It's Wrong for Me to Love You

by Krystal Armstead

  “And your girl, Charlie, called me, telling me that she had been trying to call you all morning. Her flight just got in a few minutes ago. Their flight was delayed this morning, and she didn’t want you showing up to the airport when she wasn’t going to be there. She said she would be at the hotel around one o’clock to help set up.”

  My heart began to race in my chest. I couldn’t face her—there was no way I could face that girl after what I’d done. I shut my eyes as tightly as I could, trying to fight back the thought of Aaron’s lips pressed against mine. I could still feel his warm dick inside me.

  “Cute dress.” I felt Renée looking me up and down.

  I opened my eyes, my heart nearly popping out of my chest. Damn, that bitch never misses anything, always peepin’ shit. Ol’ nosy ass. “Huh?” I gulped.

  “What? Don’t ‘huh’ me. The dress—it’s awesome!” Renée laughed a little. “The perfect party dress!” She looked at me again. “Wait a minute. I saw that dress at the mall. That freakin’ dress was like $400! Where the hell did you get that kind of money to spend on a dress, when you’re not even working full time?”

  I swallowed hard. “Girl, you know I’m broke as hell. It was a birthday gift.”

  Renée glanced at me. “A birthday gift? Whose nose do you have that wide open for them to get you a dress that cost damn near half a grand?”

  I remained quiet. She got on my damn nerves always figuring shit out.

  The girl slammed on her brakes in the middle of traffic.

  My heart nearly stopped in my chest as the car behind us slammed on its brakes to avoid hitting her. I swore my damn heart slammed against my rib cage. “Damn, Renée! You’re gonna give me fuckin’ whiplash!” I squealed. “Are you fuckin’ crazy?”

  Cars were honking their horns as they passed around Renée’s stopped vehicle.

  She gave them all the middle finger as they drove by her, cursing her crazy ass out. “Man, fuck them.” She looked back at me, her light eyes searching the expression on my face for clues as to who could have bought me the dress. “Aaron.” She pointed in my face. “Aaron bought you that dress? And those earrings! And that necklace?” She covered her mouth. “I mean, fuck! The necklace says ‘Heaven’ on it! Who the fuck is the only one who calls you that? That is a dead giveaway!”

  I put my hand over my heart in agony. I couldn’t bring myself to talk about what happened that morning, but cuz was forcing me to talk to her about it. “Please, Renée—please start this car before someone runs us off the road.”

  Renée shook her head at me, “What did you do to him?”

  My eyes widened. I looked at her. “What? What did I do to him?”

  Renée finally came back to her senses, put the car back in gear, and began to drive down the street again. “What did you do to get that muthafucka to buy you a dress that sexy and that expensive? Did you suck his dick or something?” She gasped. “You fucked him, didn’t you?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  Renée looked at me, pursing her lips.

  “He fucked me.” I sank back in my seat. “He fucked me good too, Renée.”

  Renée shook her head, “O-M-muthafuckin’ G! I can’t believe this ‘Jerry Springer,’ ‘Love and Hip-Hop’ type shit! You should have given him the dress back!”

  “I tried!” I exclaimed. “I tried to give it back, but he wouldn’t let me. When he kissed me, I told him to stop. When he undressed me, I tried to push him away, but he just . . .”

  Renée glanced at me. “So, the muthafucka just forced his shit on you? The muthafucka just took the pussy? That nigga raped you, Ne’Vaeh!”

  I shook my head at her before she got into her head that Aaron raped me. “Renée, see, that’s not what I said. I knew what I was doing when I went to his room, I knew what I was doing when I tried on the dress, and I knew what I was doing when I got naked in front of someone who made it perfectly clear that he wanted to have sex.”

  She just continued to shake her head. She was pissed off.

  “Renée, I love him.” I started crying.

  She sighed, frustrated with me. “Girl, why? You are too smart and too beautiful to want anybody’s leftovers, no matter how muthafuckin’ fine he is or no matter how much money the brotha is about to be making in the very near future. You have so much potential. There are so many men that want you. I’ve seen the kind of men that approach you, and I’ve seen you turn each and every one of them down. And for who? A man who belongs to someone else? Ne’Vaeh, why?”

  I look at her, tears trickling down my face. “I loved Aaron the very moment that I ever laid eyes on him. I was going through hell, and Aaron looked like an angel. There was a connection to that boy from the start. I had no idea that he felt the same way that I did until just two days ago. For almost two years, I have been holding in the fact that I was in love with him. He barely looked at me, and I thought he didn’t notice me. I thought he didn’t care. I thought he would never see me. As bad as I feel for letting my emotions overrule my common sense . . . I just couldn’t stop him from kissing me, touching me, undressing me, and loving on me. I hadn’t been touched in four years, Renée! If it wasn’t for Ashton and Alisha walking in on us this morning, I’d probably still be in his bed, in his arms.”

  Renée’s eyes widened. “They walked in on y’all fuckin’? Ne’Vaeh, sweetie, you’re in for the rudest, most fucked-up awakening, I’m sorry to tell you. I’m telling you, sweetie, stay away from that man. You had your fun, you got laid, you woke the pussy up from her nap, you got some dick, but it’s morning. So, ‘as you slept the night away’ with Aaron, you both ‘forgot to face one simple fact’—he belongs to someone else—and that someone else is your best friend. The same best friend who took you in when your mama abandoned you, and you didn’t have a fuckin’ pot to piss in. She’s back in town, so the next time that you decide to visit his bed, remember that Charlie sleeps in that bed too. Charlie gave you a home. I suggest you keep that shit in mind the next time you decide to wreck her home.”

  I cried because I loved Aaron, but . . . I respected Charlie just as much, if not more. She was like a sister to me. I couldn’t hurt her when all she’d ever done was try to protect me from hurt. I loved Aaron, but he belonged to Charlie. What was I supposed to do when my heart belonged to Aaron? He was going to break up with her. I believed him when he told me that he would do it at my birthday party. He hadn’t talked to me in over two years, and as soon as he got the opening to tell me how he felt, he jumped for the chance. He was serious. As if my life wasn’t hectic enough, I had to go and make things even more complicated.

  Chapter 4

  Gonna Fuck Him

  Charlene

  “Here, honey, let us help you with those bags. Why are you carrying these bags by yourself? Heather, come carry these bags for your sister. Jorge, come hold this.” Aunt Stacen took my Coach carry-on bags and purse from me, passing them off to my little sister and brother.

  I sighed, rolling my eyes. “C’mon, Aunt Stacen, really? My purse? I can’t carry my own purse? I’m pregnant, not crippled. Got-damn, people, stop treating me like I’m fuckin’ handicapped.” I took my purse back from my sister.

  “Charlie!” my mother exclaimed. “Watch your mouth!” My mother pranced over to the baggage conveyor belt in her Chanel sandals. “We’re only trying to help. Keep acting like you don’t need anybody. In a few months, when this baby comes, you’re going to wish you weren’t so bitchy to the people who were just trying to look out for you.” Mother grabbed her Gucci suitcase from the conveyor belt. She looked at me, her blue eyes searching my face. She was so disappointed in me, but I was more disappointed in myself.

  Mama hadn’t said too much to me since she found out that I was pregnant. I took the pregnancy test one day in my sister’s bathroom, and carelessly, I left the applicator on Heather’s sink. Mind you, my baby sister is thirteen. Mother happened to walk into Heather’s room and found the applicator, and you know she went straigh
t off on my sister. I had to tell her that the pregnancy test was mine; then she went straight off on me.

  My eyes began to water. “Mama, I’m sorry. It’s these hormones. I’m trippin’. I appreciate your help, but you know how I am.”

  Mama’s eyes searched my face. “So, when are you going to tell Aaron about this baby?”

  I looked at her, my heart skipping a few beats. Tell Aaron? I dreaded the thought because I was too young for a baby. I’d already planned to get an abortion when Mama found the applicator, but Mama made it perfectly clear that it was my mistake, and I wasn’t going to make the baby pay for something that I did. I also dreaded the idea because I knew in my heart that Aaron wasn’t the father of my baby. Let me tell you how I pretty much played myself. . . .

  * * *

  It was August 15, about two weeks before sophomore year in college started for the fall 2014 semester. My girls from the cheerleading squad and I took a trip to Miami just because. Sometimes, we took trips just to unwind from all of the hard work that we had been doing throughout the year. We did everything from tournaments, to fashion shows, to community service, to football games, to basketball games, to TV appearances. We deserved to relax and unwind. We all needed a relaxing getaway under the sun. Especially me—I just needed to get away period.

  I needed to escape Maryland. I needed to get away from the responsibility of babysitting Ne’Vaeh, plain and simple. Even though we were in separate colleges, my mother and the rest of the family still expected me to keep up with Ne’Vaeh. They felt sorry for the girl. It was more than sympathy. They loved her as if she were their own, especially my father’s side of the family. My father died of a heart attack when I was six years old. My sister was just born, and my mother was devastated. I knew Ne’Vaeh’s pain of losing someone that she loved. Ne’Vaeh lost a brother, a sister, a mother, and never knew her father. My father was everything to me. Losing him did serious damage to my heart and to my life. No one bothered to notice. From the moment Ne’Vaeh stepped into my life, she’d won my family’s heart. When her mother went to prison for killing her younger brother, my mother stepped up to the plate and took Ne’Vaeh in. Ne’Vaeh’s mother, Juanita, used to be best friends with my mother when they were in high school, according to my grandmother. They were the original Salt-N-Pepa. My mother was white, and Juanita was black. Whatever happened to split the two apart, no one talked about it, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with a man. It always does.

  * * *

  The squad arrived in Miami at 1:15 p.m. that day. I was so happy to get away from Maryland, away from Ne’Vaeh, and away from Aaron. Yes, I know, Aaron is wonderful. He is the epitome of the perfect man—someone else’s man. He didn’t love me. It was obvious that he was in love with someone else. He tried his damnedest to love me, but he couldn’t, and I desperately wanted him to. He was a great guy, don’t get me wrong, but there was absolutely no passion in our relationship. Sure, we looked phenomenal together. Every night out together felt like a Red Carpet event, but whenever we made it back to our separate apartments, he stayed on his side of the bed, and I stayed on mine.

  Aaron didn’t pay me attention anymore. We made “like,” not love. He had the most amazing sensuous lips, yet he never kissed me. He had the softest hands, yet he never touched me. Whenever we had sex, I’m pretty sure he didn’t even reach orgasm. After a few strokes, sometimes, he would just get up and go to the bathroom. When we had sex, it was like he was thinking about someone else the whole time. Sometimes, he would just stop, pull out, and go to sleep. Nothing I did turned him on. I showed up to his apartment one night with nothing on but Burberry stilettos, a Burberry raincoat, and a black lace thong from Victoria’s Secret. Do you think he cared? No. The nigga took one look at me as I opened my coat, and said, “Charlie, its thirty-two degrees outside. Are you trying to get sick?” Yep, he wasn’t cheating on me . . . but it was sure to come.

  I needed to get fucked, if not loved. My trip to Miami was going to help that shit happen. There was always something going on in Miami. That night, there was going to be this huge college football party at a hot new club in Miami Beach. I stepped off the plane that afternoon with one thing on my mind—fuckin’. Aaron and I hadn’t had sex in over three months. I needed a fling, a one-night stand, a hit it—split it—and—quit it. I didn’t give a fuck, just something to let me know that someone actually wanted to spend some sort of time with me. Men hit on me all the time, but I wanted Aaron to want me. I wanted him to need me, but he didn’t, and I was tired of it.

  “Ladies, we’re going to the College Football Fiesta tonight at nine-thirty,” Alisha announced to all fifteen of us that afternoon in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel. “I have three limos picking us up at nine-thirty sharp. Dress to impress, divas, because some fine, hot, sexy, soon-to-be-drafted-into-the-NFL men are going to be there tonight!”

  All the girls cheered, whooped, and hollered.

  I looked up at Alisha and rolled my eyes at her.

  Why I had to be cursed by ending up at the same college on the same cheerleading squad with that bitch, I don’t know. Yeah, I slept with a lot of guys in my day, but she had in her head that I had sex with her boyfriend, Ashton. Ashton and I grew up together and lived next door to each other, until my mother moved when I was twelve years old. Though he might have had feelings for me, he never told me so, nor treated me like anything other than a sister. I was wild, I was loose, there was no taming me. Ashton didn’t have time for that shit. He tried to keep me out of the trouble that I always seemed to be searching for. I would party hard, even to the point where I’d get so high and so fuckin’ drunk that I would wake up in places, having no idea how I got there. Imagine waking up sore and buck naked, lying next to a man, woman, or men and women you didn’t even know. Yeah, that was your girl. Ashton would often come to my rescue. He saved me from wild fraternity parties on many occasions.

  I started having sex at the age of thirteen. I lied about my age to a nineteen-year-old guy who was in college. I can’t even remember dude’s name. All I remember is the feeling. He adored me, he admired me, and he lusted after me. I didn’t realize then the muthafucka was a pervert. All I cared about was the fact that he lusted after me. The guy blew up my phone for weeks, looking for some more of me. I ignored his phone calls. He wanted some sort of relationship, as sick as that sounds. I just wanted a rush.

  I believe that between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, I had to have had sex with at least fifty or more guys, all ages, sizes, and colors. I had a reputation. I was good at what I did. I was trying to fill the empty space in my heart with something—anything. I was afraid to love, even though I desperately wanted it, and when I met Aaron, I knew I had to change. I didn’t want to be that girl who was great at giving lap dances, who was great at giving head, who could eat your girl’s pussy, who could take on four guys at a time. I can’t even begin to tell you the amount of shit me and my girls got into with men and women of all statuses in life. I’m talking senators, doctors, lawyers, judges, every muthafucka who held some type of political position. And this is while we were only in high school. I couldn’t be tamed, but that day that Aaron stepped into my classroom junior year in high school, I knew it was time to change. I wanted Aaron from the moment that I met him. I knew I had to have him. He was beautiful, he was talented, he was sweet, he was amazing, and he was sexy as a muthafucka. I didn’t give a damn who else wanted him. He was going to be mine. I was determined. Thirty seconds into our first conversation, I asked him out on a date.

  I introduced Aaron to Ashton junior year in high school, and they clicked from the start. I was so excited when they decided to be roommates. I had my “brother from another mother” and the man who I loved with every inch of me.

  Aaron treated me like royalty when we first met, which had my emotions soaring high. I didn’t know much about Aaron, but what I did know was that he was from a very wealthy family. His parents lived back in California, so he stayed with his aunt
, who was in the military, right up until he moved in with Ashton. I didn’t know why his relationship with his parents was so strained, but he didn’t want anything from them or anything to do with them. Aaron was an amazing basketball player, destined to achieve greatness. I knew I could help him get to high places in no time. I introduced him to college basketball coaches and college scouts from all over the country, some of which I had slept with, of course. I got him a great job working with my uncle at an engineering company. I introduced Aaron to a life he wouldn’t have known otherwise. He held me on a pedestal for the first six months or so into our relationship.

  That was, until he discovered who I was. No one gave a damn about my sex life until Aaron came along. He made me want to change. I wanted to forget my past, but no one else wanted me to forget. Almost everyone—including Alisha—decided to put me on Front Street in front of Aaron. They couldn’t wait to let him know the name of every guy and girl I screwed around with in college. They told him about my adventures in the boys’ locker room. They told him about my fling with the art teacher. They told him about the time I was caught giving head to the assistant basketball coach in the boy’s bathroom. They told him about the three-month relationship I had with Carla, this beautiful Puerto Rican girl who was a sophomore in college—she knew how to eat pussy until your toes curled and eyes rolled to the back of your head. They even told him about the group sex tape I was in on my sixteenth birthday. Aaron was disgusted. We almost broke up, but he gave me a chance. Though he didn’t leave me, he was no longer the same. He hadn’t touched, kissed, looked at, or spoken to me the same since he found out the truth about me, and I started hating myself.

  * * *

  That afternoon, I snuck away from the squad and went out on the town on my own. I didn’t feel like going to the spa with them, listening to them brag about all the shit their men bought for them. I walked along the sandy beaches of Miami, did a little shopping, and got my nails done. Then I went out to eat. I sat alone at a small restaurant, just staring at my cell phone. Aaron hadn’t called or texted me once to even see if I was okay or that I made it safely into town. Ne’Vaeh had called at least six or seven times, though I ignored her calls. I rolled my eyes every time the phone rang and her name appeared on the display. She loved me like her sister. She adored me. I loved her too, but I hated her just the same. It was as if my family replaced my father with her. It seemed as though my mother took her in to help distract her from missing my father. I resented Ne’Vaeh for throwing all of her weight on top of the weight that I already carried. I was responsible for that girl, and I hated it. I needed a life outside of her. She had me trapped. I tried my hardest to avoid her in college, but she’d find her way to me. Man, that week in Miami felt like freedom.