Shy and timid, Onika lives in a dilapidated Detroit neighborhood with her abusive uncle. She is hopelessly in love with Marshall Mathers, a troubled young man that lives next door to her in their rough hood.
Marshall is rude, agressive and uncouth...
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There's a sickening crunching sound as Marshall's fist connects with my uncle's face.
Over and over again.
Marshall then abruptly backs away from my uncle, who lays groaning on the floor, and he's sitting a few paces away from him, dragging one of his hands down his face, until he seems to become aware of the blood smeared on it.
I remember plopping down next to him, staring all wide-eyed at my uncle's broken body, feeling strangely numb. Then wrapping my arms around his neck, burying my face in the side of it. Marshall's eyes are blank and he's breathing like he's just been hit by a tuck or something for a few seconds.
His arm then goes to wrap around my waist absent-mindedly and he holds me close, and I feel the tension in his body eventually subside.
It sort of occurs to me that Marshall beating my uncle how he did just now, it wasn't all even about me, it was probably also every thing that's ever gone wrong in this boy's life, everything that he's ever hated.
"Yo, Onika, I'm sorry, I ain't mean to..." Marshall then suddenly blurts out, and I look at him in pure confusion.
What is he even apologizing for?!
"I ain't want you to see me like this," Marshall then adds, but he is abruptly cut off by Dre.
"Aight, we don't got no time for no mushy shit. Back to business," he states, walking up to where my uncle is laying making some sorts of unintelligible sounds and he leans over him, studying Rashaad's bloodied mess of a face. I think Marshall might've dislocated his jaw...
My eyes flying wide open, I abruptly sit up in the bed in a dark room.
Still having nightmares about that day, my last day at my uncle's place.
And for like a second or two, I panic, thinking that I'm actually still back there, laying tied up on the floor.
It takes me a few moments to become aware of the fact that I'm actually able to move my limbs, and that I'm also actually... safe right now.
And that my uncle is currently laying handcuffed to a hospital bed, awaiting to recover from his Marshall inflicted injuries enough to be deemed fit to be transported to a jail facility instead and await trial for the charges of assault, battery, false imprisonment and attempted rape, among other things.
To make a long story short, after Marshall had in fact finished beating the crap out of my uncle, we ended-up turning him over to the cops.
Who upon arrival had ended-up taking all of us down to the station, and they nearly put Marshall in cuffs again for what he did to Rashaad, and it took several exausting hours of us all sitting in separate interrogation rooms and answering questions about what exactly happened and why my next door neighbor felt the need to break into my uncle's place and beat a man damn near to death for them to finally start getting the full picture.
Now, I'm staying with Marshall at his house.
Which, technically I could just go back to uncle's home now that that man is no longer there and probably wouldn't be for a while, but to be honest, after what's almost happened to me in there, the mere thought of ever stepping foot inside that place is making me sick to my stomach.
Besides, with the whole eviction thing looming close, I'm about to lose the house anyways. And I don't even care about that, because like I said, my memory of that place is so tainted now.
So, as crazy as it sounds, after we were finally told by the cops that we were free to go, I had gone with Marshall to his place instead.
Him giving me a quick tour of it and telling me I have his bedroom while he'll just crush on the living room couch downstairs for the time being. I had felt funny about it at first, sleeping on the bed he used to share with that Kim girl and all. To which Marshall's response was that he's put new sheets on the bed anyways, oh, and also that the bed is actually the least I needed to worry about since apparently he and his ex would usually fuck on any other piece of furniture in this house, BUT the bed.
And all I could do was to just widen my eyes and let out a sort of a short nervous giggle fall from my lips, I couldn't even be mad at him, because apparently this is just Marshall. Even when this boy tries his best to be nice to you, he would still always manage to say something completely ridiculous and inappropriate.
But anyways, I've been staying here with him for like two weeks now, still trying to get back up on feet. Things are getting better for me, even I do still wake up having nightmares, either about my own uncle about to rape me or Marshall beating him up right after. And which ever one it is, I always wake up in cold sweat.
Like tonight.
I sit on the bed for a few seconds, turning on the bedside table lamp and leaving my head against the board.
A part of me wants to go downstair to where Marshall is currently sleeping on the couch and wake him up, and get him to hold me, like I did the first couple of days I've been staying here with him, but I want to remain string and just soldier through this on my own.
I don't want Marshall to feel like he's got to take care of me like a baby. Having to deal with all my problems lately, his own plate is just as full. That Kim girl still wouldn't let him see his daughter, and I know that that's killing him. He's been real quiet the past few days.
Sometimes I wonder if he misses HER too, but then, I don't even know if I even have the right to be thinking about that, because it's not like Marshall and I are a thing or anything.
He's just being a really good friend to me right now, and he hasn't mentioned anything about what he's said to me before about having feelings for me, and I'm now starting to think it was just like a heat of the moment thing when he said those words to me before.
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Ugh, I hate how this has turned out, y'all 😫😫 If you had read my thingy I wrote on the message board earlier, I had actually managed to somehow lose the draft for this chapter that I wanted published, which was actually pretty good, but me trying to recreate it, it keeps NOT turning out how Ihad wanted it to turn out at all, so I'm just going to post this lil filler chapter instead. I promise I've got something much better that I'm already starting to work on for the next few chapters 😭
