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Authors: Shana Burton

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“Yeah, I do.”
Catt readjusted her position on the bed. “Is it okay if I ask you something? It's about your mother if you feel up to talking about her.”
“Go ahead.”
“What was your relationship like with your mom after everything happened? I mean, did you all just go back to normal, being mother and son? I know in our situation with my mother's drug abuse, it actually brought us closer together. Was it like that for you too?”
Jamal shook his head. “Not at all. For a long time, I didn't even speak to her. I rebelled a lot—started making bad grades, staying out, getting into trouble—just to hurt her. I had so much going on inside of me that I couldn't put into words, especially the rage I had toward my mother. Eventually, I started back talking to her again, but I knew we'd never be same. How could I ever get over that? At the time, I didn't have the option of counseling like you did. Perhaps if I'd gone, things would be a lot different, and I wouldn't still be dealing with this.”
“So you haven't forgiven her?”
“I've dealt with it, you know what I mean? There's nothing anybody can do about it now. Being mad at her won't bring my dad back, and she's dead now too, so I just have to get over it.”
“I think you need closure, like I needed with Jimmy.”
“You want me to close my eyes and pretend you're her?”
“No, I don't think that'll work this time.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“I think there's a stop we need to make before we cross into Charlotte.”
“Where to?”
She held his face in her hands. “To the cemetery. I think it's time you had a talk with your mother.”
Chapter 29
“Whoo-hoo!” howled Jamal as he slammed the car door shut after climbing inside the SUV. “Next stop, North Carolina!”
“Thank God!” blurted Catt, who settled down in the passenger side.
Jamal feigned anger. “Oh, so you're getting tired of me, huh?”
“I'm getting tired of you, this car, these suitcases, and everything else you can think of that's associated with this trip!”
He laughed. “I feel you. I'm getting a little sick of looking at you myself.” He cranked up the radio. “North Cack-a-lac-key, here we come!”
“You got to admit, it's been some trip.”
“Yes, it has. One thing's for sure, there's not a thing we don't know about each other now.”
Catt bit her lip and turned away.
Jamal took his eyes off the road for a second. “Why did you get quiet all of a sudden?”
“I'm sorry. I just zoned out for a minute. What were you saying?”
“I said it feels like we know everything about each other except our Social Security numbers.”
“There are still a few hours left in the journey,” Catt pointed out. “I may have those nine digits out of you before we cross state lines.”
“With the way things have been going, you just might!”
Catt's mood turned pensive.
“Did you check out on me again?”
“No, I was just thinking.”
“About what?”
“How much courage it must've taken for you to tell me about Kennedy and your mother. Those kinds of memories are not easy to relive, much less tell someone about it. I admire you for being willing to do that, and I feel honored that you trust me like that.”
“Well, Catt, you've kept it just as real with me. I know it wasn't easy to tell me about your mother being on drugs or to talk about your issues with your weight, but you didn't hold anything back. That's what made me feel like it was okay to confide in you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I mean, you've been so open and honest with me. I guess I didn't want there to be any secrets between us.”
Uneasiness gnawed at Catt. She knew there was one thing she hadn't confided in Jamal for her own reasons. She'd worked so hard at being a paradigm of Christianity that she was afraid of the real, ugly truth about her past being revealed. But she knew that, as a Christian, she needed to be transparent, and that meant telling Jamal everything.
“Jamal, there is one thing I have been keeping from you, but I don't want to anymore. I want to tell you the truth, I want to tell you everything,” began Catt. “Maybe, then, my nightmares can stop too.”
He was taken aback. “
Your
nightmares?”
“Yes, there are things in my life that I've been dealing with for years. You know Jimmy is one. That yellow piece of a paper is another one.”
“What yellow piece of paper?”
“Don't you remember that day in my hotel room when you were going through my scrapbook?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“There was a hospital receipt in there that I didn't mean for you to see.”
“I remember. You seemed sort of freaked out about it.”
“With good reason,” she said. “It's not something I like to think about, much less talk about.”
Jamal shook his head. “I don't get it. You said you had outpatient surgery, so what's the big deal? It wasn't anything life threatening, was it?”
“No, but what happened was just as devastating.” Catt reclined the seat back and unleashed her saga. “It was senior year of college, around October.”
Jamal turned down the music. “What happened?”
“My roommate, Keila, and I were thick as thieves, always getting each other into or out of trouble. Sometime around September, Keila started dating this guy named Jarvis who she'd met at a party one night. A couple of weeks later, he invited her to come to a house party with him. She was a little reluctant because it was out of town. She begged me to tag along, but I was hesitant. I mean, she barely knew Jarvis and knew even less about the people that would be at this party. But I agreed to go with her, against my better judgment. If nothing else, I thought, we could go and keep each other safe.”
Catt stopped as if she were deep in thought and had just recalled a painful memory. Jamal pressed her to continue the story.
“On the night of the party, Jarvis came to pick us up, and we drove around for about an hour looking for the house. Eventually, we found it. Then we went inside. It was very dark except for a black light and maybe one or two candles. Everybody was hugged up—kissing, doing whatever. It felt like we had just walked into some big orgy. It didn't take long for Keila and Jarvis to blend right on in. In fact, I lost track of them once we got inside.
“Anyway, I sat down on the sofa, and a guy came over to where I was. We started talking and drinking . . .
a lot of drinking
,” she stressed. “After a while, I guess I just got caught up in everything that was going on, and we started kissing and things started to heat up. He told me that there was a basement in the house that we could go into for more privacy. I agreed to go, but by this time I was really drunk. I mean, I could barely walk, so I told him that I wanted to stay upstairs on the couch instead. He started insisting that we go, and he hoisted me up and carried me downstairs.”
“Were you drugged or something?” Jamal asked concerned. “He could have put something in your drink.”
“I don't know, I suppose it's possible since he was the one bringing me the drinks. Anyway, the next thing I know, we're on a bed. He was touching me and trying to take my clothes off. I don't know if I actually told him to stop, but I do know that I wanted him to. I felt confused and like I couldn't move or speak. I was just totally out of it. I remember him climbing on top of me, and I sort of blacked out after that. I'm not really sure what happened.
“When I woke up briefly, Keila was helping me get into the car, and the last thing I remember is waking up in my own bed the next day.”
“And you have no idea who the guy was? Did you have a name or anything like that?”
“He told me his name, but I can't remember it. I just know that it was something 'dre, like Deondre or Keondre. Then again, he could have made it up.”
“All right, tell me what happened next.”
“That morning when I asked Keila about it, she said that she and Jarvis were looking for me so that we could leave, and that she found me alone and naked in the basement. She dressed me, and they had to help me to the car and into our apartment. She wasn't sure what happened while I was down there. I assume that some students from school were at the party because by Monday, the whole campus was buzzing about how I'd slept with a bunch of guys at the party.”
“What?” he exclaimed.
Catt nodded. “You can imagine how I felt and what was going through my head. I didn't know what to think—had I been raped? Did I really let those guys do that to me? Was it true?” She lowered her head and seemed to be fighting back tears. “It was horrible.”
“Maybe nothing happened, you know?” suggested Jamal to make her feel better. “Maybe the guy saw how out of it you were and left. Someone probably saw you go down there with him and just assumed that something happened. You know how people just make stuff up to have something to gossip about.”
“No, something definitely happened,” she assured him.
“How can you be sure if you don't remember?”
“I had proof. You see, a few weeks later, I went to the doctor to have an AIDS test just to put my mind at ease. My biggest concern was that I might have acquired some kind of disease from someone at the party; I hadn't really considered the possibility of anything else being wrong with me. The HIV results came back negative, but the other test didn't.”
“What test was that?”
She took a deep breath. “My pregnancy test.”
“Catt . . .” Jamal was at a loss for words. He slid his hand into hers and listened as she went on.
“I could have died right there when the doctor told me. I was alone, scared, and pregnant. Worse than that, I had no idea who the father was.”
“So what happened to the baby?”
“At the time, I felt like I couldn't go through with the pregnancy. I couldn't fathom keeping the baby. I was still trying to deal with what happened that night. So I had an abortion and never told anyone except Keila, who took me to have the surgery.” She looked up at him. “You probably think I'm a monster.”
Jamal was befuddled. “Why would you say that?”
“You lost your baby. You had to watch your child, a piece of you, die right there in front of you. I let them kill my baby, and why? Because I wanted to finish school? Because I didn't want my parents to know what happened? It was selfish. My baby didn't deserve to die regardless of how he or she was conceived.”
“Catt, you were violated! I don't condemn you for having an abortion. If I were in your situation, I probably would've done the same thing. Please don't feel like what you did somehow makes you a lesser person in my eyes.” Jamal enclosed his hand over hers and kissed her palm. “You're so strong to have gone through what you have and not let it get the best of you. I've always admired and respected you but never as much as I do now. You don't have anything to feel ashamed about.”
“Thank you for saying that, Jamal. Knowing that you understand why I did what I did helps me more than you know.”
“Catt, I had no idea you'd gone through anything like this. Please forgive me if asking you to talk about it has dredged up a bunch of bad memories for you.”
“It's nothing you said or did. I live with these memories every day. Like you, hardly a day goes by when I don't think about my child that I aborted. I guess that's why I've held on to that hospital receipt for so long. It's the only thing I have that proves the baby existed, even if it is the very thing that proves that I allowed my baby die.”
“You did what you thought you had to at the time. I honestly don't know how you got through it all.”
“It was tough for a long time,” she admitted. “After all of that, I was in a completely depressed state. Most days, I didn't even get out of bed. I just ate and cried. That's when I ballooned to the size I am now. I know somebody had to be praying for me. God's grace and mercy are the only things that kept me from losing my mind.”
“Didn't your folks or your friend notice that you were depressed?”
“Sure they did, but what could they do? I refused to talk about what was going on. All they could do was ask God for a breakthrough on my behalf and have faith that I'd come out of it.”
“I'm surprised you felt like you couldn't talk to anyone about it, especially your parents. You and your dad seem so close.”
“We are, but this was something I couldn't even talk to him about. I think I was afraid that they would've blamed me for what happened and condemned me for having the abortion.”
“I hope that you don't blame yourself for what happened.”
“How can I not blame myself, Jamal? I was the one who went to the party, I was the one who got drunk with some guy that I didn't even know; and I was the one who killed my baby.”
“What happened to you was a crime, Catt. Even if you didn't tell the guy no, you were under the influence, which still makes it rape. If there were other men, they certainly didn't have your consent.”
“For all I know, I might
have
consented. I may have even initiated it, I have no proof to suggest otherwise.”
Jamal gripped the steering wheel with his left hand to free the right hand to envelop hers once more. “Catt, I know I wasn't there, but I know you. This wasn't your fault. You were victimized in the worst way imaginable, and nobody has paid for it except you. It's just not right.” He thought back. “I remember that night I came by to play basketball with you, and I made a joke about seducing you in your sleep. You got upset and I couldn't figure out why. Now, I understand.”
“I know you do, and I know that you didn't mean anything by it when you said it.”
“I'm glad. I just wish you had told me sooner.”
Her eyes watered. “There were many times that I came close, but I was scared,” Catt confessed.
“Scared of what?”
“I was afraid of how you'd react, of how you'd look at me after you knew the truth.”
“Catt, you are such an amazing person. How could I look at you and see anything other than that?” he asked, wiping a tear from her cheek.

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