The Fight Within

by Laveen, Tiana

  “Yeah, I suppose it is.”

  “Sometimes,” he said upon a sigh, “it seems like a person can do more harm by being there than not being there. So…” He paused for a moment, slowed his trek until they both stopped. “You think she didn’t want you?”

  “I think…” She looked for a moment at the ground, then met eyes with him… Such beautiful eyes she had. “I think my mother just wasn’t cut out for motherhood and had her own demons she battled on a daily basis, Sean. I think she was afraid to love and be loved. I know that now as an adult, but as a child, I spent the majority of the time trying to get her affection and acknowledgement. Fact of the matter is, she just doesn’t like me.” She smiled sadly as they continued to walk the path, still hand in hand.

  “She never did like me. I was tolerated. It wasn’t anything I did, she never made me feel like I was a bad kid or anything like that, but she was emotionally absent. Vacant.”

  “Was she that way with your brothers, too?”

  “Yes, it was the same I believe with all of us but with me it was more pronounced. Regardless, I think that’s one reason why they moved away and never looked back. They don’t understand why I even deal with her. Nevertheless, I do talk to my mother a few times a month, stop over as well. They are awkward visits though.”

  “I bet.” He couldn’t imagine having a mom like that, and felt all the more fortunate for having the woman who birthed him in his life.

  “I remember one time, someone didn’t even know she was my mother and asked who she was at a dinner function we were at for a high school dance recital of mine. I was getting an award from my dance class.” She chuckled, though it was obvious the conversation was far from funny.

  “You danced?” He couldn’t help but grin.

  “Yes.”

  “I bet you were good…” He took a look at her shapely legs once again, her leggings hugging them in all the right places. He sucked his bottom lip as the revelation spurred his imagination and did nasty things in her honor.

  “Yeah, I was pretty good if I say so myself. Anyway, it was the way she was sitting I guess, her body turned away from me, which threw people off. I don’t know. Besides, I look just like my father and my mother hated my father.”

  Sean’s tongue thickened as he searched for the right words to say. He was now filled with regret for encouraging the woman to open up like a can of Ragu pasta, expose her guts. Though he told her she could drop it, he had still pushed her a bit, and now the woman stood totally exposed. He sometimes forgot, on days such as this, that not everyone had a set of parents like his own.

  So enmeshed in family life he’d become, it became something he occasionally took for granted. He wished he could clone his mom and dad, as annoying as they were, and pass them out like trinkets to people in need. This was one of those cases…

  “Why’d she hate him?” he finally asked, breaking the silence.

  “My father was madly in love with my mother, everyone could see it. I think she tried to love him back, but she became very paranoid, thinking he was cheating all the time. He wasn’t, Sean. He worked hard to support his family is all. I know I was just a little kid then, but my father was the real McCoy… a good guy. Something must’ve happened to my mother, I’m not sure what, but she changed from being barely there, to being very negative, downright cruel as time went on.

  “One day, he left. She kept telling him to. She told him she didn’t want him, wanted a divorce. He tried to make it work, but she kept pushing him away. He gathered me and my brothers up one night and said he was leaving. Oh, I cried my heart out, Sean! I was a daddy’s girl! But then he hushed me, put his finger over my lips and told me to calm down, that he’d be back. He said he was going to get us an apartment for him, my brothers, and me and come get us the following week. My father never made me a promise he didn’t keep. Never.

  “But this time, he couldn’t keep it. Two days later he had a heart attack at his job.”

  “Oh man, I’m sorry, Treasure.”

  I’m an asshole for bringing this shit up…a big stinkin’, hairy asshole…

  “Yeah.” Her eyes became vacant, her tone eerily calm. “I was sorry too, Sean. Real sorry. But…that was a long time ago… Let’s talk about something else.”

  He nodded, and they did. They spoke of their jobs, of places they wanted to visit, things they wanted to see and do. They discussed bucket lists and agendas, the best music and the worst movies. Something was happening. As the sweet breeze kissed their flesh, they drew a bit closer together, in more ways than one. The woman had dimension. She wasn’t just some pretty, pampered face. She had soul and was grounded…and he found it intoxicatingly sexy. Before he knew it, their time was up, far too soon.

  I’ll leave you with a lil somethin’ to hold on to, Treasure. Something good, something nice… No more bad stuff.

  Pulling her toward him, he watched her shock in her widened eyes and the mystified expression on her face.

  “I gotta go.” Pushing his lips briefly into hers, he released her and began to walk away, leaving her there. “I’ll call ya tonight if that’s cool?” he shouted over the honking of cars as he navigated closer to a row of benches, preparing to cross the street.

  “Yeah, that’s fine!” she hollered back, waving, a big smile on her face. Then, she placed her fingertips on the spot his lips had touched, before slowly turning away and walking in the opposite direction.

  We’re leaving each other for a second, but we’ll be back. I think I like you a lot, Treasure, a whole fucking lot and baby, I want you…and I’m going to have you…

  *

  The dull light of the computer worked as some sort of hypnotic incubator. Treasure tried to keep her head up, but her neck muscles bent like wind beaten tree limbs, letting her down…

  “Huh?” she uttered, as if intoxicated. She went through each email and account, massaging the keyboard with eager fingers, selecting delete over and over again. She’d forgotten all about them until she’d awakened from a fantastical dream. It felt rather surreal and she blamed it on her two glasses of red wine while chatting with Sean on the damn phone. The boy could talk. No, he could talk shit, and she loved every silly moment of it. Just like that, he was running down things that made her lose her breath, made her tummy roll deep within. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d laughed so damn hard…

  “It’s true. The fucking lights were all the way on the other side of the room. I was tryna get away from her ass, but I couldn’t see and I kept running my fingers along the wall, feeling it up. The damn wall asked me for my number afterward… I guess it was going to write it down on itself with the header, ‘For a good time, call…’” he said, relaying a nightmarish evening with one of his insane ex-girlfriends from many years ago.

  “You’re so stupid!” Treasure chuckled.

  He was so damn funny… Boy, such a relief to laugh so hard until you cried…

  Cried.

  Yeah, that was the issue. She’d gotten Jackson out of her system; her love for him was gone, long gone. She’d never cried so much in her life until the realization had set in that her marriage was crushed and she’d be raising children in a whole new way. She tried to keep her family together. After all, that’s what Mama said to do…

  ‘Keep your family together for the kids! Your father didn’t give a damn about y’all, but if that man don’t walk out, you don’t walk out, either!’

  To Mama, it didn’t matter what Jackson did, said or how the brute behaved. All she could see in her old, tired eyes was that the man was tall, handsome, articulate and wealthy. Nothing else mattered to her…

  Who cared that he was carrying on with other women?

  Who cared that he spoke to her like she was dog shit slathered on the bottom of his Manhattan Richelieu Louis Vuitton shoes?

  Who cared that he was negligent father?

  Who cared?

  Treasure cared.

  She’d lamented for months after the divorce
was final, trying to figure out what to do with herself now that the life she’d known for so long had shattered. What does one do when their better half vanishes? It was a worse half, but a half, nevertheless…

  Now here she sat reading over emails the man had sent her so many years ago. He’d declared his love, told her she was the best thing that had ever happened to him. She felt honored to be in his damn presence for so many years. She never took herself as a homely girl; matter of fact, when her face was beat just right or she was feeling extra fly, she turned her share of admiring heads, but Jackson woke up looking like the sun rose and set on his glorious, smooth brown-skinned ass without much effort at all. She was subtly reminded by so-called friends, and even her mother a time or two, that he was out of her damn league.

  Descriptions of the man’s jawline would be written in erotic poetry—hard and chiseled. He donned dimples, the right one a bit more pronounced than the left, with plush, bowed lips between them. Thick brows hung above his mesmerizing dark eyes and his hair felt like soft cotton against one’s fingertips. His tall, well-defined body felt like cool marble married to granite for a match made in lustful heaven. He was blessed below the waist as well, and he knew how to use it…

  Yeah, at one point she did miss the intimacy, the sex, the fucking, but that soon waned once her mind allowed her to envision the man’s long, rigid dick inside of another woman, just a few hours prior, and the day before that as well. She could never shake that imagery loose, and though it came from her self-constructed imagination, the shit was based on a true story.

  DELETE.

  Suddenly refreshed with a second wind, her fingers came alive and got rid of all the fucked up, flowery lies the man had told her, year after year.

  DELETE. DELETE.

  She moved fast and furious now, loath to hear another whisper from his ghost. She kept on and on, pounding the keyboard like Liberace. A song was being created all right, a song was being sung. The tears stung a bit as they ran down her freshly washed face, but her heart had bust free, so damn alive. The things she’d forgotten came back to haunt her when those emails resurfaced that evening, reminding her of what once was, but the emotions were short-lived and she thanked God aloud for it be a swift killing. No one could bring this back. No one could refuse to haul it away. Gmail and Yahoo owed her. They were taking it down an electronic rabbit hole, never letting her see it again. They promised! And she did it, over and over again until the task was complete. After a few moments, she sighed in her seat at the small desk in her bedroom, then rose.

  Stretching on her tippy toes, she yawned, then fell down onto the white fluffy sheets of her new Queen-sized bed. It opened up the space, gave her room to make their house her very own. Her sanctuary belonged to her and her alone now. There was no room for any garbage, trash, rubbish and filth. No, there was only room for love, hugs and kisses. This latest show of affection she gave to herself as she wrapped her body in the covers, cocooning and protecting her world from all others. She smiled from ear to ear as she closed her eyes, gripping the sheets tightly in her palms. Falling slowly asleep as if drifting on a cloud, some words from Sean’s lips replayed in her mind like a soundtrack to an upcoming, magnificent dream:

  “We only got one life. What tha hell do I look like living it for other people? Trying to make everybody else happy? Nine times out of ten, the people we try to impress don’t give a shit about us. This is my life, ya know? I’m gonna do what I want to do and not let anything stop me. I got dreams. That’s why it’s important to take chances sometimes. A lady I like to talk to every now and again reminded me about that. I’m learning this too, not just talking about you.”

  “I know you’re not, Sean. And I agree with you. I think you’re my new friend.” She couldn’t help but smile. “You have a way of saying things, too.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m speaking from the heart. Done some stupid shit in my life, but it’s important to learn from those mistakes. Anyway, everything happens for a reason. I didn’t take your trash away, and now look, you’re saying we’re friends. You see me as a friend now, huh?”

  She laughed lightly. “Well, maybe more than that…”

  “Having friends is always a good thing…being more than friends is a great thing. I want to be your next great thing…”

  *

  Two weeks later…

  “Come here.” He wrapped his arm snugly around her waist as they waited in the long line that filtered into the cramped, shoebox shaped Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory on Fulton Ferry Landing Pier. He felt the woman’s soft body stiffen against him, then her form slump and yield as she accepted her fate. The slight wind carried her aroma in the air, titillating him just so. She smelled of cherries and jasmine, feminine and lovely, sexual and enticing, inviting him for a kiss…

  Bending low, he seemed to have startled her when he pressed his lips against her forehead, causing her to look upward at him with a bewitching half smile across her face. They’d been talking non-stop for weeks since their first date. Most of the banter was light hearted and jovial but there were a few times when she’d opened up, let him see some mess, some sticky, icky shit that hurt her deep within. He felt he now knew the woman, and it was more than obvious that her children came first for her. According to Treasure, she had a sweet, fourteen year old daughter that appeared to be a talented dancer. The young lady was slightly introverted, but a sweetheart just the same. And then there was Brian, her rambunctious teenage son with a cynical bend, yet was a serious music lover. As the woman he adored began to pour out stories regarding her children, he couldn’t help but notice that she seemed to be with them during the majority of her time. Even when she worked, she’d take several self-imposed breaks to check up on them, get their 411. As she spoke, he bit his tongue, finding it difficult to curb his natural inclination to speak and think afterward, but one factor nagged the shit out of him…

  Where the hell is this big time lawyer father of theirs?

  He figured she’d get more into that later, as they settled into a groove of sorts where she finally completely trusted him. He didn’t want to rock the damn apple cart, make the shit tumble over and make applesauce when he’d just gotten situated. After the first encounter, he figured he was lucky that she was still speaking to him in the first damn place. However, he wasn’t exactly sure how to monitor his behavior on an ongoing basis. So, he didn’t. He figured, based on her comments then and recently, she didn’t actually want him to change. No, quite the contrary. The woman simply desired for him to be more mindful of how he said the shit he did. Not stop talking, but speak a wee bit gentler. He figured that wasn’t too much to ask, so, they got into a nice sweet spot, and it seemed to be working out just fine.

  “They’ve got great floats, now.” He pointed to the handwritten sign as they moved a bit closer toward their chance to order. Her growling stomach didn’t go unnoticed, and she looked away, as if that would somehow convince him that it wasn’t her gut talking in five different languages at that precise moment. He hoped her pussy was talking to him too…

  “You skipped lunch again today, didn’t you?” He smirked.

  “I was just so busy!” She looked into his eyes woefully, a slight grin on her face.

  “I told you about that.” He grinned, playfully chastising her as he rubbed his hand along her shoulder.

  “You’ve known me all of two months and—”

  “…Two and a half.”

  She rolled her eyes. “And you are already trying to boss me around,” she joked.

  “Gotta keep my baby healthy.” He winked at her.

  “Your baby, huh?” Her eyes gleamed as she stared into his.

  “You are so damn pretty… Move up, we’re almost there.”

  She smiled and walked a bit ahead, the train of people steady and close behind her. The few tables inside were taken, all occupied by patrons digging into overflowing banana splits and cups of homemade delicious, sweet delights.

  “What do you want
, Treasure?”

  “I want the—”

  “Let me get a cup of ya vanilla ice cream, and a root beer float, please.”

  “You didn’t even let me answer!” she protested, rising on her tippy toes to her full height, as if to intimidate.

  “You took too long,” he teased. As she stood there, he simply couldn’t resist wrapping both of his arms around her waist and resting his chin above her head. Once again, he felt her stiffen, then relax against him. Her ass brushed alongside his groin, stirring the monster in his pants, daring it to initiate a ‘meet and greet.’

  Push your ass into me again… I like that…feels good.

  “Sean?”

  “Yeah?” he answered fast as she pulled him out of his sordid thoughts. “What’s up?” he spoke over the rumble of the crowd.

  “You smell good.”

  “You say that like you’re surprised…like I’d smell like garbage during a date.” He chuckled, messing with her a bit.

  “I didn’t say it like I was surprised!” she protested, wiggling against him a bit as they watched their desserts being prepared.

  “I know, I’m just kidding,” he replied softly. He turned her toward him and took hold of her chin, made her look him in the eye. They simply stared at one another, until the woman that had prepared their homemade edible pleasures handed him the float. Reluctantly, he released her and pulled the cash out of his pocket, handing it to the employee. “Where’s my cherry?” he asked as he surveyed the delectable root beer concoction.

  “We’re out of cherries,” the young lady said matter-of-factly.

  “I should get extra whipped cream then.” He laughed.

  “Do you want extra whipped cream?” The lady smiled.

  “Nah, just tryna mess with you a bit. Thanks though.” They turned and walked away and just then, he heard a delighted moan roll like an orgasmic purr right out of Treasure’s mouth.

  “Do you wanna hotel room with your homemade vanilla ice cream?” He looked at her with a raised brow as he fought off a laugh. “You need some privacy, just the two of you?” he mocked as she closed her eyes and savored the sweet treat.