The Truth of Things Read online

  The Truth of Things

  The Truth Duet: Book One

  Tasha L. Harrison

  Copyright © 2017 by Tasha L. Harrison

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book cover design: Bad Star Media/badstarmedia.com

  The Truth of Things/ Tasha L. Harrison. -- 1st ed.

  ISBN 9781975947736

  Other Titles by Tasha L. Harrison

  THE LUST DIARIES

  THE TRUTH DUET

  Coming soon…

  THE BAD IN EACH OTHER

  a small town romance

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  Love does not begin and end

  the way we seem to think it does.

  Love is a battle,

  love is a war;

  love is a growing up.

  ―James Baldwin

  Chapter One

  The earliest and most vivid memory I had of my mother, Lorraine Greene, was both awesome and terrifying.

  I was six years old.

  Lorraine had just finished her twelve-hour shift at Cooper University Hospital where she worked as an emergency room nurse. I usually hung out at the nurse’s station until my mother finished up on the nights I was with her. After a quick dinner in the hospital cafeteria, we would head home.

  It was cold out that night.

  Snow and rock salt crunched under our shoes as we made our way from the bus stop to our apartment. My mother was tired, but she held my hand; moved us along at a quick clip, glancing back every few steps or so to peer down each alley we passed.

  But somehow they still got the drop on us.

  Looking back, I realize that they were just boys, but to my six-year-old mind, they had seemed as big and menacing as grown men. They blocked the sidewalk and maneuvered in front of my mother every time she tried to get by them.

  “Really, fellas? You gonna do this with my baby right here?” she had pleaded.

  What this was, I wasn’t sure, but I remembered the boy’s sneer when he said, “Shit…ain’t my motherfucking kid.”

  When he said that, Lorraine had pushed me behind her, guarding me with her body. “Well, you done fucked with the right one.”

  Then I’d heard the flick of her opening the knife that she always carried in her left pocket. Within moments she’d had the tallest of the two pinned against the wall, the blade at his neck.

  “Mommy!” I’d shrieked, confused by what was happening.

  “Don’t be scared, baby,” Lorraine had said, her voice so calm that I settled immediately. When she looked at me, the ferocity I saw in her eyes made me feel safe.

  “Mommy’s got this,” she had said with a reassuring smile.

  My mother was slight but strong. Every day she lifted things that seemed impossible for someone her size to lift. She used that strength every day in the ER to lift and maneuver the bodies of the sick and wounded. That night, she had used that strength to hold that boy in place as he fought against her.

  It was hard to say what happened next. All I knew was that with a quick flick of her wrist, blood poured over the boy's coat.

  “You crazy!” he had screeched, grabbing at his neck.

  “That wound is superficial, but come at me and my baby again, and I’ll make sure you need more than a few stitches,” she’d growled, pointing the bloodied blade at him for emphasis.

  “Come on, man,” the other boy had said while dragging his wild-eyed friend away.

  My mother had grabbed my hand while we watched the two boys run away—back in the direction we’d come from. It wasn’t until they were completely out of sight that she dropped down to her knees and hugged me, adrenaline racing through her body, making her quake.

  From that night on we’d varied our route home.

  I thought of Lorraine now as I neared Lin’s Chinese Food. Corner boys loitered around the doors. I debated taking a four-block detour to get to my place even though it was literally a block and a half from where I stood but quickly abandoned it.

  “Fuck that, I’m tired,” I muttered out loud, then dug my knife and my mace out of my bag.

  Lengthening my stride, I gripped the handle of my knife in my right hand and flipped the guard on the mace in my left.

  All of this could have been avoided. Yves and Elijah had invited me to stay the night at his place. I could be there now, safely tucked in his son’s Star Wars sheets, pretending like I didn’t hear him and Yves fucking. But I was tired and halfway drunk, and I’d met my tolerance for playing the third wheel around the time they started necking every time I had my head turned. I wanted the comfort of my lumpy bed and maybe a couple of rounds with B.O.B that would send me floating into la-la-land on a healthy dose of oxytocin. But to get that lumpy bed and that session with my battery operated boyfriend, I had to pass by these corner boys.

  I lived on the north side of Camden near Rutgers University just a few blocks from the reach of gentrification. That didn’t bother me, though. I was born and raised here. Alert and hyper-vigilant, I’d walked these streets all of my life. But hyper-vigilance created a specific sort of fatigue that I have only seen in other inhabitants of neighborhoods like mine. That fatigue was called I-wish-a-muthafucka-would. It was exactly this fatigue that made me dismiss the thought of doubling back and walking nearly four blocks out of my way to avoid these corner boys when my apartment was within sight.

  Head down and hands fisted around my weapons, I barreled down the sidewalk, hoping they were distracted enough for me to sneak by them.

  Weed smoke hung in a cloud around them, and they gripped paper bagged bottles in their hands as they spoke in loud, exaggerated voices about hip-hop or basketball—I couldn’t tell which. From my peripheral vision, I saw their focus shift toward me as I passed.

  “Ayyyyeee, short-eee,” came the first catcall.

  I ignored it, hoping they would accept the rejection and just move on. Just need to make it to the corner.

  “Aye, didn’t you hear me talking to you?”

  A hand on my waist—far too low on my waist—attempted to halt my progress. I sidestepped, pushing him away.

  “Aye, don’t be like that.”

  He grabbed my ass. Suddenly the cut-off shorts that had been appropriate for the blazing early summer humidity seemed like the worst wardrobe choice ever.

  “Just let me go, a’ight?” I said. It was damn near a plea. I hated to hear that sound in my own voice. “It’s late, and I’m tired.”

  “Nah, not until you talk to me.”

  He wheeled me around, and I looked him in the eyes. I knew this guy. This corner had several regulars. Some of them were good guys in bad situations, but I haven’t seen this one in a while. Our last encounter was similar—full of barely checked sexual aggression. Maybe he’d been locked up or something, but here he was forcing himself on me. Again.

  He bullied me into the alcove of Lin’s and pressed himself against me. “Mm. You feel good. When you gonna give me that number, girl?”
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  I gave him a hard shove. “Keep your fucking hands off me,” I warned, then tried again to make it to my apartment. But before I could even step around him, he grabbed me by my elbow and yanked me back into the corner.

  “I told you what you need to do. Gimme that number.”

  “I ain’t giving you shit.” I wiped out my can of mace and aimed it right between his eyes.

  “Whoa!” He backed up with his hands up. “You gone mace me?”

  “Are you gonna make me mace you?”

  The boy had the damn nerve to grin. “You got some gangsta in you. I like that.”

  The door bumped against my back and swung open. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw two more guys step out onto the sidewalk.

  “Shit,” I cursed under my breath, assuming that more of his buddies were going to either aid in his street harassment or stand idly by while he groped me.

  “Aye! The fuck goin’ on out here?” a familiar voice questioned.

  Oh, thank God. “Emil!” I said a little too enthusiastically, reaching for him like he was my white knight…or Puerto Rican knight. Whatever.

  Emiliano was a good kid. Despite his chosen profession, he was decent and almost sweet. I bought weed from him sometimes. Not once in the five years that I have lived here has he catcalled or grabbed me. I realized that was setting the bar pretty low, but unfortunately, him being polite and gentlemanly was remarkable.

  “Do you know this guy?” I asked.

  “Unfortunately,” Emil grumbled looking the dude up and down. “The fuck is your problem, yo?”

  “This your broad or somethin’?”

  “No, but that don’t give you license to disrespect her.”

  “If it ain’t ya broad, I don’t see why you give a fuck.”

  “I give a fuck ‘cause Ava is good people.” Emiliano sneered at the other dude. “Out here harassing women and shit. You don’t need to be bringing this sort of negativity to my corner, Khalid.”

  “Your corner?” The boy Khalid walked right up to Emil and squared up. “You think that just because I’ve been gone for a minute that you can claim this as yours?”

  “I ain’t gotta claim shit. I know it’s mine and everybody around here knows it, too.”

  “You really tryin’ to take it there, son? Over some bitch?”

  Seeing that the situation was about to escalate to a place that it didn’t need to go, I stepped between the two of them and looked Emil right in the eye. “Don’t do this. It’s not that serious.”

  “Nah, Ava. He shouldn’t be puttin’ his hands on you.”

  “It’s over. I’m fine. Let it go.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Listen to ya bitch before you get handled,” Khalid threatened, punctuating his words by jabbing his index finger into Emil's forehead.

  My pulse kicked up as I watched Emil's brow furrow. “Emil—” But there was nothing I could say after that. Nothing I could do. Emil shoved me to the side and was on him.

  Pinned between the door of the restaurant and their brawling bodies, I had no room to get away. Despite my pleas, none of the other dudes made a move to stop them.

  Khalid may have instigated the fight, but Emil was getting the best of him. He refused to take the beating lying down, though. Khalid took each blow full on the chin until his mouth and nose were bloodied which only seemed to infuriate Emil. I pressed my back into the corner and silently prayed that it would end at fists and not escalate to gunfire.

  Just when it seemed like Emil might actually beat Khalid into a coma, sirens blared, and blue lights whirled as a black and white came to a skidding stop—damn near jumping the curb. The other corner boys scattered, running in opposite directions so that when the female cop jumped out with her gun drawn, she didn’t even bother to pursue them. That left Emil and Khalid who had just barely let off each other when the female cop bellowed, “Get on the ground!”

  I wish I could say that I was relieved to see her, but to me, it felt like another gang had rolled up. One that was just as unpredictable as the boys with their bellies on the sidewalk.

  “Are you hard of hearing?” the female cop asked stepping toward me with her gun aimed at my chest. “That means you, too, little sweetie!”

  “What?” I asked, raising my hands reflexively. “I was just—”

  “Get your ass down before I put a hole in your chest!”

  My knees and bowels both damn near liquified and the ground rose up to meet me. Tears triggered by fear and anger burned my eyes and swelled my throat.

  “Aye, man. She ain’t do nothin’. You can let her go—”

  “Is this your little girlfriend? That’s sweet, but nobody gives a fuck. Hands on your head!” she shouted, punctuating her order with a kick to Emil's ribs.

  “Nah, I’m just sayin’ you ain’t gotta detain her. She ain’t done nothin’.”

  “Officer,” I began, my voice trembling. “I was just going home when—”

  The female cop grabbed a fistful of my braids and yanked my head back to an unnatural angle that was so painful it stole my breath.

  “Shut. The fuck. Up,” she growled in my ear, before shoving my face back into the concrete hard enough to make me see stars.

  Oh, fuck.

  Was this really happening?

  My pulse thumped in my ears as I realized how much danger we were in. This female cop was here alone with us, and she had her gun drawn. Anything could set her off. Anything could make her fear for her life and justify putting a bullet in any one of us.

  Real panic gripped me, and I broke into a cold sweat as she tore my bag of photography gear from my arm and rifled through it. While she was doing that, another black and white pulled up, and male officer hopped out.

  “What’s good, Stevenson?”

  His presence was welcome because I didn’t know what she would’ve done had she been alone with us any longer.

  “Rolled up on these two fighting,” Stevenson said. “She was just standing around and watching. You wanna deal with those two?”

  “I got you.”

  The female officer continued to search my bag. Her boots bracketed my ribs, steel toes threatening to dig in while she sifted through its contents.

  “Expensive camera equipment in here. Are you trying to sell it for drugs?”

  “No. I’m a photographer for The Philadelphian. My press pass is in the front pocket next to my wallet.”

  She let the bag drop to the ground, and I cringed at the sound of my gear rattling around.

  “Ava Marie Greene,” she read from my license. She shuffled through the contents of my wallet then looked at my press pass before she searched my jacket pockets. “Just a small knife and a can of bear mace,” she said to the other cop with a note of disappointment. “Stay down,” she ordered, then dropped my emptied wallet on the ground next to my bag; scattering my cards and cash across the pavement with the toe of her boot before she moved on to search Emil.

  Emil turned his head to face me. “You okay?” he mouthed.

  I nodded.

  “Ahhhh….what’s this?” the female cop crowed, pulling a fat nug of weed out of Emil's front pocket.

  He closed his eyes and cursed under his breath, regret softening his body.

  “I do believe that’s enough to put you in handcuffs, young boy,” Stevenson crowed. She wrenched his arms behind his back, making him wince as she slapped the cuffs on his wrists.

  The fact that she was taking so much pleasure in this made my stomach turn.

  “This one’s got a gun!” the male cop barked.

  “I got you, Raymond,” Stevenson said. She immediately unholstered her gun to cover her colleague while he cuffed Khalid.

  The male cop, she called him Raymond, pulled the weapon out of Khalid’s waistband, dropped the clip, and ejected the extra round before placing it on the hood of his cruiser.

  “All right. Get ‘em up,” he said.

  They pulled the two boys to their feet and sat them on the curb.


  “Shit, I didn’t cuff her,” Stevenson said, heading toward me again.

  “Nah, I got her. Call for a wagon.” He came and stood next to me. “You can get up, miss.”

  Shaking, I pushed myself up onto my knees and sat back on my heels to dust the grit off of my clothes. Gingerly, I touched my cheek where the lady cop had smashed my face into the cement. It felt raw, but she hadn’t broken the skin.

  “You all right?” he asked, bending down to offer me a hand.

  I knocked his hand away. “I’m fine.” With trembling hands, I gathered up the emptied contents of my wallet, grabbed my bag, and stood up. “Can I go?”

  “As soon as you tell me what happened here,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “I was…I was just walking home when that guy Khalid grabbed me and manhandled me.” My voice wavered as I began to realize everything that had transpired. I could’ve been raped within steps of my home. And when I the cops pulled up, I could have died tonight. My stomach clenched like it was going to empty all the bad whiskey and beer I drank earlier onto the sidewalk. I closed my eyes and took three deep breaths.

  You’re okay. You’re okay…

  Unexpectedly, the weight of the cop’s hand dropped on my shoulder. “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice gentle and far too close to me.

  “I’m okay,” I said, but even I could hear the robotic sound in my voice.

  “You sure?” He squeezed my shoulder gently.

  I jerked away from him and stepped back a couple of feet. “Yeah…I’m fine. Uh…where was I?”

  “You were just walking home,” he said.

  “Right. And that guy, Khalid manhandled me. Emiliano came out of the Lin’s to stop him, and they got into a fight.”

  “And how do you know these men?”

  “They’re always out here. I know Emil. We speak now and again. I’m not so friendly with Khalid.”

  “Hm,” he said with a nod. “And what were you doing out here tonight? Were you about to buy that weed in the light skinned one’s pocket?”