Fallen Angel From Revenge to Redemption

Copyright

Copyright © 2016 Deborah R. Brandon

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover Designed by Outsourcing Unlimited

Edited by Brandi Jefferson

Acknowledgements

I want to always thank God for blessing me with the ability to write. I want to also thank Him for putting this passion within my spirit and providing me with an avenue to pursue it. I also thank Him for just allowing me to live my dream.

I want to thank my mother Earnest Ruth Brown, for just being who she is. My mother, my friend, my life line and my lady of wisdom. I love you mom.

To my husband Alex Brandon. I love and adore you. I cherish our marriage and our friendship. Thank you for loving me the way that you do.  To our wonderful children, Precious, Preston, and Zander I love you as well.

To all of my siblings and their families I also want to say thank you. To all my nieces and nephews I am offering y’all a little shout out. Kenneth, Kentrell, Kendra, Ebony, Tiauna, A.J., Tyquan, Isaiah, Nayonna, Ashanti, Marcus, Fatima, Iesha, Seymore, Romeo, Britlyn, Cash, Earnest, Anthony (Rest In Heaven) , Landon, Miracle (Rest in Heaven), Zacchaeus, Elijah, Braydon, Mikya, David, Tyshawn, Amiah, and Charlie.

To all of my readership, but to a few in particular I want to say thank you for our constant support and your conversation as I grow throughout this journey. Vi Brandon, Tanya Banks, Tela Davis Dove, Mark Brandon, Tara Dawson, Shanta Gray, Redgirl Pettrie and Eliza White, thank you. Your support and encourage adds fuel to my desire to live out my dream.

I wanted to also thank Beth Gregory, Adriana Free, Martha Graham, Ladii Kaye, Cynthia Robinson, Marianna B. Ray, and Shenita Boyd Richburg for your help with naming the characters in this story. Your support and love means everything to me.

To some of my fellow authors who guide and direct me on my path as well as offer honest feedback, I want to say thank you. Stella Eromonsere-Ajanaku, Xyla Turner, Tammy Jernigan, Amir Smith and Tarak Ghosh. I love you guys.

Loyalty Reigns Publications family I love you and I am so happy that we are doing this. I love you Tywanda Brown-Johnson, Nicole Corley Shepard, David Smith Jr and LaShonda Wade. I pray for God’s hand to be upon us.

To my support team Kosha Jordan of Colors of Struggles Promotions you are a God send. There are not enough words to express my sincerest appreciation, but thank you so much for all that you do to help us. Elizabeth Venable of Unique Inspirations, you have been with personally for a long time. You have helped me in a number of ways and I appreciate it.

Lastly, to the good police officers and human service workers everywhere thank you, for all that you do.

Fallen Angel: From Revenge and Redemption

Deborah R. Brandon

          ~Shanice Williams~

Scattered- Three Years Ago-

Do not be afraid to lose people be more afraid of losing yourself. -Unknown

I came awake slowly; my eyes had trouble adjusting to the lights. My limbs felt so heavy and sore. My mouth was dry. My mom was seated beside my bed and my father was standing looking out of the window. After a few moments, the realization of what happened and were I was began to sink in. The sterile clean white walls, the constant sounds of machines beeping and that familiar hospital smell.

I attempted to move but everything hurt. A single tear slid down my sable colored cheek.  In a moment of weakness I allowed that one single tear to escape and now the floodgates were open and the tears rushed forward in uncontrollable abandonment.

I felt sorry for myself as the memories started to flood my brain, which explained why I was in the hospital.  My mom grabbed some tissue and mopped up my face as my dad approached my bedside. My mom talked to me in a soothing whisper as she ran her fingers through my jet black hair lovingly. My dad stood motionless with my small hand held firmly in his much larger one, he face look like it was set in stone.

Dexter Jackson, my boyfriend at the time, had come to our apartment in what I assumed was another drug induced rage demanding money. I had already made up my mind that I wasn’t going to allow him to blow our bill money on drugs, so I told him that I was broke.

He didn’t care for that response very much. He charged towards me like an angry bull. I was a three months pregnant so my first instinct was to protect my stomach and let the majority of the blows to land on the back of my head, back and sides. One such blow caused me to drop to my knees in pain and despair. Yet Dexter, just changed his approach, he began to stomp me with his boot clad foot. It wasn’t long before everything faded to black.

In this moment, I feel scattered, like my soul was broken into a million tiny little pieces. I feel anger like never before. I start to cry even harder because of the loss of my unborn child, for the dreams that would never come true. I cried until I felt empty. I cried until there were no more tears.  I lay there as the pain medication began to take over. My eyelids grew heavy as I began to plot out my revenge. If I had to endure a pain like this so would Dexter Jackson.

     ~Shanice Williams~

You never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice. – Bob Marley

Mrs. Glasgow, finished her glowing introduction of me and welcomed me to the stage.  I smiled as I walked to the podium and hugged Mrs. Glasgow back before training my dark chocolate brown eyes back onto the small gathering of young women who had completed the six week class that was now mandatory for unemployed individuals in need of benefits from the state. I loved and hated this part of my job. I loved to empower other women by allowing them to get a glimpse of my struggle and how I was able to overcome.  However, I hated taking this trip down memory lane. It was a really dark time for me and talking about it sometimes made me dark all over again.  Shaking off the emotions that haunted me, I pushed my rich charcoal black hair from my face and began.

I started off on what I hoped was a light note before getting down to business.

“Hello, my name is Shanice Williams and I want to congratulate you all on completing this program. It’s not a small task because as you can see some of your peers didn’t make it. It’s a small milestone but one that should be celebrated. There was a time about 7 years ago, that I sat where you are currently sitting,” I said realizing that that little fact seemed to spark some of the girl’s interest. People didn’t want to hear a message from someone they felt couldn’t relate.

“You have gained a wealth of knowledge that you can use to help yourselves and share with others who may be in need of it. I know its Friday, and you all were hoping for a half day and you also have a delicious looking spread over here,” I said as I used my hand to gesture towards the food.

I allowed the laughter to die back down before continuing, “So I won’t keep you long. To be honest with you all, it’s always hard to know where to begin when I tell this story,” I said letting out a huge sigh.

“I can admit now that I was young and dumb at the time that these events accord in my life. Anyways, I guess the beginning is the best place to start,” I said as I walked from behind the podium.

“I was raised in a two parent home, everyone worked and I am an only child. I had started working at a local restaurant in our community, so I could help with my senior supplies. I became romantically involved with a twenty- three year old line cook. I ignored the advice of my friends and my family in regards to building a relationship with this man. I believed that I was grown and capable of making my own decisions. He had a way about himself, swagger, fresh cut, you know the total package. He ran more game than a little bit.  He seemed to know a little bit about everything. His upbringing was different from mine.  In hindsight, I realized that he had targeted me because I was naive, young, innocent, and idealistic.  I believed that if I showed him what it could be like then he would rise to the challenge and make some necessary changes. That was mistake number one. We can believe and hope for the best for others and we should, yet at the same time if they don’t have the hustle, the drive or the energy that is needed to be better, we won’t make them better.”

I paused for a minute allowing that point to sink in before saying, “Over the course of the next three years, he battled a cocaine addiction, and I tried to stay by his side through it all believing that was what a good woman did. I wanted to love him, be his woman, his ride or die, you know. But you can’t be so loyal to someone else that you are disloyal to yourself.”

The young women were nodding their heads in agreement to what I was saying.

I continued, “When he was on a high he either would not show up for a few days or be there and be abusive. He stole over seven thousand dollars from me, which I later found out he had used to help another woman and her children. He was supposed to be my man so we had unprotected sex and I became pregnant. When he found out he asked me to have an abortion. The next time he was on a high, he jumped me, knocked out two of my front teeth and caused me to miscarry the baby,” I said pointing to my dental implants.

“There was so much trauma that I had to go into surgery to stop the bleeding, and I may not be able to have children as a result. He was placed on a 48 hour hold and then released, because criminal domestic violence was often seen as a private matter and not something that should be handled by the system. Times have changed but there is still work to be done,” I explained.

“I was filled with so much anger, hatred, and bitterness.  A couple of weeks after I had been released from the hospital, I got dressed in a comfortable jogging suit and went over to the apartment with a tire iron and whipped his ass for old and new, excuse my language,” I added for good measure.

“I was arrested and spent an evening in jail and then was released into my parents’ custody. I had to go court for over a year before the judge threw the case out. During that time, I had a lot of time to think and re-evaluate my choices. I choose to love that man even though he obviously didn’t love himself or me. I choose to stay even when everything and everyone around me was telling me to leave. I choose to forgive and forget even though he felt no real remorse for his actions. I choose to turn to violence when I couldn’t deal with all of my bottled up emotions. I had to own up to my part in my own struggle,” I said.

I paused before starting again, “The second thing I had to do was to forgive myself and start working towards the goals I had set for myself. For everyone the changes will be different. Even then I made some mistakes and that was okay, because I learned from them. Take your time and make your changes at a steady pace because if you try to do it all at once you are going to lose your footing. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your lives can’t be re-built in one.  I have earned a Bachelor’s degree in nursing and love helping others.”

“The third thing I had to do was forgive others. Dexter showed me at every opportunity who he was and I refused to believe him. I fail for his potential, not for who he really was. Anyways, we all have a road to walk in this life and you will lose people along the way. It is okay, everyone that crosses your path isn’t meant to stay.”

To conclude my speech I said, “Lastly, when you know better, you must do better. Take care of yourselves. Don’t be afraid to use the information and resources that you have been given to help you to get on your feet. I believe that each of you is a flower ready to bloom. Even though all of our situations are different, none of us were completely broken by the situation. Use this situation to help you to get back on your feet and on the path you were destined to walk. I left my business cards on the table so that if any of you are interested in reaching out to me after today you can. Thank you Mrs. Glasgow for inviting me back and thank you ladies for giving me a moment of your time.”

The room erupted into applause. I hugged Ms. Glasgow who hugged me and expressed how proud of me she was. I stayed behind and spoke to a few of the girls before Lamar and I gathered my things and returned to the car.

“Thank you so much for coming with me like always Lamar,” I threw over my shoulder as we approached my 2016 Silver Cadillac CTS .  Lamar was one of my best friends. He had stood by me through the whole ordeal and had relocated with me to South Carolina. He had seen me at my absolute worst and loved me anyways. He was the brother that I never had.

“Whenever you need me, you know I will be right here, he answered back. By the way, what is on the agenda for this evening?” Lamar asked as he slide into the passenger seat and put on his seatbelt.

“Jazz bar and dinner,” I suggested.

“No, I am not doing a jazz bar tonight. I want to live a little. I want to go to club, have a few drinks, meet someone and go home with them. I want the music to be so loud I can’t tell the difference between the drum and my heart beat. You know what I mean?” Lamar asked while dancing in the seat to a song only he could hear.

“Yeah, I can dig it. Let’s go into Columbia and check out that club we have been hearing about on the radio. Tonight is Latino Heat night. I love Reggaeton music,” I said agreeing with Lamar.

“Are you for real?” Lamar asked looking at me with a strange expression.

“I don’t care what we do, tonight, I just want to be young, wild, and free,” I said easing out into the flow of traffic.

“I am going to hold you to that. You did an excellent job today with the young ladies. You kept yourself together so much better this time. Therapy is paying off,” Lamar said with pride radiating from his voice.

“Thank you,” I said as my cheeks began to burn. I knew that my face was now a bright crimson red so there was no use in trying to hide my embarrassment.

“Girl, I didn’t mean any harm by bringing it up and if it’s helping you then so be it. Therapy is one of your resources that you have used to put yourself back together and it’s working for you. I am getting my friend back, which makes me happy,” Lamar said with a wide smile.

“I lost more than my innocence. I lost out on the opportunity to go places and experience certain things. I lost my youth. I just want to be a young lady out on the town tonight. No more therapy talk. I need to go shopping for the right outfit; I am booking us a hotel suite, call Vanessa and Dominque they are coming too. Tonight, we party,” I declared as I turned the radio up and started dancing in my seat.

Lamar said, “Say no more,” as he sent out a group text and arranged everything.