Hate to Love You

by Ivy Symone

  “You need to be going because I don’t want him putting his hands on you,” Kendall said.

  I reluctantly got out of his bed and headed to his bathroom. I took a quick shower. When I stepped out of the bathroom Kendall had slipped his sweatpants back on. Since he hadn’t showered I had to avoid coming in close contact with him. Marcos would sniff his scent on me with no problem.

  “I’ll talk to you later,” I said. We leaned toward each other and pecked on the lips.

  “I love you, Nephia. And be careful,” he told me.

  “I love you too,” I told him.

  Once I got in my car I called Corvell.

  “Hey hoe!” he chimed.

  “Whatever. Has he called looking for me?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good. I doubt he’s looking for me anyway. I think they were having something down at the club anyway.” I said.

  “Well, call me when you make it in the house,” Corvell said.

  “I will,” I said.

  “Love ya hoe!” he laughed.

  I ended the call with him. It had been months since Boogie died but Corvell was recuperating from it very well. I think it had a lot to do with the letter Boogie wrote him. Boogie didn’t know he would be dead when he was writing the letter. It was just something that he wrote Corvell one day and never gave it to him. It was a letter telling Corvell all of the things he wished he could do and would do one day and the things he wished he could change and take back just to make Corvell happy. He had shown his mother the letter when he confessed to her his feelings for another man. She thought it was too beautiful for Boogie to shred it so she kept it.

  I was envious of Corvell because even though Boogie started off with his faults, he had straightened up and truly loved Corvell. I wished Marcos would see me like that one day.

  Chapter 13

  Although Kendall and I had talked about making the move, I couldn’t quite go through with it. I loved Kendall but I wanted Marcos to love me more. This caused a rift between me and Kendall because I had pulled back drastically.

  It was 2012 now. I wasn’t being fair to Kendall but I still wanted him waiting in the wings for me, especially to love on me and make me feel special after Marcos would tear me down. In a way I had developed this unhealthy back and forth dependency on both men.

  “I’m so sick of this shit, Nephia!” Kendall shouted.

  He rarely got loud with me but he was losing his patience.

  “I know, and I’m sorry,” I told him. “I just can’t leave right now.”

  “It ain’t like he’s treating you any better,” he pointed out. “I could see if the nigga was coming home and taking you places with him. He’s not! Every time I see him out and about he got some new bitch on his arm. He’s parading these desperate ass bitches around while you sit at home playing good wife and mother to all of his kids. Hell, you’re even playing mama to his baby mama’s child so they can fuck all night! What the fuck!”

  “Ssh,” I closed my eyes. “I know, but it’s not that easy, Kendall.”

  “Easy? We’ve been seeing each other for six years now! I’ve been waiting on you to make a move for six years! I can’t wait forever, baby.”

  I walked upon him. “I know, I know. I’ll try to come up with something.”

  Kendall wrapped his arms around me. He chuckled, “You’re drunk, you know that?”

  “I know, I know,” I whispered.

  “I can’t let you drive home yet,” he said.

  “But I gotta get back home,” I told him.

  “Not like this. Call Corvell and Nikki and tell them you’re at one of their houses,” he said. “I’m not letting you leave like this. I told you to slow down anyway.”

  “I know, I know,” I repeated. My eyes closed before I crawled back in his bed. I was still naked and hadn’t bothered to wash up. I did drink too much. What was I thinking?

  “You gotta call Corvell first, baby.”

  “You do it,” I told him as I felt myself drifting off to sleep.

  It was the middle of the night when I woke up in a panic. I prayed Marcos was still out and hadn’t decided to come back home of all nights.

  I awakened Kendall as I frantically looked for my clothes.

  “Baby, what are you doing?”

  “I gotta go!” I whispered yelled. “Why did you let me sleep so late?”

  “Because you had drank too much. C’mon and lay back down. You’re okay,” he said.

  “No, you don’t understand. I need to be gone, Kendall,” I said. “Where’s my damn panties?”

  “Baby, get back in the bed,” Kendall groaned. “You’re spending the night over Corvell’s. He and I already discussed it. And Jovelyn said that your mama said Marcos isn’t even home anyway. You’re good. So go ahead and get in this damn bed with me.”

  “So you took care of everything for me?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said tiredly.

  “Okay,” I said. Against my better judgment I crawled back in bed with him.

  The following morning I didn’t care how much he tried to convince me to stay, I had to leave.

  When I charged up my phone and finally powered it back on I started getting a lot of notifications back to back. It was everything I had missed overnight when my phone must have died. While trying to drive I looked down at my screen and noticed I had several missed calls, several voicemail messages and several unread text messages. I immediately thought something bad had happened to one of the kids.

  Before I could call home, my phone was ringing. I answered it, “Hello?”

  “Where are you? Oh my God!” Corvell exclaimed. He didn’t sound good at all.

  “What is it?”

  “I didn’t know what to tell him!”

  “What!”

  “Marcos!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Hold on. Nikki’s calling me back,” he said.

  “No! She can wait. What’s going on?”

  “She probably calling me back cause she just got off the phone with his ass!”

  “Why is he calling her?”

  “Hold on!”

  Shit! I was getting anxious. I needed to know what was going on before I took my ass home.

  “Nephia?”

  “What’s going on Corvell?”

  “Marcos was looking for you? I didn’t know what I was supposed to tell him. He hung up with me then called Nikki. We hadn’t had time to talk to each other and get our lie together. He caught us up.”

  “But I thought you knew to tell him I was spending the night with you!” I was ready to cry.

  “I didn’t know that! You never told me that.”

  “But I thought you talked to Kendall last night.”

  “I ain’t talked to no damn Kendall last night.”

  “But he said he talked to you and y'all had it all straight.”

  “He didn’t talk to me. Maybe he meant Nikki but then that wouldn’t make sense cause she didn’t know what to tell Marcos either.”

  My heart sank as I realized what Kendall did. “That mothafucka! Oh my God Corvell! Marcos is finna kick my ass. I didn’t go home last night. I was with Kendall all night.”

  “Bitch, don’t go home! You better take yo’ ass straight to Mexico and hide out some damn where! This nigga is heated!”

  “Please don’t tell me that,” I groaned.

  “Maybe you could tell him you were with that ugly sister of yours,” Corvell suggested.

  “Who Ashli?”

  “Yeah, that bitch.”

  “He knows I don’t like her. Hell, he probably called her too.”

  “Well, look, you don’t need to go home although I don’t think he was even at home when he called.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because it sounded like he was driving.”

  “Okay. Well maybe he doesn’t even know I stayed out all night. He probably just wondering where I am now. But he’s still gonna wonder why you and Nikki were trying
to lie,” I said feeling a little better.

  “Fuck! Shit, I don’t know what to tell ya,” Corvell said.

  My line beeped. It was Marcos. “It’s him. I’ll call you back.”

  I switched lines. “Hello?”

  “Where are you?” Marcos asked.

  “I’m on my way home,” I told him casually. “Where are you?”

  “On my way home too. Where are you coming from?” I didn’t like how calm he was talking. Something was up.

  “I got up to go to the market this morning,” I lied.

  He laughed. “You went to the market?”

  I laughed nervously. “Yeah. Why is that funny?”

  “When the last time you walked your ass around at the market, baby?”

  “I go with Ada and Mama sometimes,” I told him.

  “Well, did you get anything?”

  “Nah,” I answered. “I couldn’t really look around like I wanted to because my stomach started hurting. That’s why I’m on my way home.”

  “Oh.”

  “So where are you coming from?” I asked.

  “I just left IHOP,” he said.

  “So you’ve already had breakfast?”

  “Yeah, I was calling you to see if you wanted anything but the phone kept going to voicemail. I got worried and called the house. They said you weren’t there. So I called Corvell and Nikki. You got some goofy ass friends. I don’t know what the hell they were trying to tell me but they couldn’t keep their lies straight.”

  “Huh?” I chuckled feigning confusion.

  “Yeah, I guess they thought I was mad or something and they were trying to cover for you. I could tell they were lying but they silly like that.”

  “I don’t even know why they did that,” I said. My nerves were settling already.

  “I don’t either,” he said. “But I’ll see you in a minute. How far away from home are you?”

  Damn. I was further away than I should have been if I was just going to the market. I lied, “I uhm…not that far from the neighborhood.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you in a minute.”

  And he hung up. I let out a big sigh of relief.

  I was so glad I had gotten to the house before he did too. It allowed me time to change clothes. I was coming out of my closet when Marcos was walking in the bedroom. Two things stopped me in my tracks. The first thing was Marcos was not dressed as if he had just left a club and hit IHOP up for breakfast.

  This nigga was wearing black!

  Marcos don’t wear anything except for white clothes! He may wear denim jeans or colored jeans but he always wore white along with it. To see him in all black was rare. I don’t think I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing him in black.

  The second thing that caused me to pause was that his expression did not match the calm tone he was using with me over the phone. His eyes were red and swollen like he had been crying. He stared at me with this fire in his eyes that had the look of a man betrayed and hurt.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. My eyes landed on his gloved hands. Why was he wearing gloves?

  “C’mere baby,” he told me. He reached out for me.

  I wasn’t sure if it was safe.

  “Nephia, please come to me,” he said.

  “Marcos,” I said cautiously. “You’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”

  He dropped to his knees and he started to cry. “Please baby, just come to me.”

  I went to him. He wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face into my stomach. He was holding me so tight that if it was possible we would have become one.

  “It’s okay,” I soothed him.

  “I love you so much. You mean the world to me, Nephia,” he cried.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Baby, don’t ever leave me!”

  “I won’t,” I said. His grip on me was so strong it was starting to pull me down.

  “You belong to me! Do you love me?”

  “Yeah, I love you.”

  “And you won’t ever leave me?”

  “No—” I was saying but that ‘No’ turned into a scream as I felt his teeth clench down hard on my stomach. Like the death grip of a pit bull he wouldn’t let me go. I had to hit him and pull away at the same time.

  I didn’t have time to ask questions. I immediately went into flee mode. Before I could get away from him he had grabbed me by my leg and tripped me causing me to fall hard on my ass. To slow me down he struck me in my face one good time to daze me.

  “Get up!” He yelled at me. He was now standing over me.

  I crossed my arms over me to protect me from another blow.

  “Get the fuck up!” he demanded.

  “Okay! Please don’t hit me,” I begged.

  “Bitch, I’ll do whatever the fuck I want to when it comes to your lying hoe ass!” Instead of hitting me he stomped my thigh.

  I cried out in pain.

  He slapped me and spat, “I said get the fuck up!”

  “What did I do?” I cried.

  “I’m about to show you. Get up!”

  I managed to get up. Marcos removed his phone from his pocket. He started playing a video. He put it in my face. “Ain’t this you?”

  I needed God to take me in that moment. I would have rather been struck by lightning than standing before Marcos after I glanced at that video. Before I could even react to it, Marcos slammed the phone so hard in my face it sent me flying sideways.

  “You watch this shit!” he said putting the phone back in my face.

  It was me and Kendall. It started with him recording me in a half stupor half alert state. He was asking me questions and I was answering them. I was smiling with my eyes closed. I was naked. He hovered the camera over my body and zoomed in on my pussy. He played in it and showed me responding to him. He asked me if I liked it. I moaned. Then the camera went out of focus but you could hear what was taking place. I was moaning loud and you could hear Kendall slurping on my pussy. Then he picked the phone back up and held it over my pussy as he pushed his dick inside me. The camera captured inch by inch of his dick disappearing inside me. He started pumping faster and breathing harder. My eyes flew open and I called out his name.

  Marcos bashed the phone upside my head several times. I just knew I was about to pass out.

  “Bitch, you bet not pass out on me! You staying up for all this shit!”

  Weakened and barely able to focus, I said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Can you imagine how the fuck I felt watching this shit, Nephia!”

  He grabbed a handful of my hair and dragged me to the French doors leading to our private terrace.

  “I came home last night to be with your dumb ass. You weren’t here. I called your phone and you weren’t answering. I kept calling and guess what? Your mothafuckin’ boyfriend answered your mothafuckin’ phone! Ain’t that ‘bout a bitch! This bitch ass nigga started talking all this shit about how he had been fucking you for years. For years! Not my mothafuckin’ Nephia!”

  I was going to die today because he was crying as he was yelling at me. I’ve never seen him get this emotional in his rage.

  “So this nigga sent me this goddamn video, Nephia! This nigga is fucking you. He’s tasting you! You liking what this nigga is doing to you. You let this nigga have you!”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “Get up!” he yelled as he wiped his face.

  “Don’t kill me,” I cried.

  “C’mon,” he said helping me to my feet. He pushed me outside the doors.

  I realized he was leading me back to his car. He did it that way because he didn’t want everyone in the house to see what was going on. He made me get in. I didn’t say anything. I listened to him ranting and crying. He was really fucked up about all of this. Every time the thought seemed to cross his mind, he would go into another fit of tears.

  He drove us to what looked to be an old warehouse in an old industrial park.

  Before we got out, he said, “I tracked whe
re you were by your phone. And I sat outside that nigga’s apartment all night. I waited for you to come out but you never did. I called Corvell and Nikki just to get a heads up on whatever lie y'all had come up with but hell they didn’t even know your hoe ass hadn’t come home. The whole time I was talking to you this morning I was like two cars behind you. I want you to remember that your bitch ass nigga did this; you and him. C’mon.”

  “Are you gonna kill me?” I cried.

  “Get the fuck out the car!”

  If I tried to run I knew I wouldn’t get far. I surrendered and accepted this as my fate.

  I followed Marcos inside the warehouse. He led me down some stairs until we reached what looked like a boiler room. When I saw Gogo, Quan, and Mateo, I knew what this was. Once I stepped fully into the room, I saw Kendall badly beaten in a chair with his hands tied behind him.

  I covered my mouth and gasped. Marcos grabbed a bat that was leaning up against the wall.

  When I left Kendall’s apartment, Marcos immediately started following me. He left Gogo, Quan, and Mateo to handle Kendall. While Marcos was pulling the wool over my eyes, they had Kendall and was beating the shit out of him.

  Kendall lifted his head and looked at me. He said, “I’m sorry.”

  I was just as much to blame for this, but I couldn’t fathom why he did what he did. He knew the type of person we were dealing with.

  “You know why I’ve let you live all these years?” Marcos asked Kendall. He poked him in the chest with the bat. “I never thought you would have been a threat to me. After we fucked your ass up that first time I didn’t think you would give us any more problems. But you one of them niggas that think you hard. You think you upstanding and do things the honorable way. Mothafucka, you ain’t shit! I wanted to kill you then but they said, let that nigga live. But you done fucked up this time. And I’m gonna enjoy this shit.”

  “No!” I screamed as the bat crashed into Kendall’s skull.

  “No?” Marcos turned to me. “You wanna save this nigga’s life?”

  “Don’t kill him, Marcos,” I begged. I grabbed the arm that was holding the bat.

  “You love him, Nephia?” Marcos asked me. “Tell me you love him and I’ll spare his life for you.”