A Constant Reminder (24 page)

The house was beautifully decorated. She wondered if Jane had done it herself. She doubted it. It looked like a professional had done the place up. She made a conscious effort to keep her mouth closed. This house was elegant and grand. It was something that would have an entire spread in Elle Décor.

Roxanne soon came upon the marble staircase. She held the oak bannister as she slowly walked up the staircase. There were many stairs. It seemed the ceiling was higher than she had ever seen in a residential home.

She looked down at her engagement ring as her hands lightly skimmed the bannister. She smiled to herself. She reached the top of the staircase. She couldn’t wait to tell her mother about this engagement. She was going to wait until her mother returned home from Jamaica.

She scolded herself when she thought of Erika. She wanted to rub her ring in her friends face but she disregarded her first thought because she knew it was a rotten thing to think and do.

Roxanne remembered Jane’s directions. She walked down the hall admiring the expensive art pieces that adorned the walls. She peeked in the first door on her left and took a long look around the master bedroom.

She ventured down the long hall and saw the out of place sign on a closed door with the words “KEEP OUT OR DIE!” She opened the door and peered in. Everything in the room was Adamsque.

Roxanne entered Adam’s old bedroom leaving the door open behind her. She first thought to go into the drawers but then moved over to the open closet door instead. She thumbed through the shirts hanging on hangers. His style had changed slightly over the years but it had just become more refined. Adam was a living breathing J.Crew model.

An unbuttoned shirt fell off a hanger and landed at the bottom of the closet on top of the open metal box.

Roxanne bent down to retrieve the shirt and noticed the box. She looked around the room and then into the box. She noticed a small brown and beige purse inside the box and removed it.

She studied the familiar purse. She opened the purse and looked inside. She reached in the bottom of the purse and removed the driver’s license.

Roxanne saw the old picture of her younger self. She lost her balance and fell backwards in the closet. She banged her head up against the corner of the closet door.

Roxanne stumbled unto her feet. She picked the purse and the metal box up from the floor.

Roxanne accidentally dropped the purse in the doorway of the closet. She walked the metal box over to the bed and placed it down near a pillow.

Unexpectedly Adam entered through the open bedroom door. Roxanne was startled by his sudden appearance. She quickly hid the driver’s license behind her back.

“I’m sorry I scared you.” Adam said before realizing that there was something else going on with her. Her face looked confused. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Roxanne stood completely still. Her brain refused to let her mouth answer the questions.

“Roxanne.” Adam called out to her.

Her eyes glossed over. Her tears were forming as her mind produced images that she had buried years ago. She quickly tried to explain away what was unexplainable.

Adam peered down to the top of the bed. His eyes locked with the only item, the metal box. His eyes rapidly moved to the open closet door then down to the floor where the metal box once was. The purse was still down on the floor inside the closet.

Roxanne had finally found her tongue. “I, I got to go home now.” She stuttered as her heart did somersaults without hiatus.

Adam took a step closer to her. “Roxanne wait.” He could see the fear and loathing in her desolate orbs. “What do you have in your hands?”

Adam hesitantly took two steps toward Roxanne. She instinctively took two steps away from him.

“God Roxanne.” Adam’s tone was rushed and heavier than he had hoped. “Just listen to me please? Please listen to me?”

“I want to leave!” Roxanne wailed with vigor that Adam had never heard from her before.

“Roxanne please it’s not--”

“It’s not what? What it looks like!”

“I don’t know. Just listen, wait. You saw the purse right.” Adam was trying desperately to come up with a lie, a feasible explanation for the unexplainable.

“Damn you saw the purse?” Adam spoke the truth out loud, a truth that he could no longer lock away or hide in a closet. “What? Wait. Okay, listen.” His words were incoherent and didn’t make much sense even to him.

They both looked over at the purse on the floor.

Roxanne made an attempt to run pass Adam while he was distracted. Adam grabbed her arm. He swung her around in a circle.

She screamed out in agony. “Ahhhhhhhh!!!”

Roxanne’s cries were mute when Adam covered her mouth with the palm of his hand.

“Roxanne please stop!”

Roxanne struggled while Adam forcibly tried to subdue her. They scuffled and fell onto the bed knocking the metal box on the floor making a loud thud.

Adam’s bedroom was directly above the kitchen. The commotion upstairs hadn’t gone unnoticed downstairs.

“What was that?” Melanie was first to inquire. Melanie and Jane both had moved from outside to the kitchen to refill their teacups.

Melanie stood near the sink eating a bowl of ice cream. Jane stood at the open patio door looking out at the children playing on the lawn.

“I don’t know.” Jane said.

Jane and Melanie looked up at the ceiling when they heard another loud thud.

CHAPTER 18

Upstairs in Adam’s bedroom all hell had broken lose. Adam had forcefully penned Roxanne down on the bed with the weight of his body.

Roxanne envisioned the horrible night seven years ago. The night she was penned in the backseat of her car and attacked by a stranger.

“Please don’t scream.” Adam begged in her ear.

Roxanne shook her head up and down and Adam removed his hand from her mouth. They gazed into each other’s eyes. Tears formed in the corners of Roxanne’s eyes. She was trying to catch her breath. The tussle had her winded. Adam was so strong, stronger than she could have imagined.

“Roxanne, I’m sorry. I’m different now. You know that.”

Tears rolled down Roxanne’s cheek and run down to her ears. Her lips quivered and her face became more stressed. She was trying to make sense of his words.

“Did you rape me?” The words barely came out but Adam heard them.

“Roxanne.”

Adam looked away from Roxanne and after a few seconds looked back to gauge her sensibilities.

“Did you rape me?” She yelled and her voice bounced off the walls and attacked the room.

“No! No!”

“You’re lying.”

“No, no! It wasn’t me.” Adam’s mind started working overtime trying to explain a situation that was inexplicable. “Roxanne I was on drugs and--

“And that’s an excuse to rape me?”

“No, no, I mean, I didn’t rape you. It wasn’t me.”

“How could you do this? You’re a monster.”

“No listen Roxanne please? Don’t you see? I’m just trying to make things right. I’m trying to make things right with you and Morgan.”

“Morgan, don’t you ever say her name.” She spit the words out.

Adam’s eyes glazed over. This was really happening. This moment was here and he hadn’t rehearsed. He hadn’t thought it through. He thought he had time. He really thought she would never find out. His thoughts had betrayed him.

This scared him. He didn’t want to lose it all. Losing Roxanne was unbearable. A flash of the pain pricked at his chest and burrowed into his heart. The tears ran down his cheeks and fell on Roxanne’s face.

Roxanne became hysterical. His tears had become the catalyst for her hysteria.

“Damn you! Get off me!” She screamed the wail of a thousand banshees. “How could you do this to us? How could you do this to me? We loved...”

Adam moved from atop Roxanne. He was defeated with her words. He was deeply affected with the turn of events and what this could inevitably mean.

“I never planned for things to be this way. I just, I just...”

Roxanne sat up on the bed. She felt it was safe to move. Although she still feared Adam could restrain her. “No I’m sure you thought I would never find out.”

“Roxanne I swear I didn’t do it.”

“I can’t believe anything you say.”

“Please Roxanne believe me when I say I love you.” Adam reached out to touch Roxanne. She quickly pulled away.

“I thought the day you raped me was the worst day of my life but, but, today you completely changed that.”

“Stop saying that. I never raped you! I swear. I never raped you!”

“You have this stuff, my stuff. You are lying. You have my purse!”

“I’m sorry. I love you. You love me.”

“No, no, no!”

“We’ll work through this. I’ve changed. You see it. You feel it. We’re going to get married and--”

“Married to a rapist! Never!”

Roxanne looked down at the brand new engagement ring on her finger.

“Who would marry a rapist, ex-convict, drug addict?”

Roxanne stabbed him in the heart with her words. She quickly removed the diamond engagement ring from her finger. She threw it at Adam. He made an attempt to catch it but it fell on the bed and bounced down to the floor.

Adam reached down on the floor for the ring. Roxanne seized her opportunity. She quickly crawled off the bed and ran for the bedroom door. Adam chased after her. He was faster and quicker. He grasped hold of her forearm. He jerked her body around to face him. Roxanne unexpectedly kneed him in the groin.

Adam fell to his knees never letting go of his stronghold on her arm. He fell on top of Roxanne.

Roxanne fought hard to break free of the monster that had a monopoly on her arm. Adam and Roxanne’s tussle spilled out into the hallway. Their bodies came crashing into the corridor. They knocked Adam’s mother down and they toppled on top of her.

It knocked the wind out of Jane. She pulled herself from under them. “What in gods name is going on up here?” Jane asked while trying to catch her breath.

It took seconds for Adam and Roxanne to regain some composure. They both stood upright. Adam couldn’t separate from Roxanne. He held Roxanne’s wrist tightly.

Jane looked down at Adam’s hand gripped around Roxanne’s wrist. “Adam, answer me.”

Roxanne breathed in heavily. The struggle knocked the wind out of her but she wanted to pummel Adam. Her eyes searched the hall for a weapon. When she couldn’t locate one she decided to plead with Jane.

“Mrs. Hardwick. Please, I just want to go home.” He looked in the mirror. His neck was bleeding where she scratched him. He cleaned it off with cold water. She was a bit wilder than he imagined. He was pleasantly surprised. He smiled thinking of it.

Jane looked confused. “What is happening?”

“He won’t let me leave the house.”

Jane couldn’t help but to once again notice Adam’s firm grip on Roxanne’s wrist.

“Adam let her go.” She commanded. Why was he holding onto her like that?

“If she leaves I will never see her again.”

Adam grabbed Roxanne’s other wrist and hugged her close to him while he stood behind her.

“Adam what’s wrong with you? Let her--”

“I can’t mom. If I, If I let her go, she won’t come back.”

“Adam, have you gone mad? Are you back on drugs?”

“No mother I’m not on anything. I love her. I can’t lose her.”

“Adam she wants to leave. Let her go.”

“No.” Adam pulled Roxanne into an unwanted embrace. He snuggled into her body while she fought to pull away.

“Unhand her now or I will call thepolice on you. I will do it.”

Adam rubbed his face on the back of Roxanne’s head. He took a whiff of her hair with his nose.

“Adam!” Jane yelled as Roxanne cowered in his stronghold.

“Roxanne, don’t leave me. Please talk to me.”

“I want to take my daughter and go home. Mrs. Hardwick help me? I just want to leave.”

“Let her go! Right this instant!” Jane had reached her limit.

Melanie was first to hear the commotion going on upstairs. She had gone outside to find her husband. She was too pregnant to intervene. They needed Daniel’s to assist with this, whatever this was.

She rushed Daniel into the house. She followed him up the stairs. He joined the commotion at the top of the stairs. He could clearly see Adam was forcibly holding his fiancée.

“Adam bro. Let her go.”

“No way.”

“Adam let her go and you can just calm down, sit down and talk to me. Okay dude I’m here to listen.” Daniel asked.

Adam released Roxanne and quickly stepped backwards into his bedroom slamming the door behind him. He left the ladies in the hall.

Daniel opened Adam’s bedroom door and went in after him.

“Roxanne what’s going on?” Melanie asked. She was late to the chaos.