Broken by Navaura Campbell (reader novel .TXT) 📕

Sniffing a third time, he cleared his throat, “Alright, man, but don’t say anything to her.”

“Go.” Tamarah stated, ushering him toward the door. He put his hands up when he reached the door and looked back at her, “I just wanted to know, you know what I’m saying?”

Tamarah slammed the door shut, shivers going up and down her spine. He repulsed her to no avail. Even she had a hard time believing that in that one moment he’d managed to convince her to do what he wanted. She shivered filled with disgust. Inhaling sharply, she locked the chain and bolt and turned back around to get back to the meal she was preparing.

Chapter Six:

“I can’t believe you took my door off mom.”

“Neither can I Vanessa.” My mom stated as I shot a piercing gaze at her that night during dinner. My dad had just come in a half hour ago and was now taking a shower, while we were sitting down, filling our plates. My mother had chosen to make Enchiladas with southern style baked beans and a mixed veggie dish. My brother Craig was cracking up over my current predicament. For a ten year old, he could be pretty annoying at times. “Shut up!” I yelled at him.

Mom glanced over at me, her gaze equaling the fury in my own eyes, “Don’t talk to him like that Vanessa, or else I’m going to add cleaning out the garage to your list of chores.”

“I still can’t believe you took off my door.” I stated.

“I didn’t take off your door.”

“Who took it off then? I need my privacy. I’m fourteen years old and I can’t get dressed without doors, that’s a little bit childish, don’t you think?”

“Not any more childish than that stunt you pulled last night.”

“I apologized for that this morning mom. I thought you forgave me for it.”

“You know what Vanessa, an apology from you really means nothing because the way you are talking to me hasn’t changed, your attitude toward me hasn’t changed.”

“Well mom, I can’t help it if you are a bitch sometimes.”

“Say one more word to your mother like that Vanessa, and I will be washing your mouth out with soap.” My dad stated as he came into the dining room smelling fresh from his shower. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, but it needs to stop or I’m just going to have revert back to the old fashioned ways of doing things.”

“We wouldn’t want that now would we?” I inquired sarcastically.

“Saturday you can spend your entire day cleaning out the garage”, my mom stated.

“Dad!” I whined.

“Vanessa don’t whine about it now. You should have closed your mouth when she asked.”

I folded my arms over my chest, my gaze hot like lava, “So first you take my door, now you giving me the garage to clean after I had to slave over the kitchen this afternoon? Not to mention the large heaps of laundry downstairs in the basement.”

“I am the one who took your door off, Vanessa. When you start acting your age and acting like you have some common sense then you will get that door back, but until then you will not be getting it back. As a matter of fact, it was your mother who convinced me to let you keep your sheets and blankets.”

I pushed my chair out and listened as my fork dropped to the table and clinked as I got ready to storm out. My dad stood up and in a swift movement of his hand, he grabbed my arm, holding it tightly. “Dinner’s not over yet, sit down.”

I stared him in the eyes, my stormy eyes matching his. I said, “You’re hurting me dad.”

“You don’t care about the hurt you cause others with your mouth, but you want to tell me that I’m hurting you?” He snorted at this. “Now...” His tone held some authority in it,“As I said before, sit down, eat your dinner and then you can go sulk, because if you try to leave this table, you will end up embarrassing yourself.” Although his tone was calm, the words were precise enough with anger for my ears to burn with sensitivity. I stared him in the eyes. His gaze was unwavering. After thirty seconds, I started to feel scared for myself. I could see that he meant what he said. Swallowing my nerves, I sat back down. He let go of my arm and went back to his seat that was next to mine and said, “Vanessa you will not behave like this any longer. I will not accept it. You are lucky that your mom has a lot of patience when dealing with you, because I don’t. Mine is running thin and you are going to make me start using my belt.”

Tears welling up in my eyes, I looked over at him. “A belt!” I shrieked, my tone disgusted. “I’m too old for a belt.”

He stared me in the eyes, his a lot more colder than mine and said, “If that’s the truth, you better start acting like you are too old for the belt and show your mom some respect because the way you are acting will not get you any pity in my book.” I watched as his hand smacked the table with force, causing even my little brother to jump in fear. “It’s only making me angrier. She had you, you didn’t have her.”

I got quiet and lowered my gaze to the plate, the tears still rolling down my eyes.

~ ~

The following day at school, as Kalen was passing out fliers to a group of girls who were known to be in the “goth” click, she was tracked down by Tamarah, who’d found out that their church was having a revival that week. “Ey, Kalen, Can I get a flier?” She wanted to know.

“What?” Kalen asked, making sure she had heard correctly. Tamarah, no matter how many times Kalen had passed out fliers that year for events at church, had ever even accepted one and now here she was asking for one.

“You want a flier?”

“Yeah. I do. I’m a student here to you know.”

“Mmm, hmmm, you sure this don’t have anything to do with my brother?” She inquired, her gaze telling that she already knew.

Tamarah denied with a shake of her head, “I need Jesus to Kalen, I’m a sinner myself.” Tamarah knew that she didn’t even really know what a sinner was, but she’d heard enough of the word to know they used it a lot.

Kalen pursed her lips and said, “Now you and I both know that God can just come down here and strike you dead for the hidden lie in those words.”

Tamarah inhaled, holding in her laughter, “I’m not lying, I do want to come, besides, it sure beats sitting at home everyday this week by myself.” She knew that was partially true, since she did hate sitting at home by herself, but her biggest reason was because of Timothy. She just wanted to see how he acted when he was in church. Was he the same way there as he was here, or was he different? That’s why she wanted to go, so she’d be able to see who he was since he wouldn’t come to her. The last time they’d talked to one another, it had been on the phone and even then it was brief to confirm their meeting in the library on Monday.

Kalen glanced at Tamarah and could see what made his brother attracted to her. She was easily one of the prettiest girls in school. She was what they called model material, because she had the tone, the face, the body and everything that men liked, but she also know that the one thing her brother searched for was lacking in her. Inhaling sharply, Kalen cleared her throat. “Tamarah?”

“Yeah?”

“Be honest, are you going to church because of my brother?” She wanted to know.

Tamarah exhaled and leveled seriously with the young lady. Stepping closer to her, she said, “Look, I’m not going to lie, if I didn’t admire your brother so much, I wouldn’t be going to church. So, while a big part of me really does want your brother and when I say I want him, believe me, I want him, I am curious as to why he is the way he is. He is such a beautiful man to me. He’s respectful, caring, kindhearted and loving in a way that I’ve never seen anyone in this school be.

I mean that’s sad considering half the school go to the church, but from what I can tell, only you and your brother really believe in what’s being preached there, and I want to see what is it that he believes. Why is it that he looks radiant to me. I look at him and I see something that just looks clean to me and I like that. He looks so peaceful. I’ve never seen a guy that was just cool being by himself and he seem to be that way and I want to know why. I want to know why after all these times people made fun of you guys and said some mean stuff about ya’ll including me, why ya’ll still believe what ya’ll believe and why it makes ya’ll so aggressive about getting the word out. Ok?”

“Well that’s easy, Tamarah. We believe in Jesus.”

Tamarah furrowed her brows in confusion, “it’s that simple huh?”

Kalen smiled, hearing the sarcasm in her voice. “Actually, it is that simple. You do know about Jesus right?”

Tamarah shrugged, “He was a guy that lived a long time ago and he suffered a crucifixion at the hands of pontius pilot.”

“Ok, what else do you know about him?”

“The wikipedia said he died for the sins of the world.” This was very confusing because she didn’t even know she had a sin.

“Yeah, he did. Do you know what that means?”

Tamarah stumbled over herself trying to frame an answer in her mind, but the truth was she couldn’t. She was still stuck on the fact that she had sin. What was sin? “Well, not technically, because I didn’t know I had sin, what ever that is.”

Kalen let out a compassionate sigh. “Sin is to transgress against God.”

“How do you do that?”

Kalen smiled. The more she spoke, the more Kalen was starting to like her. Going over to her, Kalen explained, “When a person lies or steal or have sex without being married or hurt another person, those are examples of what sin is.”

“Well I don’t see what that’s got to do with God.” Tamarah stated, her mind already building up so many questions.

“It has everything to do with God, Tamarah. He created us. So if he say that we sin, then we sin.”

Tamarah said, “Well, what if I didn’t believe in God, would I still be sinning?”

“Sin is sin, whether you acknowledge it or not.”

“Ok...Well, does everybody sin?”

“I’ve never met anyone who didn’t in my life.”

“What’s that suppose to mean?”

“It means that all people have done something wrong in their life.”

“Hmmm...” Tamarah furrowed her brows. Her mind went to her mother, who often spoke like she believed in God. She always told Tamarah that she should thank God for whatever she got, and while Tamarah didn’t see a point to that when the one thing she wanted more was her mother, she just kind of ignored that.

“So, what are we supposed to do about our sin then?”

“Give it to Jesus.”

Tamarah laughed at this. “Give our sins to a dead man? That’s stupid Kalen.” She continued to laugh at this.

“It would be stupid if he were dead.” Kalen stated. This caused Tamarah to stop laughing and she dropped her head and looked at Kalen as if she was crazy. “What do you mean he’s not dead? He died on a cross back in 67 a.d. If that’s not dead, I don’t know what is.”

Kalen