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"Alex has decided he'll watch us from the kitchen like a creep." I told Latoya through a stiff giggle, my awkwardness making me want to shrink and disappear. "I made him promise not to eavesdrop on our conversation, so you don't need to stress about him hearing you."
"He must think your life is in danger from just sitting next to me." she said flatly, her teary eyes glued to the coffee table.
"He's just trying out the overprotective boyfriend thing." I responded, trying to help her loosen up. "Don't mind him."
"After what I said, I don't blame him. I don't know how I would've reacted if the tables were turned."
"This could be ignorant of me, Latoya, but I don't think you did it intentionally." I said, looking her in the eye so she knew I meant my words. "Do you mind telling me what happened?"
Loud enough for even Alex to hear, she replied, "I'm not a murderer, I swear. I acted in self-defence. DJ was the most unkind, inhumane person I knew. During my trial, the court sided with me and didn't find me guilty for murder, but there's this guy on the prosecution team who seems to want me behind bars. He's been investigating my case further and has found something that suggests I wasn't in immediate danger when the incident happened. He believes it was premeditated."
"Okay, you just said a lot. You need to dial it down into something I can fully understand, Toya." I said gently, holding her hand as relief swept through every cell in my body.
She nodded and began to paint me a more solid picture of her past, what her life was like living with her grandmother and aunt. "DJ would come over from time to time to check on Valerie and I. For some reason, he'd always find fault with me. His stays always left me with new bruises and wounds to tend to. In the court they didn't even refer to it as beating or punishment. They straight up called it assault."
My heart nearly leapt out of my chest at the sound of my sister's voice as the first sob broke free from its hiding place, her whole face crumbling as she continued, "I was always so nervous in his presence. Scared to make the wrong move and piss him off. Scared to say the wrong thing, wear the wrong thing, have the wrong look on my face. Four years ago, the day it happened, I was all alone in the house. His mom was at work and his sister had left with some man. Valerie was at school. He came in drunk and was looking at me in a way he'd never looked at me before, started talking about how I'd grown into a beautiful woman. The words alone made me feel dirty. He never acted like it, but he was my dad and what he was saying was inappropriate."
"Did he touch you?" I asked, my jaw tight as I recalled the look Latoya was talking about. DJ's disgusting thoughts would make their way to his face a few times when he looked at me when I was younger. It irked me just thinking about it. "Did he hurt you, Toya?"
She shook her head and pulled her hands from me to wipe her eyes. "I didn't let him. He tried to get me to go up the stairs with him. He kept pulling me to him by my waist and hips. It was the gentlest way he'd ever touched me but I knew what it would lead to if I didn't fight it. That was the first time in my life that I defended myself against his attempts to hurt me. The more I struggled to get away the more aggressive his voice and face became. I knew it was only a matter of time before he channelled that aggression into physical force. He was so much bigger than me, so much stronger. Even if he didn't do any physical harm yet, I felt like I was fighting for my life as I tried to placate him. I knew my hands alone wouldn't do much for me, so I grabbed the nearest object for something more effective."
