Euphoria

By Kesha Denice

No one would have ever expected the unpredictable chain of events that caused Teena Woods to abandon her morals and values and travel down a dark path that led her into a world filled with crime, drugs, and prostitution. . .

Teena Woods was an over protected, naive small town girl with an optimistic future. In high school she had the perfect boyfriend; she earned a four-year scholarship to the college of her choice and she had her future mapped out. Life for Teena was complete, and then she was betrayed.

Ignoring her pain, Teena takes a blind leap into a world full of self-destruction. Unable to break free from an obsession of love, she allows her innocence to be stolen, her trust to be misused and her body to be abused. She is forced to find the courage and the inner strength to turn her life around when she realizes she could be responsible for claiming the life of an innocent victim.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kesha Denice
• Release date: Jan 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452466972

Kesha Denice

A native of Chicago, IL, Kesha was born on January 12, 1975, to Ray and Valerie Harrell. In 1980 her family moved to Galesburg, IL, where she discovered her love for writing in the third grade. She participated in the Young Authors writing contest and submitted a short story titled The Case of the Missing Coin, which earned her third place.Kesha's family moved to Bloomington, IL in 1983. From 1989 - 1993 she attended Normal Community High School where she was Co-Editor for the school newspaper. Kesha had many articles published, and earned a Blue Ribbon Award for her Editorial writing. She went on to attend a junior college to pursue a career in Journalism. After completing her first year, she placed her education on hold to marry and start a family.In 1995 Kesha returned to school part time and held a variety of interesting jobs. In 2001 she was hired at a Fortune 500 Insurance Company and once again put her education on hold. Determined to finish what she started, she returned to school in 2006 and simultaneously balanced working and going to school full-time. In 2008 she graduated from the University of Phoenix with a Bachelor's of Science in Business Management.Kesha spends her spare time on her true passion, writing fiction. She is a talented writer and has a unique ability to take a fraction of truth and put a realistic, yet fictional twist to her story that leaves her readers wondering what's real and what's not. She develops her characters in a way that will have you loving them one minute and hating them the next. Her stories are guaranteed to capture your attention from the very start, all the way through to the end.

Book preview

Prologue

My life is an open book…

There was a time when I questioned whether I would live past the age of 25. In the few years that I’ve been on this Earth, I’ve probably played more, seen more, and experienced more than most people I know.

I had a typical childhood. My sister Paige and I were only 15 months apart, so we had a very close relationship growing up. We were raised by two very loving parents who worked hard to make sure we had everything we needed. We weren’t rich by any means, but we weren’t poor either. We were content and didn’t want for anything. By the time we were teenagers, my parents had started making enough money to not only fulfill our needs but also provide us with some of the extra things in life.

I wanted them to know how much I appreciated everything they did to make sure I had a good life, so I studied hard and stayed on the honor roll throughout junior high and high school. On top of consistently maintaining a high grade point average, I was also active in every sport I had time to be involved in. I wanted to make my parents proud, so instead of wondering who was who, who was dating whom and what the latest fashion trend was, I was busy working toward building a successful future.

By the time I graduated from high school, I had received a four -year basketball scholarship to the college of my choice. My parents were so proud of me. I will never forget the look on their faces when I told them the news. I was going to play my way through college and earn a degree in child psychology and eventually open my own practice and help children who suffered abuse or neglect or any other type of traumatic event. I was well on my way. Never in a million years did I think my life would take the turn it did. This is my story…

Chapter One

June 19th, 2010: The Wedding

Standing before me is a beautiful woman who traveled down a long and treacherous path to get here. She looks so young and carefree. Her face, perfectly round; her skin, flawless; and her eyes, so green they could be mounted and worn as a piece of jewelry. Her gorgeous mane of red hair flows from the top of her head down to her shoulders like hot molten lava from a volcano. The satin white wedding dress, that took her months to find, hung just right, accentuating each of her curves.

I turn to the side to admire my reflection from a different angle. I am happy with what I see. I am happy with who I am. I am happy with who I am about to become within the next couple of hours, Mrs. Teena Dixon.

I face forward and lean into the mirror and ask my reflection, How did I get here?

Surely you don’t want to relive that path!

I turned around to see who answered my rhetorical question.

Hi Shayna! I said greeting my best friend with open arms.

Hey Tee. You look so pretty! she said as I engulfed her with a hug that only I can give.

Okay, you can let go! She laughed, struggling to escape my grasp.

Teena, I am so proud of you. She grabbed my hands and stared at me. You should be proud of yourself. You’ve come such a long way! Just look at you now!

Shayna and I had known each other since the fourth grade, but our friendship flourished when we both made the freshman basketball team. My parents adored Shayna. They treated her like she was a daughter. When they would show up to our basketball games — and they made sure to attend every one from our freshman year to our senior year — they would cheer for both of us. Shayna’s mother and stepfather would show up to games when their work schedule allowed, but for the games they couldn’t make, Shayna always knew she had fans sitting in the bleachers rooting for her.

She stood 5' 4". But her size was never a handicap on the court. She was one of the best players on the team. Sadly, midway through the season of our junior year, she fell off of her game and fell behind in a few of her classes. It was unlike her because she was an honor roll student. Her grades had gotten so low that she was suspended from the team. Not long after she was suspended, she told me that one of her stepfather’s friends had raped her, and she thought she was pregnant. She was scared to tell her mother and didn’t know what to do. I talked her into telling my parents and together they told her mother and her stepfather what happened. Charges were pressed and the guy received a lengthy prison term. Unfortunately she was pregnant. She refused to have an abortion because she couldn’t bring herself to end the life of an innocent child, despite the circumstances behind how it was conceived. When she made the decision to give the baby up for adoption she had only one request, that she be able to name the baby. When Jayla Kimani was born, she was handed right over to the adoptive parents. Shayna didn’t even get a chance to see her. I’ve always admired her for her strength and wished I could find it within myself to be as strong.

Yellow looks good on you, I told her admiring the way the dress complemented her skin tone. She was one of the most beautiful black girls I had ever seen. Her skin was the color of chocolate mousse and her light brown eyes were mesmerizing.

Thank you, she laughed.

What are you laughing at? I asked, amused, although not sure why.

I thought for sure you would be walking down the aisle to marry Nate, not this guy, she said pointing to the key chain photo of my future spouse.

Nate was such a jerk, but I was so in love with him, I declared.

I carefully sat down on the love seat and stared at the pattern on the stained glass window of the church office I was using as my dressing room.

You were so in lust with him, Shayna corrected me and plopped down in the chair across from me to reminisce.

Chapter 2

Part 1

I was looking forward to spending the summer before our senior year, in 2000, hanging out with Shayna. Two weeks before school let out Shayna announced that she had accepted an internship at a company in Champaign, Illinois, which is about an hour away from Bloomington. Since she had family in Champaign, she was going to spend the entire summer there, so I had to come up with another plan for my summer vacation. I ended up getting a job at one of the male clothing stores in the mall, and that is where I met Nate.

When he walked in the store he took my breath away. He was handsome. His facial bone structure was perfect, like every feature was chiseled from a blue print. He had dark black hair, and his eyes were an unusual shade of sky blue. He was tall, about 6' 5, which was ideal. It was hard finding guys taller than my 6' 2 frame. His facial hair was perfectly groomed, and he smelled so good.

In the past, it wasn’t hard for me to disregard guys because they usually didn’t notice me. I was a jock. But when I was hired for this job an emphasis was put on appearance, so I started dabbling with make-up and made a sincere effort to be more feminine. Apparently my efforts paid off because Nate noticed me. After two weeks of working there, I started noticing that his shopping schedule seemed to match my work schedule. One day I finally worked up the courage to say something to him.

Call me strange, I said, but I’m starting to get the feeling that you might be stalking me.

His smile revealed deep dimples in the center of each of his cheeks.

I’m not stalking you. I’ve just been trying to work up the nerve to talk to you, but you just made it easy for me. What’s your name?

Well, according to this pin on my shirt, I said looking down at my nametag, my name is Teena.

Teena, he repeated. I felt butterflies when he said my name. Hi Teena, my name is Nate. Do you get a break any time soon?

Nate and I messed around for the first few months we were together, but never anything further than him sliding his hands under my clothes. I was a virgin and had planned on being one until I got married. But Nate was proving to be a challenge to that vow. Two weeks before I started my senior year, the subject of sex finally came up.

One Saturday evening, after going to see There’s Something About Mary, we were sitting in his car at the park listening to music. He was smoking a cigarette. Even though I thought smoking was a nasty habit, the way he smoked made it seem sexy. He held his cigarette like a joint, and when he exhaled, he leaned his head back, closed his eyes, parted his lips just a little bit and slowly released the smoke from his lungs.

That evening, as he leaned his head back he looked at me out of the corner of his eye and said, How long are you going to make me wait?

Not much longer, I wanted to say, but instead told him about my vow of chastity. It was hard coming up with the right words.

Nate, I’m a virgin, and I plan on being one until I get married. I have too much going for me to have any accidents.

You’re a virgin? He raised his eyebrows and gave me a crooked smile.

Yeah. Is that hard for you to believe?

Well yeah, there aren’t too many of those left in our school. I guess I’m just lucky.

Why is that? I asked.

Because, I’ve never been ‘the first’ of someone I actually love.

My ears perked up. He said the L word. Just to make sure I knew which L word he was talking about, I needed to hear him say it again.

You love me? I tried to hide my smile, but it didn’t work.

Yes, I love you Teena. He planted a soft kiss on my forehead. I love you, and I would be willing to wait forever to be your first.

He didn’t have to wait much longer after that. Two weeks after school started, I decided that I was ready. His parents trusted him enough to leave him home alone while they took a weekend trip, the same weekend as the back-to-school dance. He created the perfect setting. The lighting was dim, the music was soft, and he even managed to get a bottle of wine and some fresh strawberries.

We passed the first few minutes alone with small talk before he made his move. As I sat on the couch he knelt in front of me and began feeding me strawberries dipped in wine. After I ate the last one, he scooted in closer and started brushing my face with his lips planting the lightest kisses everywhere. He started at my forehead, and moved down making sure to cover my right eyelid, my left eyelid, my nose, my lips, and my neck. With perfect precision, he unbuttoned my shirt and gently slid his hand around my back and unhooked my bra. Electricity shot through my body as he worked his way from the top of my head down to my bellybutton. When he got there he looked me in the eyes as he started to unbutton and unzip my jeans. In one swift move he pulled them and my thong off at the same time. He grabbed me from behind and slid me forward just a little, parted my legs and proceeded to taste me. When I thought I could take no more, he stopped. He lifted me off the couch and took me back to his bedroom. My heart was pounding with anticipation. After securing a condom, he climbed on top of me and slid in. He moved with the rhythm of a skilled choreographer. I had no regrets about this decision. I loved him and I was going to marry him. Or so I thought. Two days later I realized that was nothing more than fantasy.

I was taking a walk through Miller Park, enjoying the change in weather, admiring the colorful trees and reliving that night when I stopped by the pond to watch the ducks. I happened to look across the pond and saw a couple sitting under a tree. I couldn’t quite make out who it was, but I could tell it was someone I knew. I walked around the pond to get a closer look and felt nauseous when I realized it was Nate and a girl named Kim Delany. He was sitting against the tree, and she was sitting in between his legs with her back up against his chest. He had his arms around her. Kim was a varsity cheerleader. All the guys wanted her because she was considered to be hard to get.

What’s going on? I asked Nate.

He looked at me like he didn’t know who I was.

Who’s she? Kim asked with a smirk on her face.

My eyes filled up with tears when Nate simply shrugged his shoulders and introduced me as some girl in his Spanish class. I was speechless. All I could do was turn around and run the other way.

The next few weeks I walked around like a zombie. Everyone at school had heard how Nate took my virginity and then dumped me two days later. I gained a set of enemies in the girls Nate passed up to date me. They would give me a daily reminder about the kind of whore I had become. When I wasn’t being reminded about how much of a whore I was, the guys who were trying to be the next one down my pants were harassing me.

Even with all the drama Nate caused by running his mouth, it still hurt every time I saw him and Kim in the halls or sitting together at lunch. Shayna tried everything she could to make me forget him and move on, but nothing would work. I just wanted to blend in with the walls and disappear. Every day when I got home from school I felt more worthless than the day before, and I had fallen into a state of severe depression.

Part 2

I was embarrassed by how Nate treated me and I didn’t want my parents or my sister to know what had happened, so I became a master at disguising my depression. I became fully absorbed in schoolwork and sports. I went from being an A-B and an occasional C student to being a straight A student and MVP in all the sports I was involved in. I graduated at the top of my class and received a four-year scholarship to the school of my choice.

I was finally starting to feel better a couple of weeks after graduation, but that feeling was short lived when Shayna told me she would be doing another summer internship. This time she would be moving out of state. She was moving to Atlanta to do an internship at Spellman, where she would be attending college in the fall. My depression returned the day she left.

Without anything to distract me, my depression grew worse. It was becoming impossible to hide it from my family. My sister Paige eventually pulled it out of me and then told my mother, who encouraged me not to waste my time and energy on a jackass like Nate. She and my father would try to persuade me to get out of the house so that I wasn’t sitting around obsessing over him. I convinced them that I had found some new friends; in the evenings and on the weekends, I would leave the house and go to Starbucks to read for an hour or two, just to make them feel better.

One evening, as I was sipping on a delicious caramel latte and enjoying Harry Potter, I happened to look up and see Kim Delany walk in. She looked miserable. Her face was pale. She was wearing a black sweatshirt and a pair of gray sweats with our high school name stenciled down her left leg. The sweat suit was so big it swallowed her up. This was unusual because Kim was a girl that never left the house without looking glamorous. Something was wrong with her. It was hard to keep from staring at her, but I forced myself to turn my focus back to my book.

Can I sit with you? Her question startled me.

I guess so, I said. I felt sorry for her. Her eyes were bloodshot, like she had spent a couple of hours crying. Are you okay? I asked.

Yeah. She patted her hair down and brushed some imaginary lint off the front of her shirt, as if that’s all she needed to do to fix herself up.

Hey Teena, I just want to apologize for that day at the park. You know, when Nate treated you like shit.

Oh, I said, feeling butterflies in my stomach at the mention of his name. That’s old news, I’m not worried about it.

Well, I should have been more considerate. I guess I got exactly what I deserved because he did the same thing to me.

What do you mean? I asked.

He was the first guy I ever slept with, and not even a full day afterwards he was hooking up with some other girl.

I’m sorry to hear that. I thought you guys were still together, I said empathetically.

Nope. Graduation night he got what he wanted. I tried to call him a couple of hours after and he had blocked my number, Kim said, sipping on the coffee that she ordered.

She and I talked for hours, like we had been friends for years. When the coffee shop was getting ready to close, she invited me over to her house. When we got there, she introduced me to her parents, who seemed to be stuck in a time warp sometime in the ’60s. They were hippies. Her mom resembled Cher and her dad looked like Willie Nelson.

On our way to Kim’s bedroom, her four-year old sister Katie stopped us in the hallway and handed us two invitations to a tea party she was having with her dolls. It started immediately. Katie was so excited to have us as her guests that we couldn’t turn her down. After about ten minutes of sipping dirty water from her little tea set, she told us the party was over and that it was time for us to leave.

She’s so cute, I said.

Don’t let her fool ya, Kim laughed closing her bedroom door. Crack that window open, she pointed to the window above her dresser.

I opened the window and sat down on the chair in front of her desk. I watched as she placed a towel in front of the crack under the door.

What are you doing? I asked.

She walked over to her dresser and dug around in the top drawer for a few minutes and pulled out a skinny cigarette.

Don’t tell me you’ve never smoked before, she said digging in her purse for a lighter.

Nope, cigarettes are nasty.

This isn’t a cigarette. It’s a joint. She lit it up and walked over to the window to exhale. Try it. Just inhale, hold it and let it out slowly, she guided me.

I placed the joint between my lips and inhaled. I resisted the urge to cough and held the smoke in my lungs for about a minute and a half and then exhaled the same way Nate used to with his cigarettes. After a couple more hits, I felt like I was floating on air.

Wow, I said giggling. I hadn’t felt this good since before I met Nate.

Yeah, I know, Kim said smiling. She and I started hanging out regularly, for the remainder of the summer, and we would get high every chance we got.

June 19th, 2010: The Wedding

Hi honey! my mother said in her soft voice as she entered my dressing room with Paige following behind her. You look so beautiful. Stand next to your sister so I can get a picture. Shayna, you hop in there too.

You guys got here just in time, Shayna said as she posed. We were just talking about Nate and how depressed she got because of him.

Oh my gosh, Paige said remembering, I didn’t think she would ever snap out of that. I hope I never reach a point that low over a guy!

"Well, she was young back then Paige. She wasn’t emotionally ready for that