Miami's Superstar

By Diamond Johnson

Ryan Brownlee. Such a beautiful girl, but life was doing a number on her. She had been dealing with heartache pretty much since she graced the world with her presence seventeen years ago. At a young age, she’s become familiar with watching her mother be her boyfriend’s punching bag.

All Ryan wanted in life was for her mother to leave her abusive boyfriend, Malik, so the two of them could peacefully live their lives. Not only was she dealing with emotional problems stemming from her mother’s relationship, but she was a high school senior dealing with depression and low self- esteem, simply because she didn't see the beauty in the heavy set, black queen looking back at her in the mirror. She then meets Messiah Washington. A guy who's musically talented, sexy, a few years older than Ryan, and could have any woman he wanted, but he was interested in Ryan.

The title of this book is Miami’s Superstar because even with all the turmoil that Ryan was dealing with, she was talented. Some would even say that she reminds them of a younger Whitney Houston. The question is, does Ryan know that? Can she become the Miami Superstar that Messiah is setting her out to be, or will she just throw it all away?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leo Sullivan Presents
• Release date: Jun 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781648542480

Book preview

1

Ryan Brownlee

7 years ago; The year 2011

S ay another word, and so help me God, your face will be going through this fuckin’ wall!

Malik’s deep voice boomed through the thin walls of our home, which jolted me from my deep sleep. Malik was my mother’s boyfriend, and she was his punching bag. I was seventeen years old, and they’d been together for the past thirteen years of my life. For twelve of those years, I’d been awakened from my sleep to this very thing. It scared me to my core. So much so that I didn’t stop peeing in the bed until I was ten years old.

I couldn’t stand to lie in my bed and listen to my mother be tossed around her bedroom like a rag doll by a man who she swore up and down loved her. So, by the time I turned eleven, I had come up with my own solution to tuning the two of them out since putting my hands over my ears didn’t seem to help much. Even when I would place my comforter over my head along with putting my hands over my ears, I still managed to hear what sounded like a boxing match going on from the other side of the wall.

My remedy was to go outside and sleep on the porch until the next morning. With the front door closed and with the two of them in the back bedroom, I couldn’t hear a thing. I would finally be at peace, even if my peace was only temporary.

Malik, why are you acting like this, baby? All I wanted to know was how did the lipstick get on your shirt, that’s all, I heard my mother say, and I cringed because I knew he was going to hit her. I could feel it.

We’d been through this over a thousand times before. I loved my mother to death—even though I questioned her love for me over one hundred times a day—but, sometimes, I couldn’t help but feel that she enjoyed getting her ass beat. She knew Malik was crazy. He’d just told her not to say another word, and there she was, questioning him about another woman. She knew that he was cheating on her, so I had no clue why she acted so shocked.

A few months ago, Malik had told my mother that he was leaving for a couple of hours, so he could go to a job interview. That turned out to be a lie because that same day, my mom dropped me off at my Burger King job, and we spotted him and another woman all hugged up as they left the nail salon that was right next door. I hated the things that Malik did to my mother, but I also hated that she allowed him to continue doing it.

Bitch, I thought I told you to shut your fuckin’ mouth! I heard, which was followed by a big boom.

I released a low scream right before I jumped up from my bed, grabbed the comforter, and ran for the door. The whole time I was running, I could hear a bunch of banging coming from their bedroom along with my mother’s screams and cries. I wanted so desperately to help her, but I had learned my lesson years ago.

I had to be no more than nine years old when I found myself trying to jump into one of their fights and protect my mother from Malik. I was swinging on Malik, like I’d seen him do to my mother on so many occasions. One of my swings connected to his nose, and he started bleeding profusely. Do you know I got my ass beat for that? My mother stood over me swinging a belt while blood sprinkled down from just about every part of her body, simply because my love for her allowed me to jump in and rescue her. I was tired of seeing her get her ass beat by this man. From that day, I was told to stay out of their business, and that’s exactly what I had been doing.

So, at 3:45 in the morning, there I was, sitting in the old rocking chair on our porch with my blanket wrapped around my body. I rocked myself back and forth with tears trickling down my face, praying that Malik didn’t kill my mother this time.

Almost an hour had gone by, and I was just about to close my eyes when I heard a door close next door, which made my eyes flutter open. I peeked over at our neighbor’s house, and because their porch light wasn’t on, I wasn’t able to make out the figure that had come outside.

We’d only been living in this home for about three months, and truth be told, I hated this area. I mean, the house that we were renting prior to this wasn’t that much different, but this environment right here would probably have people looking at me like I had balls the size of a gorilla to even be brave enough to sleep outside by myself.

This was the type of area that you needed to be inside your home as soon as the street lights came on. Not only should one be inside the home, but there should be locks and chains on the door to prevent anyone from breaking in. We’d already learned from our other neighbors that this neighborhood was known for that. Not only did I have to worry about my mom and Malik fighting in the middle of the night, but there were also times when I had to hide under my bed and pray that none of the bullets that were flying outside would come flying into my bedroom window.

My eyes were getting so heavy, and I knew that I needed to eventually close them because I had to be up in a couple of hours to get ready for school. It was my senior year, and I was expected to graduate in another five months, but I had no clue what I wanted to do after I finished high school. Graduation would actually be celebrating two milestones because not only would I receive my diploma that day, but I would turn eighteen that same day as well.

I hadn’t even applied for any colleges yet. I barely made decent grades simply because I dealt with so much turmoil at home that it was hard for me to keep up in school, let alone grasp what the teachers were even talking about. The part time job that I had at Burger King wouldn’t even be enough to help pay for one college course or even a textbook for that matter. By the time I gave my mother the half that she needed for rent, I would be lucky if I had thirty dollars left to my name.

My mom worked at Ihop, and with her salary and mine mixed together, we were barely making ends meet. A lot of people probably thought it was fucked up that I was still a minor and my mother was charging me for rent, but I didn’t see it that way because I knew what we’d been through that forced me to get a job. When it was just my mother working, it was always like we had to choose. Choose to pay the rent for the month or buy groceries for the house. Choose to pay the electric bill or the water bill. It was so bad that we never had the option of getting both things. The same thing went for food. We might have had milk, but we didn’t have cereal. Meat to cook, but the electric bill hadn’t been paid, so there was really nothing that we could do.

We were struggling bad, and my mother came to me and told me that I needed to find a job, or else we were going to end up homeless. With all the fucked-up shit that I’d endured in life, I’d be damned if I had to add being homeless to my list as well. I know you might be asking the question, well why doesn’t Malik work? Truth is, Malik’s criminal background was so damaging that Dollar Tree wouldn’t even hire him, so we had to work.

You would think that with my mom busting her ass to provide for his grown ass, that he would be a little more appreciative, but that didn’t stop him from laying hands on her every chance he got. I sat there in my thoughts because I knew I needed to do something after high school. Although I said that college wasn’t an option for me, I saw how not getting an education had damaged my mother’s life, and I didn’t want to go out the same way she did.

Before she started working her job at Ihop, she did room service for a few years at a local hotel. Although school work was something that I didn’t excel at, I could sing. I had a composition notebook that was filled with songs that I’d written over the years, but it’s been a year since I’d picked it up and actually given any thought to writing another song or even singing for that matter.

My mother didn’t dream, and because she felt that way, she’d gotten into my head and forced me to stop dreaming myself. I can’t tell you how many times over the years this lady had told me that I was wasting my time for even having thoughts that I would be a singer. In the beginning, I just shrugged her off, but then I started thinking that she may hold a little truth to what she was saying, so it wasn’t too long before I stopped dreaming my damn self.

On top of that, the neighborhoods that we lived in for just about all my life didn’t give me reason to dream. I mean, even right now, we’re staying in an area where I had to drop down to my knees every night and pray that no one tried to break into our home, even though we don’t have much of nothing. I had to pray that I didn’t get hit by a stray bullet in the middle of the night. You see, it wasn’t much that I had to look forward to in life because I really didn’t have much inspiration around me.

I had two friends in high school that I was pretty close with, and their names were Nia and Raven. I was closest with Nia, having known her ever since the two of us were in the first grade. Raven was actually Nia’s cousin who had moved down here while the three of us were in the sixth grade from Chicago because her mother had died in a car accident. She was now living with her grandmother since her father wasn’t in the picture.

Although I considered Raven to be a friend of mine, I doubt she considered me to be a friend of hers. If anything, I just believed that she tolerated me because I was close friends with her cousin. Raven and I had never had any arguments or anything like that in the past, and that was mostly because I didn’t speak up for myself. Had I done so, I’m sure that she and I would have come to blows. She was known for making little slick comments about me, whether it be in relation to my weight, the fact that I was almost eighteen and I was still a virgin, or just any little thing that she felt I lacked and I could use some improvement on.

The thoughts that I had running through my head quickly vanished when I saw a car pull up to the same house next door where I’d just heard the front door open. Like a nosey, old neighbor who sat on her porch and checked out everything that happened in the neighborhood, I lifted my head so I could see what was going on.

The figure that was standing on the porch walked over to the car that had just pulled up, and a quick exchange happened before the car sped off. The street lights were on outside, and one of them was shining on the figure that had just walked down to the car.

Like I said, we’d only been there for three months, so I wasn’t that acquainted with my neighbors like that. The only time I really came out the door was for moments like this, or when I went to school or work. The guy who stood in the driveway was too busy counting the money that was in his hands, so he didn’t even realize that I was staring at him.

I knew I wasn’t gay or anything like that, but I had never fantasized over any male before. I mean, I would look at some of the R&B singers on TV, and, of course, like every other woman, I would think that they were handsome, but never to the point that I actually fantasied over them like how I was doing right now.

I don’t if it had anything to do with my self- esteem being so low or the simple fact that I wasn’t attracted to what I saw in the mirror, but I never lusted over guys because I knew that they wouldn’t lust over me in return. Whoever this man was that was standing there, it was almost as if he was perfect. His honey colored skin was shirtless, and although it was dark outside with the exception of the street light shining on him, I could tell that he had clear skin. No tattoos or anything marked up his beautiful skin, and it was as if his face naturally held onto a beautiful mean scowl.

Without a shirt, he stood there in a pair of gray sweat pants that hung off his behind only a little bit, showing the waist band of his boxers. Slides rested on his feet, and there was a black do rag on his head. I was a good girl. Never in my life had I been hugged by a boy, kissed, or anything, so it was so ironic that I was sitting there wishing that I was beautiful enough for a guy like him to like me. Hell, to even notice me.

It’s crazy because for the moments that I sat there and stared at him, I wondered what type of girls he might like. I knew that I had to be far out of his league, but still, my inquisitive mind was so fixed on what I needed to possess that would have him looking at me the same way that I was looking at him.

I just wanted to know how old he was, simply because he had a young-looking face. But then I saw how big and muscular his body was, along with his full, thick beard, which had me thinking that he had to be older than me. I could feel my heart rate speed up a little bit, which let me know that I needed to go ahead and stop looking at him before I caught one of my asthma attacks that I hadn’t gotten in a little over a year now.

Just as I was about to turn my head, it was as if he could feel my eyes on him, so he looked up. I quickly moved my eyes to what was in front of me, which was nothing but my mom’s old 1998 Honda Accord. Just like I expected, he didn’t even notice me. I laughed to myself for even thinking that he would. Then I heard the front door close, which only let me know that he’d gone back inside the house. Not too long after that, that I finally took my ass to sleep.

Ryan, wake your scary ass up, girl! I’m so sick and tired of waking up in the morning and seeing your ass sleeping on my front porch like you don’t have a bed in your room. You are getting too big for this shit! If the point that you are trying to prove is that me and Malik are becoming too much for you, just know that my door is always open whenever you’re ready to walk out of that motha fucka! my mom’s voice boomed, immediately waking me from my sleep.

See, she had it made up in her mind that I would come on the porch with the thought that I was better than her and Malik and that I was judging them. If only she knew that I came out there because I was scared shitless and my heart couldn’t stand to hear my mother being flipped, tossed, and punched around. This was the same woman who carried me for nine months, breast fed me, provided for me, and loved me, so why wouldn’t I be scared to be in the same home with this woman and listen to her loud screams as she got her ass beat?

Before I even turned my attention to look at her, I took in the nasty weather that was happening outside. It was raining cats and dogs, and loud thunder was erupting too. I must have been real tired for me to have even slept through that. Removing the sleep from my eyes, I turned slowly in my mother’s direction, almost as if I was scared to look at her. I was always scared to look at her appearance the morning after Malik would put his hands on her because it was no telling what I would see.

This morning was no different. As I turned my head, tears immediately welled up in my eyes when I saw what had had happened to her beautiful face. Her left eye was completely swollen, and both of her jaws were black and blue. I could see that both her upper and bottom lips had been split open, and with the tank top that she was wearing, I could see other cuts and bruises that covered her arms.

When my mother wasn’t looking like she had gotten into a fight with Mayweather, she was actually a very beautiful woman. So beautiful that I was a little mad at God that he hadn’t given me the same beauty that he’d given her. My mom was short, probably no taller than 5’3" and she used to have a thick frame. The type of frame that you see on the girls in the music videos, where they had the little waist with the wide hips, and a huge derriere.

Stress had caused her to lose a significant amount of weight, but she was still beautiful nonetheless. The only thing I inherited from my mother was her beautiful, chocolate skin, and her thick, curly hair. Everything else, I must have gotten from my father; whoever that was.

Ma, why can’t we just leave? Look at your face, I cried.

I removed the covers from my body and prepared to stand up. As I was about to open my mouth and say something else, she raised her hand, quickly stopping me. She always did this whenever I tried to voice my opinion about her leaving Malik. It was as if she was so stupidly in love with this man that she couldn’t even for a minute see that the shit that he was doing to her wasn’t love. It was as if her body was numb, and she couldn’t feel the bruises that decorated it. Hell, it wasn’t even my body that was marked up like that, and I was hurting just from looking at it.

What scared me the most about my mother and Malik’s situation was the fact that I didn’t know if that one morning after a fight would come when she wouldn’t wake up from it.

Don’t start with me this morning, Ryan! Get up and get ready for school, she spat, and just that fast, she walked back inside the house.

I quickly gathered my blanket that had fallen to the ground and brought it back inside the house with me. As soon as I walked inside, the first thing I noticed was Malik sitting at the dining room table in only a pair of his boxers while my mom stood over the stove, more than likely cooking for him. This entire scene was so weird to me, but I kept my mouth closed as I walked back to my bedroom and quickly made my bed with the comforter that I held in my hands.

The thing is, I used to like Malik. Even though I was young when my mother started dating him, I remember the first time we met. Just like he’d won my mother over with his charm, the same thing had happened to me. I’d never had a father in my life before, so, of course, I was vulnerable to having that male figure in my life. And that’s exactly what Malik had turned out to be.

I remember some nights when he would cook dinner for my mother and me, or when he would help me with my homework and even read me bedtime stories. I liked that man so much that I used to get a little upset that he wasn’t my real daddy. All the love and appreciation that I had for him went out the window the same day I watched him put his hands on my mother for the first time.

As I grew older, the hate that I had for him only got stronger, and I treated him as if he didn’t exist. I couldn’t remember the last time I had said anything to him or vice versa. If he needed to tell me anything, he always said it to my mom because the same way I’d become so accustomed to acting like he didn’t exist, he was able to pick up that same trait.

I went into my bedroom closet and threw my school uniform down on