Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 89840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
“No, Vonne, all you have is a picture of me lying on the ground, a man holding the end of a rug, and a selfie of me with him in the background. It won’t prove anything.”
She faltered. “But you didn’t get hurt for no reason. They tried to bury you. Alive,” she reminds me.
“Imagine how it’ll sound if I say I was buried alive? Imagine what they’ll think if you tell them you followed some random man into the woods and saw him burying my body? No one would believe it, Shavonne,” I hissed. “For all we know, they’ll think you were in on it!”
“But I wasn’t!” she exclaimed.
“I know that, but it just . . . it won’t add up. And . . . I’m scared, Vonne. I—I can’t remember what all he did, but I don’t ever want to see him again.”
She pulled her phone away, tucking it into her hoodie pocket. “Brynn, I know you’re scared, but this man almost got away with murder.”
I swallowed and the saliva was rough going down. “I need water.”
“Where’s the Brynn who fights?” Shavonne went on, and her question cut me in two. “You can’t let him win. You can take him down and get justice.”
“I need water,” I repeated, more firmly this time.
I couldn’t take any more of her optimism. Could she see the state I was in? I’d just had surgery in my head to stop the bleeding. The fact that I even survived was a miracle and she wanted me to go back to that horrifying situation with Dominic? She was out of her mind. Plus, I knew how the system worked. Dominic was a rich man with rich people at his side and I was a poor woman with nothing to my name. I was worthless and not a single person would care about my outcome but the people sitting in this hospital room. Even my parents wouldn’t have cared. My momma, God rest her soul, would’ve scoffed and asked me, “Well what did you do to provoke them?”
That’s why I was so ready to leave North Carolina and make a fresh start when the time came. I would no longer be gaslit or put last. I could flee and put myself first . . . but fleeing only backfired.
If Dominic didn’t get away with burying me nearly two weeks ago, he definitely would the next time around.
After gulping down the water my best friend poured for me, I turned over and gave her my back.
“Come on, Brynn. You have to fight.” Shavonne’s voice was laced with hurt, with hopelessness.
I closed my eyes, but that didn’t stop the tears from falling.
FORTY-NINE
BRYNN
Two months later
I was lucky to still have a job at Franco’s and Nulli’s mini mart. Truthfully, I think the managers felt sorry for me. I’d lied and told them I’d gone hiking, fell, and hit some rocks, which caused my concussion. They took one look at the large gash on my head and kept me on their payroll. Pity sucks, but not when it works in your favor.
I’d decided that after that horrible night with Dominic, I would keep my head down. I’d work to fill my hours and avoid going out at all costs. Not that going out was a priority. I was ugly now. The scar on my head had healed, sure, but it was still red and prominent. I looked like half my head had been chewed by some sharp-toothed monster, not to mention the newly developed migraines were random and brutal. I often couldn’t finish a sentence because I couldn’t think of words. My mind was just so spacey.
Every morning that I looked in the mirror, I wanted to cry. He’d done this to me and I couldn’t figure out why. With each passing day, the fuzzy details would come back to me though. They started off muted and vague, like a black-and-white TV show without the volume, so it was easy to dismiss at first. But slowly, like a snowball rolling to create an avalanche, it all came back. My doctor informed me that it would take some time for some memories to return. But I’d hoped some time would be three or four years down the road, when I was better off mentally, not two months later. Because they’d returned at such full force, I had trouble sleeping. I woke up in the middle of the night screaming, hand clutching my chest as I remembered the man on top of me, followed by the stack of papers and the dark look in Dominic’s eyes. The fight we had, a blow to my head, and then cold dirt being shoveled on top of my body. Shavonne ran into my room, eyes wide like saucers. She saw me on the bed, curled in the fetal position, and she laid with me. As I cried, she held me and told me everything would be alright.