Black Queenz

Ch. 17-Strength

***Ra***

When my parents got home and saw my face, they were livid. They asked me a million questions, but I wouldn't answer any of them. I just shrugged and blinked every time they asked where I'd been or who I was with or what had happened. My dad was angrier than Tanya by far, but that was to be expected. He was just angry that his daughter truly looked manly. With my haircut, baggy clothes, and my injuries, I looked like any other guy on the street.

Eventually, Tanya calmed him down and he left me alone, so I went back to crying in my bed. My shower had been long and scalding hot, but I didn't feel clean. No matter how hard I scrubbed, I couldn't feel clean.

And the feeling lasted for two weeks. It'd been two weeks since Dewan had done that, but I still felt dirty and hollow. Hollow. I felt empty inside when I ate, when I didn't eat, when I showered, when I didn't shower, when I let Osiris hold me, and when I didn't let her hold me. Everything felt wrong, and everything felt like it was making the hollow feeling worse.

"Rashaa, come downstairs," my dad called. It was Saturday afternoon and almost exactly two weeks since Dewan had held me down up in Osiris' room and done that. I was upstairs looking at my body and trying to see if any of my scars from getting jumped earlier had disappeared yet. The bruises were mostly gone, but I was still tender in some places.

"Yes, daddy?" He was sitting on the couch downstairs and watching TV as usual.

"Sit down, sweetie, I got a lot to tell you." I raised an eyebrow, and sat on the end of the couch, as far from him as I could manage. Ever since that with Dewan and getting jumped, I hated him even more for forcing me back to East JP. If I'd just stayed in Stratford, I would've been safe. Me and Osiris wouldn't have met, but at least I wouldn't have been beat up so savagely.

"Rashaa," he started, "you know your mother has been very busy with working and trying to support you kids, right?"

"Right."

"She's a grown woman, sweetie, and she likes to be in a relationship, you know. The older you get, the more you start to want to be in a relationship. Like me and Tanya."

"Yeah."

"And you've turned eighteen, sweetie, and I've noticed you don't really go on dates with boys. Just those 'best friend' dates with Osiris. And the only person you have over is Osiris, too. Don't you want a relationship? Richard B. hasn't been around since January."

I shrugged, but on the inside I was laughing at his obliviousness. I'd been in a relationship for almost nine months and he hadn't paid enough attention to me to notice. The longer we went, the easier people could see what me and Osiris really were.

It was downright upsetting that he hadn't seen the signs. I was bisexual, but how could he have not seen it? How could he have ignored the fresh hickies after Osiris spent the night? How could he have ignored the pictures I took with us hugging that I kept beside my bed? How could he have ignored me referring to Osiris as my girl so often? He'd even seen me kiss her under the mistletoe a couple times and he hadn't said a word. Why couldn't he just let me tell him? Why couldn't he just make it easy to finally come out after eighteen years in hiding?

He continued, "We can talk about that later. I think how you're dressing doesn't help the cause, but I'll get back to what I was saying. I might as well stop talking around it with you, sweetie. Your mom is getting re-married and your siblings are moving back in with her."

I stared at him and replayed his words in my head. Then I played them again. Then I played them again before I found a response to them.

"She's leaving me?"