by Mercy B
The sudden movement in the bed jarred me from my thoughts. Confusion set deep within at the realization that Sosa hadn’t budged. There was a slight groan before I witnessed a small hand fall over and onto his back. The only reason it was visible was that it was widely contrasted to his own skin tone. In fact, it was even lighter than mine.
The tears that I held back retraced their steps and fell back. The strength that I’d lacked moments ago had suddenly returned full force. Stepping deeper into the room, I examined the contents of it as best I could. There was no evidence of a woman’s presence, but I was certain that the person lying beside my nigga had a pussy and some tits that were homegrown.
Finally, upon them both, I witnessed a beautiful Mexican tender with her limbs intertwined with Sosa’s. They were both sound asleep, clothed with the smell of liquor on their skin. Furious, I snatched my hand back and pushed forward with full force. Sosa had me fucked up, and I wanted him to know just how much. With a closed fist, I clocked his ass with the intentions of bruising something.
The minute my fist connected with his face, I continued raining blows on his head without a single word being said. Twice more, I connected with his face before I saw a flash of lighting and a loud sound. Immediately, I dropped to the ground, holding my hand over my head as I heard footsteps and the voice of a woman screaming and questioning what was going on. The tiled flooring was cold and hard under my ass, warning me of the bruise that would be left as a result. I rubbed all over my frame to be sure that I hadn’t been shot by the crazy ass gun-toting thug before I leaped up and sprang into action.
“Papi!” she yelled.
Suddenly, there was light. I could see both parties and the anguish on each of their faces. While Sosa was trying his hardest to remain unfazed, my presence had caught him off guard. The Spanish mami he’d been keeping company with was against the wall, trying to figure out exactly whom I was and where I’d come from.
That was fine with me because I had every intention of telling her. I’d kill two birds with one stone as I lit into her ass while informing her of my position and her lack thereof. It was very simple.
“G, don’t!” Sosa’s voice rang out.
My chest heaved as I stared back at him, utilizing every bit of strength I had to hold back the tears. It had been much too long since I’d seen him or heard that sexy ass tone that usually brought joy to my pussy. But tonight, it was dry as a desert that had just witnessed a sandstorm.
Immobile, we both locked gazes and held them, neither of us knowing exactly what to say or do. I witnessed the sympathy displayed in his dark eyes, ones that were always filled with certainty and authority. I hardly recognized him. Though he hadn’t been altered physically, there was something broken about him. I recognized the lack of wholeness because I’d resembled it for the last three months. I knew what it looked like, what it felt like, how it sounded, the pain it caused. I’d been its victim for far too long not to.
Tilting my head to the side, I shook it as to warn him that I wouldn’t be able to control my actions. Without a word spoken, I lunged across the room in three large steps. The feeling of her silky tresses between my fingers was relieving. I pulled her down to the ground as she kicked and screamed for me to let her loose.
She begged for Sosa’s help, and he’d almost come to her rescue until I gave him the deadliest stare I could conjure, halting his movements. Stuck in place, Sosa watched as I had my way with her. The entire time, I never tore away from him. I needed him to see the devilish ways he’d reduced me to. He needed to witness what my pain had transformed into. Sosa needed to see what he’d birthed.
Over and over, I plunged my fist into her face while holding her hair with the other hand. “You’re probably wondering who I am, huh?” I questioned, finally giving her the attention she deserved. There were a few things I wanted to get straight with her.
“She knows who you are.” Sosa bit his top lip as he informed me.
Stopping in my tracks, I loosened my grip on her hair and allowed her body to plummet to the floor. He’d shot a lone dagger into my already splintered heart. This shit was beyond me. I hadn’t expected to walk into this. The only thing I wanted was my Sosa back. None of this was in the plan. None of it.
“Jazmin, I’ll end your miserable life right now if your foot reaches her,” Sosa warned with a lifted brown.
Turning around, I noticed his little bitch had her feet in the air, aiming for my stomach. I leaned down and grabbed her hair again before lifting my own foot and forcing it into her face. Blood immediately leaked from her nose as her head flew back, and she hit the floor. My intentions were to stomp her ass out until I felt my body being lifted into the air.
“If you hurt my fucking baby, I swear I’ll drop your ass right beside her and not give a fuck.”
“Fucking liar.”
“Try me!” Sosa barked in my ear as he maneuvered around the room. “Fucking try me if want!”
“You couldn’t do it then, and you won’t do it now.” He lowered me to the ground and pushed me up against the wall after turning me around to face him.
“That’s what the fuck you think? Nah. I ran out of time, and I didn’t want your little pea ass brain splattered on my sheets. I wasn’t about to add onto the list of shit they already had against me,” he gritted out through his teeth.
I could see the anger in his eyes. Though he was trying to disguise it, I could also see the lust and desire peeking from behind it. He was a sick son of a bitch. Seeing me beat that girl’s ass had him aroused. I could feel his dick growing and poking at my stomach.
“Nah. You ain’t have the balls, nigga. You just a pussy!” I collected a nice amount of saliva in my mouth before spewing it from my lips and onto his face.
With a grimacing smirk, Sosa wiped it from his face before using the same hand to smear it across mine. I was immediately disgusted. “I don’t even want that shit on my dick if it’s coming from you.”
I wondered if he’d ever run out of ammunition, firing daggers into my chest and puncturing my most valued vessel every time he opened his fucking mouth. Within a moment’s notice, I could feel the cold steel against my forehead as Sosa bore holes into me with his stare.
“G, I’ll end ya shit right here and right now.”
“Then do it, Sosa.”
I blinked away the tears that were burning my eyeballs so that he could look into them and witness the lack of fear that I held. Sosa had to have known that he was hurting me, but the fact that he didn’t give a fuck helped me grow tougher skin. I needed this rejection that I was receiving. I prayed to God this would help me to see him for the monster he was and move on with my life, even if that meant raising our child alone.
“Do it,” I choked up. “Do it, bitch!”
I was so angry and so damned tired. This man had exhausted me to no end. As I stared back at him, egging him on, I regretted the day that I ever laid eyes on him. He’d brought so much hell into my life that I could’ve lived without. But more importantly, he’d given me a piece of sunshine. Frankly, his purpose in my life had been completed. The baby that we created together was compensation enough for all I’d gone through.
“Shut up!” Sosa gritted his teeth, lifting my head by my neck and then pushing it backward into the wall behind me.
“Do it!”
“I said shut the fuck up!”
There was pain.
There was regret.
There was rage.
There was turmoil.
There was confusion.
There was darkness.
There was a glimmer of light.
Most of all, there was a plea for acceptance and forgiveness.
I heard it all as he demanded my silence—silence that he needed to process the thoughts running through his brain. Silence he wouldn’t get. Not from me. Not today.
“I hate you for what you’ve done to me.” I could no longer withhold. “You’ve managed to tear my fucking heart from my che
st. As if that wasn’t enough… you’ve been walking all over my shit as if I don’t need it to keep living. To keep breathing. To keep going. You’re so selfish. You’re so fucking selfish. I gave you something that you couldn’t handle, and you’ve disowned me because of it.
“All I wanted to do was love you until I couldn’t anymore. But you won’t let me. You defied everything I tried to be for you… to you. And when you became utterly unstable and wanted to accept nothing more that I had to give, you made yourself believe that I was against you. You made yourself believe that I wanted anything more than your gratification, forehead kisses, and that thing you keep hidden from me. All I wanted was your heart.
“Nothing more you could’ve given me would’ve sufficed. But you’ve made yourself so unavailable because you hate the idea of not having control of any aspect of your life that you’ve literally made yourself hate me. I can see it in your eyes, and though it may hurt, I can’t force you to love me back. I won’t ever do that. I’ve given you so much of me that I barely thought I had anything left for the little being that I have growing inside of me, but I was wrong.
“All of the love that you’re rejecting, more will be poured into this life that I will give birth to. I came all of this way to bring you home. To tell you that I stuck my foot out on a limb to secure your legacy and get you back home to us.
“But I’m leaving with something so much more profound. I’m leaving with the knowledge that I don’t need you like I thought I did. You’re not the man that I thought you were, and you’re undeserving of me or my child. So please let me go. I need to get back home.”
“G.”
“Sos, please. Take the gun from my face and let go of me.”
“G.”
“You’re nothing like him. You’re not the Sosa that I fell in love with. You’re not the man I wanted to spend my life with. You’re not him.” My face was drenched to the point that I couldn’t see. My chest hurt so bad that I thought it would explode.
“G.”
“My name is Gauge. You don’t get to call me that. Sosa, please.”
“Papi!” The woman who’d been keeping him company stirred from the floor. “Papi!”
Shaking my head as the tears continued, I let him know how disappointed I was in him. “Three months. That’s how long it took you to get comfortable enough to sleep beside someone else?”
The first night he’d been at my house, and we’d had sex, Sosa revealed that he didn’t sleep over or with anyone. I’d nearly had to petition to get him to stay the night with me. Even then, he was gone by the time that I woke.
“Let me go, Sosa,” I pleaded. “Continue with your new girlfriend as if I never showed. Pardon my interruption. I’m sorry for intruding. You two are free to—”
Boom!
There was another flash of light and a loud sound. I swore to God that I’d been shot, but the fact that I was painless and could still feel every part of my body assured me that I hadn’t been. I’d squeezed my lids together, but upon opening them, I realized what had just happened.
Jazmin, as Sosa had referred to her, was slumped over the side of the bed with a hole in her head. “Fuck her,” Sosa chanted.
“Sosa! Let me go!” I pushed forward. “Let me go, you fucking coward! You killed her because you fucked up? Let me go!” Suddenly, I was filled with animosity. My face was hot from the lava boiling through my body. I wanted to fight him. I wanted to kick his ass for old and new, so that’s what I did. I knew he wouldn’t shoot me, so him having a gun in his hand meant nothing. Over and over, I slapped him across his face until I grew tired, and so did he.
“Calm the fuck down before you make yourself go into labor. If anything happens to my baby, G, I swear you going to be swimming with the fishes.”
“Your baby? Your baby! Nigga, this is my baby! Mine! You haven’t been nowhere to be found! You don’t get to claim this baby!”
“You talking out the side of ya neck. I said calm down. I let you get ya shit off, now you should be good.”
“Why haven’t you let up then? Why haven’t you let me go?”
“Because I fucking can’t, aight!” Sosa’s voice was laced with defeat as he yelled into my face and caused my loose strands to fly backward.
I remained silent. The only noise filling the room was our labored breathing. His words continued to ring loudly in my ear as I tried to process them. I wanted to cry, but I had no tears left. They’d all been poured out already.
“You tried,” I managed to get out.
He wasn’t referring to the physical.
It was the mental.
It was the emotional.
Sosa dropped both of his hands, freeing me from captivity. He took a slight step back and nodded with regret-filled eyes. He’d tried to let me go but was unsuccessful. I didn’t know which fact was the most excruciating.
Giving myself a few seconds, I gathered my bearings and relaxed my frame. The baby was doing somersaults in my tummy, sensing my discomfort. I needed to get back home so that I wouldn’t stress my unborn any more than I had.
“I’ll help you this time. Forget this visit even happened. I’ll be on my way now.” I was swift on my toes, smoothly maneuvering from Sosa’s grasp and making my way out of the door.
“G, don’t go!”
“Goodbye, Sosa.”
“I said don’t go.”
“Goodbye!” I repeated, never giving him the satisfaction of seeing my face.
With each step that I took, I lost another piece of me. By the time I made it home, I didn’t think I’d even exist anymore. So much of me would be left behind, and the thought of rebuilding was disheartening. While this was supposed to be a precious time of mine, it was everything but. Since the start of my pregnancy, I’d been someone other than myself. As I continued out of the door, I made a silent promise that I would no longer stress the possibilities and face my reality. I deserved it, and so did my child.
After my fifth step, I heard his gun cock. “G, I’m sorry.”
There was something more to his claim, something that willed me to turn and see exactly what it was. When I met his eyes, my heart shattered into millions of tiny pieces. The gun he’d held to my head was against his own.
“Sosa!”
“G, if you walk out of that door, I ain’t got shit else to live for.”
My hand found its way to my stomach naturally. “Sosa, you have everything to live for. I did what I had to do. As your woman, I held up my end of the bargain.”
I’d left my bag by the door. I rushed to get it and returned with it in my hand. It was the papers that Destiny had given me to prove that the evidence had been destroyed.
“I hadn’t had a relationship with Destiny since the day I was born. She gave me up. Wanted nothing to do with me. When I found out she was the one pursuing you, I used her desire for a relationship between us two to my advantage. There’s nothing on you. Their case has crumbled, Sosa. Even if it is not mine, you have a life to live for. A baby will be here in a few months.”
Sosa grabbed the papers with his left hand as I lowered the gun that was in his right. As he read over the documentation, I removed it from him completely and placed it on the stand beside us.
“You did this?”
Nodding, I assured him that I had. “Yes. And the minute it was official, I came to find you.”
Sosa was remorseful as he looked into my eyes. “Marry me,” he proposed.
Shaking my head, I declined the emotionally enthused proposal. Sosa didn’t mean what he was saying, and I wouldn’t be foolish enough to accept. After coming to Mexico, I realized my life was better without him in it. I hadn’t ever felt so useless and betrayed. The type of low I was feeling at the moment was inexplicable, and I didn’t ever want to experience it again, which was why it was important for me to rid myself of the source and the only man that could cause so much anguish.
“I won’t do that, Sosa.”
“Why not?” He backed me
into another wall. This time, it wasn’t anger that had gotten us here.
“Because I’m so much better without you. You’ve dismantled me, and I just want me back. I deserve it, and so does our child.”
“I can change for you, G. You just need to give me some time.”
“I don’t have anymore time. You’ve had nearly a year. It isn’t fair to me to have to keep waiting for you to get it right, Sosa.”
“But I will.”
“I won’t be around to see it, but I believe that you can.”
“But we have a baby on the way.”
Chuckling, I held my hand to my mouth and allowed the single tear to fall from my eyes. “I’m reminded every day that I feel it kick or squirm in my belly. Every time I have to use the restroom because my bladder won’t give me a break, I’m reminded. Each night that I lay in a cold, empty bed alone with no one to rub my aching back or massage my swollen feet, I’m reminded, Sosa.”
“I know I haven’t been there, G. But damn, I was facing some serious shit.”
“Then you should’ve taken us with you.”
“I couldn’t fucking trust you.”
He’d said it. “And you never will. I won’t spend the rest of my life trying to get you to either. I’m fine with knowing that you don’t trust me now. Even after all of this, Sosa, I know you still don’t. As much as I don’t want to care, I do. Because I’ve given you no reason to be this way toward me. I’ve done nothing. Nothing.”
“I know, and I’m sorry that I’m—”
“You’re not. You’re not sorry, Sosa. You don’t even know how to be sorry.”
“For you, I’ll be anything.”
“Then be okay with knowing that I must live without you in order for me to function.”
“I can’t.”
“Then try harder. You’ve sucked me into this dark hole, and I can barely see anything that even resembles light. This is a time that I’m supposed to enjoy, and I’m more miserable than I’ve ever been.”