Page 6 of When a Soul Cries

“You hear this shit?” Aunt Trice asked, turning toward him. “After everything we’ve done for her?”

Mack shook his head like he was disappointed in me. “I told you that girl had problems.”

“You came into my room!” I screamed. “Tell her the truth!”

His expression didn’t change.

“I went to check on her because I heard something fall,” he said calmly. “She tried to kiss me, and when I pushed her away, she started acting crazy.”

My stomach twisted.

“That’s not what happened!”

“Then what happened?” Aunt Trice shouted.

I stared at her.

I had already told her.

I had stood in that living room shaking so badly I could barely form the words. I had explained what Mack did, how I fought him, and how he warned me that nobody would believe me.

Now I understood why he had been so sure.

“I told you what happened,” I whispered.

Aunt Trice stepped closer until her face was only inches from mine.

“You expect me to throw away my relationship because you suddenly decided you wanted my man?”

“He raped me.”

The second slap was harder than the first.

My knees almost buckled.

“Get out.”

I stared at her through my tears. “What?”

“You heard me. Get your shit and get out of my house.”

“Auntie, I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“You should’ve thought about that before you told that filthy lie.”

“I’m not lying!”

“Get out!”

Her scream shook the walls.

Mack’s smirk grew wider behind her.

I looked from him to the woman who had promised my mother she would take care of me. Some small part of me had believed that once I told her, she would protect me.

Instead, she had chosen him before I finished speaking.

I ran upstairs and shoved whatever I could fit into an old suitcase. Clothes, a toothbrush, my charger, and the little bit of money I had hidden inside a shoebox. My hands shook so badly that I could barely close the zipper.