“Us? You and me?” I say to clarify, and she nods. “Well, fuck him!” I shout, turning around to shut and lock the window before the dickhead decides to try and come in another way.
“No, Cedric. You don’t understand. Without her prescriptions and dialysis, she’ll die waiting for a new kidney!”
“There has to be something else we can do…”
“There’s not!” she yells as tears stream down her cheeks. “I wish there was, but there’s no other way to save her. I can’t just sit back and watch her die.”
Since I don’t have any magical cures for kidney failure or piles of money lying around, I do the only thing I can think of, I wrap my arms around her and hold her as she cries.
That’s when I notice that the pounding and doorbell ringing has finally stopped. Instead, I can hear masculine voices shouting, ones that sound like they’re getting closer until the doorknob to my room jiggles followed by a loud thump against the wooden structure.
Evelyn pulls away from me just as a huge bear of a man bursts into my room, a giant gun in one of his outstretched hands. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” the asshole shouts. I’ve never seen the man before in my life, but he looks like most of the mugshots on television – dirty blond, stringy hair that comes down almost to his shoulders, wide crazy eyes and tons of tattoos up and down both of his bare arms. His jeans are ripped, and he’s wearing some sort of denim vest with patches all over it.
“I’m sorry, Lowell. I just came to tell Cedric goodbye, that’s all,” Evelyn assures the maniac as she moves closer to him. She’s walking towards this monster, the dickhead who is still waving a gun around!
I start to grab her shoulder to pull her back to me when the dick lowers his gun and wraps his free hand around her neck. Getting in her face, he growls, “If he touched you, I’ll fucking kill him and then I’m tossing your ass to the curb.”
From down the hall, I hear other doors being bashed open and then my mom screaming.
Jesus Christ. Guess he brought friends along.
Who are these fucking assholes?
“He didn’t…touch me! I swear! We just…talked,” Ev lies to him through gasping breaths.
“There’s one way to know for sure,” he says before he spins her around, pulling Ev’s back against the front of his body. Still gripping the gun, he lets go of her throat and then his hand disappears up under the front of her white dress. While I can’t see where exactly he’s touching her, based on Evelyn’s eyes squeezing shut and her harsh gasp, I’m guessing his hand is inside of her panties.
How fucking dare he touch her right where I just claimed her as mine! If I had a sharp blade on me, I would remove that appendage and a few others from his goddamn body!
“Well, well. Your tight, little cunt is dry. At least for now,” he murmurs while looking right at me, daring me to try something.
Fuck the sharp blade. If he didn’t have a gun, I would use my teeth to gnaw off his fucking wrist, anything to make him stop touching her!
While I plot his dismemberment, his hand begins to move rapidly under Ev’s dress right the fuck in front of me while his eyes stare me down for what feels like forever. The unmistakable sounds of her wetness eventually fills the room and I think my chest may explode.
She doesn’t want him! How could she when she was just with me, screaming my name, telling me she loves me too? So why the fuck is she letting him do this to her?
“Get your fucking hands off of her!” I yell at him, unable to watch for another second.
“Why don’t we ask her?” the dick says coolly. “Evelyn, do you want my fingers to stop fucking you?”
“N-no. D-don’t stop,” she stammers
“That’s what I thought,” he mutters. “This pussy is mine. And tomorrow, we’re going to make it official, ain’t that right, baby?”
“Y-yes,” Evelyn answers even though more tears are running down her cheeks.
Official? What the fuck is he…oh hell no!
“You can’t be serious,” I say in disbelief. “Are you really going to marry this asshole?”
She said she’s only known him for a few weeks, and already he’s brainwashed her. Tricking her into marrying him so he’ll help her mother is fucking ridiculous!
My comment at least makes him let go of Evelyn, shoving her aside so he can stomp up to me. Then, something hard slams into the side of my face. Either his fist or the pistol, I’m not sure which, but it hurts like a motherfucker and makes my jaw go numb. I’m then thrown to the floor where I catch myself on my hands and knees. His boot lands on my ribs once, twice, three times as I shout in pain.
“Stop!” Evelyn yells. “Leave him alone, Lowell. Just take me home. Please!”
“You hear that?” the asshole says as he leans down to put his face in mine, reeking of cigarettes and stale beer. “She’s begging me to take her home. Stay the fuck away from her. Don’t even think of coming near her ever again or I’ll kill you,” he warns before the toe of his boot connects with my chin like he’s kicking off a football, rattling all of my teeth and maybe even my brains in my skull.
I end up laid out on the ground in agony wishing I was unconscious. Sleep would’ve been better than having to watch the son of a bitch stroll up to Evelyn, my best friend and the girl I love more than anything in the world, and pick her up. He throws her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carries her out of my house while there’s not a goddamn thing I can do to stop him.
Chapter Three
Evelyn
I feel terrible, like a traitor as I ride on the back of Lowell’s bike with my arms around his waist.
He’s the opposite of Cedric in every way that matters, with few redeeming features. But he cares about me. More than that, he’s so infatuated by me that he’s already dropped fifty thousand dollars into my mother’s bank account so that she’ll be able to afford her medical bills for months to come.
So, if I have to give up Cedric to save her and marry a man I don’t love, and probably never will, just to keep her alive, then it seems like a small price to pay. I just wish Lowell hadn’t gone after Cedric.
In a few years, Mama will get her kidney transplant, and then we’ll be done with Lowell for good. Hopefully. I’ve already looked into the cost of anti-rejection meds, and they’re not cheap. There’s no way I could ever get a job with my high school diploma making enough to support us both.
I just hope Cedric won’t do anything crazy, like try and come after me. That’s the sort of thing he would do, unfortunately. He loves me so much and doesn’t know how to be anything but completely loyal to everyone he cares about. I don’t want him to get hurt again, because I’m pretty sure Lowell went easy on him this time. If he had found out Cedric and I had been together, Cedric would probably be dead by now.
Lowell isn’t the type of man I want to be with, but when the choice is life or death for my mother, what other option do I have?
Luckily, Lowell lives near Carolina Beach, about two hours away. That will make it more difficult for Cedric to find me and my mother once she moves down there into the apartment that Lowell bought for her. He knew I would want her to be close, especially with her illness. While he refused to let me live with her, he says I’ll be able to see her every day.