Behind the Bars

by Brittainy Cherry

  Subject: Hey

  Eli,

  I haven’t heard from you. Are you okay? My mom is making me perform in places I’d never want to perform. I’m trying to do what you said and follow my heart, but it’s like she can’t hear how it beats.

  Why haven’t you written? I miss you, and I’m starting to worry.

  -Jazz

  Also, I love you.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Elliott

  School was different than before. No one bullied me anymore.

  Principal Williams stepped down from his position. Mom said it was because of his guilty conscience for not doing anything to stop what had happened.

  When I walked down the hallways, everyone’s eyes darted away from me. Even teachers had a hard time looking my way. It was as if I were finally invisible, the way I’d always dreamed of being. The only person who could see me was Jason, and he wouldn’t leave me alone even when I asked him to go away.

  He took his best friend duties seriously and checked in on me every second of every day.

  “You okay, Elliott?” he’d ask.

  “I’m okay,” I’d reply.

  “Lying?” he’d ask.

  “Lying,” I’d reply.

  The truth was, I’d never be okay. I’d never be the same person I’d been, because I hadn’t been strong enough to save my sister.

  Mom forced me to see the guidance counselor, which I hated more than words could express. Mr. Yang sat in front of me, giving me the same kind of broken smiles everyone had been giving me.

  “What you went through must have been tough, Elliott,” he told me.

  “Not really. Death is sh-shockingly easy to deal with,” I replied sarcastically. In my mind, I knew I should apologize, but in my heart, I just didn’t care anymore. I didn’t care about anything anymore. My sister was dead, and it was all because of me. She wouldn’t have been in that alleyway if it wasn’t for me. She wouldn’t have been choked to death if I wasn’t a loser. It was pretty much my hands that had been wrapped around her neck, and I’d spend the rest of my life imprisoned by that guilt.

  “I got you some pamphlets,” Mr. Yang said, handing me some folded sheets of paper.

  Letting Go and Holding onto Memories

  The Facts about Death

  How to Deal with the Unthinkable

  The Seven Stages of Grief

  “I think those will help,” he told me.

  Right, because mourning was resolved with pamphlets.

  “Mr. Yang?”

  “Yes, Elliott?”

  “Can I leave now?”

  “Yes, Elliott.”

  I sat in the courtroom the day Todd was found guilty. I sat in the courtroom as his mother howled out in anguish. I sat in the courtroom as Todd burst into tears. I sat in the courtroom as his brother’s face went pale. I sat in the courtroom as his father stayed completely still.

  The sentence: life in prison with no chance for parole.

  Todd Clause would spend his life behind bars for the murder of my sister, and the world called it justice.

  There’s no such thing as justice.

  There was no justice in that courtroom, because as Todd walked away to rot in a cell, Katie was still gone. As Todd’s lungs rose and fell, Katlyn Rae Adams had no more inhales to meet or exhales to release.

  I studied their pain and their suffering, but it meant nothing to me.

  That case wasn’t a victory, it wasn’t a win.

  There was no such thing as justice when it came to the murder of an innocent person. There was simply a hollowness that lived within each person who had to say goodbye too soon.

  Yes, Todd Clause would spend his life locked away, but that didn’t bring me any peace of mind. There would never be peace, because my sister was still dead, and it was all because of me.

  Subject: Where are you?

  Eli,

  I’m worried. Where are you?

  -Jazz

  Subject: I don’t know

  Eli,

  I don’t know what happened. Are you busy? Are you mad at me? Did something go wrong? I just cannot imagine anything that would make you stop talking to me. I just want to know if you’re okay, and if you’re not, let me help. I’ll do anything. I miss you, Eli. I miss you so much, and not hearing from you is making me sick. I don’t know what to do.

  If I don’t hear from you, I’ll leave you alone after this. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll go away.

  Please let me hear from you.

  -Jazz

  Also, I still love you.

  No matter what.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Elliott

  Each day I stared at Jasmine’s emails, unable to reply. The cursor blinked and blinked, but I couldn’t bring myself to type out the words to tell her Katie was gone. I also couldn’t bring myself to a place where I would open myself up to being comforted by Jasmine.

  Even from four thousand, six hundred, and twenty-four miles away, I knew she’d make me feel better, and I didn’t want that.

  There was a burning that had been weighing in my gut since Katie had passed away, and I wanted it to stay there as a reminder that I was responsible for her death.

  I never mentioned the weight, the burn to anyone, because I knew they’d all tell me it wasn’t my fault. In my mind, in my heart, and in my soul, I knew the truth, and I’d feel that suffering each and every day.

  Over time, I became annoyed with Jasmine’s notes, her thoughtfulness, her care…her heart, her hope.

  I didn’t want anything to do with hope. I didn’t want anything to do with feeling a split second of happiness, because I deserved the sadness.

  I read the stupid pamphlets, too—each one, about twenty times.

  The one I read the most was The Seven Stages of Grief.

  I found it interesting, the way they laid it out so clearly.

  First, there was shock and denial.

  I’d felt that one head-on, but it had quickly moved on to stage two: pain and guilt. The pain never really disappeared, though. It just shifted to stage three: anger.

  Anger had hit me hard. I was angry at the world, angry at myself for not being strong enough to help Katie, for not being man enough to save her.

  Then, I hit loneliness, and that’s where I failed with the seven stages of grief.

  I hovered back and forth between anger and loneliness.

  I didn’t move on to the upward turn, reconstruction, or acceptance.

  I just simmered in the darkness of my aching pain. I separated myself from the world. Each day, I grew darker. Each day, I lost myself more.

  Instead of playing music, I started doing push-ups.

  Instead of going to Frenchmen Street, I started lifting weights.

  I’ll be strong enough.

  I’ll be strong enough…

  Over the years, my body began to change. I became obsessed with being strong. Each day, heavier weights—each night, fewer feelings. I took part in anything and everything that would make me gain weight and muscle. I worked hard each day to become stronger.

  I grew.

  I shifted.

  I worked hard.

  I changed.

  And somehow, someway, I lost everything that made me…me.

  I kept to myself, because if no one was near me, how could they get hurt? I became a ghost of a man, once who existed in the world but was no longer part of it.

  The music in me had died the day my sister left this earth, and the melody of my heart was officially mute.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jasmine

  I never heard from Elliott again.

  I never again kissed the lips of the boy who loved me. I never again saw those hazel eyes. I never again received an email from him, telling me he missed me.

  As time went on, life became harder…tougher…darker.

  Darker than I’d ever thought possible. The only drops of light were when Ray would call and email me over the years. Two times each wee
k we’d FaceTime each other, and he’d ask me the same thing at the beginning and end of our conversations.

  “You have a good day, Snow White?”

  Some days those words were enough to bring me to tears, but I never let him hear me sniffling. “Yes,” I’d always tell him. “Everything’s fine.”

  I’d lie every time, and he knew it was a lie every time, too, but he never pushed it. He knew how hard I was trying to make it work for Mama.

  He knew how important it was for me to make her proud. He didn’t understand my need to make her proud, but he respected it.

  While my music career was coming together, everything else around me was falling apart. I hated waking up knowing I was going to go into the studio and lose myself to an industry that wasn’t shaped to love me for me.

  Trevor didn’t make it easier, either.

  He loved to remind me of my flaws, and then he’d order Mama to have me fix them.

  Ray was right about him—he was a snake. Everything about him made my skin crawl, from his wicked smirk to the way he sometimes touched my lower back when he introduced me to people.

  When I told Mama how uncomfortable he made me, she scolded me.

  “Everything he’s doing is for you, Jasmine. How dare you speak about him in that way?”

  It was different with Trevor than with Ray for her. I noticed it every day. She always backed him up, no matter how wrong he’d been. She looked at Trevor with admiration. To her, he was everything she’d ever wished for. He was the opposite of Ray—which was why I hated him, and Mama loved him. She loved him so much, even though his love for her was mediocre at best.

  All I wanted to do was get that same kind of attention from her.

  That’s all I ever wanted.

  Each day that passed, it grew easier to forget the good things, to forget the love, to forget warmth, to forget Elliott. When I was young, I thought I’d endured the hardest parts of my life. As I grew older, I would’ve given anything to return to my youth, to the days when a young, broken boy loved a young, damaged girl.

  But life didn’t work like that. The world was determined to shatter every piece of me until my body became a monument of the scars life left behind.

  I stayed in London for six years, and it was six years too long.

  I’d given myself to pop music, even though my spirit yearned for soul. Every choice I’d ever made was for my mother. I allowed demeaning comments because she told me they were just words. I let grown men lay their hands on my shoulders, on my back, on my curves, because she said that was just part of the industry.

  “Know your place, Jasmine,” she told me one night after I cried myself to sleep because one of the producers had squeezed my ass. “You knew what you were getting into.”

  That was a lie, but she believed it.

  I wasn’t a person anymore, at least not in her mind.

  Sometimes I’d catch Mama smiling at me when I performed, but I knew it wasn’t really me she saw. It was the brand.

  Mama loved the brand, yet she never really loved me.

  I often wondered if she saw the men around us and the way they looked at me. I wondered if she noticed their long embraces, their wandering hands, their low whistles. I wondered if she ignored them because she had her eyes on the prize…because she wanted success more than anything in the world…because she didn’t want to bite the hands that were feeding her.

  She’d known her place.

  She’d known what she was getting into.

  I wondered if she cared that my skin crawled and how my throat burned, that I took long showers to wash away the day and cried myself to sleep each night. I wondered if she cared about me at all.

  She was a business woman who ignored the shadows behind closed doors. Her focus was on my talents and increasing them each day. More talents meant more opportunities, more opportunities meant more fame, and more fame meant Mama might be proud of me.

  Each day that passed, I stopped caring a little more about her pride. Each day that passed, I kept saying my new favorite word.

  No.

  It never got easier, saying that word. It never became numb or meaningless when I said it to someone who gave himself permission to place his hands on me. The way eyes looked me up and down when I walked into a room…the way they’d judge me on everything I was and everything I wasn’t…the way they’d whisper as I stood still in the room.

  She’s sexy. She’s hot. I bet singing ain’t all her mouth can do.

  I’d just turned twenty-two, and I knew mortification more than the average person. I knew what it felt like to stand in a room, fully clothed, and still be told that I called the attention to myself. To be called a tease when I did absolutely nothing at all. I knew what it felt like to be told I’d find more success if I showed more tits and ass during shows.

  I always showed up and did my job—nothing more, nothing less. I kept my clothes on, I kept my voice low, and I kept saying it.

  No.

  No.

  Stop it.

  Don’t.

  But that didn’t stop them from belittling me. That didn’t stop them from taking me from show to show, meeting to meeting, and presenting me as if my body was a bargaining chip. As if I were a prized possession, not a human being. Mama allowed it all, too. I was her star, her shining light. I was going to do everything she’d been unable to ever accomplish, because that’s what kids are supposed to do, as she’d told me numerous times.

  We’re supposed to be better than our parents.

  I am already better than my parent.

  If I had children, I’d never treat them that way. I’d love them. I’d protect them. No matter what.

  I hadn’t signed up for this.

  I hadn’t known what I was getting myself into when I entered the music industry.

  I signed up for Mama, for her love. Her respect. Her heart. Over time, I’d realized it was never going to come my way. No matter how hard I tried.

  In every story ever told, a person reached a limit. Everyone had a breaking point, and I reached mine July 30th.

  On July 30th, the voices in my head became too loud. On July 30th, I packed my bags in the middle of the night. On July 30th, my heart screamed at me to run, so I ran.

  I ran as fast as my legs allowed.

  I ran as far as I could go.

  Then I ran some more.

  I bought a one-way ticket.

  I sat on an airplane.

  On July 31st, 2017, with pain in my chest and scars on my soul, I finally went home.

  Part II

  “The things we truly love stay with us always, locked in our hearts as long as life remains.”

  -Josephine Baker

  Chapter Twenty

  Jasmine

  Whenever I thought of home, I didn’t think of a place. I thought of people. I thought of the ones who’d shaped me into the woman I’d become, the ones who’d loved me with my scars and told me those scars were beautiful, the ones who’d allowed me to make mistakes and still loved me.

  That was home to me.

  It wasn’t a large gathering of individuals. My home was small, compact. Others would probably look at my home and think I was one of the unlucky ones, but I wasn’t. I was far from unlucky, because I always had that small home to return to if I ever needed a place to run. So many people in the world were homeless, with no one in their lives to turn to in a time of need.

  If you had one person who’d catch you when you were crashing through life, you were blessed beyond measure.

  After years of freefalling, I finally got too close to the ground. When I was terrified of crashing, there it was, waiting right there to catch me.

  My home was there, ready to take me in with arms wide-open.

  I walked out of Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport with nerves in my stomach and a racing heart that wouldn’t slow down. Each step was a step closer to the happiest times of my life. Each moment was a chance to start over.

 
I’d spent the past six years trying to make my mother happy, trying to achieve the dream she believed in, trying to make her proud. Each day I had failed, no matter how hard I tried, though I’d tried with every fiber of my being.

  With time and heartache, I learned the hardest truth of life: you can’t force love to happen, no matter how hard you try. You can’t force someone to love you, to be proud of you, to care. The only thing you’re in control of is your own soul and discovering what makes your heart beat.

  It was now time for me to start putting myself first, even though that broke my heart because I still loved Mama so much. That was another hard life lesson: you can’t will love to go away. It stays as long as it pleases, with or without your permission.

  As I stared across the way, I saw a face filled with love, one I’d been dying to see for the longest time. I dropped my bags on the sidewalk, took off running in his direction, and leaped into his arms, pulling him into the tightest hug.

  He hugged me back tighter and whispered against my ear, “Hey, Snow White.”

  I tried to fight the tears that fell from my eyes as I held him even closer. “Hey, Ray.”

  He drove me to his apartment, which was triple the size of the one we’d stayed in before Mama and I left. It was beautiful, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen as big as Texas, high ceilings, modern art, and expensive furniture.

  Ray carried my bags inside for me, and I couldn’t stop smiling.

  “So, it pays to go mainstream, huh?” I grinned. Over the years, Ray’s band had taken off, and they were doing amazing things with their music career.

  He smirked. “Semi-mainstream. There’s a difference. I’m not Adam Levine, but I’m a midlist success story.”