“Topaz, it’s okay if you don’t want to continue.” He tried to reassure her.
Shaking her head, she wiped her face once again, the last of her makeup faded and smeared a bit from the hard day. “I want to tell you what happened.” She paused. “No… I need to tell you. He came for dinner and both my parents acted nice to him at first, but as the night went on, my father said and did things that I knew wasn’t like him at all.”
A cool rush of air ran down Onyx’s spine, but there was no breeze. The only consolation when it came to his leg was there was no build up. Not I shouldn’t be here vibe going on. It was quick, merciless and dirty.
“Then the night became a nightmare. We were going to leave, just something felt off and my dad said he wanted to have a man to man and my mom insisted I help with the dishes.” She let out a breath of air. “Byron nodded, knowing he was playing a game, but comfortable until I saw two of my cousins walk in carrying guns. First, they drug him outside and beat him up, but then finally shot him in the knee to get him to stop fighting back. My father held me back as I screamed at them to stop. Calling them every name I could.”
Topaz covered her left cheek with her hand, as if she were soothing an old scar.
“I yanked one arm free and my father dug his fingers into my other so hard, it was bruised for a week. He’d never so much as spanked me growing up and he slapped me so hard, I can still feel the sting. I begged, pleaded just to let him go. The worst I thought could happen was they break his throwing arm and—he may never walk right, but still I never thought…” Her eyes cut up to the beam and the rope dangling. “My father wrapped me in his arm so tight I couldn’t breathe. Crushing my lungs, more to silence me than anything, as my cousins made a noose and threw it over the old oak we had in the back. A tree that’d—that’d—” her voice trembled the words so bad he worried she could still feel her father’s arms around her. “Given me shelter from rain and even still had a tire swing on it.”
Onyx cradled her head in his hands and moved her gaze from the beam. Bringing her eyes back to him.
“He released me when Byron’s legs stopped moving. I ran to him screaming for an axe, anything to cut him down when all I could hold were his legs.” Topaz stayed silent for a moment. Tears stopped as she stared, blankly ahead. “I didn’t speak for days. Walked to my Nanna’s who moved me around the house as if I were an invalid. One who could walk, but barely ate and only when fed. Bathroom breaks she timed. The sheriff came looking for me, and all I could say was he’d been my heart. It was enough for him to go to my house. Guess after they cut him down, they buried him in the woods. I didn’t know what they had done to him until then. Even if my brain could function enough to understand what I’d witnessed, I couldn’t tell anyone. Dogs had searched the house and surrounding areas finding the shallow grave.”
Onyx held her tight not knowing what to do for her as he listened.
“His mother’s scream, I swear it reverberated through the town and woke me every night when I tried to sleep. Playing over and over in my nightmares. When they told us what happened, my Nanna stared at me, holding my hand. She knew, she knew I’d seen things. Things not in the report.” Topaz bit down on her lip. “The look of horror in her eyes.”
“Because you ratted out your family?”
“No, because they were monsters, my father too, in her mind. I didn’t know what had happened after I left. What I’d witnessed was enough for a thousand lifetimes worth of nightmares.”
“You came back, eventually,” he said. “What brought you back to the world?”
“My Nanna, she refused to let them bully me. Tell me it wasn’t my place to tell on them.”
“You were there at the trial then?”
“No trial,” she said. “My cousins confessed, got some bullshit deal, heard tell they are still serving time in prison. My whole family blamed me because I was set to be the state’s witness to lie on them.”
“What happened to your father and mother?” Onyx was sickened by her story, unsure how anyone could survive such a horrible ordeal.
“Nothing. But it is why I moved away and lived with my Nanna. I couldn’t grieve alongside Byron’s family. Mine was torn apart because I finished my senior year from home and moved on. They don’t want me around and I couldn’t forgive them for taking him away from me. It’s why I found the Steel MC. I was running and landed in New Mexico first, Red needed girls and I thought why not move even farther.”
“Was it just my complexion or something more when it came to me?” he questioned, seeing her avoidance of him was as protective as her Lakers comment.
“I’d hate to see your senior picture,” she said stroking along his cheek, her touch soft on the swollen cheekbone. “Because you were who I saw sitting by my side at my kids’ games when I imagined my life with Byron.”
“You know all black men don’t look alike,” he joked, hoping to break the mood even though he could see her body was already relaxing. The weight of years of pain weren’t gone, but the tension between them had shattered.
“No, you don’t.” She laughed. “I just wished you were more of an asshole, so when I’m around you I didn’t think you could be my second chance.”
“Well, I’m
