My first day home wasn't so bad. My mother and John had taken me shopping and out to dinner. But after all those months of eating state food, a normal meal had my stomach tore up. My room still looked the way I had left it. Ray J, Nelly, Snoop Dogg, and of course, T.I. posters covered my walls and doors. My bed was neatly made and all my old clothes still hung in the closet. It actually felt good being home.
For the next six months, things seemed normal. I had gotten a job at Applebee’s as a waitress and was saving up my money so I could buy me a car. My mom and John said they would go half when I got my license. I signed up for driver’s education classes to speed up the process. My mother said I was kind of a strange teenager because I didn't like to go anywhere. While all the other girls my age were worrying about shopping, gold-diggin' and the finest boys, I occupied my time by reading books.
I was happy with my life up until the Friday night my mother called home and said she was forced to work a double shift.
"Momma, how come you can't have somebody else work for you?" I asked her, wanting her to come home so I wouldn't have to be alone with John.
"Hayden, you're seventeen, so stop actin' like a child. It's my turn to do a double. Now you know the more I work, the quicker you can get your car," she said, hoping to cheer me up.
"Okay, Momma, I love you."
"I love you too, now put John on the phone."
I walked into my mother's room, where John was doing what he did best; laying down and watching television, which was all I’d ever known him to do. “Momma want you on the phone.” I threw the phone on the bed and walked out. I still couldn't stand the sight of John, and I didn’t know how much longer I could take pretending that everything was good when it was anything but. If it was left up to me, he would have been dead a long time ago.
I climbed in my bed and began watching television to try to stay awake until my mother got home. Even though John hadn't tried to do anything to me since my returning home, I still wasn't comfortable with falling asleep while I was alone with him. I had caught him staring at me a few times, so for protection I kept a butcher knife under my pillow just in case.
That night while my mother worked a double, I stayed up and watched sitcom after sitcom until my eyes started getting heavy. I tried to fight the sleep head up, but sleep won. I was out like a light.
"Hayden, wake up," I heard someone say.
I was so groggy and tired, I couldn’t catch the voice. "Momma, is that you?" I asked as I tried to get focused.
"Naw, it's me, John.”
I sat up quickly and snatched the comforter up to my chin. "What you want in here?" I snapped, angrily. "Get outta my room before I tell my momma what you’ve done to me," I warned, hoping he would get scared and leave.
"You think yo’ momma gon' believe that I would touch her little psycho daughter?" He laughed and snatched my comforter off of me, throwing it to the floor. “Come, on, girl. It’s been a minute. I’ve missed you. Didn’t you miss me?”
"I’m not playin' wit' you, John. You betta get outta my room!" I yelled. Tears filled my eyes as I prepared myself for what was about to happen next. John pulled his boxers down to his ankles and stepped out of them.
"Please, John, get out," I begged, frantically.
"Now we can do this the hard way or the easy way. It's up to you," he said.
"I don't wanna do it no way. Please, just leave." Tears began to fall at a steady pace.
"Don't cry. Just lay back and take it, Princess," he said, climbing in my bed.
I did what I was told. I laid back and placed my hands behind my head as he climbed on top of me and began sucking on my breast.
"Yeah, that's it," he said. "You like this don't you?"
I nodded my head in the affirmative as I grabbed the butcher knife with my right hand.
"Tell me how much you like it?" he moaned.
"No, I'll show you how much I like it," I said calmly as I swung the knife from under the pillow and stuck it right in his neck.
I could see the terror in John's face as he tried to pull the knife from his neck. I pushed him off of me and he rolled to the floor. I got out of bed and stood over him and watched as he gasped for air.
"I hope you die," I yelled with a vengeance as I watched John fight for his worthless life. For a moment there I was enjoying watching this man die right before my eyes, but then I snapped back to reality.
My momma gon' kill me if I let this fool die, I thought as I ran into the living room to dial 911. After talking with the 911 operator and being told help was on the way, I sat on the couch and waited for the paramedics to arrive. Someone at the hospital must have alarmed my mother of the 911 call to our house, because she arrived at home the same time as the paramedics pulled up.
I watched out the front window as I saw my momma running into the house, with the paramedics in tow. I shook my head when I saw the three cop cars pull up. I knew I was in trouble once again, but this time I couldn’t have cared less. It was self-defense. No way could they lock me up for defending myself against that pervert.
"What happened, Hayden?" My momma screamed once she made it into the house.
"Ma'am, where's the victim?" one of the paramedics asked me before I could answer my mother.
All I could do was point toward my bedroom and watch as they went to John’s aide. My mother was right behind them.
I sat on the couch in silence as John was rushed out to the ambulance, my mother once again right behind them. She didn't even stick around to find out what had happened; that I had stabbed John or why I’d stabbed him. Tears fell as I watched her climb into the back of the ambulance. I had no remorse for what I had done. In fact, it felt good sticking that knife in John's neck. If I had to do it all over again, I probably woulda swung even harder and not dialed 911.
Even though Momma didn’t hang around to find out the details, the police certainly did. After I was questioned by the police, and told them everything that went down, they arrested me anyways. They said something about me having a past of getting in trouble and the chance of me perhaps staging everything to make it look like John attacked me. Nonetheless, they said it was proper procedure that they take me in for further questioning. Some luck, after being questioned a second time, they took me right back to the detention center. I sat in my room and cried like a baby, because my momma was so occupied with John's well-being, she didn't even know I was locked up. I also cried because I knew that if John didn’t make it, and with me being seventeen, they could charge me as an adult and I could end up in grown-folk jail.
It was Friday, which meant I would have to spend the entire weekend locked up, because I couldn’t be arraigned until Monday. A C/O gladly reminded me of that. Sadly, I found out from Saturday's paper that John didn't die. I was so disappointed after reading the article about the stabbing; I picked up my chair and threw it across the activity room. Several C/ O's rushed me, restrained me, and put me in the hole until it was time for me to go to court. I just wanted to die. If God cared anything about me at all, why wouldn’t He just let me die?