RAY:
Ken, answer the phone for me, baby. I swear I can explain everything. I just need you to at least talk to me and hear me out.
RAY:
Come on, Ken. I’m begging, baby. Please don’t end shit like this.
RAY:
I don’t give a fuck about what the news is saying. We know what’s real. Come on, Ken, call me. If I don’t hear back from you, I’m coming over, Ken.
I knew that if I didn’t respond, he would for sure pop his ass up, and that was the last thing that I wanted. I didn’t trust myself in the same room with him, and it for damn sure wasn’t because I would believe his bullshit and lies. Nope, I was afraid that I would really try to kill his ass this time for playing in my face for a second fucking time. So, it was best that we kept our distance, and both went on about our lives.
Picking up my phone, I opened his message and contemplated what I wanted to say to him. I started and erased several messages before I landed on what I wanted to say.
ME:
Raymond, stop fucking messaging me! I don’t want to hear anything that you have to say. And, don’t bring your ass over to my house.
I saw that he read the message a few seconds after I sent it, but I didn’t care what he had to say back, so I blocked him. There was no fixing what we had, so there wasn’t any further conversation needed. I was just happy that I managed to figureout he was no good before I walked down the aisle looking like a fucking dummy in six months. Had we already gotten married, I would’ve for sure found myself behind bars. But, thankfully, I could make a clean exit and not have to deal with him ever again.
“Alright, now that your ass is clean, what’s next? What do you need me to do?” Zaveah asked, flopping on my bed.
6 MONTHS LATER.
Life for me looked nothing like it did six months ago. Every time I thought about how far I’d fallen, I wanted to cry and commit murder. And, I knew exactly who the hell I wanted to kill. Thankfully, I had talked myself off that ledge several times over the last few months or so.
As for Ray, he eventually slowed down on his attempts to get in contact with me and was living his best life, according to the blogs. But, I, on the other hand, was struggling and doing badly. I had already gone through all the money I had saved and the money I got from the things I’d sold, and was forced to do something I never wanted to do.Go back home to my parents.
I always said that going back home, even though my parents would welcome me with open arms, was a last resort for me, and trust me, I’d already exhausted every other option. Getting a job in PR didn’t seem as though it was going to happen for me. I had sent my resume to over one hundred agencies, and every one of them said no. Nobody wanted to work with me because they felt like I was a liability. I understood where they were coming from, but damn, everyone deserved a second chance, right?
Nonetheless, nobody was trying to give me a second chance, and I hated that so much for me. I was starting to give up hope and felt like all my jokes about working at Walmart were goingto become reality. Every time I thought about how I went from the top of my game in the PR industry to no longer even being a player made me want to cry. I’d lost everything behind a man, something I swore I’d never do. And, it didn’t help that he was thriving while I was the one dealing with all the negativity from something that was technically caused by his actions.
“Come on in here, girl. I don’t know why you’re acting all shy and whatnot. We know this is the last place you want to be staying right now, but you should be grateful that you have a home to come back to. Some people don’t even have that,” my mother said as I slowly crept into the house.
I could see my father coming down the stairs as I made my way into the living room, hopefully to get his wife so that she could leave me be. I knew that she had good intentions, but my mother could be too much when she wanted to be. She always thought it was her job to tell me how to live my life and how to approach things. I wouldn’t say that she was overbearing, but she for damn sure was going to let me know what her thoughts were and how she thought I should move, whether I listened to her or not, which I rarely did.
“Tracey, let the girl breathe, okay? She’s going through something right now, and she doesn’t need us adding more to her plate,” he said, coming where my mother and I sat while giving her that look to check herself and let me breathe.
My father was a big man, and although he’d never so much as raised his voice at us, he definitely was intimidating and scary. Growing up, whenever I got to the point of bringing a boy home to meet my parents, I knew our relationship would be ending shortly after. Most times, the moment my father opened the door, I already knew the text I would receive shortly after. That was a big reason why I’d only brought Ray home to meet them once before we got engaged, and although he made it through, I could tell my father wasn’t too fond of him. I should’ve takenheed to how my parents reacted to him, and known that things with us wouldn’t end well.
Hell, even my mother, who wanted me to settle down and give her some grandkids, wasn’t a fan of him, and she loved damn near everybody. I was grateful that, even though she was a little pushy, she always wanted the best for me. So, even though she wanted me to have the marriage and kids as she had at my age, she didn’t want me to just do that with anybody to say that I’d checked that off my to-do list. With the way that my life was going, I was starting to think that I was most likely going to end up by myself, and she’d just have to love the cats I was sure to have.
“How are you feeling, Sunshine?” My father asked, kissing my forehead and finally taking a seat next to my mother.
He’d been calling me by the nickname Sunshine since I was a little girl. Growing up, I got teased a lot for my strong features, which really messed up my confidence for a while. I had almond-shaped eyes, thick eyebrows, and juicy lips. It was my father who helped me to see the beauty in the features that made me who I was. And, somewhere along the way, he started calling me sunshine because he said I lit up every room that I walked into. I guessed that when I learned to accept who I was, I moved differently, and he, among others, could tell when the shift happened.
Little did most people know, though, it really took me until college for me to really appreciate my beauty, and once my body developed, men started to see the beauty in me, too. I would say around that time, shit went from bad to worse, though. I spent so much time craving the male attention that I’d never gotten before, and unfortunately, I’d kissed my fair share of frogs until I learned my worth.
“I don’t know, Daddy. I know that I need to figure something out, though. It’s not just about not wanting to be back home,although I’m grateful to have a loving home to come back to. It’s the fact that I’ve worked hard to get to where I am. I put my all into my career, and I'm not going to just give up because I’ve hit a bump in the road. Y’all didn’t raise me to quit or give up, and I’m not going to start now, especially over a man.”
“I know that’s right, Sunshine. You’re a Mathis, and we don’t have quitting in our blood. If anybody can figure this out and turn things around, it’s you. Is that little nigga still contacting you?”
“Sometimes. I block him, and then he calls from another number. I’ve stopped blocking them because it’s pointless. I don’t want to change my number at this point because it’s on all the resumes I’ve submitted.”
“Do you want me to go down there and have a conversation with him?”
Laughing, I shook my head, “No, Daddy. I got it, I promise. If it becomes too much, you already know that I’ll let y’all know. I’m sure once he gets a new girlfriend, he’ll forget all about me.”