His weight was heavy. There was a time when I loved that weight; now I wanted him off of me.
“Get off me,” I tried saying but got a mouthful of grass for my efforts.
Dryerson got up and grabbed my hair, pulling me up to my feet. He pulled so hard I could feel the strands tearing from my scalp. It hurt like crazy, but I saw this was my only out.
If I went into that house, this man was going to hurt me. And it would be the end of me. It might be my life, but it would be the end for me emotionally and mentally.
The thought of the man I loved inflicting any kind of pain on me … no. This wasn’t happening to me. I wouldn’t survive it.
Please, God. If you do nothing else for me in my life, please give me the strength to get away. Please help me with your blessings.
I prayed and did it hard. Just because I left my old life didn’t mean I didn’t believe in a higher power. Just not the one they wanted me to believe in.
Two seconds later, while Dryerson still had ahold of my hair, a lawn mower roared to life. Not having a second to thank God now, I would later; I had to act fast. Turning, I kicked Dryerson hard in the knee. He fell, but his grip was still tight on my hair.
But I pulled and pulled. My hair falling away from my head one tiny strand at a time. It felt like days but was only seconds. Getting loose, I took off running toward the sound.
“Get back here, you little bitch!” Dryerson yelled.
Having no clue if he was close to me or not, I ran with everything inside of me. I might not have had the strength to run from home, but I did have it to run here. Seeing an older man push mowing his grass, I aimed directly for him, never skipping a beat.
That was until the sounds behind me got closer.
He was coming.
The older man turned to look at me, and I screamed, “Help!” but I didn’t stop to him. No. I went directly to the front door, opened it, went through and locked it. Then I ran through the house, seeing an older woman at the table.
She startled when she saw me. “Are the doors locked?”
“Who are you?” she asked, getting up from the table. “Why are you in my house?”
Instead of waiting, self-preservation kicked in. The pounding on the door started loudly.
“I need a phone,” I told the woman, still searching around the house for another door. Finding a walkway, I went through it, found a door, and locked it. Not that it would help me much, but it had to be something.
I ran as fast as my legs would take me as the pounding on the door continued. The older woman had a phone in her hand, probably calling 911. I grabbed it, saying, “Whatever you do, do not let that man in this house!” and took off down the hall, finding a master bedroom. I entered and locked the door. Then I saw the bathroom, entered it, and locked that door as well. I checked the small window, and it was locked.
Without a second to spare, I didn’t call 911.
I called Ensley.
31
DRYERSON
“You’re adopted,” Micah told me something I already knew, but I nodded to him. “Do you think…?”
“There’s no way my folks wouldn’t have adopted a twin brother with me,” I told him, unable to wrap my head around any of this.
“But it’s possible,” Tug stated.
“Anything’s possible … but…” The air just left my lungs. This was so far out in left field.
“Call your dad. Right now,” Micah ordered me, and I looked to Cruz who lifted his chin to me. I pulled my phone out and dialed my dad.
“Hey, son. How’s it goin’?” The smile was in his tone, and as much as I wanted this to be a good call, I needed answers.
“Pop. When you adopted me, was there another boy?”
“What?” I could hear the puzzlement in his statement.
“Another baby. You adopted me. Do you know if there was another child? A twin of mine.”
Silence hit the other line, and I had a lot of angry men around me who wanted answers.
“You’re on speaker now.” I changed the settings so everyone could hear what he had to say. I had nothing to hide.
“Son… I…”
“Dad!” My tone was curt, something I never gave my father, but this was fucked up, and I needed answers.
“Your mom made me swear never to tell you.”
I felt both sadness for my mother and anger all bubble up. “Talk, Dad!”
My hand holding the phone started to turn white, and Micah took it from me. “You’re gonna break it before we figure this shit out.”
I ripped my hands through my hair, pulling it hard.
“There was another little one. At the time, we didn’t have enough money to get him.”
“Money? What are you talking about?” They never told me they had to pay for me.
“Just listen,” my father ordered, and I looked at the two assholes in the middle of the room. Rhys and Deke had stuck rags in their mouths so they’d shut the fuck up. I was grateful for that.
“I’m listening.” I tried really hard to breathe, but air was not filling my lungs. It felt like the walls were closing in on me.
“Your mom and I never had a lot of money, but your mother wanted a baby so badly and never could have one.” Everything inside of me wanted to push him. Instead, I pulled my hair more. “We went to several places, and they were all too much. A friend of ours put us in contact with the place we got you from. It was going to be ten thousand dollars. Back then, it was way too much for us to afford. But the lady was nice and let us do a payment thing.”
I felt as though I was going to puke. I was on layaway? A place where you made a payment every month?
“We ended up borrowing the money and were able to bring you home. There was another little guy there. Baby B, he was called. You were Baby A. Baby B was your twin. We didn’t know if it was fraternal or identical because we never asked. Your mother and I wanted him so badly. Didn’t want to split you two up, but we had no choice.”
My back hit the wall, and I fell to the floor with my head in my hands. I never knew any of this. For as open as they were about my adoption, they never once told me any of this.
“We couldn’t do another ten thousand. We scraped to get the first one, and I’m not gonna tell ya how we did it, so don’t ask me. But bottom line, it broke our hearts leaving the little guy there and takin’ you home. Your momma went between smiling and crying the entire way home and for the first year of your life.”
My father paused, sucked in a deep breath, and kept going. “We went back when you were eighteen months old. We didn’t have all the money, but we had to know if Baby B was still there, and we were gonna figure out a way to get him and bring him home with you. We couldn’t handle the guilt. It ate us alive for years.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, my voice quiet, and I didn’t know if he heard me.
He answered, so I guess he did. “Because we didn’t want you to harbor any guilt. You’re a good man, Benny. We didn’t have a lot, but we had what we needed. If Baby B didn’t have it as you did growing up, you’d feel that, and we wanted to protect you from it. We had enough of it on our shoulders. You didn’t need to have any because we chose you and not him.”