Scar Read online

  “I see, nigga. Broke-ass muthafucka. But you see, that ain’t the only reason I’m here. I’ma take all this shit up out this house though! While you at it, take all that jewelry off them. Y’all wasted my time with this shit.”

  Hearing that made me drop my chin to my chest. Nick put his blood, sweat, and more blood into TNT Pharmacy. It took him years to get licensed, find good, solid staff, and turn a profit. Not only that, but he also had to build relationships with big-name insurance companies. Once he turned a profit, he bought himself and my mother simple Rolex watches with their initials written in inconspicuous spots. I knew that hurt my parents’ hearts because they held them near and dear.

  “Look, man, I’m telling you I ain’t got shit, dog.”

  “Nigga, you said that already. But my homeboy here gon’ find something in this bitch,” he retorted, smacking around any piece of furniture he passed for emphasis. The homeboy he spoke of walked through the house as if it were his own. He moved around the house fluently. For a second, I wondered if he’d been there before. I couldn’t see his face though, due to his hoodie seeming too big and his whole head drowning in it.

  “Come on na, man, you scaring my lady,” Nick said through clenched teeth. Tina’s cries grew soft. Those tears were full of fear for sure. It almost seemed as if she was even more scared than before.

  “Nigga, you think I give a fuck about you or your bitch?”

  From where I was standing behind the door, I could see but couldn’t be seen. The man began to walk away from my father, going toward my mother with a gun hanging loosely in his hand at his side. Hearing the conversation was one thing. I wasn’t prepared for the sight. It was too much. My mom on the floor now screaming bloody murder. She wasn’t worried about herself though. See, to know Tina was to know that she too put her family’s needs above her own. And Nick was her family. In her eyes, I could see her worry for my dad. In his eyes was the same worry for her. Their love was apparent even during such a fucked-up time. Just seeing that made me hot with anger.

  My dad jumped up looking crazed as he watched the robber point the gun directly in my mother’s face. “Yo, you bitch-ass nigga! Get that fucking gun out her face!” Nick caught the man completely off guard. But he recovered quickly, spinning around with the gun now pointed in Nick’s direction.

  “Nigga, you running up?”

  I couldn’t take it. I didn’t know what to do, but rage took over as I turned back to the kitchen and snatched the mixing bowl off the counter. I launched the bowl in the intruder’s direction. I missed. The bowl shattered against the wall, totally missing the mark.

  “What the fuck?”

  I ran full speed, hopping on the back of one of the intruders. He snapped around with the gun pointing in my direction. I guessed I completely caught him off guard, because the gun dropped.

  “Baby!”

  “Tineya. Baby, no!”

  I heard my parents screaming out to me, but I chose to ignore them. The anger I felt seeping through my pores far outweighed any amount of fear pumping through my heart. My heart was crushed seeing all the blood all over the living room. It was like I could feel pieces of my heart chipping away. In that moment nothing else mattered. This was heartbreak in its truest form. In most people’s lives, their parents are typically their first loves. Truly, it’s your first encounter with love. Mine were two of the strongest people I knew, so seeing them in such a vulnerable state was indescribable.

  My tiny fist whaling on the side of this man’s face did nothing to him. As hard as I was swinging, I was no match for the strength of what appeared to be a grown-ass man. It almost mirrored throwing peanuts at a brick wall and expecting it to shake, rattle, and roll. Nothing.

  He tossed my body over his head, slamming me onto the floor as if I were light as a feather. But once again, he was a grown man. However, the amount of force the man used was excessive by anybody’s definition. The way he threw my body off his back reminded me of when I roughly threw my doll on the ground. If I had known karma was lurking, I would’ve rethought that move. Crazy comparison, I knew, but I couldn’t help the way my mind worked.

  “Ughhh!”

  I could only lie on the floor, groaning and trying to catch my breath. Watching my daddy’s eyes roll into the back of his head as he tried his best to get to me was gut-wrenching. I looked at my mama. She seemed to be in the same position as my dad! I was scared and hurt. I just knew my parents’ lives were coming to an end. I felt that shit. The air in the room was thick.

  I watched as one of the two intruders left through the door without saying a word. Then I looked at the man who’d flipped me over. I took note of his light gray eyes through his ski mask. I didn’t know what to do, so I begged for our lives.

  “Please, sir, I won’t tell. Just don’t hurt me. Please let me get some help for them. I want to save them.”

  The man’s gray eyes grew dark. He began to pace the floor. Then he stopped in front of me. “Fuck them!”

  I watched as a slight smirk appeared on his face. A navy blue ski mask with specks of silver all over it covered his face. Almost as if he came up with a bright idea, he stopped midstep. He bent down, picking up a piece of the bowl I’d just broken against the wall.

  “Aye, my man. That’s my baby. My only baby girl. Don’t do her like that. I’ll take whatever you got for her,” Nick pleaded.

  “Be careful what you wish for,” the man said. Then, right in front of me, he shot and killed both my parents.

  I screamed out, but I didn’t have any time to even register what was happening. He was coming toward me. As I saw him moving toward my face, I attempted to block him with my forearm. It was to no avail, because he grabbed my arm, moving it out of his way. He brought the thick piece of glass across my face quickly.

  “Ahhhhhhhhh!” I screamed out, using both hands to cup my face. Blood instantly spilled over and between the cracks of my hands. I could feel my face split in two. As I tried to fold my body into the fetal position, he grabbed the same place he’d just cut, and I felt a blade slicing across my shoulder blade. My back stiffened. I gave up any fight my young body could possess. All I could think about was trying to get away. Using the tips of my shoes, I tried scooting up to put as much space as I could between me and my assailant. “Umphh!”

  “You little bitch! Where you going?”

  He grabbed the back of my pants and belt to pull me right back toward him. He still held the same piece of the mixing bowl in his hand covered in my blood. He used it, slicing across the lower part of my back and going across my hip.

  “Ssssss.” I gritted my teeth. The pain was becoming too much. I started to feel myself slipping out of consciousness. There was nothing left to do. I just closed my eyes.

  I could still hear him. He stepped over me as if I were nothing. He stopped abruptly and turned to look at me, kneeling. The smell of cigarette smoke was still in the air and even more apparent on his breath.

  “Sorry, li’l mama. It’s all in a day’s work. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Something like a casualty of war!”

  The sound of the two pair of footsteps showed no urgency as they left the house as if they were asked to be there. No remorse. No empathy.

  This was the day Tineya died and Scar was born.

  Chapter Two

  Tineya

  “Whew, Tineya. That was a lot.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “However, you made an amazing breakthrough. It was heartbreaking, but this begins the process of healing yourself mentally.”

  I sat there attempting to ignore my therapist. I began to look everywhere but at her. I wasn’t in the room myself either. It took a lot reliving a part of my life that I wanted to forget. Yet, I felt so many bouts of guilt. She caused the flood gates to open for the tears I’d tried my hardest to keep at bay.

  “Dr. Jenn, tell me then why do I feel so guilty? I shouldn’t be trying to forget my parents. Seems kind of selfish to me.”


  I glanced around at the other survivors in the room, and they mirrored me. Our scars were very different. Some were physical. Scratch that. All were physical. But this was about the mental wounds that the physical wounds caused. All of us were a bit fucked up mentally.

  “Tineya.”

  “Scar works fine.”

  “The only reason you want everybody to call you Scar is because for some strange reason you act like you think it’s your fault.”

  “So you’re saying—”

  “Tineya, please let me finish. You know we’re all about respect in this place. Just hear me out. Okay?”

  The stubborn part of me only allowed me to nod. Dr. Jenn smirked along with a couple people in the room.

  “I want to be clear. I understand your story. You are not the cause of any of it. I don’t have to know your parents to know that they wouldn’t appreciate you living your life in guilt. Today is your birthday.”

  Gasps could be heard around the small room.

  “Wait. But you said it’s the anniversary of your parents’ death,” a girl with a prosthetic leg commented, connecting the dots. Her hand immediately cupped her mouth. I simply nodded while Dr. Jenn continued.

  “As I was saying, today is your birthday. You’re amazing. You have plenty going for yourself. The guilt that you are carrying will only hinder you. You should pick a nice way to honor your parents and move in a positive direction of healing.”

  “How can I live like a normal young woman, huh? I have the hideous remains of the horrific night all over my body. The worst scar is the shit on my face. Not being able to hide an imperfection just sucks. Even if I can hide a piece of it, I can’t hide all of it. The older I get, the more frustrated I get. You know what? I’ve had enough for today.” I walked away, wiping my tears while trying to gather all my things and push open the door.

  Dr. Jenn stopped me. “I think you did exceptional today. Opening up takes a lot of courage, and you did that, sis!”

  That got a chuckle from everybody. The joke couldn’t stop the tears from falling. I pushed open the door so that I could get all the way through it, but somebody pulled as I was pushing, causing us both to smash into the door and drop the things that were in our hands.

  “Oh shit.”

  “What the hell?”

  We got ourselves together. Nobody apologized. We made eye contact. Both of us had tears in our eyes.

  “Well,” she said, “since you not trying to apologize, can you please point me in the direction of a”—she looked at a business card in her hand—“Dr. Jennifer Long?”

  I smirked. “I guess I could.” I pointed into the room.

  She winked. I walked away.

  Chapter Three

  Aaliyah

  “So, Aaliyah, please tell me what brings you here to see me today.”

  “My boyfriend thought it would be good for me to have an unbiased person to talk to.”

  “Sounds like you have a good boyfriend.”

  “Yeah. He’d lose his shit if he heard me calling him my boyfriend.”

  “Ha. I guess that is a degrading way to address a man. I’m assuming he’s a man. Am I correct in this assumption?”

  “Oh, he’s all man.”

  “Oh, my. Okay. So, how about we start there. He seems like your happy place.”

  “He is, but he way we met was anything but happy. We met in a fucked-up way. The way we met is actually part of the reason I’m here. Things started to go bad after my mom died of cancer. My dad—Calvin is his name—couldn’t handle it.”

  Calvin

  “Shut the fuck up! That nigga is not going to know we did it!” Calvin kept trying to reassure Stephanie that they wouldn’t get caught. They had just run off with Eron’s and Jamal’s sack. The two would be on some ruthless shit, especially when it came to their money. Calvin knew Eron and Jamal were coming. He just didn’t know how soon. He figured that he might as well get high, like “Beam me up, Scotty,” as high as he possibly could before they darkened his doorstep.

  Stephanie came along after Calvin’s wife, Andrea, died. She swooped in so quick it was almost genie like. Stephanie introduced crack cocaine to Calvin when he was in a very vulnerable state. She was now his get-high buddy, fuck buddy, and accomplice when he needed her to be. Their relationship would be admirable if they were not fucking crackheads, literally.

  “Don’t fucking yell at me! You know them niggas gon’ come looking for their shit. They don’t even fuck with crack that much. You know they are keeping track of their return.”

  “You sound dumb as fuck. It’s all money, and they’re keeping track of everything they have in the streets. Now shut the fuck up before you wake that bitch up. I want us to be good and high when we fucking her.” The bitch Calvin referred to was his and Andrea’s eighteen-year-old daughter. She wasn’t always a bitch to him, but when his wife was murdered, his feelings for his only daughter died with her. Calvin felt that Andrea took his whole heart in her casket. He didn’t even love himself.

  Stephanie smiled. “You right, let’s hurry up!” Stephanie was a sick, calculating individual even before she made crack a part of her life. The only way to describe Stephanie when she was high was inhumane. Stephanie was bisexual and jealous of Aaliyah. She felt that with Aaliyah around she would never have all of Calvin’s love. She wanted Aaliyah’s pussy, too. She didn’t want anybody else to have Calvin’s attention, including his own daughter.

  The little bitch ain’t my daughter, so she shouldn’t be his daughter.

  Calvin was an upstanding citizen until Stephanie got to him. She was a calculating, manipulative individual. She watched from afar as he and Andrea had the perfect little family. She wanted that, so she took it. It was just that simple and plain.

  “Um, um, um.” Stephanie always thought back to how she took Andrea out because she was in her way. It made her pussy moist. Andrea was a problem and always had been. They went to Denby High School together. Stephanie was such a petty bitch that she was still mad about something that took place in their high school years.

  Stephanie was interested in Calvin in high school, but everybody knew that he only had eyes for Andrea. Stephanie made a vow early in life that she would get that bitch Andrea back, and that she did. Stephanie was in love with Calvin early. In high school, the only thing Calvin would let Stephanie do was suck his dick. Stephanie held on that one day she would become his woman.

  She would watch the “perfect little family” from afar. Stephanie was ecstatic when she got wind that Andrea was dying of breast cancer. Andrea battled with cancer for five years. There were many ups and downs. Stephanie felt that there were far too many ups, so she waited for Calvin to go to work and Aaliyah to go to school, and she made a real smooth break-in. She was in and out in a matter of minutes.

  Andrea lay in her hospice bed reading and waiting for her nurse to come. When she heard the door slam, she was sure that it was Nurse Betty, but the face and the gun that looked back at her surprised the hell out of her. Stephanie didn’t say a word and didn’t give Andrea a chance to say anything before she shot her in the chest.

  “Here, bitch, damn! I been sitting here calling your fucking name! What the fuck are you thinking about?” Calvin questioned as Stephanie snapped out of her trance, and she reached for the pipe, eagerly hoping she didn’t say anything out loud. They passed the drug back and forth until all of the rocks were gone.

  “Come on!” Calvin said in a slow, slurred voice, but Stephanie heard him. They crept into Aaliyah’s room slowly and quietly. Aaliyah lay on a twin mattress in the corner of the room on the floor. The bed lay against a raggedy headboard, with no box spring and no bed frame. Calvin never bought his daughter anything that would mean spending money that could be spent on getting high. They found the headboard on the way back from copping some crack, and it was grabbed for this occasion. Stephanie spotted the headboard and talked Calvin into carrying it home.

  Today was Aaliyah’s birthday. Hap
py birthday. Today was Aaliyah’s Birthday, but she wasn’t getting a present. She was giving away her most precious gift. They were taking the pussy. A woman never forgets about losing her virginity. Aaliyah would always remember the fucked-up beginning.

  Calvin had grabbed a rope to tie her hands to the headboard. Stephanie was in a rush. She grabbed the rope and began to tie Aaliyah’s arms to the headboard. Calvin couldn’t wait. Calvin hadn’t had any good pussy since Andrea died.

  Shit, maybe her pussy will be just like her mama’s. How does that saying go? Like mother, like daughter, right? Calvin’s sick mind wondered. He began rubbing up and down on Aaliyah’s thigh, causing her to stir in her sleep.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Aaliyah asked, jumping from her sleep.

  Stephanie started to rub her hair. “Just relax, and this could be fun.”

  “Bitch, get yo’ sick ass the fuck away from me before I fuck you up!” Aaliyah said as she snatched her head from Stephanie’s touch.

  Aaliyah was shocked. Her dad was many things, but she never thought he would fucking rape anybody let alone his own fucking daughter. Aaliyah was sure that that sick bitch Stephanie put the thought into Calvin’s mind. Stephanie always made an excuse to bump into Aaliyah or to come walk in her room. They fought many times. Aaliyah always thought of running away, but where would she go? She knew the streets of Detroit would eat her alive. Calvin’s house wasn’t much, but it wasn’t the Detroit streets either. They didn’t call Detroit “the murder mitten” for nothing. Bitches was getting tied up and put in trunks. The Detroit streets were like no other.

  Aaliyah started to squirm as she looked at Stephanie take her place between her legs.

  “Come on, Stephanie, don’t do this shit please.”

  Stephanie looked at Aaliyah dead in her eyes with a blank look, yet it was filled with desire as she began to lick her pussy. Aaliyah felt her blood boil. She just wanted to kill the sick bitch Stephanie. Every lick put Aaliyah’s feelings in an uproar. She felt a wide range of feelings from disgust to nausea to anger to abandonment.