Just like any other city, the beauty of Chicago lies within the eye of the beholder. Despite the horrors that marked every local news outlet, to the natives, Chicago proved to go beyond the dozens of senseless tragedies.
For Carter Pearce, it was he...
CARTER AMAHLE PEARCE-JACKSON, 22 NEWARK, NEW JERSEY FEBRUARY 14th — 6 a.m.
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Heart-shaped chocolates from those you love the most. Trails of rose petals to lead you to the sweetness between the sheets. Pink and red cards filled with affirmations that the foundation you've built can weather any storm.
Valentine's Day. A day of love for many, but for Carter, the start of resurrection. There were only four specific days of each year where she could guarantee that Jules would be more lenient on his harsh practices— her birthday, his birthday, Christmas, and Valentine's Day. Therefore, today would be the day she'd take her first major step to getting away. After four years, she was finally going home. The fairytale life she had imagined as a teenager was far from the life she had endured.
Carter could recall being young and dumb at sixteen— she had her first job, too many no good friends, and was slowly beginning to enjoy the male attention she got. But there was only ever one guy who truly ever stuck out to her, the man who swept her off her feet, Jules. He was way too old for her at the time, twenty-three to be exact, but it only made her like him even more. She thought he was mature in comparison to the boys she went to school with, and he was willing to show her a life they weren't able to.
He took her on her first date, taught her how to drive, brought her gifts, introduced her to sex, loved her for some time, and eventually married her. He was her first love; her first heartache.
The relationship bloomed unbeknownst to her mother, and on the day Carter turned eighteen, he had convinced her to run away with him and elope. It was perfect in her eyes— she had just graduated, Jules was well off to support the both of them with the money he made in the streets, and her mother always told her that there was nothing in the world that was more powerful than love, so why not?
She left a voicemail on her mother's phone that day, and insisted she would eventually be back to see them, with calls to follow up. There were a few calls within the first month, but they had suddenly stopped once the second month came. And it soon became clear to her mother, Shaunie, that her daughter wasn't coming home anytime soon.
Carter thought she was running off to have a life with the love of her life, but she had only opened the door to her hell on earth. Jules was so well off with the money he made in the streets, and things he did that Carter didn't know about, he was able to move her into a secluded home in the middle of Newark, New Jersey. He had her right where he wanted her.
After one month of marriage, Carter's dream home had turned into her prison. It was as if a switch had been flipped. Jules was suddenly more demanding— he didn't like it when she left the house, ate certain foods, talked to him with certain tones, missed out on chores around the home, or even breathed too loudly. It wasn't until the day she had finally tried to leave that she realized there was no way out. The day Jules had stopped holding back the urge to hit her, was the day he let it be known that she couldn't leave him. But four years later, and the joke was now on him, because Carter was going home.
