by Belvin, Love
Love Lost
of the
Love’s Improbable Possibility Series
by Love Belvin
Published by MKT Publishing
Copyright © 2013 by Love Belvin
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidences are fictitious and the product of the author’s imagination.
Cover design by Marcus Broom of DPI Design
Acknowledgements
Love’s Betas - My first official audience: Kelly Anderson, Tondalaya DeShields, Shantel Hansford, Angela Jennings, Yorubia Ardell Belvin and Juaquanna Gaines-Sams, thank you for your time and patience with my demanding timeline. Thanks for falling in love with A.D.! You ladies rock!
Emily Snow, I truly appreciate you taking out the time to advise me through the first critical stages of my dream career. May God increase you beyond your wildest dreams.
In-house editor: Zakiya Walden of I’ve Got Something to Say Incorporated. Your energy and consistency perfected this love story.
The Word Maid: Tanya Keetch, thanks for your editing services as well as your patience with me and my snooping in on my baby. You have the warmest energy. Thanks for everything!
Marcus Broom of DPI Designs, thanks for your talented artistry.
Juaquanna Gaines-Sams, you have been more than a friend. Try a manager, a designer, an editor and my first L.I.P. fan! Your honesty and confidence in me was hugely critical.
MDT, thank you for being all that you are, which is so much of me. I’d choose you as my boss again and again and again. #TeamMKT
To my Master, my Jireh, my Rohi, Philippians 4:13. I will forever worship You.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 1
Rayna
It’s funny how a story can loop around to bring life full circle. It brings great perspective, simplifies repetitive life messages, completes revelations, and sharpens your lenses, thrusting you into realms of wisdom you never seemed to have grasped along the way. That is how my life has played out. I can now connect the dots that were laid out, some beyond my control and some by way of my own decisions.
There had been many nights when I’d awakened by nightmares of a gunshot. In my dreams, the bullet hits Jeremy aka J-Boog, a close friend of my brother’s, back in New Jersey and then it hits me clear through the heart. I grow frantic and most of the remaining night I lay with my eyes closed as I reminisce over my life. Dreaming about people from back home made my mind go back there for a while.
I think of my mother and how she began getting high back when I was in high school, in my sophomore year. How embarrassing was that? Most of the other children in the projects mothers or fathers started getting high either before they were born or during their elementary school years. Why did my mom decide to wait until my brother and I got into high school? It was humiliating. Everyone knew that she grew lonely once my dad, Eric, started creeping out on her with a woman on the other side of town. His betrayal weakened her and in turn destroyed our family. It damaged something in my core.
My parents married when she was twenty-two and he was twenty-four. Mom had an Associate’s degree in accounting while my father had a natural talent of working on cars. Eric, my father, always took care of my mom, Samantha, everyone who knew them would claim. He was very handsome and supposedly focused on his family. His mistake was moving us into the projects. Now, the projects were not a horrible place to live when they married. It was a starting point according to him. It’s clear my father got caught up in the game of believing our living there wasn’t on a timer. In a couple of years following their nuptials they had a son they named Akeem. Ten months later I came.
Mom was not a glamorous woman, by any means. Her appearance was far from trendy and fashionable. She was raised in a traditional Baptist church where she was taught to remain a virgin until she was married and to never divorce your husband under any circumstances, all of which she did. When she met daddy he attended church regularly with her. He even joined the Usher Board. He chose that over the Deacon Board claiming it was too much of a commitment. Mom cooked every night even when she was ill. She put everyone and everything before herself.
In the late 90s, my mom grew worried about the environment that she was raising her two pre-teen children in. Dad kept telling her not to worry, when the opportunity came we’d be gone. She believed every word he said, every time he said it. She proposed going back to school to earn extra cash that would allow for a timeline plan to rescue our family out of the Malcolm X Housing Projects within three and a half years. She even had props and materials that night to back her plan. I proudly watched the whole presentation, all excited about finally getting my own room and meeting new friends. Daddy denied her proposal by way of laughing it off. I wept all the way to my room after the verdict, feeling my mother’s pain.
From that night on I decided to never be like my mother. She lacked persistence and aggression. Daddy no longer said please or thank you. Complementing his wife on her culinary skills discontinued. I stopped hearing him talk nasty to her or touch her in grown-up ways. The gradual change caused acute pain and began my increasing resentment for him. I would never stay with a man who was not fully committed to me. I’d rather be alone.
Seven years and a baby girl later, we were still in the M.X.H. projects. When Akeem was seventeen and I was sixteen, he graduated from running weed for an older guy in building six, to flipping coke for himself with a sidekick, J-Boog. He stayed laced in the latest footwear and leather coats. He threw a few dollars my way once in a while when me and my boyfriend, O, would break up.
O was my god. I thought I would never love another being the way that I loved him. He showed me that attention that my father, who was too preoccupied with other women, wouldn’t at that critical age. O, whose birth name was Omar, was six years my senior. He watched me turn from a geeky, elementary school, boney kid to a blossoming young girl with a body of grown woman.
I never believed I was ugly, but didn’t consider myself a beauty either. There was nothing sensual about me. I was a little above the average female height, but not too tall. My toned muscles supported my five feet seven inch frame well. Hips and ass came in college when I didn’t participate in a dedicated sport like I did in high school, so for the most part I was slender with modest B cup breasts. My caramel skin isn’t considered light or exactly brown, but somewhere in the middle. My mom’s genetics gave me her round brown eyes and long and thick tresses that I always found difficult to keep under control, so I kept my mane in braids or some type of orderly ponytail all throughout high school.
O, along with other guys, would wait on the corner everyday starting at two in the afternoon to watch the kids walk home from school. Eventually I could tell he waited exclusively for me. It wasn’t love or anything like that, I now realize. I was a challenge, a new and fresh conquest. All the guys in the neighborhood would take their turn trying to get my attention but I stayed focused on church, school, and extracurricular activities like basketball and softball.
Church was uneventful, but laid a foundation of faith and stability. The stability in that no matter what was going on i
n life, there was the same enthusiasm being expressed during each service. In the many childhood years I’d spend in countless services, the one thing I noticed was that the place itself was like a hospital. So many broken people with varying issues would come in and be welcomed by normal, everyday people. I recall hearing stories of drug addictions, prison stints and abuse overtaking these people. And everyone from the pastor to my mother would embrace them and offer a forgiving God who would provide comfort no matter what their transgressions were.
I didn’t get it and would ask my mother, “Why do these sick people come to our small and humbled store-front church for help?” She would say that no matter what size the place is or what ailment a person is carrying, there is only one God who would always make us whole after the world had broken us, chewed us up and spit us out. Of course at that age, I didn’t catch the revelation but the conviction behind her words always stuck with me.
One thing that had changed at that point in my life was my awareness of boys. Prior to this, all my focus would be on playing basketball for Seawood High School. O would watch me play while waiting for the boys’ games, where the real crowd showed. He would actually come early but his boys never knew why, he had later told me. For a while, I wouldn’t notice either because I went straight home after each game. Being shy and socially isolated, I never cared to stay and fraternize.
One night, when Seawood’s girls’ team played our most rivaled team, Maywest High, O was there glued to the game. It was the last .21 seconds of the fourth quarter, the scoreboard read 76-HOME to 77-GUEST. We had the ball. One of Maywest’s players pushed me as I went for a layup and was fouled. The coach just called for the last time-out. During his last pep speech, he piled the pressure on me. He told me that the next two shots that I was about to make would determine if my team would make it to the finals. Perspiration left trail marks down my face. I took a deep swallow and nodded in agreement. After our team chant, the players took their places on the court. From my peripheral I could see O was about to wet his pants. He later told me that he thought I was a good girl basketball player but didn’t do too well under pressure. I could see him move up on the bleacher and cringe. Next to him were his boys watching him in amazement. This behavior was totally inappropriate for a D-boy. At next glance, I saw they were ragging on him with taunts and laughter. None of which he heard. Everything was on that court.
I said a prayer, as I always did before a free throw, and arched my arms to make the shot. “Doosh!”
The small crowd went wild. O closed his eyes partly relieved.
“One more, baby girl! Just one more time!” he screamed through tunneled hands causing me to take a cursory glance in his direction.
I took a deep breath and swallowed. Angling my arms again, I closed my eyes and tossed the ball. “Doosh!”
I swear, I didn’t hear anything but I felt my teammates pick me up and carry me in the air. I opened my eyes, looked at the scoreboard and smiled. I did it! Coach ran towards me screaming with joy. We marched in a circle around the gym boasting our victory chant. We made our way down towards the entrance of the gym and on the high end of the bleachers, I noticed O.
He’s looking at me! I thought. He gave me a wink and a deep gaze. My heartbeat increased and I gushed internally.
After celebrating and changing in the locker room, I prepared to leave. I had a mid-term to prepare for the minute I got home. As I got ready to exit from the locker room my girlfriend, Keysha, asked me to go through the gym with her to look for her boyfriend. Hesitantly I did. I waited in the gym with Keysha for about twenty minutes. This gave me time to comb the room for O, but to no avail.
After Keysha was done cooing with her boyfriend, we took off.
The next day after taking a mid-term, I was picked up early from school by my mother. My menstrual cycle fell and I ran out of the Anaprox pills that my mom had given me until she refilled my birth control pills. I was still a virgin but was prescribed the pills to help with the unbearable cramps that Advil, Aleve, Tylenol, or Midol couldn’t assist with. I’d stayed in all day. I even missed practice that evening.
Akeem came in around nine p.m. handing me a piece of paper, “Yo, O told me to give this to you.”
Puzzled, I opened the tightly folded paper and it read, “Call me sometime 552-3695”. I suddenly became aware of my own presence and appearance as if O was in my room and took my retainer out and combed my fingers through my hair. I ran out of the room and into kitchen then living room searching for my brother. I sprinted out of the apartment into the hall, as he was about to reach the exit door to the stairwell and yelled, “Who gave this you Keeme?”
“Girl, you heard me say O!”
“Stop playing, Keeme. When did he give this to you?”
“I-on’t know. Like a couple of hours ago before him and Kool-Kev went Uptown,” he yelled as he ran down the stairs.
I gawked at the paper all night but dared not to call. O was one of those down ass cats. He was older but I never really considered his age because young adolescent men and women were all on the same mental level in the projects. I knew I’d get lots of brownie points from my girls when they found this out. I could hardly sleep that night. All I could think about was the previous night’s game and the cell number. What would he possibly want from me when he could have Tasha? She was his age…or Tameka who fought Tasha over him a year back.
The next day I told Keysha and her sister, Theresa, on our way to school. We spent the rest of the day fantasizing about me being O’s baby mother. Classless, I know, but at that age that was all we knew. After school, I attempted the usual, which was to run home for a few hours to do homework and get a snack before heading back to school for practice. Only this day I found someone waiting for me in front of my building before I made it up to my apartment. It was O.
“Aren’t we a little later than usual?” he said with a smile.
I thought to myself, I did take forever in T.J.’s to get a sandwich. “Hunh?” was all I could muster.
“You heard me, girl. Why you ain’t call me? Im’ma fuck your little brother up if he didn’t give you my number.”
People always referred to Akeem as the younger sibling because of my maturity. O was no different. I chuckled to myself at that before answering, “I stopped at T.J.’s to get a sandwich. How do you know what time I get home?”
“Because I know. Now did dat lil’ nigga give you my number or what?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t call…”
“I know you didn’t. Why not?”
“I—” I tried to answer but he interrupted.
“A’ight, you got plenty of time to explain. Go upstairs and get ready for practice. I’m giving you a ride.”
I felt rush of exhilaration. He never gave me a chance to decline or explain that my mother would kill me if she even knew he made the proposal. I headed straight upstairs to catch my breath, my hoagie be damned. I brushed my teeth, ran in my mother’s room to use some of her perfume and tried to apply a little make up.
I gazed at myself in the mirror and thought about all of the endless possibilities of becoming O’s girl. The older girls would notice and respect me. My only problem was my mother. Hopefully hanging out with Ann down the hall would have an impression on her decisions concerning me dating a drug dealer.
Two hours later, he was waiting downstairs right in front of the building, blasting some underground rap song from a ’88 money-green BMW. I knew it wasn’t his but he looked damn good in it. I looked around three times as if I was crossing the street to see who was watching. I jumped in the car. O started laughing hard as hell. I grew more embarrassed by the second.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, flaring attitude.
“Damn, girl, you ran in this mother-fucka like you was dodging bullets or sum’ shit.”
I just smiled wanting him to hurry up. He took me to practice from that day on, borrowing a crack-head’s car until he got up enough money for his own. He put it in his mo
ther’s name because I was too young. From there on out the two of us were inseparable. O helped me transition to the next stage of my life. He bought me gold earrings, rings, necklaces, and bracelets with his name in them. He would even buy my little sister, Chyna, jewelry and clothes from baby G.A.P. In his mind, I was his.
He didn’t pressure me for sex. Little did I know at the time, when he was pressed for sex he had girls lined up for that. I was his good girl who never gave it up. Eventually we got to the point of touching and licking and he would go down on me every now and then, which I quickly learned to enjoy. He took me with him Uptown to flip. Bought me coats and shoes that I couldn’t explain to my mother, and by this time, my father moved out of the house. Akeem knew the deal. He felt as long as O didn’t hurt me he didn’t have to get involved. Plus, he helped take me of out the shell Akeem claimed I was in. Akeem thought I was a cornball until O snatched me up.
O taught me street slang and how to protect myself on the streets. He helped me with my schoolwork when I had difficulties. He was a smart student as a kid. That science and math type of genius. He attempted a year at Ramapo College but couldn’t let go of the streets and ended up flunking out. He went right back to the same streets his mother had hoped he had been saved from.
For some reason Samantha adjusted to the idea of O and me quickly. She had eventually began inviting him over for dinner, to my delight. This is one of the advantages of my dad being gone, I thought. I was a B+ student all throughout high school. I figured as long as I maintained good grades my mother wouldn’t mind my relationship with O.
Over the next year, rumors started circulating about Samantha getting high. People would watch what they’d say around me out of respect for O. One day, when basketball season was over, I came home and mom wasn’t there. I dismissed my curiosities until I noticed my five-year-old sister there asleep. I had been there for over fifteen minutes before l had noticed. My head began to spin. I was not accustomed to my mother performing irresponsible acts like this. I immediately called my confidant, O. He told me to calm down and not to think the worst; she’d be home soon. Strangely, twenty minutes after we hung up the phone mom came keying in the door. She ran into the bathroom to shower saying that she’d be out in a minute to start dinner. I didn’t know what to say so I said nothing.
