Never Been Kissed

Chapter 22

I passed the day back home remembering everything I went through when I lost my dad.

it was bitter sweet thinking about all the good times we had together but i was determined to find out what happened. I looked through all the public records on him, found all of the interviews with him, the newspapers, everything I could possibly get. It was all "Man brought to justice after selling and trafficking women" or "He finally got what he deserved." But no one knew what really happened. No one was really there except for Kinley and one other person I knew for sure.

I decided to stay home from school that day and try to look into it all a little more. Mom had gone to work and Grayer was at school leaving me with Marble. I got tired of looking through the Internet and old news papers so I went into my mother's room to look at photo albums. I wasn't sure why. Maybe it was to see my father's face again or maybe it was to see if anything looked like it was wrong.

All the pictures were smiling faces of us. My eyes felt hot and I knew tears were going to spill. One by one they fell onto the album. They rolled onto the leather cover of the album and absorbed into the binding. I cried for while but noticed that the leather binding was coming undone.

"Great now mom is going to know I was in here if this rips." I tried pressing the binding on the album together but made it worse. The whole thing came off pulling a piece of paper out from the cover.

I picked the paper up and looked at it. It was thin and folded with yellowing edges. I unfolded it hoping it wouldn't rip. I recognized the writing when I saw it. The shaky writing was my fathers.

I wasn't sure whether to read it or not. My mind flashed back to the time in Florida where the man called me and told me not to look into things.

"How will he know if I read this or not?" I whispered to myself. I looked at the paper and began to read.

"Dear Jamie,

It's been forever since we spoke. I know things have been tough around here with the whole rape and murder accusations. I never meant for anything to go this far."

My throat choked up at the words my father was writing. He was admitting to it all. What about what Kinley had said? Didn't that mean that she knew he wasn't at fault? I looked away from the paper and tried to clear my tear blurred eyes. I forced myself to keep reading

"It's not what it seems. I'm risking a lot telling you this, but I know you will protect the family. A while ago i got caught up with a gang. They were nothing but trouble. They would go around town to bars and pick up girls to fool around with. One day however some men came and asked them if they were selling. I hope you know what I mean by that. I said it was all a misunderstanding it was just fooling around but the main gang member said no, that they were selling. He grabbed the girl by her hair and held her in front of him saying he would sell her to him for two hundred and fifty dollars. The other man laughed in his face because he knew it was cheap. The man handed over the money and walked away with the girl pulling her by the hair. I never saw her again.

This all happened when I was sixteen. It only got worse then. The main leader began to see it as an easy way to make money. We were young and stupid and thought it would be easy cash. I wanted out but they told me if I left they would kill me I couldn't go to the police or tell anyone because word would get out and they would get in trouble. They began to drug them at the bars. Anyone they thought would be easy to sell they would drug and then take them to an alley way and sell them off. It was a terrible thing. I finally moved out of the state when I graduated high school. I moved to Florida where I met you. I was so happy and finally thought my life would go back to normal. I was wrong. On our second anniversary they came back. They found me. They were worried I would tell the police what happened and threatened that if I didn't go with them they would kill me and you.