What A Person Wants

by Bell, Kris

  “So, that’s it?” he asked a few agonizing minutes later. “You’re not going to say anything to me?”

  “What do you want me to say, Rhys?”

  “How about ‘what the hell is wrong with you?’ Or ‘why did you kiss my woman?’"

  I sighed heavily and dropped my head to my chest. My hands stopped roaming through my gym bag. “Isabel is not my woman," I said quietly, still not meeting Rhys' gaze. "She can do whatever she wants.”

  “Oh my god, Richie! Will you please pull your head from out of your ass for a second and be real for once in your goddamn life?”

  I turned and looked at Rhys. He stood next to me, breathing hard, his sleeveless t-shirt damp with sweat. My gaze went down to his hands, which kept clenching and unclenching. Rhys wanted to hit me, and that pissed me off.

  “Rhys, first of all, don’t come at me like that. Second of all, what is your problem?”

  “My problem is simple,” Rhys said angrily. “I admit my mistakes. I know when I fuck up a good thing, but you don’t. You can be such an ignorant bitch sometimes that you can’t even tell when you lost a game and you need to reset. That’s my problem.”

  “Are we talking about handball?”

  “No, we're not fucking talking about handball!” Rhys yelled. “You dense son of a bitch! I’m talking about you dealing with Chloe and refusing to deal with Isabel. You would rather get your ass handed to you on a regular basis by a woman who means you no good than to pursue a woman you know for a fact would love you! That’s what I mean! You were with Chloe for years and I stood by and watched her break your heart so many fucking times, and yet you kept making excuses for her. Isabel would never hurt you the way Chloe did, but you can’t see that because you choose to stay blind. I know right now you’re pissed because I kissed Izzy, but your timid ass isn't going to tell me so. Why don’t you just man the fuck up and be real with yourself for once?”

  “Rhys, I don’t know where the hell all this is coming from, but you don’t know how shit about what happened between me and Chloe! Yeah, she did me dirty a few times, but-”

  Rhys threw his hands in the air and shook his head. “See, there you go again. Making excuses. And I do know a lot that's happened between you and Chloe. Even if you didn't tell me every damn time she broke your heart--which you did--I'm not blind. I've been your best friend for most of my life and I know you. So don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about.

  "You know Chloe Childs is poison. She's the worst kind of female, but you got this grand idea that she's your ‘perfect woman.' You refuse to acknowledge the fact that your vision of this 'perfect woman' isn't Chloe. This vision doesn't even exist. Richie, you got to let that shit go. You might be missing out on the best thing that ever happened to you because of this stupid hang up you have about the type of woman you want."

  I was stunned. Rhys came at me with an anger I didn’t even know he held towards me. All I could do was hang my head as he assailed me with the truth.

  I always had this image of what my perfect woman would be: sexy with a body to die for, classy, smart, outgoing, someone I could brag about hanging on my arm. Chloe Childs seemed to embody all of my qualifications and then some. I was so happy to say she was mine. She was a like a shiny new toy I couldn't believe I was allowed to play with. Rhys' words weren’t falling on deaf ears this time. Chloe had broken my heart every time I let her get close to me, but as much as I hated her for how she treated me, deep down, I still wanted her to be that good woman.

  Rhys sat back down on the bench. A couple of guys had walked into the locker room but headed towards the shower. For the time being, we were still alone.

  “Look, Richie,” Rhys said in a calmer tone. “I’m not trying to come down on you, but you’re my boy and I’ll always have your back. I just don’t want you to mess up a good thing because you’re stuck in the past. I mean, look at me. I never paid Izzy any mind. All this time, I’ve been chasing behind women looking for that priceless gem when I had a diamond in the rough in my face for years. I’m going to divorce Tiffany. There’s no question about that. But look at what I had to go through. Look at all the time I wasted. Don’t be like me. Forget about Chloe and what you expected to have with her. Isabel cares about you. Man up and make her your priority.”

  * * * *

  I sat in my car with my cell phone in my hand wondering if my day could be any more emotionally draining than it had already been. After Rhys told me about myself in the gym locker room, we cleaned up and went grabbed beer at Kelly's, an Irish pup not too far from my home.

  There was no way I could stay mad at Rhys for blowing up at me. He was right in every sense. I was wrong. I should have known that he would never do or say anything to deliberately hurt me. He was my best friend, my ace. Even when we didn’t see eye to eye, we still respected each other. Whatever needed to be said, needed to be said. Simple as that.

  We talked things over for about an hour or so, about his regret for marrying Tiffany whom he hadn’t seen her for a couple days and his ultimate regret for passing over Isabel. I finally owned up to my own shortcomings in the situation and assured Rhys that I was going to make it my business to make Isabel my lady and cut Chloe off for good.

  After a round of beer and a much needed conversation, Rhys took off leaving me behind to make yet another phone call to Isabel. After hitting her speed dial number, I thought of what message I was going to leave, assuming the call would to go to voicemail. I was shocked when someone answered on the second ring and said, “Rich?”

  “Tara?” I asked, confused. I double checked the number I dialed confirming that I had actually called the right person. Isabel’s cell number was displayed. “What are you doing with Isabel’s phone?”

  Tara sounded hushed on the phone. “I’m holding her phone for her. We’re at Sentara Hospital in Hampton. Her mom’s been hurt.”

  The first thing that came to mind when Tara said Isabel’s mom had been hurt was that her asshole boyfriend Petey had done something to her. I started my car and peeled out of the pup's parking lot. Kelly's was located in the upper section of Newport News. It would take me a while to make it to Sentara Hospital in Hampton, but if I sped I could make good time.

  “Tara, did they say what happened to her?” I asked as I sped down the road.

  “No. We got the call a little while ago. Some stupid nurse who called Izzy had her thinking her mom was about to die, so we damn near flew over here. They haven't told us a thing yet, though.”

  “What?”

  “Honey, I don’t know, but as soon as I find that nurse, I'm slapping the shit out of her. Just wait.”

  “So, is her mom in a private room?”

  “Yeah, Izzy was just let up to see her a minute ago. They had us waiting like we had time for all that. I hate hospitals. What the hell are you looking at? Don’t point to the damn poster! I need to use the goddamn phone!”

  “Tara, who the hell are you talking to?” I heard someone in the background fussing at Tara about using a cell phone in a hospital. Isabel’s friend wasted no time in telling the individual to shut the hell up and sit the hell down. Tara could be a sweetheart, but more often than not, her mouth needed a good bleaching. Washing it out with soap probably wouldn't do anything but make her swear more.

  “Sorry about that, Richie. These assholes here are trying to rush me off the phone. Anyway, like I was saying, Izzy just went up. I’m sitting in the waiting room on the first floor. Visiting hours are over, but they're letting her in to sit with her mom for a while.”

  I glanced at my watch. “Alright, I’m headed towards Hampton now. Give me twenty minutes. Stay there.”

  “Okay.”

  I was about to hang up the call when I heard Tara yelling my name. I quickly put the phone back to my ear.

  “Richie, did you really kiss Chloe?”

  Aw, fuck me sideways!

  I took a deep breath and told the truth.

  “Wow,” Tara said. “You know you
really hurt her feelings. She’ll never tell you flat out, but I know my best friend. She really likes you. Probably more than she liked Kyle.”

  Warmth spread through my belly and flushed my face to what I’m sure was a sudden scarlet red.

  “Well, she loved Kyle. Why else would she have gone off the way she did when she found out about him and Lawanda?” I responded.

  “You should know better than anyone that you can love a person and not like them. They’re two totally different things. Chloe should have taught you that. But trust me! She only went off like that because she expected him to marry her so they could have a home with a white picket fence and a couple of rug rats and all that extra stuff. And since Kyle was the only man she had ever had a serious relationship with…well, you can do the math.”

  “Yeah,” I sighed, “I can do the math.”

  After we said our goodbyes, I took another deep breath.

  Good god! When it rains, it pours.

  ISABEL

  I sat in my mother’s hospital room in an uncomfortable armchair and waited for the nurse to finish checking my mother’s vitals. It hurt so much to see her lying in a hospital bed with her face battered and bruised, her right hand bandaged all the way to her elbow. One of her eyes was swollen shut and her bottom lip resembled a rubber inner tube about to burst. However, despite all of the pain she must have felt, she still smiled.

  The nurse finally finished her work and left the room, promising to come back with some pain pills in thirty minutes. My mother rolled her head towards me and gave me a tired grin.

  “I told them to call you to let you know I was here. I didn’t expect to see you come over so soon. It’s not like I’m about to die.”

  I rolled my eyes, remembering how the nurse on the phone made me panic. “Well, Mama, it doesn’t matter. I’m here now and I would really love to know how you ended up like this.”

  My mother said matter-of-factly, “Petey.”

  At that moment, I didn’t know what was worse. The fact that Petey had finally put my mother in the hospital or the fact that my mother seemed completely unfazed by the whole thing. Swollen face and all, she seemed…peaceful.

  “Ok, just start from the top. What happened?”

  My mother proceeded to tell me how she had just come home after dropping Sabrina off with her grandmother. Petey was supposed to pick her up from school, but he was a no show as usual. After she finally made it back home, she opened her front door and found Petey hugged up on the couch with a mammoth of a woman.

  “You should have seen her, baby. This woman had black and fire red hair, floppy breasts with no bra, and the biggest nose I had even seen on a human. Not to mention that she had to be at least three hundred pounds of pure flab. It was a terrible sight watching the two of the paw each other.”

  It took all of three seconds before Petey noticed Mama standing mouth agape in front of her opened door and started fussing at her. Like she was wrong for walking in on him in her house! The woman who Petey was fooling around with on the couch wasn’t the same woman who had come over before and hit my mom in the head with a crowbar.

  My mother explained how she had kicked the woman out of her home, literally. She ran over, grabbed the woman by her red and black weave, and led her across the room and out the door, kicking her in the ass on the way out. It wasn’t long before Petey had got up and slapped my mother in the face for disrespecting his company.

  “Izzy, something in me snapped when he hit me,” she said softly. Mama stared at the wall behind me as if she was watching the events unfold on screen. “I couldn’t believe it. How dare he get mad at me when he was the one who was cheating on me! In my own home, no less! It was as though when he hit me, he literally knocked some sense into me. I got angry.”

  Angry was putting it mildly. According to my mother’s story, she hulked out. After Petey slapped her, fussing and cussing the whole time, my mother went into the kitchen and pulled a huge knife from her knife rack. Ever so calmly, she went into the living room and told Petey that if she ever caught him with another woman and if he so much as laid a pinky on her, she was going to cut him. He didn’t believe her. He hit her again, so hard this time she tasted blood. Before she could react, he took the knife from her and called her stupid for trying to threaten him.

  That didn’t help calm the fire that brewing inside Mama. When she got her bearings, she hit Petey back, almost knocking him off his feet. Stunned, Petey couldn’t respond fast enough to Mama’s quick hits. She beat him with everything she had, including the television remote.

  “And I just kept yelling at him, ‘you will never hurt me again! You will never disrespect me again!’ By the time I had bloodied his nose, he started fighting me back. You should have seen it, baby. We were all over the living room, the kitchen. He broke my coffee table after I slammed him into it.”

  I cut her off, shocked. "Mama, you slammed him into your coffee table? How did you do that?”

  Mama started to chuckle, but her laugh quickly turned into a wince. She gingerly laid her hand on the side of her chest where her ribs were bruised. I was halfway up from my seat to check on her before she gestured for me to sit back down.

  After a moment, she continued. “Honey, let me tell you something. When you finally get fed up and you start fight back, you be surprised at the strength that comes from you. I don’t know what possessed me. I was just tired of being hurt and disappointed. For five years, I gave that man my life and in turn, he did his best to crush it. Never mind the cheating. He belittled me. Took me for granted. I simply got tired. Petey putting his hands on me only proved that I meant nothing to him, and I wasn’t going to allow him another opportunity to break me down.”

  It didn’t take long before the cops were called by a neighbor and both Mama and Petey were rushed to the hospital. She told me that Petey was actually in a room down the hall in far worse condition than her.

  “Izzy, I hate to say it this way, but I beat his ass. For all the crap I took from him, I gave it all back. And I’ve already spoken with the police. I’m filing domestic abuse charges on him. I’m through.”

  I sat in amazement, staring at the woman who birthed me as though I was looking at a complete stranger. Who was this battered woman on a hospital bed telling a story about abuse with a smile on her face? I only had one question for her.

  “Mama, if y’all had such a bad fight and you’re so hurt, why do you seem so happy?” My mother’s bright brown eyes twinkled as she smiled even harder. I don’t know how she managed with her lips so swollen, but she smiled just the same. Her answer amazed me even more.

  “Because I have peace. For the first time in a long time, I have peace. Why? Because I finally know and understand that I am worth so much more than Petey or anyone else who wants to better themselves by knocking me down. I understand that I don't need a man to validate me or prove to myself that I am worth something. I have myself and I have you, my beautiful daughter. Today is a new day, baby girl and I’m loving it.”

  I had no words. To hear my mother sound so strong and sure of herself was enough to bring tears to my eyes. I knew how much she suffered from a string of bad boyfriends while growing up, and I saw how poorly Petey treated her. All her life, she believed her worth and value was tied into having a man at home, but now she was ready to stand on her own two feet and live her life. I sniffled back my tears and leaned over my mother’s bed to kiss her forehead.

  “What was that for?” she asked.

  “For finally getting it,” I said and laughed.

  “Well, don’t show me too much love yet, honey. I’m not through with you.” I frowned and asked her what she meant.

  Mama looked me squarely in my eyes and said, “If you don’t listen to anything else I say, listen to this. You cannot waste your time waiting for someone who will never wait for you.”

  Well, that was random. Confused, I asked, “What do you mean?”

  “Hush now and pay attention.”

 
; I shut up. It’s not every day I get shushed. I knew better than to push the issue. I sat back in the stiff armchair and let my mother say what was on her mind.

  “Believe me when I say I am so very proud of the woman you've become, Izzy, but I have regrets. As a mother I regret never instilling in you the fact that you don’t need a man to define who you are."

  "Mama, I don't-"

  "Let me finish, Izzy. Now, I never liked Kyle Bennett, but I dealt with him because I didn’t want to hurt you. I always knew he wasn’t the right one for you, and nothing he has done these past few weeks surprises me. But when he left for Texas and you waited for him, it bothered me because I knew he wasn’t coming back home to you. You never would have accepted that if I had told you, though. That much I am certain of. You put so much faith in a man who didn‘t deserve any. You would have stopped talking to me if I had so much as said ‘boo' to that boy.”

  I swallowed hard. This was the first time she had ever shared anything with me pertaining to Kyle. I had always assumed she was too busy worrying over her relationship with Petey to give me any sound advice on my relationship with him. Never did I consider she was merely avoiding confrontation.

  “My point is simple, baby. Don’t waste your time. You’re young. You have a lot going for you. You have no babies holding you back. You’re educated. You’re a good person. It’s time you came out of your shell and had a little faith in yourself and not a man.”

  “I have faith in myself,” I argued sheepishly with my head down.

  My mother laughed. Laughed! I looked at her like she was crazy. “No you don’t,” she responded. “What about your writing? Have you finished anything lately? Have you even tried?"

  I opened my mouth to answer, but I couldn't think of a lie fast enough. Nothing gets past Mama, though. She caught me trying to make something up and shook her head. “Even with something you’re passionate about, you still don’t believe you’re good enough. Trust me, baby, when I say you are.”