Broken Heart (Broken Heart #1) Read online

  “There’s nothing left here for me, don’t you get it?”

  “Jenesis, please, are you driving?”

  “Yes, I already left.”

  “Okay…calm down. I’ll call you when the movers pick up the stuff. Don’t change your number, please.”

  “I have to go. Take care.”

  “Jenesis. I’m sorry. Happy Thanksgiving. Why don’t you come and have dinner with me and Misty before you take off?” “Good bye Uncle Mike, thanks for everything.”

  “Jenesis?”

  I hung up the phone and drove down the road, catching a glimpse of my house in the rear view mirror. I shook my head and stood staring straight ahead until I hit the highway. My heart was

  trouncing as I drove off, and the tears flowed endlessly from my eyes, clouding my vision, making me want to crash into the nearest utility pole that I passed. I was breathless, gasping for air, and as

  the sobs grew louder and louder, I worried I would end my life at that moment. I’ve never felt so confused, so abandoned…so alone.

  I drove for two hours, and as I approached the Lincoln Tunnel, it was packed, and I knew traveling during the holiday season would be a big mistake. I had nowhere else to go; there was no need to rush. I entered Manhattan slowly while pressing the round button on my cell phone to ask Siri to

  find me a hotel as soon as I crossed the Lincoln tunnel. Her best advice was the Best Western Hotel. I called and booked a room then looked for a lot and paid for overnight parking. It cost me

  a pretty penny for the two. I grabbed my throw blanket and picture frames and headed to the hotel. It was chilly outside, so I wrapped the throw blanket around me as I entered the hotel lobby. I

  walked slowly through the lobby scoping out all of the visitors sitting and standing around waiting for a room. I approached the reception area and stopped at the front desk.

  “Welcome to the Best Western Hotel, May I help you? The young man greeted me with a smile from ear to ear.

  “Yes, Jenesis Heart. I just booked a room about a half an hour ago.” I felt nervous. I didn’t know if it was the drive or the fact it was Thanksgiving and seeing all of these people in the lobby visiting family while I was running away from my dead parents.

  “Okay, Miss Heart, may I see identification, please?” He placed the palm of his hand upward.

  I placed the frames on the counter as I grabbed my wallet out of my purse. I glanced up to the receptionist, and I caught him staring at the pictures in the frames.

  “Visiting family?” he said joyfully as my heart fell straight into my gut. I stared at him for a moment, not realizing my eyes welled up with tears and were already starting to overflow. “I’m sorry miss, may I have your ID?” he asked after noticing my reaction. I grabbed my driver’s license

  and placed it on the counter. The tears slid down my cheeks, and I wiped them with my throw blanket still wrapped around me.

  “Thank you,” I said as he handed me the card to my room.

  “Third floor, take the elevators to your left. Enjoy your stay…and again,

  I’m sorry,” he said as he smiled at me remorsefully knowing his question was the reason I began to cry.

  I grabbed my frames and my license and headed towards the elevator. I thought I had my tears under control, but the closer I got to my destination the more the tears flooded my eyes. The people

  in the elevator stared as I whimpered into my throw blanket, and one person even scoffed at my public display of sadness. The elevator opened on the third floor, and I walked out staring down

  the old, snooty bat that made her feelings of resentment known in the elevator. Her eyes widened as I flipped her the bird as the elevators closed. I don’t know what possessed me to do that, but it

  didn’t make me feel any better. I opened the door to the room and glanced around. I sat on the bed and sent Vivian a text message.

  I’m in New York City. I don’t feel like talking. I’m going to sleep. Ttyl.

  Jenesis

  The room was so cold and impersonal. The cup of coffee and crackers I ate at the house was the last meal I had before arriving at the hotel, but I wasn’t hungry, and I couldn’t even think about putting anything in my stomach. I placed the frames on the bed and sat at the edge with the throw

  blanket still wrapped around me, reminiscing of pumpkin pie and hot apple cider I shared with my mother on this very day every year, sitting on the porch.

  The warmth of my mother’s hugs and the time spent sitting on the porch alone with her made me feel warm inside until I remembered the presence of the dark shadow that walked upon us, swaying

  back and forth, tripping up the steps and mumbling curses under his breath…the devil…that’s who he was…my father…the devil himself.

  I awoke to the alarm clock that buzzed relentlessly in my ears. I rolled onto my stomach hoping my arms could reach that annoying alarm clock so I can push it to the floor, so it breaks into pieces.

  I reached over and smacked the alarm clock with my hand. It hit the floor but kept buzzing so I got up slowly, slid off of the bed, and pressed the off button. I walked over to the window and

  moved the curtain to the side. The streets were filled with people and a slight mixture of rain and snow fell as the pedestrians walked quickly to find shelter under a warm, dry place. I needed to

  get moving and drive down to the East Village to inquire about my apartment. I called Uncle Mike to ask him what I should do.

  “Jenesis, how are you? It’s funny that you called. I just called the landlord. Your apartment has been ready for over a week now. He was actually going to rent it to someone else. What an asshole! Thank God, are you alright?”

  “Yes, I slept well, I’m fine. Thank you.”

  “Good. He said to go directly to his office and pick up the keys. I didn’t want you to be “assed” out during this holiday season. You don’t have any furniture Jen. What are you going to do?” “I’ll shop for it later. Where’s his office?”

  “It’s on the same block as the apartment building, just ask for Rhaji.”

  “Rhaji? Okay…I guess. Thanks and I’ll talk to you soon.” I hung up and started to freshen up as I prepared to leave the hotel room in a rush. I startled myself as I saw my mother’s car sitting in the

  parking space, reminding me that she was no longer with me. I swallowed hard as the valet parking attendant sat in the driver’s side and drove the car towards me. I handed him a tip, got in, and

  headed to the village. I used my cell phone GPS, and my battery was running low. I plugged it into the car charger, I didn’t know where the hell I was, and I didn’t feel like getting lost.

  I met Rhaji at his office. As I entered the office, I noticed the stacks and stacks of files in every corner of his room. He wasn’t necessarily disorganized…you could say an organized mess. He was a tall, Middle Eastern man, with the biggest brown eyes I’ve ever seen and the bushiest

  eyebrows sitting above his eyes like two Persian rugs. He wasn’t a bad looking guy…just a little odd.

  “Please sit,” he said with a thick accent rummaging through the papers on his desk.

  “Thank you.” I glanced around the office and noticed the door was shut. I was feeling uncomfortable. I needed to stand up and walk around.

  “How long do you plan to rent?” He stared at my leg that was shaking up and down.

  “A year maybe? Do you mind opening the door? It’s kind of stuffy in here.” I stood up and walked towards the door. I could feel a panic attack coming on.

  “Sure no prob…” He didn’t finish his thought. He watched me carefully as I walked to the door, opened it, and stood in the doorway. I turned around and leaned against the door. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Here you go, sign here. Do you have cash or check?”

  “I’m fine. Check…how much?” I asked taking a deep breath. My heart was sprinting out of my chest. I started feeling lightheaded. I walked over and grabbed my purse.

 
; “Four-thousand-five-hundred,” he gawked at me to see the expression on my face.

  “Here you go.” I grabbed my checkbook from my purse and wrote a check, and handed it to him.

  “I really don’t take personal checks, but you seem honest enough.” His face was serious, but he tried to crack a smile.

  “Excuse me?”

  “People write checks all of the time, and they bounce. It’s really bad for business.” He lowered and shook his head in disappointment.

  “Oh, I see.” I felt stupid. I automatically assumed he didn’t trust me. “Anyway, here are your keys, and here’s a copy of your lease. Welcome to

  New York.” He smiled and handed me an envelope.

  I nodded and smiled. I grabbed my purse and placed the envelope in my bag. I took off down the block looking for the numbers on the buildings. I scanned the buildings staring at the numbers.

  “Six ninety, six ninety-five St. Mark’s Place, here it is,” I said out loud as a passerby stared at me and gave me filthy look. I grabbed the keys out of the envelope, opened the front door, and headed up the stairs to the fifth floor. I could barely breathe when I reached the top step. As I unlocked

  the door I realized how foreign everything was to me, even walking up the five flights of stairs. I walked into a tiny apartment that looked more like one big bedroom with a kitchen the size of a

  bathroom and the bedroom the size of a closet. It wasn’t spectacular, and I even saw a couple of creepy crawlers scattering about in the sink as I flicked on the light in the kitchen. I walked towards

  the window to find what looked like a gate across it and some metal stairs leading down to the street. I didn’t even have a nice view; I was lonely and didn’t know how much so, until I sat on

  the floor of my apartment and looked around at the empty space that needed to be furnished, and the white walls that yearned to be colored, reminding me of the desolate times that lay ahead.

  ***

  I really didn’t know how to decorate a “Manhattan” apartment; it always seemed like Manhattan was for the rich and snooty, and I was the last person on Earth who lived like a rich person, and from the looks of this apartment, I wasn’t living on Park Avenue. I knew I didn’t have the touch,

  but I knew if my mother were here, she would make this place look like a palace. She was a simple woman, but she could make anything look beautiful under any circumstances. I remember the

  dining room furniture having four different chairs that she purchased at a flea market because my father would break one at least once a month when he got home drunk. You would never know it though, the way she wrapped silk sheets over the chairs and tied a tight ribbon around them for

  that classy, rich look. The kitchen table my father actually made with his bare hands when he wasn’t falling over from being intoxicated. He was a crafty and talented man. He often made tables

  and dressers for some furniture stores around town, but no one ever hired him to work at the stores. They knew his temper and they knew how reckless his behavior could be.

  The pastor at our church always offered to hire him as the janitor, but my father refused, he said he was, “Better than that.” He was a proud man, my father. Although my mom went to church

  every Sunday, I had to stay home and make breakfast for my father to help sober him up, so he could make it through the day. My mother would say to me, “I’ll pray for him at church. Jenesis,

  you pray for your father here and ask God to help him. God will listen to you.” She would wipe my tears with her palms as her pretty red fingernails slowly traced down my face. I had always

  prayed but I felt like God didn’t listen to me. She knew I hated to stay with him alone. She knew how badly he could treat me. Why did she leave me alone with him to go to church?

  Any day of the week, but especially on Saturday night, my father would lie on the couch in the living room with a bottle of whiskey, one eye open and the other eye shut, and he would fall asleep

  with a crooked smirk on his face. I was eight-years-old and had the same routine every Saturday night for as long as I could remember. I’d wrap myself in the throw blanket from the couch and

  stare at my father. I wanted so much to give my father a hug, but I knew if I had woken him up he would get mad. I prayed so hard that I would wrap the blanket tightly around my shoulders and

  kneel by the fireplace and close my eyes and whisper, “God please, make my daddy stop drinking so he can play with me, so he can love my mom and treat her like a princess.” Then, I would glance

  over at him with one eye open and the other eye squinted, to see if God miraculously cured him, but he didn’t move.

  I looked up at the ceiling as if I could see God himself, then, I would stand up quietly and walk up the stairs slowly, so I wouldn’t make noise. I walked on my tippy toes to my mother’s room, and

  I would cover her with my throw blanket and kiss her goodnight. I used to lie on the corner of the bed and stare at the bedroom door until I fell asleep. I knew if the knob turned on that door that

  was my cue to quickly hide underneath the bed, and wait until my father finished beating my mother. I would cover my mouth with my hands every time my mother yelled, begging him to stop

  as he kicked and punched her. All I could see were my mother’s feet as she tried to run away from him and my father’s steel toe black army boots kicking her. I would clench my teeth and cry as I

  covered my mouth with my hands so he wouldn’t hear me. In between my sobs, I would gasp for air and whisper through gritted teeth, “please…stop.” I was so exhausted from crying and watching

  the horror show that I would fall asleep waiting for him to stop beating her. I never knew how long those beatings would last, and my nightmares continued as I fell asleep underneath her bed.

  I would wake up underneath my mother’s bed with inflamed eyes and an aching heart. I would stare cautiously at every corner of the room to see if anyone was there. My body shook as my

  hands lay flat on their palms so I could slide from underneath the bed. The coast was clear if her slippers weren’t there. I knew it was safe to come out because that meant that she was getting ready

  for church; or if it were during the week, it meant she was getting ready for work. I knew my father would always go back downstairs to the couch after he finished beating her. He never slept in the

  bedroom with her, never. I didn’t remember a day in all of my years alive that my mother and father slept in the same room. He couldn’t stand sleeping in the same bed with her. I heard him

  yell at her one day, and he said that touching her and feeling her body next to him made him cringe. I don’t know how she did it. How she stood with him so long. I don’t know how they even had me or how I was born into this toxic relationship. I felt like I was a curse to them.

  After a while, this nightmare I lived was just part of our everyday routine.

  It just seemed normal, and no matter how much it tormented me, I couldn’t change a thing; I couldn’t change my life.

  CHAPTER 4

  It took me a couple of weeks to settle in to my apartment; it was finally becoming a part of me. I had pictures on the walls of my mother and me. A picture on my end table stood out from the rest. It was a picture of my mother and me together on my first day away at college, wrapped in the

  throw blanket I loved so much, sitting on my desk. Whenever I look at that photo, I wish I could go back to that day and make time stand still, so I could live in that memory forever.

  I promised myself that I would go back to college, so I enrolled at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to finish my degree. I already had taken the necessary coursework at Penn State for Forensic Science, so I wanted to complete the rest of my electives at John Jay. Though my advisor at the

  time assured me this type of degree wouldn’t get me very far in life, I decided to finish what I started. He said, and I quote, “You’ll only be a caseworker for
the City of New York with this

  background, of course, you could work for the FBI,” he chuckled sarcastically as he lifted his eyebrows with a devilish smirk. Nice guy. What an inspiration, that asshole.

  I took classes during the day and was looking for a job at night. I didn’t want to spend all of the insurance money paying for rent. I needed to pay some of the student loans off, and I wanted to

  pay John Jay in cash. While I walked out of my last class for the day at John Jay, I noticed a police officer near the job posting board. He pinned a red square business card on the board, and as he

  walked away, I walked over to the board and read the card, “looking for a part time secretary at night at the precinct, contact

  David Hearns.” I grabbed the card and slipped it into my purse as discreetly as I could. I called the number that night and got the answering machine for the precinct.

  “This message is for David Hearns. I’m interested in the job. Call me back at 610-555-7677.” I was disappointed that I couldn’t speak to anyone, so I decided to call Vivian for a little pep talk.

  “Hey, guess what?”

  “What?” I could hear her chewing on some chips.

  “I applied for a job.”

  “Really? Where?”

  “In a police precinct.”

  “A what? Why?”

  “Viv, I need a job.”

  “Sounds dangerous.”

  “I said in a precinct. I didn’t say I was a cop.” I giggled but she stayed silent.

  “Well…just be careful. When can I visit?”

  “As soon as I get a job so I can treat you to dinner in a fancy New York restaurant.” We both laughed.

  “Well, I better get some sleep. Back to job searching tomorrow. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Night, Viv.”

  “Okay…good luck. I hope they call you. Night, Jen.”

  The next morning, the phone rang around seven. I must have passed out because I didn’t recall having a nightmare. The phone starting to ring again and I picked it up sleepily.

  “Yeah, I got a phone call last night from this number. You interested in the job?” A loud obnoxious voice at the other end of the phone said abruptly.