“Mine is not like yours,” blurted Sasha. “I’m not running from anyone. My story is different. My boyfriend didn’t beat me up.”
“Of course not,” said Suzie, dryly. “We’ve all ran into doors and fell down stairs.”
Heather and Avery high fived.
“I had a fight with my mother and she kicked me out.”
“A fistfight?” asked Gail.
“No,” said Sasha. “Mostly, she hit me and I ducked a lot.”
“But not fast enough,” said Heather, with a grin. “We resemble that remark.”
“That is not so funny, chica,” said Theresa. She glanced at her bruised arm.
“Then, I went to my daddy’s, but he wouldn’t let me stay, either,” said Sasha, voice shaky with remembered agony. “His wife doesn’t like me. Daddy snuck me some money. He wasn’t even mad at mama for hitting me.”
“Does your mama beat you up all the time?” asked Avery.
“No, just that once.”
“Got anything to do with that
