Tell Me No Lies

by Nikki- Michelle

  “Kay, that kiss was totally unexpected—”

  “I don’t care, Chy. You should seriously consider leaving Aric alone unless it involves AJ,” she said, then took a sip of Riesling from her wineglass. “I just don’t get it. This man manipulated you the whole time you were with him, almost got you and AJ killed—”

  “No, his crazy ex-wife did that.”

  “Because Aric couldn’t be man enough to let you know he was still married.” She moved her pressed auburn mane behind her ear as she spoke.

  “That didn’t give her the right to attack me,” I responded, then slid my feet back into my slippers. The wind blew and gave me a chill. I pulled my jacket tighter around me.

  Kay turned to me after placing her glass on the round wooden table between us. Her brown eyes cast a “Come on, girl” look at me. “No, she didn’t have the right to attack you, especially not the first time, but Chy, why did you keep messing with Aric even after finding out he was married? Why didn’t you stop?”

  “I was pregnant, and everyone acts like I could just stop loving the man.”

  “So because you were pregnant, you felt entitled to have him? He was still married, Chyanne.” Her expression was a puzzled one.

  I shook my head. “No, but I was already too far gone to just let him go cold turkey. I was already in love with him. I was in love, pregnant, and to be honest, scared.”

  “You were still in love with him? Even after he had sex with April? Speaking of which, why is she still in your house?” Kay shook her head and sighed.

  Once we’d gotten to be close friends, I told her the whole story from start to finish. After she listened to the whole story, detail for detail, she pretty much said the same thing Jamie had. She agreed that I allowed people to come into my life and leech off of me.

  She continued. “I’m not trying to be preachy or anything. I just wonder why your heart allows people to trample all over it.”

  “What I did for April was more for her sons than for her,” I explained.

  Kay nodded. “I mean . . . I guess, Chy . . . I just think, and this is just my opinion as your friend, I think you should be more mindful of your heart and the decisions you make. Think about how it would have affected Jamie if you had gone to get Aric. And we both know your weakness is Aric.”

  “Oh my God. Aric is not my weakness. I love Jamie. I know that without a doubt.”

  “So why did you lie to him? If, and that’s a strong if, if you were going to simply pick up your son’s father to take him home, why did you lie to Jamie about it?”

  “Because he would have had a problem with that—”

  “Bingo!” she said before I could finish.

  I was going to explain that I didn’t want to fight with Jamie about it.

  “Bingo? Bingo, what, Kay? I didn’t tell Jamie, because I didn’t want to fight with him about it.”

  “Because he would have had an issue with it, and when you love someone, when you respect them, you do all you can to ensure your actions don’t and won’t hurt them. Your love for Aric is your weakness,” she said, then stood to pull on her jacket.

  “I don’t love Aric anymore.”

  She stopped with her right arm in midair as she was sliding her arm through the sleeve of the jacket and just looked at me with a knowing smile. “Okay,” she said. “Okay, if you say so.”

  I waved my hand, then mentally rolled my eyes as I looked out over the lake. I didn’t love Aric anymore. I didn’t think it was possible to love two people, be in love with two people at one time. My feelings for Jamie ran deep. I found that out when he told me that he’d loved me at first sight. At first I thought he was joking, but he was serious. It was evident in the way his evocative gaze gave me chills.

  “It’s impossible to be in love with two people, anyway,” I said to her.

  Her eyes widened before she smiled lightly and shook her head. “Then you really need to reevaluate your relationship with Jamie,” Kay said to me.

  She said that with finality, like she knew something that I didn’t. While we talked, the conversation between Jamie and me about what his uncle had done to him kept replaying for me. I’d needed someone to talk to about it. Keeping it inside had been eating me alive. I needed to know what to do, what to say. I really wanted to be there for Jamie, but I didn’t know how to be. So I opened up and spilled everything to Kay. I told her about how many women he’d confessed to having sex with and what his uncle had done to him.

  “Oh my goodness, Chyanne. That is deep,” she said after a while.

  “I know. His mood swings have gotten crazy.”

  “You need to talk to him, Chy. See how he’s feeling and ask what you can do to help him with this. Aren’t you guys supposed to be going back to his hometown?” she asked, with concern etched across her features.

  I nodded. “Yes, we are.”

  “Have you talked to him about that?”

  “No, because it’s like we’re in the same room with one another, but he’s in another place.”

  “You two need to talk, and you two need to talk before this all becomes too much to handle. This is why you shouldn’t have been kissing Aric or going to pick him up. Too much is going on with you and Jamie right now. Aric will only make it worse.”

  Kay was a good friend, and I appreciated her advice. I didn’t know what would have happened if I’d gone to pick up Aric, so in a sense, I was glad that I didn’t. Yes, it was because Jamie came home unexpectedly that I didn’t go, but still, I was glad I had stayed home in hindsight. More than once Aric rang my phone that night. Then he finally sent a snide text saying that “my nigga” had to be home, since I wouldn’t pick up the phone. He was pissed, and I could tell he was. I’d have to deal with his attitude when he came to pick AJ up, I was sure. But I’d worry about that when the time came.

  Kay and I decided to go inside after a while. The wind chill had gotten a little too much for us. Not to mention I had started to feel light-headed. It could have been because I needed to eat again. She and I sat at my dining room table, just talking about different things, before she decided it was time for her to leave. She hugged me, then kissed my cheek before saying good-bye. She’d wanted to see AJ, but he and Jamie hadn’t got home yet. Kay was crazy about AJ, spoiled him every chance she could. After she left, I cleaned a little, then got dinner started. I worked on a few things for work and wondered if I should have started packing. Jamie hadn’t mentioned anything else about the trip, so I wasn’t sure.

  About two hours later Jamie walked into the house. AJ was asleep on his shoulders. He bypassed me in the kitchen and headed upstairs to lay AJ down. A few minutes later he made his way back down. For a few moments I stood there and stared at him as he moved around the kitchen. He was dressed in all black, down to his square-toed Italian leather dress shoes. The locks on his head were pulled back into a ponytail, and although his skin was vibrant as always, his eyes looked tired.

  “I cooked dinner,” I said.

  My voice came out even and soft. I didn’t really know what to expect from Jamie, since he hadn’t said much. The night before we’d slept in bed together, but we’d been worlds apart. I was worried about why I’d lied to him, worried about what to say to him to let him know that I was there for him after what he’d told me. God only knew what was on his mind.

  “Not hungry,” was all he responded.

  He had a bottle of water in his hand. I didn’t move as he brushed past me to walk out of the kitchen. Jamie had never done that to me. As long as we’d been together, he’d always been affectionate. It hurt. I wouldn’t lie about it. Without thinking, I walked behind him, then grabbed his arm to stop him. He turned to look at me, that same glazed look in his eyes from before. Yet again, he looked spaced out and high. I had no idea what that was about. He cast a despondent look at me, like he would rather be anywhere else in the world than there with me at that moment. My stomach dropped like the bottom had fallen out.

  “Jamie, please
talk to me. That’s all I’m asking. Just talk to me.”

  He screwed the cap back on his water, then licked his lips.

  “Talk to you about what, Chyanne? About the disgusted look that appeared on your face when I told you about what happened to me?”

  I didn’t say anything right away, as the tone in his voice gave me pause. It was a low and even monotone, but it was gravelly.

  “Jamie, that’s not fair to me, because I was shocked. That’s what was written across my face. Please understand that there was no disgust about your part. If there is any disgust, it was aimed at the monster that did it to you,” I told him.

  He’d just laid that at my feet. I hadn’t even had time to come to my senses and think about it before he walked off.

  “And what about everything else? Was I mistaken about that same look when I told you how many women I’d had sex with?” he asked nonchalantly.

  I couldn’t say anything in my defense when it came to that question. Like he’d assumed that look had been one of disgust. As I stood there and looked at the man who had always been my Mr. Perfect, I realized there was no way I could continue to see him that way after what he told me. But that was my fault. Jamie was my perfect man. . . . In my mind he was. He’d been everything to me that Aric was not.

  “I’m sorry. . . .”

  That was all I could tell him about that. He looked down at me like he didn’t like me at that moment. There was a look of contempt on his face, one that he’d never shown me before. It cut deep. Jamie didn’t say anything else to me. He walked off, headed back upstairs to our bedroom. I didn’t know what his silence meant.

  It wasn’t long before AJ woke up. I sat in his room with him and cleaned as he sang the ABC song over and over. You could never tell that AJ had been a preemie. As small as he was when he was born, he was almost taller and bigger than kids his age. He’d thrown clothes and toys all over his room. I sat his toy bin on the floor and shook my head. His sky-blue walls were covered in basketball, football, soccer, and baseball stickers. The hardwood floor had been polished green to give it the look of grass. His wooden headboard and dressers had been painted black, while his comforter and pillow boasted an all-star theme. Jamie had painted his name over his bed in colors that went with the theme of the room.

  I looked up as Jamie passed AJ’s door. His locks swung around his shoulders and back. He’d changed clothes. He had no shirt on and wore red and black gym shorts, red and black Nike Shox on his feet, and black fighter’s gloves on his hands, ones that his fingers showed through. I walked into the hall and looked over the banister. He was going to the home gym we had. I walked back into AJ’s room to finish cleaning.

  “Mommy, we go to Daddy?” AJ asked me as he jumped up and down on his bed.

  “No, AJ. Daddy has to work late tonight.”

  He started whining and fussing because he wanted to go see his father. I sighed as I rubbed a frustrated hand over my face.

  “AJ, stop it, okay?”

  I turned to him. I hadn’t realized how my voice had risen a notch, and that caused him to fall back on his bed in a tantrum. His little feet kicked in the air. Music from the gym started to filter through the air. The bass from the Bose speakers made the floor vibrate. For some reason that annoyed me even more. AJ’s screams and the bass from the music had me trying to still my nerves.

  “Okay, since you’re throwing a tantrum, you can stay in your room for a while and you will not be getting a snack,” I told him.

  “Mommy . . .”

  He whined and screamed louder as I walked out of the room, shutting the door behind me. He knew not to leave the room. I walked into my bedroom and picked up my cell. I’d been thinking about calling Aric so he could talk to AJ to calm him down, but I couldn’t get the memory of the way Jamie had looked at me out of my mind. I tapped the phone against my thigh as I walked the cream-colored carpet in the hall, heading downstairs.

  I could hear Jamie working the punching bag over. His grunts told of his anger. Once I was down the stairs, I walked toward the gym and cracked the door open. Sweat poured from his body as he punched, jabbed, and kneed the hanging black apparatus. He bounced on the balls of his feet and threw punch after punch. His biceps and triceps swelled and relaxed after each blow landed. His oblique muscles were squeezed and released anytime a fist went into the bag. His calves showed definition from the way he worked them as he bounced and moved around.

  If so much hadn’t been on my mind, I would have walked in and tried to seduce him, to encourage him to get on top of me, sweat and all. But I simply walked away and went to sit in the front room. It wasn’t long after that I heard the music go off, saw him walk into the guest room down the hall, and heard him turn the shower on. I laid my phone on the table, then laid my head in both my hands. What in the hell is going on with my relationship? I thought while trying to calm my nerves. I felt jittery and nervous, like my adrenaline was on overdrive.

  Kay’s words were echoing in my mind as well. I hadn’t spoken to Aric since that night. I wasn’t in a hurry to do so, either. Like Kay had suggested, I needed to keep him at arm’s length, unless it had something to do with AJ. Surprise registered on my face when I looked up and saw Jamie walking into the front room. He flopped down on the love seat. Cotton pj’s covered his lower half. He threw one leg up on the love seat and leaned back, swallowing a bottle of water. The TV was on, but neither of us was paying attention to it.

  Having Jamie close to me but not being as affectionate as he normally was to me made me feel like I was back in time with Aric. I didn’t like that feeling. I didn’t like the times when Aric made me feel as if I was nothing more to him than a figment of his imagination, his play thing. One that he could pick up and put down at will. I wanted to feel Jamie close to me, needed to feel him close to me. So I stood and walked over to sit by him. I lifted his leg from the love seat and placed it in my lap as I sat down. Neither one of us spoke a word. I was content with that as long as he didn’t pull away from me, which he didn’t. After a while, he moved his foot and reached out to pull me against his chest. I inwardly smiled at the closeness when his hand stroked my waist. We lay there that way for a long while. My eyes were on the TV, but my mind was all over the place.

  “Are we still going to your family reunion?” I asked him, just to make conversation.

  “No,” was all he said.

  “Can I ask why?”

  “I just changed my mind.”

  His body had stiffened. I wanted to ask about his uncle, but I didn’t know how to without making him uncomfortable.

  As if he’d read my mind, he spoke up. “I’m not going back down there.”

  “Why?”

  I looked up at him, and his eyes had darkened and his face had hardened.

  He glanced down at me, then back at the TV. “My grandmother called the other day to tell me my uncle was out of prison.”

  My throat went dry; it felt as if someone was trying to choke me.

  “And he’s at your grandmother’s place?”

  He shook his head, and sat up, which forced me to sit up.

  “No. Just the fact that he’s out and back in my hometown is enough to keep me away. I value my freedom. I value my time with AJ and Ashton,” he said, then looked pointedly at me. “And I love you. I can’t afford to go to prison.”

  I knew what he was hinting at without him even having to say it. I could hear the anger and frustration in his voice. It was palpable. The realness of it crawled over my skin and mixed with the chill of the room

  “Okay, I understand. Jamie, I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I am.”

  His eyes were still on me. “He’d always disliked me. He’d punch and throw me around for no reason at all sometimes. My mother never did anything,” he told me. “Then one day he just started saying weird stuff to me. Said I was too pretty to be a boy and that I should have been a girl. He would try to grab me and touch me, but I’d always get away. My mother knew.”


  Without him having to say it, I knew that the “he” Jamie was referring to was his uncle. I didn’t think I could stomach hearing anymore.

  “And she did nothing?” I asked.

  Jamie glanced away, like he really didn’t want to talk about his mother. I knew that feeling as well. Something was there that he didn’t want to talk about, and I didn’t know if I should push the issue or not.

  “I was in my room, and he walked in, locked the door. . . .” His voice trailed off. “I tried to run away, fight him off, but I wasn’t strong enough. . . .”

  I watched as his fist clenched. For the first time I noticed he was shivering.

  “You don’t have to talk about it anymore. We don’t have to do this. You’ve said enough.” I really didn’t want him to keep reliving the nightmare he’d suffered.

  “If I see him, I know I’ll kill him, Chyanne,” he said, turning back to me. There were fresh tears in his eyes, which made me rush to wrap my arms around him. “This is why I’m telling you this. You’re the first and only woman I’ve ever been honest about this with. I’ve lived my life in silence. The only people who know are my immediate family, and sometimes even they don’t understand the depth of pain I have had to live through because of this.”

  I wanted to egg him on, tell him to kill the bastard. I wanted to tell him that I’d help him if he needed me to, but I knew that I couldn’t.

  “It’s okay, Jamie. I love you still, no matter what. Whatever you need me to do, I’m here for you.”

  Those words escaped my mouth, but I wasn’t sure I could live up to them. No, my love for him hadn’t changed, but could I be there for the man I loved like he needed me to be? Could I be his support? How would I support him? What could I say?

  I didn’t know what else to say at that point. So I just reached out to hold his hand, lightly squeezing it. It took him a moment, but I was pleased when he returned the same show of affection. We sat in silence for a long time after that. After a while Jamie got up and walked upstairs. I heard him as he went into AJ’s room to check on him. He’d always been putty in AJ’s hands. AJ didn’t have a TV in his room, so Jamie turned on his nursery rhyme CD. I got up and walked into the kitchen to reheat the dinner I’d prepared after Kay had left. Jamie didn’t come back down until I’d finished. We all ate dinner together. Jamie and AJ played around, making a mess of AJ’s food. He let AJ paint his face with his mashed potatoes. It was all fun and games, which I needed to take my mind off the stresses of the day.