by Braya Spice
My heartbeat sped up out of excitement, then partly out of relief, ’cause I knew it had to be James.
“Hello.”
“Allure.”
My heart sank. It wasn’t James, but a female. I recognized the voice instantly. It was Greg’s crazy-ass mother, San.
“Yes?” I asked impatiently.
“Baby girl, I need you to get over to my house now, girl, now!”
Since it was Saturday and Sierra was over there, instantly I panicked.
My heartbeat sped up again, and I grabbed my keys and rushed out to my car, sobbing as I went, praying that Sierra was okay!
I did fifty on the streets, praying a cop wouldn’t stop me. I squeezed into a spot on the street in front of San’s house, got out of my car, and walked as fast as I could to the front door.
San was on the porch, pacing.
“Where’s my baby?” I demanded.
“Sierra is okay. She’s in the kitchen, eating some Top Ramen. It’s not her I’m worried about. It’s Greg.”
If I had known this was about her punk-ass son, I never would have come. “It’s not him I’m worried about,” I muttered. “Why did you have me come over here? I’m not with him, so I don’t care about what he’s going through.” I turned to leave.
She grabbed my arm and held it, stopping me from leaving. “Listen! Sierra told him that you were pregnant, so Greg went crazy and threatened to kill himself. He got some of my prescription pills and is trying to take ’em.”
“What?” My eyes widened. “You got my baby around this shit?” I walked past her to the kitchen and saw my daughter sitting at the table, gobbling down some noodles.
“Mommy!” she exclaimed.
“Come on,” I told her.
Greg’s mama yanked me back into the living room. “Sierra, stay put!” she yelled as she pulled me. “Do you want her father to die?” she whispered. “’Cause that’s what’s going to happen.”
“I’m not a doctor. Why didn’t you call the police?”
“I didn’t call the police, because I didn’t want them to whip his ass. You know the Long Beach police hate him. Hell, they’d probably encourage him to do it. Plus, I don’t want the courts to find out, or they won’t let him see his daughter again.”
“I’m not a therapist, either, San. I’m just his baby mother.”
“And he still loves you like you two were still together. Please talk some sense into him before I lose my son.” Her hands started shaking, and she started sobbing.
I glared at her for a few seconds before I huffed out an impatient breath. “Where is he?”
“In my bedroom.”
“Take my baby outside before I do anything,” I ordered.
“I’ll take her to get some ice cream down at the Rite Aid.”
I nodded and walked to the bedroom. The door was closed, so I knocked.
“Greg?”
He didn’t respond.
I put my ear to the door and could hear somebody sobbing and music playing. I reached for the knob and turned it. I opened the door slowly and entered the room. I tried to remain patient. The music was coming from an iPod. I almost nutted up at that. I knew his broke-ass mama didn’t own an iPod. She was on general relief, and that was how she got by, she and her husband. So I knew it had to be his. He was playing
“Like You’ll Never See Me Again” by Alicia Keys. It was our song when we were together. Across the bed were pictures of him and me, pictures of me alone, and pictures of Sierra, him, and me. Every picture had me in it. He was stretched across the bed with a bottle of pills in one hand and a shredded-up picture of me in the other.
“What are you doing, Greg?”
His eyes shot my way.
He looked me up and down and started sobbing. It was as if looking at me, seeing me, gave him the confirmation he needed, I guess. My cheeks were puffy, the same way they’d been when I was pregnant with Sierra.
“You pregnant, Allure?”
I twisted my lips to one side. “Greg ...”
“Are you?” He stood suddenly, making me jump. “I’m not gonna hurt you, Allure.” He stood in my face. “Just tell me. Are you?”
“Greg?”
“Are you!”
“Yes.”
His eyes teared up again, and a cluster of tears ran down his face.
Before I could stop him, he pulled my blouse up so my belly was exposed. I wasn’t that big, but a pouch was visible and my breasts were swollen to the point that they had already gone up a size. The same signs as before. He saw all of this, and more tears ran down his face.
He released my shirt and took a step back. “So I guess it really is over for you and me.”
Now, see, this was as good a time as any to throw in his face all that shit he had talked about Angel, and all the times I’d warned him in the past that if he didn’t stop beating on me, I would leave him and he would regret the day that I did. He had always said he would find someone better than me. I could have thrown all of that in his face. Laughed at his tears for every time he dismissed or laughed at mine. I remembered all the times I begged him just to be decent, to be humane to me, and he wouldn’t. Now I had great chance to play dirty. Get my vengeance. But I didn’t. Why the fuck couldn’t I play dirty? Do people like they had done me? I had to get out of that shit, being the nice girl. But I guess I couldn’t, because I guess that was who I really was.
“Greg, it was over between me and you a long time ago. This baby didn’t have anything to do with it.”
He sobbed.
“You’re just gonna have to deal with it.”
When he spun around, there was fire in his eyes. He rushed toward me. I instantly felt fear that he would beat my baby out of me. But I didn’t let him see my fear, because I knew he would feed off of it. So I kept my face calm, despite the fact that inside I was terrified that he would hurt my baby and me.
My look must have been convincing, because it stopped him.
“Do it. Hit me. Beat me. Kill me,” I told him. “It ain’t ever going to make me do something I can’t do ... and that’s love you again. You had everything I had to offer, and you ruined it for yourself. I’m not going to sit up here and pacify you. It is over. You need to move on with your life. And if there was any indicator that you not someone I should be with, all the shit you done these past two years is.”
“I love you, Allure.”
I pulled my lips in. “Then I’m sorry to hear that, Greg. ’Cause it doesn’t make a difference. Because I will never, ever love you or want to be with you again. It’s not healthy, and it’s not safe for Sierra or me. ”
He nodded.
“If you want to be in Sierra’s life, then that’s fine, but I don’t need any more of this craziness from you. Move on, Greg.” I held my hand out for the bottle of pills in his hand.
He hesitated, then shoved it in my hand. It was a bottle of Vicodin.
Truth be told, I felt bad for Greg. The fact that he had tried to kill himself was horrible. It seemed like it was such a struggle for him to accept the fact that we were done. If he had just treated me right, I would have stayed with him, because that all I had ever wanted. At one point in my life I had truly and deeply respected and loved Greg. I had made him my everything and had gone out of my way to make him happy. And he had made my days hell on earth.
He had broken me down so bad, to the point that I had started to feel not only that I deserved his abuse but also that it was my fault and no other man would love me besides him. He had almost destroyed me. Funny thing was, I didn’t think it would take him this long to get over me and move on. I felt just as bad as he did that our family unit had to split up. But at the end of the day it was what was best. It should serve as a lesson to him to keep his hands and his dick to himself, get counseling, and not hurt who he loved. The last thing I wanted was for Sierra to grow up and sit around, letting a man beat her ass. Then the cycle would continue, and I didn’t want that.
I turned o
n my heel and walked toward the door. He was still sobbing behind me.
“Allure.”
I stopped, turned around, and faced him. I tried to keep a calm look on my face so he stayed calm with me.
“I will always love you, Allure. No matter what, I know I’ll never meet another woman like you. Somehow they will never measure up to a certain standard, because I’m going to always compare them to you. That’s why Angel hated Sierra so much, because she came from you. The worst thing I could have ever done was to lose someone like you.” His sobs caused him to start choking on his words. “And the worst thing about it is that no matter how much I say I’m sorry or try to make it right or strive to be a better man, you won’t accept me back.”
What could I say to that? So I said nothing. I had said all that I could say to him. I couldn’t change what he felt in his heart any more than he could change what was in mine. I walked through the door and kept walking. I appreciated what he had said. It was nice that he thought of me as a good woman. But he had to move on, because we were done and the way he felt now about me couldn’t undo all the bad he had done. It just couldn’t. I didn’t want to hate Greg at all. I wanted to be able to get along with him so we could raise Sierra without the fighting, arguing, violence, and shit. Those were the things that I had experienced when we were together, and those were the things that had caused me to leave him.
Greg couldn’t carry on like this forever. He had to move on, and I hoped this baby was the incentive to do so. I knew no matter his circumstances, if he won the lotto, or if he became a completely different person, I could not go back to him. I couldn’t love him again. He had traumatized and scarred me. Even if he never, ever hit me again, the fact that he had done it would always live with me. At the same time I didn’t want to hate him forever for it, because that would make me bitter. But I knew I deserved to be with a man who would cherish me and who knew how to control his anger and rage.
Chapter 16
When I went home, I knew I had other business to attend to: James’s punk ass. My guess was that he was screening his calls, because he refused to answer when I called, and prior to me telling him that I was preggers, he always answered or called me right back. For the past week he had done none of this.
So I went over to Kendra’s house and called his trifling ass.
“Are you avoiding me or something?” I asked him after he answered. I must have caught him off guard, because he had a hard intake of breath.
“No, Allure, I’ve been busy.” At least he recognized my voice.
“But you usually call me every day. Even on your busiest days you’ve managed to squeeze a call to me in.”
“Well, I couldn’t this week,” he sort of snapped. Then I heard him mumble, “I should have never—”
“You should have never what?”
“Nothing.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Look, I’m under a lot of pressure right now and—”
My heart started pounding. I took a deep breath and prepared myself for my next question. “Are we done?”
“I’ve done a lot of thinking about us, and I realized with my life, my career that—”
“Spare me the bullshit, and just say it, James!” Tears shot out of my eyes; I brushed them away with the back of my hand.
“I can’t be in a relationship with you. I can’t give you that.”
“How odd that all these months that’s all that you wanted, but all of a sudden, after you find out I’m pregnant, you don’t want it anymore?”
“It’s not about that. My life is far too busy for a family.”
“What kind of fucking man are you, James?”
“Look, I have to get back to work.” He didn’t wait for me to reply. He just hung up the phone.
I started crying tears of anger, hurt, and frustration. I was pregnant, and the man who had said he would never hurt me just did. I was now alone, with one kid and another baby on the way. This scared the shit out of me and made me never want to love another fucking man again. But at the end of the day I knew that in a good seven months I would be bringing a life into the world, and I had to get ready for it. But for the time being I just could not stop crying.
The thing I hated the most about being pregnant was those damn doctors’ appointments. Having the doctor shove his big-ass fingers up in me like he knew me like that. And you couldn’t let him see the least bit of discomfort on your face. He’d make some type of shitty comment, like, “Don’t you have sex?” Yeah, but I guess what I hated even more than that was going to that doctor alone. No man, no husband. Nothing. What was far worse was that it seemed that I would be raising this baby solo. James had stuck to his word and never called me again.
After my doctor’s appointment, I took Sierra to the park. I was surprised to see an old face there, Derek. The dude I had met the year before. I was pushing Sierra on the swings when he came toward us with a cute little boy. I usually took her to MacArthur Park, because it was close to where we lived. We had never come to this particular park before, but on the way home from my doctor, Sierra had spied it and had begged me to let her play there. It was a lot nicer than the park by our house. It had ducks to feed, and it was a whole lot cleaner.
As Derek approached us, I waved at him. His son ran past him and rushed to an available swing.
“How you been?” he asked, standing beside me and pushing his son on the swing.
“Good.”
He narrowed his eyes at me like he didn’t believe me. I knew I probably looked down, because that was how I felt about my situation. And it was a little awkward seeing him because, after all, I had taken this man’s number and had never called him. Now he was up in my face. So I tried to play it off.
“It’s been a while, huh?” I asked.
“Yeah. I waited for your call and never got it.”
“Sorry. I was going through a lot of stuff at that time.”
He smiled at his son, who was giggling, as he pushed him on the swing. “Well, the number is still the same.”
“Okay.” But the last thing on my mind was calling another man, so I changed the subject. “How often do you come to this park?” I asked him.
“Once a week.”
Hmmm. I wondered if he’d noticed the small hump in my tummy, a clear indication that I was pregnant. Then I figured he hadn’t, partly ’cause I was wearing sweats and partly ’cause his eyes didn’t drop past my eyes.
“So what’s your son’s name?”
“Xavier.”
I smiled at the adorable little boy. “He’s a cutie,” I said.
“Thanks.”
“Mommy,” Sierra yelled.
“Yes, baby?”
“I’m hungry.”
I turned back to Derek. “Well, I guess I’ll get going.” I offered him an awkward smile. “Hope to see you again.”
His eyes locked with mine, like he didn’t want to see me go. “Take care, Allure.”
Derek became my new park buddy. Like clockwork I just so happened to show up at that park, and like clockwork so did he and his son. I knew it wasn’t just on his end. I was lonely and needed companionship, a man to talk to. It got to the point where he knew everything about me except my current relationship situation, but I knew it was just a matter of time before he questioned me on it.
“Can I ask you a question?”
I nodded. “Go ahead.”
“Are you single?”
I took a deep breath. “My situation is kinda complicated, Derek. It’s even complicated to explain.”
We were both sitting on a bench, while Sierra and his son played in the sandbox. They looked so cute together.
He reached over and grabbed my hand in his. “Try me, Allure.”
I pulled away, slid my hands down my tummy. “Well, for starters, I’m pregnant. But I’m sure you guessed that by my belly, right?”
He nodded.
“But I’m pregnant without—”
Befor
e I could finish, a pair of Stacy Adams stood in front of me.
“Allure.”
My eyes slid up and spied an angry-looking James.
What the hell?
He turned and looked pointedly at Derek, then looked back at me.
I gave him a blank look.
Chapter 17
James huffed out a breath, like I was trying his patience by continuing to sit next to Derek.
“How you doing, man?” he asked Derek sharply.
“Fine. And you?”
James didn’t reply. He clenched his jaw. He turned to me. “Baby, can we talk?”
Baby?
I stood to my feet. “Derek, could you keep an eye on Sierra while I go over there. It won’t take but a minute.” I looked pointedly at James when I said minute, letting him know he better make this shit fast. But he was too busy stabbing Derek with his eyes.
Derek said, “No problem,” and kept his eyes on the kids, biting his bottom lip. His arms were crossed over his chest.
But James said, “Naw. I’ll keep an eye on Sierra.” He challenged Derek with his eyes. “We just going over there.”
I walked slowly away to the edge of the playground, not too far from Sierra. James followed. Then I leaned back against the gate. James stood in front of me.
“What?”
‘Whatchu mean, what?” he demanded angrily.
“What do you want, James?”
“Who is that nigga?”
“None of your damn business.”
“Allure, it is my business.”
“How you figure that? You broke up with me, remember? How the hell did you find me, anyway?” I stormed.
“I followed you a couple times to your appointments. That’s how I found out about your little park dates.”
“Oh, so you stalking me like Greg? Do I need to get a restraining order against you too?”
