Love's Journey: Makaila's Story Read online

  Love’s Journey

  Makaila’s Story

  Sherell Lynn

  Contents

  Synopsis

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  5. Present Time

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  11. Ava

  12. Bella

  13. Bella

  14. Ava

  15. Bella

  16. Adam

  17. Bella

  18. Adam

  19. Bella

  20. Adam

  21. Ava

  22. Bella

  23. Adam

  24. Bella

  25. Adam

  26. Ava

  27. Bella

  28. Adam

  29. Bella

  30. Adam

  31. Ava

  32. Bella

  33. Adam

  34. Ava

  35. Bella

  36. Adam

  37. Bella

  38. Ava

  39. Adam

  40. Bella

  41. Adam

  42. Ava

  43. Bella

  44. Adam

  45. Bella

  Until next time…

  © 2017 Sherell Lynn

  Except as provided by the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. names, characters, places, events, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, or people, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  Synopsis

  Meet Makaila Windstorm. Just like her last name, her life is everything a windstorm delivers. Powerful winds and damaging gusts are just the beginning. Ride into the peak of the storm with Makaila as she deals with her very own windstorm in the form of an abusive mother, an absentee father, the love of her sister, an overprotective boyfriend, and catastrophic friendships. Will she be able to survive the destruction of her life or will she get sucked into the deadly wind force that ushers everything into its stormy path? The people in Makaila’s life are causing destruction and mayhem. One devastating event after another causes her to lose herself and her loved ones. Read on as she fights for her life and goes on a search for her happy ending.

  * Warning this story has intense sexual scenes. It also can be a trigger point for victims of abuse of any kind as it deals with emotional, physical and sexual abuse. But I promise you this story is intended to inspire hope after the rain and sunshine on a cloudy day.

  Introduction

  I wake up to the sound of birds chirping. They are so close to me that I can hear their wings flapping as I sit up. The sun is beaming brightly with no clouds in sight. As a result, it’s scorching hot, making my clothes stick to me. The sweat is just pouring out of me from this morning and last night’s heat fest. My shirt and jeans are like a second skin. I have to get somewhere to shower, rinse, and repeat. The question is where will I go?

  As I rose from my makeshift bed that’s nothing more than a few pieces of cardboard and a quilt that looks like it has seen better days, I thought about how I, Makaila Windstorm, at the rightful age of twenty-eight had gotten here. Where was here, you ask? Here is underneath one of the busiest bridges in this wonderful small town that sits perfectly in the middle of two of the biggest cities in the state. This bridge is the very crossroad that takes you to either happiness or hell.

  It is an invisible little town that disappears in the blink of an eye or with the burn of car exhaust the further down the highway you go. It is where people like me go, who have no home, but are seeking a safe haven. A town this beautiful with so much character, charm, and scenery should only have the best of the best people residing here. That is my dream, to belong to a place like this. One day, I will be a proud citizen of this community. However, for right now, I have to face the fact that I am homeless, living under a bridge.

  The realization that I am still on the outside looking in, hits me whenever a cheerful couple with a couple of kids walks by eating melting ice cream cones and they are as happy as can be about life. Meanwhile, here I am struggling and living a hard life. You would think so too when the straggler to your left tries to pin you down to the ground, forcing his way on you, trying to make you his new boo. Or when the creep to your right sees the food you are eating and decides that it’s their meal instead of yours. It becomes a fight for your life, for the meal you need in order to survive. Living here under a bridge, there are no expectations and certainly no standards. There is no false sense of security

  Throughout it all, we have one thing in common. We are just people who were down on our luck and have no place else to go. Most of the townspeople ignored us. Some have tried to get rid of us. Forcing an immediate evacuation to rid their town of the eyesores that they thought we were. It’s a constant struggle to never know if you will have your place under this bridge if you leave and then return, or facing the fact that if you didn’t leave you would get locked up for refusing to do so. I couldn’t leave. Taking the good with the bad, this place is my home. Yes, this bridge is deemed a monstrosity and crime-ridden area that takes a perfect little town and makes it well…not so perfect. However, it’s not all bad. Most of us were not born homeless, so there is an understanding and a type of camaraderie that none of us can get with the outside world. Everyone here has a story. And here’s mine.

  1

  There was not much love and laughter growing up in the Windstorm household. If I could sum it up with one word, it would be survival. I had to learn to endure the hardships and make the most out of a bad situation. As an adult now walking the streets, I often hear people talking about the good old days or about how they loved their childhood and wish they could get pieces of that back. I have none of those memories, with the exception of my sisters.

  My grandest moment came from my escape. That was definitely after childhood and before entering adulthood. My mother, God bless her, never developed that motherly gene. That didn’t stop her from procreating, although it should have. See, we come from generation after generation of bad parenting. With that type parenting comes children like me that end up so messed up that living on the streets seems almost like a dream come true.

  As a child, I always looked out the window, hoping and wishing my life would be better when I grew up. An even more ameliorated idea was that I would develop the courage to run away from this life and start over. I would have given anything to be able to escape the constant physical and emotional abuse from my mother. Also, the wondering eye that led to wondering hands, among other things from her array of boyfriends who were sometimes called Uncle.

  We were a family of four. Maribella Windstorm was our matriarch that led the helm of our family. Her occupation, professional ho—her words not mine—but she liked to think of it as using God’s gifts for the greater good of all mankind. That included never paying for anything once she developed a body like a goddess. Her Achilles heel was not being able to trap our father with not only one but also three kids.

  Perhaps, if she had given birth to boys it would have been a different story. Nevertheless, it was just us girls, her three pains in the ass. There was Maci, the oldest, and by default, she always thought that made her the smartest. I came into the world a couple of years later at the number-two position. Then last, but she would never let you think she was least, Maddi, the baby. Maddi and I were
only eleven months apart, which made us the closest and instant best friends. She rounded out our family and left me stuck as the middle child.

  We all had our mother’s last name, Windstorm. Even though our mother claimed we had the same father, he was never really in the picture. We never got the chance to get to know him. In reality, I could walk past him and never even know who he was. Our mom would always tell us stories of how she had met our father.

  She would always start by saying, “Girls, I want you all to know that men are no good. Take that sorry-ass man I let impregnate me three times. Humph, his ass is the sorriest of them all. I met him in high school and even though he had a girlfriend, I could see the way he was looking at me. He wanted some of my hot box.” At this point, she would just laugh and laugh as if that was the funniest thing ever.

  She always said she could take any female’s man, and we never doubted her. Mom or Maribella, as the rest of the world knew her, was a 5’8” bombshell. She had curves for days and flawless, golden-brown skin. She always told us that looks could get you anyone and treat you to everything, which was all the more reason to take care of what the good Lord gave ya! As we got older and approached our teenage years, most people thought she was our older sister or cousin, but never our mom. She was too fine for that and that was just how she liked it.

  Mama always liked and even craved the extra attention. She claimed that’s how she got the bills paid. She always insisted if we girls were smart we would take notes. See, everything she got in life had been given to her. The house we lived in came free of charge. It was a three-bedroom two-bath brick house. It actually belonged to a doctor who would come by in his scrubs at the first of the month to collect the rent.

  Collecting the rent must have been real hard work. He and mama would spend hours in her room with her calling out his name over and over again until the payment was finally made. After what sounded like a whirlwind adventure going on in her bedroom, the good doctor would walk out. He was always sweaty and looked tired. I guess mama had really put in that work.

  I remember one of the only times he spoke to us, saying something like, “Girls, you don’t know how lucky y’all are with a mama like that!” He then smiled and walked out the door. With each bill that came her way, there was always a man willing to pay. There was nothing you could do or say to make her shut down her parade. She knew she was fierce. Growing up with a self-centered diva wasn’t exactly easy. Her only concern was herself. That was why my sisters and I always tried to stick together. As we got older, there were moments when Mama would look at us in total disgust. At the time, we only thought it was because she hated our father and us. Maybe that was part of it. However, a bigger part was that we were becoming beautiful young women and she felt threatened by that fact.

  Time went by with us girls becoming a distant memory to our mother’s existence. The only time she noticed us was when one of her friends did. I often wondered if she would be a better person or mother without all the extra vices running through her bloodstream. By this time, Maci and I had taken the brunt of her physical abuse and we were done. No child should have to deal with being a rape victim or a mother who didn’t give a damn. Over the next few years, we learned how to protect each other and ourselves. Maci and I vowed to make sure Maddi would never know what it felt like to be touched by a pedophile. We became our sister’s protector.

  For my sixteenth birthday, we ended up at The Gap. It was a hang-out place for the kids, teenagers, you know young people like my sisters and me. It used to be a trap house that had been turned into a spot where teenagers could go and chill. Occasionally, my sisters and I would step away from our day-to-day routine and find ourselves there having fun. However, it was my birthday and I felt like I was becoming a little too old to be hanging out with anyone younger than me except for Maddi, of course. Maci thought otherwise. She felt like we were too young to enjoy partying with the real world slash older crowd. She claimed it was for our protection, to keep us safe. I laughed to myself as I thought of all the crap our mama had exposed us to and the irony of Maci trying to protect us from a club filled with older people.

  Later that night, I found myself so exhausted from turning it up on the dance floor. I was dancing around my group of friends when I spotted the finest guy I had ever seen. He was tall. He had to be at least six feet. His skin was the color of smooth, dark chocolate. I could tell he was in shape. He looked like an athlete of some kind. He was beautiful if you could ever call a guy that. What did me in was that smile. His smile was something wonderful. When he looked at me with his grey eyes, it seemed like they were piercing right through my soul. It was a magical moment that I never wanted to end. His eyes were the most intrepid color of grey that I had ever seen.

  For a whole minute, our eyes locked. Then it seemed the trance had been broken because he walked away. I danced around the room trying to disguise the fact that I was searching for him. My eyes searched the room. Instead of finding him, I saw Maci and Maddi in front of me. “Well Me-Me are you having a good time?” Maci asked.

  “Um, yeah,” I said, my eyes darting from corner to corner, searching the room.

  “What or who are you looking for?” Maddi asked, noticing the way I was acting.

  “Well, that’s the thing, I’m not sure.”

  “Me-Me are you drunk?” Maci asked.

  “Yeah, I’m drunk off love,” I replied with a laugh.

  “That’s not funny, Me-Me. The only reason I brought you and your sister here was so y’all could have good, safe fun on your sixteenth birthday, not so you could get drunk on who knows what,” Maci stated, her voice filled with anger.

  “Maci, you really need to check yo feelings. I’m not drunk. In case you have not noticed, there ain’t no drinks here. Hell, there ain’t nothing else to do here but dance. So, why are you trippin’ when I’m trying to have a good time?”

  “Okay, ladies.” Maddi stepped in as the mediator. “It’s time for us to roll out. So, why don’t we just end this little convo and go home?”

  I looked at my baby sister and then my oldest. She was right. “Okay,” I relented. “Thank you both for this. It was fun and unexpected.” We rode the bus home, passing by several surrounding neighborhoods. I was so thankful for my sisters. To be honest, Maci could have left the day she turned eighteen, but she didn’t and I knew she had stayed out of obligation to us. Now that I had turned sixteen, I only had a couple of years left before I’d become a legal adult and because Maddi’s birthday was right behind mine, we all would soon be free.

  The bus pulled to a stop and the three of us jumped out of our seats and ran down the few steps to get off. I unlocked the door and from behind me my sisters screamed, “Happy Birthday!” I looked around in total shock at the party streamers and birthday signs. Then I looked on the table and there was a beautiful cake. “When did y’all have time to do all this?” I asked with tears in my eyes.

  “Well, I took off work today, so I could make your cake and get a few decorations. Mama should be home soon, so let’s blow out these candles and you come make your wish,” Maci stated.

  Confusion covered my face. “Mama isn’t here?” I didn’t know why I was surprised.

  As if reading my mind, Maci said, “I heard her making plans on her phone. She said she had a date tonight and would not be back until later. So, until then, let’s have some cake. I just need you to go into Mama’s room to find a lighter.”

  “Only because there is cake involved will I walk the plank,” I said jokingly as I entered our mom’s bedroom. I flipped the light switch on and saw the most horrendous sight I had ever seen. I immediately fell to my knees, my body rocking back and forth. My screams filled the air as tears flowed like a waterfall down my face.

  My heart seemed like it was going to explode. I tried to catch my breath, but I still could not breathe. Then it went dark. Somewhere in the darkness, I heard high-pitched wails coming from my sisters’ mouths. When I regained consciousness, I looke
d around and realized I wasn’t having a nightmare. This was a horrible reality. Blood was actually splattered all over the walls and our mom really was lying on the bed in a puddle of her own blood. She was naked and appeared to have been mutilated, unrecognizable.

  Maddi was laying on the floor beside me with her arms wrapped tightly around my waist. I moved to sit up with Maddi still clinging to me.

  “Thank God!” She said once we locked eyes. “We didn't know how long you would be out.” Her eyes were blood shot red from crying and tears continued to run down her face. “We heard you screaming and when we came into the room, we saw you passed out on the floor. After seeing mama and the blood everywhere, I almost passed out myself. Mama she is...she is not responding. She's cold.”

  Maddi let go of me and looked over at our mom. “I touched her,” she said, lifting up her hands staring at them as if they were some eighth wonder of the world. Her hands looked as if she had painted them in red paint, only it was our mother's blood. I blinked back tears, as I glanced around the room trying to hold it together for my youngest sister’s sake. Maci was pacing back and forth by our mother's bed. She was shaking so bad she could barely hold the phone to her ear.