Practice What You Preach

Trigger warnings: domestic abuse, suicide

Jenna Davidson was an astonishing woman. She was the epitome of society’s standards of beauty; she was funny, intelligent, talented, and very business savvy. Her ultimate goal in her life was to become an international public speaker and advocate for woman who suffer in silence from domestic violence.

Jenna made short work of climbing those metaphorical ladders at her job, and even sooner than she had expected, she was leading multiple anti-domestic violence protests and rallies. But, these protesters couldn’t care less about her beautiful face, though. Their captivation came with Jenna’s actual back story. The one behind her pretty face and tales of success, but let’s back up a little bit here, shall we?  

Jenna was in a 5-year long relationship with a man named Lucas, who seemed to love her dearly. At all of the cocktail parties and Christmas parties for her work, his chivalry was envious. He held her closely, lovingly, and took every conversational gateway possible to brag about how well she was doing, how he’d never seen a passion or drive like hers in all of his life. He seemed very proud of Jenna. Lucas supported her and the motivation behind the domestic violence protests she was creating and leading. 

 Her back story is as follows: Jenna watched her mother being brutalized by her father as a child for as long as she could remember, and would recall to Lucas (and to anyone else who would listen,) the trauma she endured on a daily basis. Until, that is, one day, her father finally decided he'd had enough of Jenna’s mother’s mouth and took her life away forever, with one bullet, right before young Jenna’s eyes. Orphaned and traumatized, she lost her mother and her father in one fail swoop. 

 After that, foster homes, group homes, and just general displacement for Jenna had statistically stacked the odds for success against her. But, instead of focusing on the negativity, she pushed herself to not be defined by her traumas, and to be a beacon of hope for the millions of other girls going through hopelessness in similar situations. 

    Jenna became a modern-day hero. She threw her metaphorical, “victim’s card.” right out the window, and encouraged others to do the same. The praises to her bravery and strength rolled in like tidal waves. She even found herself on the covers of various magazines, declaring her, “Triumphant Against Magnificently Negative Odds.” All public eyes were on Jenna, and Jenna played her part well. 

 In the meantime, behind closed doors, PTSD, bi-polar disorder, borderline personality disorder, extremely violent outbursts, and uncontrollable anger issues reared their ugly heads. Everyone on her team tried to keep her psychotic breaks under wraps, including Lucas. 

 No, no. Jenna was not who she appeared to be, and everyone on the inside knew it. She was so emotionally, mentally, and physically abusive to Lucas, he was often absent at her biggest public appearances. If he were to show up with claw marks across his face or a black eye or two, Jenna’s facade of the, “Anti-Domestic Violence Queen,” would be destroyed, and Lucas knew there would be only one person she would project her anger onto, and that was himself. But, the more and more famous Jenna had gotten, the worse and worse the domestic violence actually became.

Facades only last for so long, and on this particular night, Jenna’s karma would be in full swing, and she would soon become known as social justice’s public enemy #1. 

Jenna was going off the rails over something, ranting, raving and smashing things. Lucas knew he couldn’t calm her when she was like this, so he stayed out of sight, but not too far that he couldn’t assist her if she went overboard. Sadly enough, these nights were common place for Jenna and Lucas.

Walking into her kitchen, Jenna went straight to her butcher’s block and retrieved a small, serrated knife. Lucas quickly came out of the shadows and tried to remove the knife from Jenna’s hands, albeit unsuccessfully. 

“Leave me alone or I swear to God,” Jenna took in a deep gulp of air. “…I will slit your throat.” The words came out like butter from Jenna’s mouth, but the Hell fire blazing in her eyes told Lucas everything he needed to know; she meant every single, solitary word of it. 

   “Who do these people think they are?” Jenna was speaking to herself now. Lucas was clueless as to who she was talking about. “Don’t they know who I am?”

   Jenna glared at Lucas. She began twirling the tip of the blade on her bottom lip playfully, as if unaware that the thing was sharp enough to slice those pretty lips right off of her face.

 She continued, “I AM JENNA DAVIDSON!! I AM A HERO!!” Again, she paused directing a very hateful stare at the ceiling. “They’ll never appreciate me. Don’t they realize what I’ve done for them?” 

   Lucas’s confusion intensified. He had no idea what she was talking about. He unintentionally gave her a questioning look.

 “DON’T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!!!” Jenna shrieked while simultaneously jumping so swiftly towards Lucas, he didn’t even realize she had pointed the knife directly at his heart.

 “You’re out to ruin me….out to…to get me.” Jenna began to inch closer. There weren’t too many more millimeters between the knife and Lucas’s skin.  

 Lucas was beyond frightened so he tried to convinced himself she was just speaking nonsense and it woud pass, but, yet and still, he didn’t dare move, or speak. “You men always get away with your lies and bullshit.” Her playful/sinister smile returned, as she if she was recalling a bittersweet memory. She continued, “...but my father didn’t get away with it.” She giggled. A giggle so disturbing, it sent goosebumps across Lucas’s entire body. “I taught him a lesson. A lesson so good, he doesn’t even realize that it was me who enlightened him …but he was an abusive man, he had to learn….”

Lucas's eyes grew wide. ‘Did she just confess to killing her mother?’ his thoughts were racing. Nothing was making sense. 

   Jenna continued, “But you’re not going to get away with the lies and the bullshit anymore. No, no. I’ve had quite enough of that.” 

Jenna stabbed the knife as hard as she could on the counter beside them. The blade entered the countertop by at least two inches, but she still had it clinched firmly in her grip. 

 Lucas grabbed Jenna’s wrist and twisted it hard. She removed the knife from its resting place with ease, causing Lucas to panic, and twist even harder. Her grip released immediately and the small knife fell to the floor. Lucas grabbed it on instinct to keep it out of her reach.

 “Stop it!!” he screamed upon deaf ears. “You’re out of your mind, Jenna!”

“I’m only fighting for what is right!” she screamed at him in the shrill tone of a maniac. 

“Bet you want to hit me, don’t you?” Jenna smiled that maniacal smile again before leaning her face towards Lucas’s. “Well, you just try and hit me, Lucas.” 

She pushed him. Hard. He stumbled backwards and fell. Jenna seemed not to noticed. 

“Just TRY.” The last demand came out of her mouth in a way you would sing a lullaby to a child. 

But Lucas wasn’t going to hit her. He had much bigger fish to fry. Like, dialing 911 with his hands in his front hoodie pocket, without Jenna noticing. He did, and he was pretty sure he had someone on the line listening.

 Sporadically, Jenna began throwing wild punches and again, Lucas grabbed her wrists to protect himself. Jenna began screaming. 

“Help me!! Help me!! I’m being attacked!!” 

  Lucas’s mouth hit the floor. The irony was just too much. He’d been being abused for 5 years by this woman, while she openly spread her man-hating, anti—domestic violence, hypocrisy campaigns all over the States. But, enough was enough. Lucas let Jenna go. 

Instantly, she began her parade of punches, this time hitting him as hard as she could, yelling things that Lucas couldn’t make a lick of sense out of. 

The final blow came just as the police busted down their front door. Jenna had socked Lucas right in his nose. Ferocious and unrelenting shots of pain spread across his face like nothing he’d ever felt before, accompanied by a very audible cracking sound that seemed to have come from the inside of his head as opposed to something heard by his ears. Lucas’ s nose was undoubtedly broken. Blood began pouring from his face, gushing down his chin, and onto his life saving hoodie, the one that he had used to conceal his call for help to the authorities. 

After watching the surveillance cameras and speaking to the two of them separately, the police arrested Jenna that same day for terroristic threats, assault with a deadly weapon, and felonious assault with intent to cause bodily harm. 

 Unfortunately, the surveillance cameras did not have audio, so the highly suggestive comments Jenna made about her, “teaching her Father a lesson,” weren’t recorded, but Lucas reminded himself that all the police needed was a statement in order to start the investigation into the death of Jenna’s mother, and let’s be honest here, after all the police witnessed just entering the house that day, combined with the 5 years worth of the horror stories Lucas was about to recall for them, he had no doubt Jenna would be held responsible for what she had done. 

After Jenna was arrested, the officers made it a point to escort her out of the front entrance of her building so Jenna’s hundreds of adoring fans would finally be able to see her for who she truly was: a psychopath, being led away in handcuffs and shackles, covered in Lucas’s blood, and being led straight to the back of a police car. The ruthless paparazzi would later refer to this moment as, “Jenna Davidson’s Walk of Shane.”

 Lucas was taken out by paramedics and placed into an ambulance immediately after. 

 Jenna lost all of her endorsements and all air- play, (including access to her very lucrative social media accounts such as her Instagram and her YouTube, and a recently started Monday Morning podcast,) as soon as Lucas decided to tell the world of the secret domestic violence he had been enduring behind closed doors the entire time Jenna was parading herself around, as if she was a God send for victims, and preaching anti-violence to everyone.

Everyone came to testify at Jenna’s court hearing, the maids, the butlers, her assistants, even Lucas himself, although the surveillance camera footage was damning enough.

Jenna was convicted on all three original counts, but the best part of it all is after only 3 weeks in solitary confinement, Jenna confessed to shooting her mother with her father’s gun because she wanted to, and I quote, “teach him a lesson.”

Jenna was convicted of killing her mother, tampering with evidence, and perjury.

After 28 years, 17 days, 6 hours, and 45 minutes, Jose Davidson was a free man. However, Jenna was not. She was sentenced to 85 years with no possibility of parole. She would most certainly die in prison.

Jenna was placed in the last cell of the solitary confinement block. It was a Tuesday morning; mail day. Jenna never received any letters, well at least not any that the corrections staff could give her, just the basic death threats and, of course, the ”Kill yourself,” letters. But, nope, other than that, no mail.

Mrs. Summers, posibly the most pleasant and respectful corrections officer in the world, was on mail and commissary duty that sun-shine filled morning, and a particular letter seemed to put Mrs. Summers in a rather jollier mood than her usual one. She was as pleasant as humanly allowable considering her job, but she was extra bubbly and bouncy that day.. All of her inmates smiled and waved at her as she headed down to solitary. Jenna Davidson’s cell was the very last one. Mrs. Summers practically skipped there. However, that was a mistake.

A shriek so loud echoed across the prison halls. Male officers came running to Mrs. Summers, seemingly out of nowhere. Some officers held Mrs. Summers to keep her from going weak at the knees, others grabbed the bundles of mail she had accidentally dropped. The rest, well, the rest went in for Jenna.

About two inches off of the floor, dangled two tiny feet, the toe nails barely covered in the sparkly lilac polish from Jenna’s last pedicure.

The officers untied the bed sheet from her neck and applied CPR swiftly, but nothing was working. Jenna was declared D.O.A. as soon as the medical examiner showed up.

Scrawled across the dim, yellowish-green cinderblock-walls, Jenna had scribbled one final piece of advice,( probably with a Sharpie,) to anyone who wanted to take it.

‘If you lie, you die, even if it’s only on the inside. PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH. I’m sorry to everyone that I didn't do that, especially with you, Daddy. I've got to go now. See you on the other side.

                         XOXO Jenna”

Mrs. Summers starred at Jenna’s lifeless body begrudgingly, clutching the letter she was supposed to have given her. It was from Jose Davidson. The letter said he had forgiven his little girl, and wanted a chance for a fresh start.

Tears fell down Mrs, Summers’s face a she walked away. ‘Practice what you preach,’ she thought as she slowly walked back to her post, all previous signs of her jolliness had been lost.

THE END