Fantasy Attraction (Hidden Secrets)

by Belden, P. J.

  “Do you know who it was? Did they say anything?”

  “Yes. It was a warning.”

  “From who?”

  “Carson, can we wait for the million questions. My head is killing me and I hurt badly,” I said with a groan.

  “Yes, Angel but you will tell me when you’re better, okay?”

  The door opened and in walked a guy that looked a lot like Carson only longer hair and darker eyes. He walked over to the side of the bed and sat next to me. He leaned over and shined a flashlight in my eyes. The light killed my head. I groaned and turned my head away.

  “Fuck man!” Carson said, shoving the guy.

  “I had to. My name is Jack. I’m Carson’s brother. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m okay. My head hurts and I feel like I’ve run too much.” I coughed.

  Carson reached over and grabbed a cup of water and handed it to me, helping me drink. Jack went into a lot of technical talk about what was wrong with me and then what they had to do to fix it. It was a lot of information to take in. I looked up at Carson with wide eyes.

  “Colleen, I have to ask. Why would you not let Carson take you to the hospital?”

  “Uh, I…uh…” I turned to look back at Carson.

  “Jesus Jackson! Can she strengthen up some before you start butting your nose in where it doesn’t belong?” Carson snapped.

  “No, no I can’t. CJ, your girlfriend has been or is being abused. I’m obligated to report it if…”

  I started crying. History was repeating itself. It was coming back to haunt me. My safety gone, oh god! I struggled to catch my breath. Trying to take deep breaths, but failed to get enough oxygen to breath.

  “Fucking bastard! You’re going to pay for this!” Carson screamed.

  He was kneeling over me cupping my face. Carson’s eyes were full of panic and fear. It broke me to see him worried. This was the reason I didn’t date anyone or let anyone close.

  “Shh, calm down Angel. No one is reporting anything, baby. I promise, Angel.”

  Tears still streamed down my cheeks, but my breathing started to calm down. The more Carson whispered in my ear and kissed my cheek the calmer I got. Before long I was crying silent tears and holding onto Carson for dear life.

  “Get the fuck out of here! You of all people should know better than to act like that. Here I thought I could count on my brother. Guess I was wrong.” He growled.

  “Carson, she’s in trouble. I just want to help.” Jack said sadly.

  “No! You’re being a bastard. Damn it! You couldn’t even wait until tomorrow. She’s been out for three fucking days! If you truly believed she was in danger and you were trying to help then you would have known that would have scared her. But you asked anyway! Get out!”

  Jack sighed and looked down at me with a sad look. “I really was only trying to help. I’ll be back in to check on you in a few hours. Until then, here are meds for your pain and head. I’m sorry Colleen.”

  My heart broke for Jack. As he left the room, I knew what I needed to do. It scared the shit out of me because it would be baring myself in a way I haven’t done before. I would do it for him, for his family. Carson valued his family and I couldn’t take that from him.

  When the door shut, I turned to Carson. I reached my hands up and touch both sides of his face.

  “My life has not been perfect. No white picketed fence, no parents of the year, none of it. I want to tell you everything, but you just need to give me time okay. I will start off with this, my mom was very abusive and so were the men she brought around. This is the piece I can give you right now. I’m so tired.”

  “Oh Angel,” he whispered as he kissed my cheek. “You sleep. I won’t let anything happen to you again.”

  “Do me one thing though?”

  “Anything.”

  “Make up with your brother.” I yawned.

  “Okay, baby. I will.” He kissed my forehead and I drifted off.

  I could hear my mom stumbling around downstairs. There was the distinct deep voice that followed a crash here and there. She was rarely ever not drunk, but tonight I think has been her worst. I put on my headphones and grabbed a book and began to read. If it was anything like the other nights, it was going to get real loud real quick. I wasn’t stupid, I knew what they were doing. I was almost fourteen. I’m not a baby, but no child wants to picture either of their parents doing it. Whether she was a good parent or not she was still my mother.

  It will probably be a repeat of this morning, tomorrow. I’ll go down to get breakfast and Harriet will be naked laying on either the floor, table, counter or if I’m lucky the couch. The hate I had for her was overwhelming sometimes. There have been several occasions where I tried to run away, but she always found me. Then I’d live to regret that decision when she got me back home. It didn’t stop me from trying though. Many times I prayed she’d kill me and I could be with my dad.

  My door flung open suddenly and Harriet’s man of the night came into my room. His eyes flashed with something I couldn’t identify. Whatever it was, made me uneasy and my heart started to race. I took out my earphones and set my book down.

  “What are you doing in my room?” Amazingly, my voice came out a whole lot stronger than I was feeling at the moment.

  “You in a moment. Now be a good girl and get undressed for me.”

  “No.” I said firmly still amazing myself.

  “Excuse me. Maybe you need a lesson in listening.” He backhanded me.

  I fell to the floor and scampered away. He walked toward me and he pulled his belt out of his pants. The sting of it hitting my flesh was my reminder of what I wasn’t going to let happen. I’ll be damned if I was going to let someone degrade me like that.

  See with the life I have, you take precautions. You take them for worst case scenarios not on what has happened. You try to make sure you are prepared for the unexpected. This fool was about to get one hell of a rude awakening.

  He dropped his pants and was now naked from the waist down. He was grinning from ear to ear as he moved closer to me. Right when he was within reaching distance, I got up on my knees. I am not sure what was going through his head, but his smile widened and he stood there with is feet spread apart stroking himself. When he closed his eyes for a second, I took it as the lifeline it was. Rearing back my fist, I hit him with everything I was worth right in his junk.

  He screamed loudly and fell to his knees, holding himself. I stood up and kicked him in the face. He fell to his back, I flew forward, holding the knife to his throat.

  “Don’t fucking touch me again! Harriet may be a whore, but I am not. I will kill you next time. Get your shit and get out of my room!” I screamed in his face digging the knife in his throat enough that a little bit of blood stained the blade.

  I moved backward still holding the knife. He stood and pulled his pants up and walked over and got his belt. I started to breathe some thinking it was over. He had other plans. Swinging the bat, he knocked the knife from my hands. He swung again hitting me across the face. I stumbled to the side. He kept swinging, hitting me again and again. Somehow, in all of this pain I managed to reach the knife again. I stabbed him in his leg and he fell back, holding his leg.

  “Don’t fucking touch me!” I kept screaming over and over again.

  “Angel!” Carson’s voice broke through my dream.

  I opened my eyes and looked up at a concerned Carson. The tears were trickling down my face. All I could do was shake my head. He pulled me closer to him. It hurt like hell, but I wanted the comfort he offered. My body was shaking from head to toe.

  “I know you may not want to answer this, but what was that nightmare about? It might help to talk about it?”

  “One of the guys that my mom brought home…came into my room. He wanted…he wanted…He started to beat me because I said no…I decked him in his dick hard and threatened him. He started beating me again. I… I…” I was crying harder.

  “Shhhh you don’t n
eed to finish Angel.” He whispered.

  “Yes, I do. I stabbed him…a lot. He wouldn’t stop. I didn’t know what else do to. He kept coming after me. Screaming at me. Grabbing me…” I cried harder.

  “Shhhh okay that’s enough for now, you don’t need to work yourself up. You can tell me more later, okay. The fact is you are here with me and I will protect you.”

  I nodded into his neck and cried myself to sleep. I was in that half-asleep, half-awake phase. You know the kind where you can hear everything around, but you are still asleep. Carson was talking.

  “Well, I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”

  “It really is fine, CJ. I didn’t intend to upset either of you. As your older brother, I wanted to protect both of you. I know she means a lot to you. Well, I didn’t realize how much until then, but Carss I’d do anything for you.”

  “I know Jacks. She’s told me a little about her past. I made her stop because she was getting too upset. It is worse than I thought. I hope…”

  “It will be okay. She’s talking to you about it, which means she cares about you just as much as you do. She’s doing well. I will be in in the morning to check. Get some sleep.”

  ** ** ** ** ** ** **

  A week passed before I knew it. Carson never left my side. As it turns out he had another brother named Jeff. He kept cooking these amazing meals. Carson tells me that Jeff is a celebrity chef, that he has his own cooking show and even cooks for the stars. They started having me walk the next day after waking up. I was shocked I had been out of it for three days, but what shocked me even more was the extent that he went to for me. His brother told me he never left my side and that he literally had to throw him out of the room.

  During the week that I have been here recovering, I have met a lot of his family; four brothers and his dad. Carson told me there are two more brothers, I haven’t met and three sisters. He already knew I had no family, so he didn’t even bring that up. Everyone seemed real nice and genuinely concerned for me.

  I began to drift off to sleep and as I did a moment in my life began to play out. The moments I knew I needed to tell Carson about. If we were going to make a real go of this he needed to know what he was getting into and with. One memory was prominent in my flashback. It was also my most painful memory of them all. One I wasn’t sure if he’d still see me as his Angel after I tell him.

  That moment in my life came back to me like it was happening all over again.

  This project would set me up for an ‘A’ in this class for sure. I hoped that my partner, Jessica, was an equal worker and not just coming here to have me do it all. For this project to be pulled off, both of us needed to work equally on it. Just as I was setting everything needed on the table, my phone began to ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey Colleen, this is Jessica Spear. I was just calling to confirm that we are meeting in an hour.”

  “Yup. You still have my address?”

  “Yes, I do. Leia Monty needs a group to work with. She was absent on the day of picking, is it okay she joins our group? With three of us working on it, we should be able to slam it.”

  “Yeah, that would be great. I’ll see you guys in an hour.”

  I hung up the phone and sat down next to my books and went through taking notes. Introduction to Psychology was one of the important foundation courses for me. I really wanted to do well in this class so when I moved on to the higher classes and eventually my master’s in the future, my foundation would be strong enough to support the amount of information that will be thrown at me on my course to be a child psychologist.

  I had been feeling a little nauseous lately, but it was slowly passing. It wasn’t hitting me as often. Placing my hand on my stomach, I hoped it would hold off long enough for us to get some real work done here. Our future depended on me doing well. The doctor said that the baby was developing well and right on track. I was relieved. With not being able to eat much, I was worried that it was harming my baby. The doctor assured me that this was normal and my body was getting enough to sustain my little one. Rubbing my belly one last time, I sighed before turning back to my task of getting the notes ready by the time the girls got here.

  I was engrossed in my note taking when there was a knock on my door. Checking my watch, it was too soon to be Jessica or Leia. I opened the door. The moment I saw them, I tried to shut the door again. They pushed the door open, knocking me back a few steps. Scrambling back, I knew that look in Harriet’s eyes. It was the same look she had all my childhood before I was left bleeding and crying. Immediately, my survival instincts kicked in and I began to plead.

  “Please, I don’t know what is wrong, but I swear I haven’t said a thing to anyone.”

  Really, I had no clue what they were there for, I just wanted to get them out of there as fast as I could or buy time until the girls arrived. The feeling of having to plead with them for whatever was about to happen ate at me. I tried to put as much space and furniture between us, but I was in a dorm room. It was one room and a bathroom. I had a section for my bed and then a sitting area and a little kitchenette. There weren’t many options for me to go for safety.

  “We found out some funny information today.” Harriet sneered.

  “You…you did?”

  My mind immediately went to my baby. They found out about my baby. Oh No! My panic kicked up a notch when Brice started walking toward me. My heart kicked up and went to my throat. I swallowed hard to try and get a little breathing room, but it wasn’t working. Continuing to back up I searched for something to save myself and my baby.

  “We did. Seems you have something of mine…I’m taking it back!” Brice said before he smacked me across the face.

  I fell, knocking over my nightstand and landing on my bed. Brice grabbed me by the hair, yanking me up. I screamed as he continued to punch me in my lower back. He threw me and I smacked into the wall hard. My arm bent the wrong way and the sound of the bone breaking was almost deafening. I screamed out in the pain of it all. My father’s words came back to me. He always told me to never let anyone see you weak. So I used my pain to fuel me and I fought back.

  Grabbing my lamp, I swung it at Brice’s head, knocking him off balance as I made contact. I swung my fist with all my might nailing him in the nose, knocking him back into the other wall. I turned and hit my mom knocking her on the ground. Kicking her as hard as I could, my surroundings began to blur in and out. Suddenly, I’m falling to my back and another snap sounded. Muffling my scream by biting my lip, I could taste the blood in my mouth from biting it so hard.

  “Please, I’m not going to ask you for anything, don’t hurt my baby… please!” I begged.

  There was nothing left for me to do, but beg. I had nothing left. My left arm was broken and I am pretty sure my right leg was broken too. My pleas fell on deaf ears, they both started kicking and hitting me. Each hit knocked the air out of my lungs and sent shooting pains through my entire body. Suddenly the beatings stopped and I was left with my pain. I couldn’t move. The pain was so intense that I felt almost lost in it, like I wasn’t really in my body. My thoughts were about my baby. The thoughts of what probably happened to it had sobs escaping that I couldn’t stop. The little bit of light that I could see was fading in and out. Suddenly the thought of not surviving was the most peaceful thought I’ve had.

  “O. M. G. What the hell… Holy Shit! Colleen, are you okay?”

  “Shit! I’m calling 911!”

  The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital.

  Jerking awake, I looked around the room. Today for the first time, I woke up alone. Sitting up I checked around the room and didn’t see any sign of Carson. I got up and headed to the bathroom. It was getting easier to move, but still took my breath away at times. He wasn’t in the bathroom either. I took a quick shower and brushed my teeth. Slipping on a shirt and a pair of his boxers, I made my way out of the room and downstairs. Following the sounds, I found Carson in the kitchen cooking. He t
urned around and caught sight of me and froze.

  “You weren’t in bed when I woke up.”

  “Jeff had to leave so I came down to make you breakfast.” He cleared his throat.

  “Where is everyone else?” I asked, noticing that no one else was moving around.

  “Working,” he said in a low, deep voice that spoke directly to my core. “Damn you look hot in my clothes.” He breathed stopping in front of me.

  “Sorry I di…” I was cut off by Carson’s mouth covering mine.

  It has been one hell of a week and I missed his kisses. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pulled him tighter against me and kissed him fervently. Carson growled into my mouth and deepened the kiss. I hadn’t realized that he was moving me until I felt the wall at my back. He pressed into me further, pushing his hardness into me. This time it was me that moaned. I wanted him and I wanted him badly. Running his hands down my leg, he lifted it up and brought it around his waist. As if on their own accord, my hips started grinding into his.

  Carson ran one hand up to my breast and his other was traveling down my stomach. Slipping his fingers in the waistband of the boxers, I moaned in anticipation of feeling his hands on me. Slowly he started moving his hand down further when someone cleared their throat.

  FUCK!

  Carson pulled away from the kiss and rested his head on mine. Both of us were trying hard to catch our breaths and calm ourselves down.

  “Whoever is standing behind me is dead.” He panted and I laughed.

  Carson leaned back and smiled down at me. I smiled right back lowering my leg back to the floor while Carson corrected any clothing that may have been messed up. We separated to find a very amused Jackson standing there.

  “Well, I see you’re doing well this morning, Colleen. Sorry to interrupt.” Jack chuckles.

  “You’re an asshole. Payback’s a bitch.” Carson shot back playfully.

  “Hi Jack,” I smile coyly as I walk up and rise up on my toes to kiss his cheek. “I’m doing much better today.” Running my hand down his arm, it took everything out of me not to laugh as Jack’s face changed and he swallowed nervously.