Shattered Chances: A Breaking Black Companion Novel (13 page)

TRENT.

37.

Randy

“She was found dumped in the back of Torian’s apartment complex. She was left for dead.”

“Dumped?!”

“She was in a dumpster. Randy, she was unconscious.”

“What the hell?!”

“Has she had any issues with drug use? Answer honestly.”

“No! She is adamantly against drugs because of her mother and step-father.”

“Well this next part doesn’t make sense then.”

“What?”

“A near lethal dose of heroin was found in her blood.”

“No… That’s impossible. She was with me the whole night. She only went outside for a cigarette, but she didn’t come back in.”

Shawn scribbled in his notepad.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“Something else did occur, but I am not at liberty to tell you.”

“I’m your nephew!”

“This is something that only she has the right to tell you.”

What the fuck is going on?!

38.

Cheyenne

“Ms. West, we had to perform a rape kit on you.”

Now it was really coming back. Trent attacked me when I went out to smoke a cigarette. I was standing alone outside, or so I thought. I didn’t even see him coming. He jabbed the needle in my arm and yanked me around the corner. The drugs were hitting me fast and I couldn’t fight back. By the time he violated me, I was fading fast into unconsciousness.

“We ran some blood tests. We are still waiting on the results of the HIV test. It’s too soon to test for pregnancy.”

My head was spinning. Trent. HIV. Pregnancy. Randy. Oh, my God. Randy. I won’t be able to even look him in the eyes. I felt dirty. Infected. Tainted. Exposed. How could I go back to him? How could I expect him to understand? To accept me back? Discarded in a dumpster like last week’s garbage.

He wouldn’t understand. He’d kill Trent, and Trent might deserve that, but I didn’t want to see Randy go to jail. He couldn’t know. I convinced myself that I was doing this to protect Randy.

“Ms. West are you okay?”

“I don’t know. What?”

“I was explaining that you have some injuries. There are two vaginal tears. We need to perform a minor surgery to treat the wounds you sustained.”

“Operate?”

“It’s a minor procedure.”

Before I could say another word, an orderly had come in and wheeled my hospital bed out of the room.

39.

Randy

“Sir! I need you to calm down!” a nurse said as she tried to restrain me.

“Not until someone tells me what is going on!”

“I will get an update. Are you her husband?”

“No, but I might as well be!”

“I cannot release any information without her consent. Please have a seat. She will be out of surgery soon.”

“Surgery?”

“Randy!” Averi yelled as she ran into the waiting room.

Colt was standing behind her.

“What the fuck is
he
doing here?!”

“Stop Randy.”

“Whether you like it or not, she considers me a friend. And I’m here to be exactly that.”

“Are you alright?” Averi asked with worry written all over her face.

I shook my head. “No, Ave, I don’t think I am.”

40.

Cheyenne

I was released from the hospital a day later. I refused to see Randy in the hospital. I couldn’t bare it. The nurses talked me out of leaving Randy, but they encouraged me to tell him what happened. They gave me pamphlets for drug rehabilitation, documents for seeking mental help, services that are available for rape victims. I just wanted to put all this behind me.

I couldn’t tell Randy. The truth was something that I couldn’t even wrap my head around it. How could someone violate another like that and leave them for dead? What had I ever done to him? I couldn’t admit the truth to Randy – it would make all this real. I think I was in a deep state of denial.

Randy picked me up from the hospital with a bouquet of daisies in his hand. I think he knew there was more wrong with me than I was letting on. If he did, he did not vocalize his concerns.

“C’mon. Let’s get you home. I’m not going to ask questions, but I need to know what happened.”

“Please, let me rest first.”

He nodded as he pulled out of the parking lot. He was anxious to get me home, and I was desperate for my bed. I wanted nothing more for Randy to hold me, to feel the security that his closeness provided but every time someone came near me, I flinched.

I was barely holding myself together. I hadn’t cried. But when Randy went on his usual beer run and left me alone in the apartment, I realized just how scared I was. Breaking into a full-on panic attack, my hands began to shake, my heart raced and my palms began to sweat.

God help me.

41.

Randy

I waited for Cheyenne to calm down a bit before stepping out for a few minutes. Whatever happened, she was freaked out to the max. I got out of my truck and Mick Penn was standing outside the beer distributor smoking a cigarette. I never particularly liked the guy, but I say hi anyway.

“Yo Randy…”

“What?”

“Are you still with Dave’s daughter?”

You mean Mike’s daughter?

“Yeah… why?”

“Oh… just asking.”

“No… WHY?!”

“Saw her and Trent huddled up in an alley. Looked real cozy. Anyway, you didn’t hear it from me.”

Brush it off. He’s blowing smoke. It’s been years since Trent has bothered her. It’s like high school. Its gossip. Mick’s just stirring up trouble.

High School. Christine Campbell.

“I’ll fucking murder him.”

42.

Cheyenne

Two weeks had passed. Two horrible, tumultuous weeks in which I did things that I would never do. The burning was insane. The itching. The pain. On the first day home, someone slid an envelope under the apartment door. Inside, the envelope contained what I needed to take the agony away. On the second and third day there was nothing. Just when I was ready to go off the deep end, another envelope arrived. The same envelope arrived on the fifth, sixth and seventh day, giving me exactly what I needed to take the edge off. By the eighth day I was hooked.

I hate the person I have become. I hate that I haven’t told Randy what’s happened. I’m furious that I won’t let him help me. I couldn’t bare the pain if I told him the truth he and discarded me. But help from Randy will take away the numbness – I’ll feel the pain again. Pain from Dave. Pain from Trent. Daddy. Randy. Momma.

There is no help for this lost soul.

43.

Randy

Cheyenne was having nightmares now. She would wake me up in the middle of the night shaking and screaming, but it was not my name she called for. It was Trent’s.

I came home from work with a pounding headache. Cheyenne hadn’t gone to work again. I wasn’t even sure that she was still employed. She wouldn’t answer my questions. She just cried and slept. I found her lying in our bed.

“How was your day?” I ask, but she doesn’t answer.

“Babe?” I ask again, lying next to her.

She is facing the wall, but I can tell she is crying.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, placing my hand around her waist, but when she feels my touch, she cowers away and gasps in fear.

“It’s been two weeks. Why won’t you let me near you?”

Her sobbing intensified.

“It’s true… Isn’t it?! You were with Trent!”

A wail cried from her lungs, “It’s not what you think it is!”

“You’re lying! You say his name in your sleep! Mick Penn saw you and Trent outside the party.”

Silence.

“I can’t deal, Cheyene. I’m going out. After everything, this is how you do me?!”

As the girl I loved with every fiber of my being broke down into someone I didn’t know, I walked out, unsure if I would ever be able to return.

44.

Cheyenne

No pain, no amount of torture could ever amount to the pain I feel with the absence of him. I let him down. I let myself down. I loathe myself. I now understand how my mother could feel so desperate that she would want to end her own life.

I stare into the mirror, my eyes glassy, my field of vision blurry. I can just make out my reflection. I imagine he is still standing here beside me. I imagine he still calls me his girl. He never will again. He thinks I betrayed him.

I wish I had the courage to tell him the truth.

As I stand there, the nagging burn in my veins intensifies. My rage boiled to the surface. I took one last look at my reflection but I recoiled in anger.

BITCH!

My fist cracked the mirror, fracturing the glass, the image of us standing there, in a happier time shattered into a million tiny shards. Pieces of us in the sink. Pieces of us on the floor. Rage stormed through my body. Blood gushed from my hand. With my bare hands I removed all the shards of glass from the frame. Cuts on my palms. Slashes on my wrists.

In my heart of hearts I knew, Randy Ford was better off without me.

45.

Randy

It’s been six years since I last saw her. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about Cheyenne. I still can’t forgive what she did to me. To us. To herself. That doesn’t mean that I don’t love her. In fact, each passing day, the pain gets worse. There’s been girls. None that I can trust. None that make it further than a one night stand. Trust me, Stephanie Rogers has tried. I want no one. No. That’ a lie. I want someone that no longer exists. At least that’s what I thought when I stepped outside my apartment that August day.

That fateful day, I saw her. She was coming out of the business center on Monument Avenue dressed in a sleek white dress with her naturally brown hair styled in soft finger waves. I couldn’t believe my eyes. We struck up a conversation and I learned that she had been clean for six months, was working a full time job and volunteering at church. Our flame rekindled. I wanted to take it slow, but as each day went on, I realized how much I loved her. On September 10
th
, just two weeks after reconnecting with her, I purchased an engagement ring. I hadn’t told anyone. I took the day off, headed straight to the jeweler in San Antonio. But when I came home, I found something unexpected. The love of my life in the arms of another man. Not just any man though, the man who got her addicted to drugs in the first place: Trent Myers. She was high as a kite, and Trent was indignant. Pulling Trent off of Cheyenne, I sent a sucker punch flying towards his face, breaking his nose and fracturing his jaw. From that day forward, I had vowed never to speak to Cheyenne again. With every call, every text, my heart continued to break.

46.

Cheyenne

“I have no words, Tessa…” I said into the phone.

“Can’t you just tell him what happened? It’s no secret that he loves you.”

“I’m trying but he won’t take my calls.”

“Send him a letter then. Tell him that Trent fucking raped you twice!”

“I’ll try.”

“Why haven’t you reported this?!”

“He threatened to kill me.”

“Come home. Now.”

“Home where?”

“To Nebraska. I kicked Toby out. You can come stay here.”

“Maybe for a little while.”

47.

Randy

In the time since Cheyenne and I parted, I had made major leg work getting things right with my family. Black Horse, the son of a bitch that murdered my mother, my father and my older brother Seth was released from prison. I knew he wouldn’t lie low, and he didn’t. He came right for Averi. She was the only one of us that witnessed the murders, she was the one whose testimony put him behind bars in the first place. Averi came to me with an ultimatum and we were forced to put our differences aside. Colt wasn’t like his father after all. All he wanted to do was protect my sister. I knew they both had an attraction and that they were friends, but I hadn’t realized that they were actually together since that night that Colt got arrested for beating the tar out of Trent. Colt still annoyed me, but it felt good being able to lay the hammer down with him. We started as friends, and we’ll end as friends. I guess everything does come full circle. After a series of legally questionable events, we got Black Horse. Not only was he burned to a fine crisp but he also found himself with a bullet in his head. We thought that would be the end. We didn’t count on his motorcycle club, the Seventy Devils, on rising up to avenge him.