Chapter 12

Silence. The heavy metal Randy preferred screamed from the speakers of the small radio but from the three coworkers. Silence.

Taylor pulled away from the guys. She took it upon herself to grab the hand trucks and stack it with the big boxes of imperfect towels and she headed over to the shelves. John and Randy could handle what fell out of the wall and into the bin. She was tired of both of them staring with fire in their eyes.

She opened the first box and began to sort the bags. When she went to put them away on the shelves, she found them unorganized. She and Randy had never done it after that day he had cornered her. She decided she would spend the rest of the shift organizing and stacking. She needed the time to herself.

"Boo!" Randy popped out from around the corner when she headed to the back rack.

"Go away."

"It's break time." He told her.

"Go ahead. I don't really feel like it." She walked past him and stood on her tip toes to place a pack of washcloths with their color and style.

"You have to take a break. I know you're dying for a cigarette."

Taylor dropped what she was doing, pulled a pack of cigarettes from her breast pocket and lit it. She shrugged as if to say "Happy now" then bent down and retrieved her packages and went on her way.

Randy leaned against the shelves and watched her walk away. He smoked a cigarette of his own and smiled. He shook his head.

"Why me?" Taylor rounded the corner, full of fire and rage. "Huh? What is it about me that makes men think they can just … Just?"

"Just what Taylor?" Randy remained collected.

"You know what!" she screamed and shoved him. "Why am I your target? Why was I his target? Is it something I do? What!" Again she shoved him into the shelf.

"You really expect and answer to that?"

"Yes!" she screeched. "Just tell me! Is it because I'm weaker than you? Weaker than most women? Tell me!" she slapped him. At that moment she saw him as every man who had ever hurt her physically, emotionally, and mentally. She was angry and upset. Men had ruined her life and they continued to complicate what little life she had left.

Randy's nostrils flared. He held his head to the side after taking her abuse. Taylor had a way of igniting fires the fire inside of him. But that was not always a good thing because sometimes she provoked a rage inside of him. It never failed. She pushed him to the edge and threatened to shove him past the point of no return.

"I damn sure don't consider you weak." He spoke in a slow, threatening tone. The muscles in his cheeks jumping. "I think … you're just scared."

"Scared? You just want me to be scared."

"Damn." Randy could not resist the urge. Part of him wanted to knock her to the ground. He had to fight the urge to defend himself. Taylor was not a man that could kill him in his sleep if he did not install fear in him. Taylor was a woman. A beautiful woman that had a right to be angry at him. He could not keep acting towards her as he had treated every other inmate he encountered. He was shaking. Holding back his rage was near impossible.

"Oh, now you want to walk away from me?" Taylor stormed after him, grabbing his arm and turning him, making him face her. "Big tough Viper. You're so strong when I'm trapped beneath you! I hate you!" she swung again, but he grabbed her hands then quickly released them. "I hate you!" she beat on his chest.

"Hate me then!" he screamed at her. "Go ahead! You wouldn't be the first!"

Taylor leaned against the shelves, tired from the fight.

"I just want to remain pure … It's the only thing … that makes me a good person."

"That's bullshit, Taylor." He challenged. "You don't give a damn about saving yourself for marriage. Just tell the truth. You were attacked and now you're scared. Don't sit there and hide behind …"

"I'm not hiding behind anything. I'm not …"

"Well you better find a new way to push guys away, because you're technically not a virgin anymore. I had you." He spat in her ear. He knew she had stopped him when he had just barely entered himself inside of her, but he still enjoyed it.

"I guess you can just add me to your list then."

"It would be a short list." Randy laughed.

"Sure."

"I told you. Barbie was the only girl I've been with."

"What happened?" She felt like she had to know the entire story.

"She dumped me."

"Why?" Taylor was sure she knew why.

"A bunch of stupid crap." He sighed and sat down on the floor. "My mom got sick. She couldn't work and the landlord was banging on our door every day. Sometimes several times a day. There was my mother, huddled on the sofa covering up head and sobbing." Randy laughed a little. "My mom was always so strong. Seeing her like that … and then my sister was three at the time and she was crying bloody murder. Hungry. I still had two months before I turned sixteen and I could get a regular job. So I went out and tried to find some way of making money. I begged everyone I came to. Shop keepers. I banged on peoples doors asking if I could do their yard work anything. But they all said no. It was dark on the way home and cold. We had no heat. Our electricity had been shut off. I walked past this Italian restaurant and looked in the window and there was my old man sitting at a table eating a pizza with some girl half his age."

Taylor looked at the floor. She knew Randy thought a lot of her to tell her his story. He never told it to anyone.

"I was so angry and my anger sometimes I can't control it. I black out sometimes and I don't know what I'm doing. But I held it together and I walked up to him and I told him off. I told his girl that his kids were starving while he was out having a good time. I asked him if he had anything to spare to feed his three year old daughter. You know what he said?" Taylor shook her head.

"He said he didn't have any kids and suggested I leave before he had me thrown out." Randy brushed his hand across his face and she knew he was trying to hide the fact that a tear had escaped. "On the way home, all I could think about was how cold it was going to be that night. It was going to snow and I remembered … I remembered this stuff we learned in school about the cold and how easy it was to die in icy conditions and here I had a three year old and a sick woman with no heat or food to help their bodies produce heat. We had exactly three blankets and they were thin and worn out. For a split second I was desperate. I stood outside this convenience store for like an hour and then I just went inside, put my hand in my jacket and told the woman I had a gun. She put the money in a brown paper bag and handed it to me. It was a good bit. There was this guy at the ATM and I told him to put his money in the bag too. He only had like twenty dollars but he was driving a freaking Porsche when I knew my mother probably worked twice as hard as he ever did. It wasn't fair. I don't think I even thought about what I was really doing until I got home. I had bags full of groceries and blankets and stuff. I bought some wood for the wood stove and my mother just stared at me with her mouth open. She knew I had done something bad."

"I was arrested the next morning. And Barbie, she did not understand at all. After a year of dating and talking she did not even try to understand why I did it. The following month she found out she was pregnant. By then her parents had already said plenty about what they thought of me. But they only knew I was a boy who attended her school. Barbie always kept me a secret from them because … I don't know I guess because of how poor I was. Her father was a pretty well off. I guess I wasn't good enough. Instead of telling her parents she was knocked up by the criminal they had ranted about and having them angry at her, she told them I raped her. Of course they never questioned if she was telling the truth because people like me, growing up where I did, was nothing but trouble anyway."

Taylor searched his eyes. How could she take his story as the truth?


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