Where Loyalties Lie

  ***

  Jessica couldn’t stop looking through the pictures that she’d taken the night before. Darren was cocky and predictable which had made it easy to get the pictures, but it was now time for the hard part.

  She’d stalked and photographed him so that she’d have proof when she brought her suspicions to Olivia, but she knew that this information would break her friend’s heart.

  Well, I’d rather break her heart than have him treating her like trash, she thought, deciding that she was going to show the pictures to Olivia.

  Chapter 18

  Jessica watched Darren’s car turn out of the cul-de-sac. It was Saturday morning so she had no idea where he was going or how long he’d be gone.

  She sat in her own car for a few minutes, nervous about what she was about to reveal to her friend. She took a deep breath and walked up to the door.

  “Hey. What are you doing here so early?” Olivia asked with a smile.

  “I need to talk to you about something.”

  “Come in.”

  Jessica felt like her feet had been dipped in cement as she followed Olivia over to the couch.

  “What’s going on?” Olivia asked, reading the sad look on her friend’s face.

  Jessica’s eyes welled with tears as she imagined the pain that she was about to cause to the only real friend she had.

  “I’m only doing this because I know it’s what’s best,” she said before opening the envelope that she had in her hand.

  She removed the pictures that she’d had printed off at Walgreens and placed them into Olivia’s hand. Olivia looked at Jessica then down at the pictures.

  “What…What is this?” Olivia asked as if the picture of Darren coming out of Nina’s house wasn’t worth a million words.

  “Ollie, he’s cheating on you with your so called friend.”

  Olivia fought back tears as she shook her head from side to side.

  “That’s crazy,” she whispered.

  “It’s true,” Jessica said, removing the top picture and revealing a picture of Darren kissing Nina.

  “How could she do this to me?” Olivia asked as tears spilled from her eyes.

  Jessica wanted to say that Nina wasn’t Olivia’s friend. She wanted to call her a trifling bitch. She wanted to call her a filthy whore. She wanted to call her all of the things that she was, but how could she? She’d once done the same thing to Olivia.

  “I’m sorry, Ollie.”

  Olivia looked through all of the pictured and couldn’t stop her tears from flowing.

  Jessica wrapped her arm around her friend and held her as she cried. She cried right along with Olivia, ashamed that she was once caused her the same kind of pain before. She hated the fact that she had to be the one doing it again, but it had to be done.

  Darren didn’t deserve a woman like Olivia.

  “Ollie, let’s just go,” she said after a few minutes. “You can leave while he’s at work.”

  Olivia shook her head from side to side. She was in shock and could barely move, let alone pack her things and leave the place that she’d called home for five years now.

  “Get out,” Olivia said softly.

  Jessica continued to hold her, thinking that she’d misunderstood what her friend had said.

  “Get out!” Olivia screamed.

  Jessica removed her arm from around Olivia and wiped away her own tears.

  “Ollie, I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Get out! Why did you do this? Why did you follow him and take these pictures? You just had to hurt me again, didn’t you?”

  Jessica’s heart broke. She knew that the news of their betrayal would cause Olivia indescribable pain, but she never thought that she’d think that she’d only done it to hurt her.

  “You needed to know,” Jessica explained.

  “You just couldn’t let me be happy, could you?” Olivia yelled.

  “You’re not happy,” Jessica told her.

  “I was happy until you got here.”

  Jessica shook her head from side to side. There was no way that Olivia had been happy with Darren. She might have been brainwashed but she wasn’t happy.

  “Ollie, I’m sorry, but I hope you leave him. If you don’t…”

  Jessica didn’t even want to finish the sentence as her mind replayed images of her own mother lying on the living room floor, beaten and lifeless. Her father had beaten her for many years and that last time he stepped over her and walked right out of the door like she and Jessica were nothing to him.

  “Leave him, Ollie,” Jessica said before reluctantly leaving the house.

  Chapter 19

  Jessica sat across the street from Olivia’s home for hours, waiting for Darren to return. She didn’t know if Olivia was going to tell him about the pictures, but she knew that if she did, he’d get upset and try to hit her. Jessica wasn’t having that today.

  Darren immediately recognized Jessica sitting in her car a few minutes later as he pulled into his driveway. Her body became tense as he stalked over to her car.

  “Get away from here,” he told her.

  Jessica locked her door and ignored him. He started to beat on the driver’s side window and continued to yell at her. Jessica didn’t know what to do. He was already so upset that she knew he’d be even more upset if Olivia showed him the pictures.

  “I’m going to call the police,” she yelled at him, holding up her cell phone.

  Darren laughed at her.

  “You’re the one sitting outside of my house,” he reminded her.

  Jessica dialed 911 anyway. Darren stood outside of her car, taunting her until the police arrived.

  “Ma’am, your friend says that she asked you to leave a long time ago,” the uniformed police officer told Jessica.

  “He’s going to hurt her,” Jessica told him for the fifth time.

  “She says that she isn’t afraid of him. You need to leave now, or I’ll be forced to arrest you.”

  Jessica weighed her options. She didn’t mind getting arrested if it meant saving Olivia, but she wouldn’t be able to do anything from a jail call.

  She reluctantly got back into her car and left. She doubled back a few minutes later and the police officer spotted her and gave her a warning glare.

  Jessica drove to a nearby gas station and parked. She had a feeling that something was going to go down soon and she needed to be nearby for Olivia’s sake.

  ***

  Darren slammed the front door and called out to Olivia.

  “Liv!” he called out again.

  The entire house seemed to shake as he walked into the kitchen. Olivia was sitting at the kitchen table, as still as a statue.

  “You didn’t hear me calling you?” he asked, boring into her.

  Tears fell from Olivia’s eyes and landed on one of the pictures that she’d been staring at for hours. She’d only turned them over while she was talking to the police, embarrassed for anyone else to know that she couldn’t please her man.

  “You gone deaf?” he asked before slapping her upside the head.

  Olivia looked up at him but still didn’t say anything.

  “What the hell is this?” he asked, noticing the pictures in front of her.

  He picked the pictures up and flipped through them.

  “What do you think you’re doing with these?” he asked.

  “What are you doing with her?” Olivia asked.

  Darren burst into boisterous laughter.

  “Is that why your little slut ass friend was parked in front of my house? Waiting for you to confront me with these?”

  Olivia cried harder as he laughed at her. As he laughed at all of the love and devotion that she’d given him. As he laughed at all of the physical and verbal abuse that she’d taken from him.

  “Why?” she asked. “You promised to never do to me what Mitchell did to me.”

  “I didn’t do you like Mitchell. I didn’t fuck Jessica, and it wasn’t because she wasn’t willing. He
ll, she damn near begged me to fuck her, but I turned her down. Did she tell you that?”

  Olivia didn’t respond.

  “That’s probably the only reason she went out of her way to get these pictures,” he said, knowing that Olivia hadn’t been the one to follow him.

  She knew better. It was that Jessica that he was going to have to beat some sense into.

  “You’re funny,” he said, tossing the pictures back at her. “What was this supposed to do?” he asked.

  Olivia felt lower than she’d ever felt in her entire life as she watched the pictures fall to the floor. She felt lower than she’d felt when CPS walked into her rat infested home and found her in pissy pants that she’d been in for days.

  “You’re going to leave? Go ahead. I dare you. You can’t. I own your ass! I own this house. I own the car you drive. I own the bed you sleep in. I own the clothes you wear. Hell, I own the air you’re breathing. You’re nothing without me.”

  Olivia cried, realizing that what he was saying was true. She’d given up her career, her identity to be what he wanted her to be. She didn’t have her own money. She’d have to start from nothing without him.

  “I don’t want to see that skinny bitch around here again, do you hear me?” he asked.

  Olivia continued to look down at the floor.

  “You hear me?” he asked again before hitting her across the face with the back of his hand.

  Olivia flew off of the chair and fell to the floor.

  “I don’t want you talking to her at all!” he told her. “You hear me?”

  He kicked her in her side when Olivia didn’t reply fast enough. Her ribcage felt like it had been shattered as she crawled across the tile floor like a dog.

  “If I catch her over here again I’ll kill you and her,” he warned.

  He grabbed a fistful of what little hair she still had left, his hair pulling being part of the reason that she’d cut it, and pulled her onto her feet. Olivia cringed at the sound of her hair being ripped from her scalp.

  “You won’t be talking to Jessica anymore,” he told her. “Or that faggot. Yeah, Nina told me about him. I don’t want them in my house and I don’t want you calling them. I don’t want you texting them. Better yet, I’m taking your phone until you get a brain.”

  He continued to hold her head with his left hand and used the thumb and middle finger on his right hand to flick her forehead as hard as he could.

  “You got a brain in there, scarecrow?” he asked, flicking her forehead harder and harder after each word.

  He hit her on the forehead so many times that Olivia became numb to it. She just took his abuse, like she’d done for years now.

  Chapter 20

  “Have you talked to Olivia?” Jessica asked as she walked into Fever for Divas.

  It had been days since she’d last seen her friend and she had a bad feeling about what Darren had done to her.

  “Well good morning to you, too,” Marcel replied sarcastically.

  “This is serious. When was the last time that you talked to her?” she asked, not caring about the customers that he was assisting.

  Marcel apologized to the two heavyset women and excused himself.

  “No, I haven’t spoken to Liv in a few days now. Why? What’s going on?”

  Jessica told Marcel about Nina, Darren, the pictures, the police; the whole fiasco.

  “Get out. I knew there was something about that… girl that I didn’t like,” he said, cutting his eyes in the direction of the customers.

  “That man is crazy and I haven’t spoken to Olivia since Saturday. Her phone goes straight to voicemail and she won’t answer the door when I go over there. What if he finally killed her?”

  “You watch a little bit too much LMN, but that is unusual for Liv.”

  “When was the last time you spoke to her?”

  “I’d have to check my phone to be sure, but I think it was Friday night.”

  “And I saw her Saturday morning.”

  Marcel was finally starting to share Jessica’s concern.

  “You really think he’d…kill her?” he asked.

  “I do and I’d never be able to forgive myself if he did. I’m going back over there. If you happen to hear from her before I do, call and let me know.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Jessica quickly headed toward the door but suddenly stopped in her tracks. She walked back over to Marcel and whispered into his ear.

  “I might need you to do something for me.”

  “What?” he asked, intrigued.

  “I’ll tell you later, if I need you to do it. Just say you’ll do it.”

  Jessica was cool but Marcel didn’t know her all that well to be making such promises.

  “It’s for Olivia,” she told him.

  “Okay. Just name it.”

  Marcel had said that he’d do anything for Olivia and he meant it. When he’d met her he was being attacked by a group of homophobic teenagers. Olivia was the only person that stopped and said anything to the kids.

  As small as she was Olivia yelled at and pushed and shoved the teens until they left Marcel alone. From that day forward he knew that Olivia was a true friend. The fact that she’d stopped him from getting beat up, yet was the victim of domestic violence was ironic. The fact that Marcel considered her to be one of his best friend and had no idea. Now that was sad.

  Chapter 21

  After ringing the doorbell and knocking on the door for an hour, Jessica finally called the police. It was getting late in the day and Darren would be home soon.

  “Ma’am, you really want me to arrest you, don’t you?” the same police officer that had warned Jessica on Saturday asked.

  “No, but if that’s what it takes to make sure that my friend is okay, then so be it.”

  He slowly shook his head before forcefully knocking on the door.

  Olivia peeked out of the living room window and groaned. What was Jessica trying to do to her? All of her neighbors were probably wondering why the police was at her house, again.

  She was glad that she’d done her makeup as she opened the door.

  “Mrs. Johnston, are you in any kind of distress?” the officer asked.

  Olivia quickly looked to Jessica then down at the ground before shaking her head from side to side. Her body was partially obscured behind the door but Jessica could tell that Olivia was leaning more to one side.

  “He hit you again, didn’t he?” she asked.

  Olivia shook her head from side to side but Jessica knew the truth.

  “Ma’am, she’s alive and not requesting any help. Are you satisfied?” the police officer asked.

  “No,” Jessica replied. She wasn’t happy at all. She wouldn’t be happy until Olivia was free from Darren and his abuse.

  Chapter 22

  Darren had a smile on his face as he pulled into his driveway. Now that Olivia knew about Nina he no longer felt the need to only see her twice a week. He went to spend time with her as often as he wanted and stayed as long as he wanted as well.

  The sun was slowly rising as he slammed his car door. He was looking through his keys as he approached the front door. He’d found the right key when he felt a sharp, sudden pain in his abdomen. He looked down and found a leather glove clad hand shoving a knife toward his stomach again.

  He placed his hand over his stomach but that didn’t stop the blood from seeping out as the assailant stabbed him over and over again. He grasped at the masked person’s face, trying to remove the mask, but the assailant kept moving their head and stabbing him.

  Darren fell to his knees, then onto his stomach on the front lawn. As he lay there bleeding out he was partially blinded by the blazing sun. The only thing he could see was the bottom of black sneakers as his assailant ran away.

  Chapter 23

  Red and blue flashing lights blurred into yellow crime scene tape as tears ran down Olivia’s face, removing her makeup and revealing the bruises that she’d worked so d
iligently to conceal. As she looked down at her husband lying on their perfect lawn she was overcome with sadness.

  She placed her hand onto her stomach as the police officers and crime scene technicians moved around his lifeless body. She’d just found out that she was pregnant. A baby would have made things so much better between her and Darren and a stranger had taken her brighter future away in a matter of moments.

  “Looks like another one of those robberies,” one officer said to another as he stared down at Darren.

  “Yeah, but nothing was taken,” his partner noted. “The car’s still here, the keys are still in his hand and his wallet is in his back pocket.”

  “Maybe they got scared. An engine revved and they ran off before they could get anything.”

  “Well, they left something,” the first officer said, squatting down next to the body.

  He used an ink pen to pull a gold chain with half a heart hanging from it out of Darren’s grasp.

  Olivia’s heart dropped as she caught sight of the familiar piece of jewelry. She knew who it belonged to and she knew what she had to do.

  To Be Continued…

  An excerpt from Smiling Face, Heart of Hate by Jai Ellis

  Chapter 8

  Dior had been spending so much time with Brian that Breeze barely saw her anymore, but C came over to keep her company while she watched Nya.