12/12/2020 - First final = done. Got a solid 93% so I'm off to a good start and felt like celebrating by editing another chapter! It was completely rewritten, so you'll notice the lack of comments. Lets fix that! Comment away :)
Silently Falling: Chapter Twenty Eight
West and I move to the living room for whatever it is he needs to tell me. My mind is racing. If there are things he needs to tell me, then that ultimately means there are things he has kept from me. I trust West. I trust him more than someone with my past should, and for some odd reason I have a pit in my stomach that what's about to come is going to challenge that feeling.
We sit down facing one another and the worn cushions don't provide any comfort. Instead they seem to absorb us so that we can't escape the conversation to come. I try to catch West's eye but he expertly avoids my gaze.
He stays quiet for a few moments and I can tell that he's stuck in his thoughts, so I reach out and take his hand. He jumps slightly and snaps his eyes to me and my reassuring smile. Instead of returning it, West clenches his jaw and furrows his brow with guilt. My own smile drops and I take in a deep breath, trying to keep my heart beating at a normal pace, but West's sudden mood change is terrifying me. The room around us is silent. All we can hear is the gentle patter of the rain outside and West focuses his gaze on the droplets sliding down the window.
"Sunshine..." he starts hesitantly, clearing his throat. "Have you ever been afraid of me?"
The vulnerability in his voice shocks me and I squeeze the hand I'm still holding. He catches my gaze with unwavering intensity as he pleads with me.
"Be honest. Please."
"I was afraid of the rumors. When I met you, I surprised myself when I wasn't scared. Why are you asking me this?"
"Do you trust me?"
The yearning in his tone tugs painfully on my heart. It's such a simple question but the gravity behind the answer is enough to make or break relationships. But I've been saying all along that I trust West. And that's what makes this moment so terrifying to me. The fear that that trust is about to be broken.
"Of course."
If my answers are what he wants to hear, West makes no notion of it. He just keeps asking questions.
"How come you rarely ask me about juvie?"
"Because I can tell how hard it is for you to talk about it. I never wanted to force you to tell me something if you weren't ready."
He nods, taking in a shaky breath. "If you're willing to listen, then I'm ready to tell you. Everything."
My eyes widen slightly and my back straightens. I suppose I knew that our relationship was close enough for secrets to start coming out, but I wasn't ready for this to happen yet.
"Just...please remember that no matter what I say, I still care about you and I would never hurt you." West says, reaching out to take my hand as his voice yet again pleads with me.
Whatever tactic I was using to calm my heart instantly fails me and it starts pounding painfully against my chest. Since West still has my hand held tightly in his, I only nod in response. With another deep breath, he lets it out slowly before he starts his story.
"If you remember, I told you how I've never met my real dad. He was never in my life, just got my mom pregnant when she was seventeen and fled. Her parents resented her for getting knocked up so young and turned their backs on her. She was kicked out, forced to get a job and fend for herself. My mom is the strongest person I know and she was able to land on her feet, but there were still times when she struggled to put food on our table. I was all she had until I was about seven. That's when she met Jason."
West's voice instantly hardens as he spits out his name, and his hand in mine tenses. I try to soothe him by rubbing my thumb on his skin and slowly, his hand begins to relax but his voice stays tight.
"They started dating and he was like her Prince Charming. He helped with her bills, made sure our pantry was always fully stocked, and even had the money to take us on a cruise when I was eight. I never understood what it was like to have a father figure and I remember being so excited to have finally found that in Jason..."
West trails off with a furrowed brow, staring down at the floor as he gets lost in his thoughts. I squeeze his hand to bring him back to me.
"But after they had been together for a few months, my mom found out she was pregnant. She wasn't all that happy about it. I'm sure that after getting pregnant with me at such a young age, she wanted to wait until she had been with someone for a long time before having another kid. I guess we don't always get what we want, though. Jason, on the other hand, seemed ecstatic to be having a kid. He proposed to my mom and suddenly her mindset changed and she was excited. I guess she realized that she wouldn't have to raise us alone; that she had someone there to help. So, Jason moved in. And that's when everything changed."
West's eyes become glossy, but I don't think his oncoming tears are because he's sad. The way his jaw clenches and unclenches and the vicious look in his eye tells me otherwise. His hand slips out of mine.
"We found out that Jason was a drug dealer. That's where all of his money came from, not whatever lie he told my mom to rope her in. When she found out...she tried to leave him, but when you're only 25 and you can barely support yourself and your son, much less a baby on the way, it's not that simple. She still tried, though. She didn't want me around the stuff that Jason had his hands in. But, the moment that he thought she was going to leave him, he resorted to forcing her to stay."
West's hands are so tightly clenched that I actually worry his skin is going to split on his knuckles. His eyes are far away and I know his mind has taken him back to the moments he shouldn't have to relive. My stomach feels sick as I imagine the horrors that young West had to go through, and it sticks out in my mind that he was only eight.
"I-I didn't fully understand right away what he was doing to my mom. I only noticed that her smiles became fake; rehearsed. My teacher that year was pregnant, too, but her smile only got happier the further into her pregnancy she became. So I knew something was off, but it wasn't until-"
He has to pause, squeezing his eyes tight as the memory takes him over. I instantly reach out and rest my hand on his shoulder, causing him to tense even more as he fights with the scene going on behind his closed eyes.
"It wasn't until I had a nightmare one night a-and couldn't go back to sleep. So I got up and went down the hall to her room, which is Casper's room now. B-but as I walked down the hall, I started hearing these noises. These loud, painful, noises."
His voice gets quiet as he tries to push through and tell me his story, but it's becoming harder and harder. West lifts his clenched hands to his head, as though trying to drown out the sounds I'm sure he's spent years trying to forget.
I cover his hands with my own, gently pulling them back down into his lap to give him the best comfort that I can. I want nothing more than to be able to talk and reassure him out loud that he's okay. That I'm right here with him. To remind him of how strong he is and that he doesn't have to say anything else if he doesn't want to.
He forces his eyes open to look at me and I squeeze his hands as comfortingly as I can, trying to let him know everything I want to say but can't. He continues with a quivering chin.
"The door to her room was cracked, so I saw...I saw Jason hitting her. I saw his hands on her throat as he pinned her against the wall. I didn't know what to do. I was frozen in place. I wanted to burst into the room and help her, get him away from her. B-but I was just a kid and my body wouldn't move. I guess I made some sort of noise, though, because her eyes snapped to the doorway and she saw me. I'll never forget the raw fear in her eyes. She wasn't scared for herself; she was terrified that if Jason saw me, he'd start hurting me too. So she pleaded with me through our stare to get away. To go back to bed. So I did. I walked away. I let him continue to beat her."
The tears West held back suddenly make their appearance, but I quickly lift my hand and wipe them away, softly stroking his cheeks in the process. He shuts his eyes tight and leans deeply into my hand as his chin quivers against his will. Tears manage to still slip out of his eyes and slide down his cheek, falling slower and slower until they finally cease. When his tears have gone, West finally looks at me and I softly shake my head so that he knows I'm telling him not to blame himself. It's not his fault. He regretfully pulls away from my hand and it drops back down to my side, and he goes to continue.
"A few months after that night, she had Casper, but I wasn't excited anymore to have a baby brother and she wasn't excited to bring him into this world either. That doesn't mean I didn't love Casper the second she let me hold him, because I did. That kid...he changed things for me. I was nine and already started hating life after I watched the things it did to my mom, but when I first held Casper I understood that I needed to look out for my family. So, when the beatings didn't stop, I took it upon myself to finally make a change. I wouldn't let Casper be born into hatred."
Warmth spreads through my body upon hearing the way West talks about Casper, but my chest tightens. He was only nine. He was only nine and he felt the burden that he had to save his family. He should have been having playdates with his friends, learning how to ride a bike; only burdened with his first time seeing a multiplication table in elementary school.
"One night when Casper was two I took my moms phone, hid in my room, and called the police. I was so scared and I was shaking so badly that I could barely punch in the numbers. And somehow...somehow he knew. Jason burst the door open and came at me, sending a stinging slap at my mom when she tried to stop him. His ring caught on her cheek and created a nasty gash, and she fell to the floor. I fought him off the best I could, but he was so much bigger than me. He held me down and 'taught me a lesson about stepping out of line.' It didn't take long for me to have matching wounds to my mom. I got lucky that Jason never thought to hang up the phone and 911 stayed on the other line. The police were there within minutes arresting Jason and rushing me and my mom to a hospital. It was my eleventh birthday."
It was my eleventh birthday.
"He was sent to jail and we went on with our life. We finally had a shot at being happy, but I wasn't the same. Hate was drilled into me for so long that I didn't know how to cope. I stayed to myself all throughout middle school, causing trouble here and there with my teachers. It wasn't until I turned 14 that shit for me really hit the fan. I started hanging out with the wrong crowd. There were some guys down the road who were all older and were all high school dropouts. I thought they were so cool for being able to say fuck the system and go off on their own. They fed into my anger and gave me a release in drugs and alcohol. I was just a kid yet I was staying out all night with guys ten years older than me.
"Nothing my mom could do would help. I just rebelled and rebelled. Casper was the only one who never saw that side of me. He was just a little kid and I made it a point not to let him see who I was becoming, because I was ashamed of myself and that only made things worse. I wanted to stop. I wanted to be a better role model. I could tell how much I upset my mom...she blamed herself for who I was. And, though she'll never admit it...I think a part of her feared that I would become just like Jason. I was walking down the same path."
My entire body is tingling with shock as West reveals more about his past. The person he's describing sounds like the opposite of the man sitting next to me, and I can't wrap my head around the fact that this was West less than three years ago.
"Then, when I was 16, Jason was released. Yet again, my mom had really been struggling to pay her bills and put food on our table. So, when I found out that Jason had been released, I was scared that he was going to come back and that my mom would agree just because we needed the financial help. I couldn't let that happen. My family needed me again so I made sure to be there for them. I started hanging out with those guys down the street less and less, starting going to the gym, helped out around the house more, and was more involved in helping raise Casper. I tried to get a job but I had a bit of a reputation for all the stupid shit I did and nowhere would hire me."
"Jason did come back. And my mom did accept him. He swore he was a changed man, that being in jail opened his eyes to all the wrong things he did. Said he served his time and that every day he only thought about us, about how he wanted to be there for Casper and be a good father figure. I guess that struck a cord with my mom since I had grown up for the most part without one and, well...I guess she saw where that got me. But Jason actually seemed like he had changed. He was suddenly sweet to my mom, acted like a real dad to Casper, and was able to get a real job that helped stop our financial struggles. Things seemed to be looking up for a few months, but that doesn't mean I trusted him."
"Then, a few weeks after my 17th birthday, I finally felt like I could have a good life. I felt like I could get out of here, graduate high school and secure a good job so that my mom and Casper would always be well provided for the day Jason made a mistake, because I knew that day would come. And it did. I came home from school early one day, but something was off. I got inside and didn't see anyone in the living room, but Jason's car was in the driveway. That's when I heard it. That noise. That same loud, painful noise..."
His voice is close to giving out and his hands are shaking. My chest tightens even more, an aching pain becoming more and more prevalent with no signs of stopping. I hate seeing West like this. All I want to do is be able to comfort him, whisper those words of reassurance just so that he can hear them.
"All of the sudden I felt like I was that scared little kid again walking towards his moms room because of a stupid nightmare. The door was cracked again and I peeked inside to see Jason throwing my mom violently onto the floor. S-she cowered back, inching away from him while he towered over her, and that's when her eyes caught sight of me. Once again she pleaded for me to go away, but I wasn't a defenseless kid anymore. No, I would make him pay this time. Within a second, I swung the door open and was across the room, grabbing Jason and slamming him against the wall like I had seen him do to my mom years ago. He fell to the floor after his head banged violently against the wall, but I wasn't satisfied. I started beating him senseless. I went wild with rage. All I could see was him hurting my mom and I wanted to make him pay."
"It wasn't until I caught sight of Casper standing in the doorway, watching with wide, scared eyes, that I stopped. He seemed frozen in place as he watched me beat Jason through the half-open door. He was eight years old. I guess between my mom screaming and me yelling at Jason, our neighbors overheard and called the cops. Because before I had the chance to get off of Jason and realize what just happened, I was being taken out in handcuffs."
He stops there. His eyes are trained on the couch as he sits stiffly. My brain can't seem to fully comprehend everything he just unloaded on me. The only thing I can focus on is how much more admiration and respect I have for him. The fact that he can still smile and laugh today and be the carefree West that I've come to know...it proves that his definition of strength goes well beyond anyone else.
I can't help myself. I reach forward and throw my arms around him, hugging him tightly. I try to pour out every ounce of admiration I have for him into the hug, trying to let him know that his story didn't scare me away. It did the opposite. West stiffens for a second before melting into the hug and wrapping his arms securely around me. He buries his face into my shoulder, breathing in a shaky breath as he squeezes me tighter.
"I know that was a lot," he says quietly, "but please don't let that story change the way you see me. Please."
I pull away from him and offer him a small smile, "I would never. You're incredibly strong, West. Thank you for telling me your story."
For the first time since this morning, West gives me a small smile. All too soon, however, that smile fades and the guilt from earlier takes its place and he looks away.
"What's wrong?"
"Sunshine...there's more to the story. I had a good case to not have to do any time. Jason had been to jail before for domestic violence and my mom had the bruises to prove he did it again. I just jumped in to save her, I should have easily evaded Jason's charges. With any other prosecutor, I would have. But instead...Jason somehow had one of the top prosecutors in Chicago on his case. Nathanial Snow."
Flashbacks to my own trial suddenly take over my mind. Warren standing trial. Nathanial Snow, his father, defending him outside of his usual prosecutor role. Nathanial making me sound like a liar. Nathanial making it sound like I advanced onto Warren. Nathanial triumphantly walking out of the court room after his son's verdict was read; not guilty.
West continues, taking me away from the scene playing in my head.
"That's why I hated Warren that first day. I knew who his father was; the one who ruined my life. And it wasn't only my life that he ruined, either. He was responsible for nearly half of the kids that were in juvie with me."
He pauses, shifting so that he's facing me as he takes my hand in his.
"But my hatred went beyond that. Fast. After that day in the hall, when I saw the way he made you feel...I hated that. I hated that he made you cower with fear just like his father made me and so many others cower away in juvie. So, I took out a bit of my hatred on his car and slashed his tires, and that's when things started to go downhill. Warren must have told his father what happened, because a few days later Warren came to talk to me at my Jeep. You remember, right?"
I distinctly recall the day a few weeks ago where Warren and West were in an argument at his Jeep. West seemed to be on the defense for the first time and even seemed a little scared of the things Warren was saying. He told all of us that Warren threatened him about the tires.
I nod and West continues.
"Well, he didn't threaten me about the tires. Nathanial had told him about my case. Warren knew why I was sent to juvie, and that's something I wanted to keep hidden. I didn't want to have to relive it every time I walked down the hall at school because some kid would think it was okay to ask me about it. Warren knew and he threatened me with it. I couldn't handle him having a leg up on me; I couldn't give him that satisfaction."
I listen intently, curiosity making my head spin. I'm hanging onto West's every word, but he suddenly stops and looks away from me, face swamped with guilt. His voice comes out shakier, more tentative, as he keeps talking.
"I faintly recalled a story that some of the guys in juvie would tell. It was all about how crooked Snow is. It was some story about his son standing trial. I figured if I learned what happened with Warren in that story, then I could use that to my advantage and he would no longer have the upper-hand. So, I visited my friends in juvie that day to hear it."
My blood runs cold. My body stiffens. My heart stops.
West lifts his gaze to mine, his swimming with regret as he says the one thing I never wanted to hear.
"They told me the story about how Snow defended his son, accused of rape, against a victim that couldn't speak at her trial."
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12/12/2020 - Some of your theories were correct, it seems...hehehe. For my RR's, thoughts on the changes?