Page 3 of Blinded By Hate

I look away from Junior and stare at Patience. “What about the nightmares? I’m scared he’s gonna show up in my dreams.”

The black hooded man has been in my dreams since before I got kidnapped by Marco. He doesn’t leave my mind and with my dreams it’s the same thing as always. The hooded man kidnaps me, I wake up in that God-awful room, facing Marco before everything goes black and I start screaming. I have told Patience about this, and she tells me it’s just my anxiety and PTSD which she has prescribed medication for.

“I can increase your dosage by five more milligrams. If you need more, I can do another five but that would be the last adjustment before we try other things.”

“Okay. We can try that.”

“I don’t want you to rely on these medications though. Eventually, I do want you to stop taking them because they are very strong,” Patience says while writing down something in her notebook.

“Okay.”

I’m not addicted or anything, I just need something to get rid of the black hooded guy and all these fucking feelings that just won’t go away.

“I also want you to try sleeping without the trazodone for a few nights to see how it goes. We’ll follow up next week with another appointment to see how that works out for you. I’ll give you the prescription for the new dosage of sertraline but take the exact dosage, no more than twenty-five.”

“Okay,” I repeat.

“And spend more time with Junior. Take a day off from work and just spend the day with him. If you need a doctor's note, I can give you that but I really think Junior is going to help you heal, as he has been helping you.”

At that I look at Junior and instantly feel my heart swell, in a good way.

Junior is my world.

I know that if I didn’t have him, I would be six feet under.

He is the only reason I’m still alive and my heart is still beating.

One

Jaclyn

Present

Light shines through the curtains in my room. I look to my side and don’t see Junior, but I hear murmuring and the sound of the TV in the living room.

I’ve grown used to waking up at the same time every day, thanks to Junior. Usually, he comes into my room and wakes me up to make him breakfast. Every now and then Brandon will come in and take care of that while I get some more sleep.

I get out of the bed and open the door, the talking becoming clearer. I see Brandon in the kitchen while Junior is on the couch, watching Paw Patrol as he lays on the floor. I lean against the door frame like I do every morning and watch Junior kick his feet in the air as he watches the show.

I found out I was pregnant about two months after the night that ruined my life. I was living with my mom at the time. I wasn’t taking care of myself and the wound on my rib just made everything harder for me, so it was just better to live with my mom.

After all, I needed her.

I only ever felt comfortable breaking down in front of her.

I realized I hadn’t gotten my period for a good month or so and I’d been throwing up every day for weeks. I thought it was because of what I went through but my mom made me take a pregnancy test.

When the test came back positive, I started crying in my mom’s chest. I couldn’t take care of myself and bringing a child into the world after that night felt impossible.

I went to the obstetrician and after they saw the wound, they asked questions. I told them a narrowed down version of what happened, and they asked me questions about me having sex. I told them I had sex around that time. They told me the embryo was not even formed at the time.

It was a high-risk pregnancy because of my diabetes and also because I wasn’t taking care of myself. I had frequent doctor appointments, and my mom came to every single one.

There was not one day during the pregnancy or after that, that I didn’t cry. There wasn’t one day for the nine months Junior was in my belly that I didn’t stare at Hayden’s phone number, feeling guilty that I didn’t tell him about Junior. There was a time when I thought maybe Junior isn’t even Hayden’s because it could have been a fifty-fifty chance between him and the guys who ruined my life.

But then Junior was born with a head full of dark hair and light gray eyes, I knew Junior was Hayden’s.

My mom and uncle asked me if I was going to contact Hayden, and I’ve thought about it so many times over the years, even came close to calling him but I saw him on TV beating a professional fighter to a pulp.