Ordinary Girl Read online

  Mrs. Chartwell and the Cat Burglar (A Russo Romantic Mystery: Book I)

  Trusting the Cat Burglar (A Russo Romantic Mystery: Book 2)

  Romancing the Cat Burglar (A Russo Romantic Mystery: Book 3)

  Good Enough

  Why Is There a Lemon in My Fruit Salad? How to Stay Sweet When Life Turns Sour

  A Kid at Heart: Becoming a Child of Our Heavenly Father

  Six Steps to Successful Publication: Your Guide to Getting Published

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Pamela Gossiaux. All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Visit the author’s website at: PamelaGossiaux.com

  First Printing, April 2019

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019903845

  ISBN 978-0-9987669-7-3 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-0-9987669-8-0 (ebook)

  Cover Design: llewellen Designs

  Editor: Roxanne M. Smith

  Formatter: Dallas Hodge, Everything But the Book

  Author Photo: Vera Davis Photography

  Published in the United States by Tri-Cat Publishing.

  To the survivors:

  May God grant you peace on your healing journey.

  And to those still lost in the world of human trafficking:

  May you find your way safely home.

  A note from the author:

  Heather’s story is fiction, but it is based on the true stories of girls and women who have been in the dark world of human trafficking. Because of that, if you have ever been a victim of sexual abuse, the subject matter and details might trigger some strong emotions. Please read with caution.

  At the end of this book is a list of resources. If you’re a victim of human trafficking or sexual abuse, or suspect someone else of being one, please reach out for help. Most of these help-lines are confidential.

  I sit on the edge of the motel bed and swallow the pill that will help me relax. My shaking hand sloshes the water in the glass.

  I am scared all the time.

  Fear is constantly clawing at my stomach. Sometimes it’s quiet. Sometimes it shouts at me. The pills help quiet its voice.

  There’s a single knock on the door, and it opens. A man walks in and my stomach flip-flops. He is here early, and the pill hasn’t had time to take effect yet. The last one wore off already.

  I’ve never seen this man before. Sometimes I get repeats, but he’s new. He’s dressed in wrinkled khaki pants and a button down. He looks cleaner than most, but not by much. His dark eyes drink me in and he smiles.

  “You’re Heather?”

  I don’t answer him. Instead, I start to shiver. Even though it’s warm in here, I’m freezing. The black slip I’m wearing isn’t enough.

  He hands me a crumpled up one-hundred-dollar bill. It’s sweaty from his hands. I toss it on the night stand.

  As he’s unzipping his pants, I lay down. We don’t talk. Most of them don’t. Some of them try to. Some hit me a few times. (Never in the face. That will show.) Most just want to get on with it.

  The motel room is dimly lit by a dirty lamp on the dresser. It doesn’t matter. I don’t look at him. I don’t want to look at him.

  He pulls my underwear off and presses himself down on top of me. The sheets smell of sweat and stale cologne and bodily fluids. He doesn’t care. They never do. They only care about one thing.

  I close my eyes and try to pretend I’m not me anymore. I try not to smell his stale breath on my face or feel what he is doing to me. It’s over quickly, and this one doesn’t want to stay. He stands, fixes his clothes and leaves. He is the last one of the day.

  I lay on my back and stare at the ceiling above me. There’s a tiny crack running across it. I wonder if it’s from the weight of the people above us, pounding away on their own bed. I want to cry, but the pill I took is working now, so I don’t need to.

  — — —

  Five minutes later Tommy walks into the room, opening the door so hard it bangs against the wall.

  Relief washes over me. I’m glad it’s him and not someone else.

  My stomach does that twisty thing inside that it used to do when I saw Jake Willis in the hallway at my high school, only not the same thing. It feels a bit more like the other twisty thing my stomach did right before tests.

  Tommy closes the door and stands there, staring at me, hands on hips.

  He loves me he loves he loves me. The words pound with my heart.

  Tommy is my pimp and he takes care of me. I hope he’s not angry today.

  He stalks over to the bed, and through the haze of drugs I’m starting to notice that he is angry at me. He knows. He knows I took the money.

  “Slut!” he grabs my hair and yanks me into a sitting position. The sudden jerk hurts my neck. “Thief!” He slaps me sharply across the face and my eyes start to water. Part of my brain feels the pain. The other part of it is wandering around in the fog.

  “I needed to buy condoms…” I begin, but he yanks on my hair.

  “You only need what I give you, do you understand?” He sits down so he is right next to me. I feel his breath on my face. It stinks of garlic.

  My eyes water more. That twisty feeling in my stomach is still there. I think I might throw up.

  “Do you understand?” He shouts it into my face, his spittle wetting my cheek. I nod.

  “Good.” He lets go of my hair, and I fall limply back onto the bed. “You have to work it off.” He gets up off the bed and finds my dress, crumpled on the floor. He throws it at me. “Get dressed. I’ll drop you off.”

  I sit up and reach for the dress, but he sits back down on the bed. He raises his hand, and I flinch, but then he tenderly strokes my cheek. “I know what’s best for you, right?” he says in a soft, overly sweet voice.

  I nod because he does. Because he will beat me if I say he doesn’t. The strap of my slip has fallen off of my shoulder. My right breast is exposed. Tommy puts his hand on the back of my neck and pulls me towards him, kissing me hard on the mouth. I taste blood from where he slapped me. Then he pushes me down and is on top of me. His weight is crushing me. I can feel his hands exploring, but I’m not really sure where. Part of me wants to fight through the drug’s haze, to get up, to run. But the other side of my brain tells me to stay put. It’s safer that way.

  “You love, me, right?” he whispers into my ear. The stubble on his face is rough. His hand reaches down and unzips his jeans.

  I can’t speak to answer him. His weight is too much. But I know that he loves me. He is here, touching me. Proving it. He gives me things. Money. Food. And drugs to make it all better. He will keep me safe.

  He’ll hurt me He’ll help me He’ll hurt me

  He pulls up my slip and I close my eyes, letting my mind take me somewhere else, giving into the pull of the drugs. They take me away, and I’m no longer aware of the man who is ripping out my soul.

  — — —

  When he is finished, we lay there in bed together, smoking. The joint he brought with him has something extra in it. I can feel it lifting me higher than usual. There’s a slight tingling sensation in my head. I’m trying to explore this feeling when he rolls over and sits up, taking the joint with him. He extinguishes it on the wooden headboard behind us. I smell burning plastics, and now there’s an ugly black spot in the fake wood.

  Tommy grabs the
crumpled one-hundred-dollar bill that is still laying on the dresser, knocking over the box of condoms in the process. Then he walks over to the chair and opens my purse, pulling out the money I made today. $1500. He stuffs it in his jacket pocket and zips it up.

  “Get dressed and get in the car,” he says. He leaves, shutting the door behind him. I find my underwear laying on the floor and put them on. Then I quickly pull on my dress. I’m a little wobbly from the drugs, and I almost fall over. But that’s okay. They make it okay.

  I leave and go down to the parking lot. It’s dark outside. Tommy is quiet when I get in the car. He doesn’t look at me and starts driving.

  “I want to go home,” I say, meaning the dirty house on Side Street that we live in. I don’t want to beg. But I do. Because I know what’s coming. “Please. I’ll pay you back for the money I took. I’ll find a way.”

  “You know the rules,” he says.

  He drives me to the corner of Burton and Straight. The shops are all boarded up. Across the street from us, a few people are leaning against the wall of what used to be a florist shop. They are smoking something. Tommy pulls up to the curb and stops the car. He looks at me. “Get to work.”

  I numbly open the car door and climb out. It’s early spring, and the wind is cold and biting through my dress. The kitten heels I’m wearing don’t give me much warmth, and I know that soon my feet will be freezing. As I shut the door, I look at Tommy one last time, hoping.

  Please.

  But he speeds away, leaving me standing alone on the corner, waiting for the next John to come along and buy me more time.

  ONE YEAR EARLIER

  The day started out normal enough, with no hint that I would have a boyfriend by the end of it. Or at least a crush. Me. The girl who doesn’t have time for boys or dating, because I’m trying to focus on academics. I want to get into Harvard Medical School and study neurology. With my already cram-packed schedule, who has time for dating? Plus, there’s all the drama that comes with it.

  So I steer clear of boys.

  It’s not that I don’t have opportunity. Josh Meyer asked me to homecoming last fall. I agreed to go with him, but in a group, and I made it clear it was completely platonic. Brittney said I was crazy. Josh is cute, and a forward on the basketball team. But, whatever.

  My morning classes are mostly APs, so I’m already loaded down with homework by the time I walk into the high school cafeteria and find a seat at our usual lunch spot. I reluctantly pull the bologna sandwich out of my lunch bag. It’s all we had last night when I packed it.

  Brittney walks over and plops down beside me, her lunch tray making a bang on the table.

  Brit and I have known each other since preschool. We met on the first day, when I saw her walk in with ebony skin and her hair in beautiful braids all over her head. They were twined with purple ribbon, my favorite color. I had to have mine done that way too and begged my mom for weeks until she finally gave in. I came to preschool one day with mine done the same way, having no idea that white girls didn’t usually wear their hair like that. We called ourselves princesses and have been best friends ever since.

  I take a bite of soggy bologna sandwich.

  “Did you hear Veronica was raped this weekend?” Brittney whispers into my ear.

  “What? Where?” This takes me quite by surprise, mostly because I forgot and left my phone on DO NOT DISTURB all morning. I glance at it and there are about a hundred texts and Snaps. I’m such an idiot. But seriously, Veronica has been dating Kevin Smart for two years. They’re exclusive. He’d protect her with his life. I think.

  “At a party. The kids got drunk, and somebody drugged her drink. Next thing she knew she woke up in a back bedroom and her clothes were half off.”

  I immediately look around to see if I can see Veronica. Then I’m ashamed by my curiosity. Poor Veronica. I can’t even imagine.

  “She’s not here,” Brittney says, reading me. “Her parents are pressing charges. She may not be back.”

  This is sad news. It’s our senior year and in just three short months we’ll graduate. Veronica is a nice girl and gets okay grades. I’d hate to see her miss graduation.

  “Who did it?” I ask, toying with the crust on my sandwich. My appetite is now gone.

  “Some of Kevin’s friends, apparently. They were all drunk.”

  I glance around once again. Kevin isn’t here either. I’m trying to determine which of his friends is missing, when Brittney’s boyfriend, Aaron, sits down next to us. Aaron is six-foot-two-inches tall (Brit measured him) and has light brown skin. He wears his hair really short and rolls his shirt sleeves up to show off his large arms. Brittney chose well.

  “What’s up?” he says, diving into his pizza, his appetite unaffected by recent events.

  “Didn’t you hear about Veronica?” I say.

  “What? Yes. Terrible. But not Kevin’s style. I’m guessing he wasn’t around.” He takes a huge bite and chews, his mouth now too full to speak. After a moment he says, “Pop quiz today in Mr. Montgomery’s class, girls.”

  “For real?” Brittney says. “Are you kidding me?”

  Aaron has Mr. Montgomery’s class second hour, so at lunchtime he always tells us what to expect. I’m not worried, but Brit immediately pulls her calculus book out and flips to the latest chapter.

  “You’ll be fine,” I say.

  “Not sure about that,” she says, reading over the textbook while she eats. I finish my bologna sandwich and pass on the blackening banana I brought with it.

  The bell rings, and we pick up our books and leave the discussion behind. Just like the real world, our little microcosm has left the bad news of Veronica behind and moved onto the next new crisis: our pop quiz in Calculus.

  I’m not too worried about it. I study hard because I want to leave this town behind and go to some upscale university. I’m really good at math and science, and my counselor says I should get some scholarships, based on my academic performance. I have one goal in life: to not end up like my mom.

  Dennis joins us. He’s the nerd of our group. He joined our table after Aaron stopped the football team from giving him a swirly in the guys’ locker room during our sophomore year. Dennis apparently calculated a program to break the passwords of the football players’ Gmail accounts. He cracked seventy percent of them. It might have been cooler if he hadn’t used this info on a Power Point for his advanced technology class project.

  “I predict Mr. Montgomery will put derivatives on today’s quiz,” Dennis says as we head to our lockers. I sigh. That’s the one concept I’m struggling with.

  “Did you hear about Veronica?” I ask, because he got to our table late. We’ve sort of adopted Dennis. He’s a decent guy, but he doesn’t really have anybody else. He can’t keep his nose out of a book, and he’s more interested in writing code than making friends.

  “Yes,” he says. Of course. Everybody has heard but me.

  “People will blame her,” Dennis says. “For drinking. For partying. They’ll say ‘if only’, and the bastards who did the deed will be slapped on the wrist. Then they’ll all turn eighteen and it’ll be expunged from their records. She’ll be forever changed, but someday one of them will run for office, and she can sink them on national television.”

  Dennis has a way of being precise. If not sympathetic. I close my locker and head to class, thinking about how Veronica’s life is forever changed.

  — — —

  Turns out Dennis was right about derivatives being on the calculus quiz, but I think I did okay on it anyway. I have an appointment with my counselor now, so I head to her office.

  “Heather!” she says brightly from behind her desk. Ms. Neilson’s room is emblazoned in our purple and gold school colors, and she has inspirational signs all over the place.

  I close the door and take a seat in the chair in front of her desk. “All our dreams can come true…if we have the courage to pursue them.” is staring at me from a chunky block of wood sittin
g to my left.

  “How can I help you today?” Ms. Neilson asks.

  “Michigan deferred me.” It’s not a rejection, exactly. But it’s not an acceptance either. It’s a “let’s wait and see if we get anybody better.”

  She shuffles some papers and opens my file.

  “So U of C and Stanford have not accepted you. Michigan has deferred you. Still waiting on Harvard?”

  I nod. My stomach flip-flops. “What if I don’t get in?”

  Ms. Neilson glances at my file again, as if she doesn’t have it half-memorized because I’ve been in here so many times. After each rejection, I come to visit her.

  She looks up at me, her eyes gone all tender. Like a sympathetic look will help me in any way.

  “Realistically, I think you need to prepare for that,” she says.

  I wonder if she has even read the quote on her own plaque.

  “But my grades—” I begin.

  My grades suck. They suck and I know this.

  “Realistically, A minuses and a B plus are just not enough for what you want to do,” she says. I wish she’d stop using the word “realistically.” The University of Michigan was “realistically” my last good chance. “Your ACT and SAT scores are remarkable, but not at the top.”

  Since when isn’t a 1500 on the SAT good enough? Or an ACT of 31? How much more do I have to do? Stupid idiot schools.

  She closes my file. “Heather, there are plenty of other good schools out there who would love to have you. And it’s undergrad! You can work hard and reapply to these others later for medical school. It’s not the end of the world.”

  But those “other schools” aren’t options either, it seems. So far nobody has offered me a full ride. Small scholarships, yes, but not a full ride. We don’t have the money.