Yes, Ashlee thought, quietly getting out of the car. She placed two blankets over the wet cushion, strapped little Darius in the car seat, and said, “I’m okay.”
“Sign here,” the officer said.
“Are you serious? Giving me a ticket for what? Or are you crazy?”
“Miss, don’t push your luck. Obviously it’s not good. Sign here, and please drive safely.”
With so many things happening, Ashlee drove directly to the rental car return, left the charges on her credit card, and boarded the next flight back to Dallas with her son.
CHAPTER 10
Candice
Tossing, turning, Candice couldn’t sleep. There were too many thoughts invading her mind. Getting out of bed at 9:00 a.m., she toured Jada’s house removing and replacing the video cards in each camera except the one in Jada’s bedroom.
Candice lounged by the bay window waiting for the sunrise. Whose baby was in Ashlee’s car? Inserting a memory card into her laptop, Candice clicked PLAY. Ten minutes went by and nothing exciting had happened. Replacing the kitchen card with one from the living room, Candice laughed. “I see why my girl is sexually frustrated. I wouldn’t dare put that scene in the script.” Watching Wellington made Candice cringe. “That’s the worst pussy massage imaginable.” Round and around. “Jada’s pubic hairs are probably tied in a knot by now. I guess they got tired of the bedroom. I’ll check the rest of these later.”
Picking up the phone, Candice dialed information, then pressed 1 to be connected to the number she’d received from the automated system. Opening her document, Candice positioned her fingers above the keyboard, prepared to type the conversation.
“Dallas Child Protective Services Agency, how may I help you?”
“Yes, I’d like to report a case of child abandonment.”
“Let me transfer you to an intake specialist. Hold please.”
Ashlee should’ve known better. Darius should’ve done better. But not to worry. Candice would gladly help them out.
A woman’s voice answered, “Intake Department.”
“Yes, I live in Los Angeles and would like to know if I can make a report.”
“Does the child reside in Dallas or Los Angeles?”
“Dallas. At 2555…”
“Then, yes, you can. Go ahead.”
“A child was abandoned overnight in a black SUV, license…HH2. The mother’s name is Ashlee Anderson. She left her child shortly after midnight. Her car was parked near 12121…then she spent the night at a hotel in Beverly Hills with a man.” Candice didn’t want to give Darius’s identity, fearing someone might leak her information. “She took a taxi back to the location where her car was, which was near 12121…where her child stayed alone all night. Later that morning, around six thirty, LAPD Officer Nero questioned her, but she arrived back at her car exactly three minutes before Officer Nero. Long enough for her to get in the back of her car and pretend she was with the baby the entire time. After questioning her, Officer Nero let her go, then followed her because she put the baby on the front seat of the car. He did in fact issue her a ticket. I’m not sure what the ticket was for, but afterward she immediately went to LAX. That’s the Los Angeles Airport. And that was the last time I saw her or the baby.”
“This sounds personal. But since the child appears to be in an endangered environment we will send someone out to investigate.”
Great! “Oh, and one more thing. I did report the abandonment to 9-1-1.”
“What’s your name?”
Candice continued giving her information to the intake specialist.
Tap, tap.
Jada always had bad timing. Shit. Candice yelled, “Just a minute! I’m getting dressed.”
“What’s your contact number?”
Candice responded, then said, “I’ve got to go. If you need more information, call me later,” then ended the call. “Come in!”
Jada opened the door, scanning the room. “You got dressed fast.”
“I know, girl. Come in. How are you?” Candice asked, hugging her best friend.
“Just mentally preparing to take Wellington to the hospital later.”
“That’s right. I’ll go with you.”
“You sure? You’ve done so much for us already.”
“Oh, I’m sure. Call me when you’re ready.”
CHAPTER 11
Ashlee
A mistake was only a mistake when she didn’t learn the lesson. Ashlee placed little Darius in his playpen. This time she left the door open so she could hear him stirring. At what point would Ashlee realize Darius wasn’t the man for her? After the trip to Los Angeles, Ashlee vowed never to enter Darius’s house again but couldn’t convince herself to throw away the spare set of keys to his home.
Don’t do it.
Whenever Ashlee wasn’t talking to Darius, she thought about him. At this moment, sitting in her living room in Dallas miles away from Darius, Ashlee was lonely. Trying to escape reality, she struggled to bury the skeletons haunting her.
Don’t do it. He’s not worth it.
Zombielike, Ashlee strolled into her kitchen, stopping in front of the long black-handled knives. Her eyes roamed as she tried to decide which knife was sharpest. She didn’t want to gnaw herself to death. Quick. Fast. One deep slice sharp enough to sever her veins and kill herself before her father or anyone else discovered her body.
She closed her eyes, Ashlee’s fingers meandering, then clenching a medium-handled knife. “I don’t wanna live without him,” she whispered, gliding the edge over her middle finger. She didn’t feel any pain. Opening her eyes, she watched the stream of blood flow into the crevice, then into her palm.
That’s the one.
Ashlee’s head rotated side to side. Faster. Faster. And even faster, wobbling her cheeks until she became dizzy, leaning her hips against the counter. Great, now she’d developed a migraine. Ashlee grabbed her ears, squeezed the knife, and screamed, “Stop it, Ashlee! Just stop it right now! Darius is out of your life! He doesn’t love you anymore! He is going to marry Fancy! You do have to raise his baby!” Ashlee glanced out of the corners of her eyes to the left, then whispered, “Alone.” The blood from her palm dripped from her wrist onto the floor, creating perfect circles. She shifted her glance to the right, the blade resting fractions of an inch away from her face.
Angrily she hissed, “Over my dead body.”
Why’d she say that? She didn’t mean that. Ashlee didn’t want to kill herself. She just couldn’t stand the pain, the heartaches, from knowing that Darius was happy without her. Happier with Fancy.
Forcing back tears, she thought, My God, does anyone understand my pain? Did anyone care?
For anyone who had a heart, anyone who’d been in love, whether they’d admit it or not, they’d have to understand her suicidal tendencies. She wasn’t crazy. She had an obsession she couldn’t deny. Darius Jones-Williams.
What would people think about sweet little innocent Ashlee if she killed herself? But she was so nice, so polite, a good girl. How would her obituary read? Survived by everyone except herself. Didn’t matter. As long as no one knew what really happened. Dead or alive, Ashlee wanted her family and Darius to love, not hate, her. No one could hate a dead person. Could they?
Slumbering, Ashlee returned to the living room, sat on the sofa, placed the cold stainless steel beside her thigh, and then stared at the duplicate picture lying on the coffee table of their son cradled in Darius’s arms the day of his birth. That was the only day Darius had seen or held little Darius. Leaning forward, she picked up the photo, kissing the glossy image. Her body tensed as she reflected on how her son, their son, little Darius, was almost taken away from her. So young. So fragile. So harmless.
Ashlee scooted back on the white leather cushion. The tip of the knife punctured her thigh. “Damn it!” she shouted, grabbing the handle. Lifting her hand above her head, she plunged the knife with a mighty force, lodging the blade into the sofa. The yellowish cushion burst through the tear.
Sitting on the sofa, she stared ahead, reflecting on how she didn’t know how to be a mother. She had her own issues to deal with. And no one had prepared her for a baby’s incessant crying. The more Ashlee had rocked her baby, the more little Darius cried. The more she’d walked him, the louder he cried. “What do you want from me!” Ashlee had yelled throughout her home in Dallas, that lonely night after being discharged prematurely from the hospital. But no one heard her, no one was there with her, except her baby…and he kept crying.
When Ashlee had put him in his crib, he screamed so loud her eardrums vibrated. Feeling like a failed and hopeless new mom, Ashlee had stood over his crib and begun crying too. Never having imagined being a single parent, she cried louder than her baby. The sight of little Darius faded into a visualization of Darius smiling, not at them, at Fancy, his lovely bride-to-be.
Ashlee sat on her sofa continuously drowning in bad memories. “Darius was supposed to be here for me. With me. With us. And I was stupid enough to let him fuck me again.” Ashlee gripped the knife, then hurled it across the room while yelling, “I didn’t fuck myself!” The knife stuck in the mauve-colored wallpaper as she countered, “But then again, maybe I did.” She’d heard the saying “Once a player, always a player,” but she didn’t want to believe that Darius would play her every chance she’d given him.
“I hate him,” Ashlee recalled whispering that oh-so-lonely night while gazing at little Darius.
That’s when she did it.
Painfully, Ashlee relived the moment she’d covered little Darius’s face with the soft baby-blue blanket, walked out of his room, and then quietly shut the door. Gradually little Darius’s screaming quieted to wailing, turned into whimpering, then faded into silence. Even when she couldn’t hear her baby—their baby—crying anymore, she didn’t go to check on him. She’d figured he’d cried himself to sleep.
Since Darius was already gone, maybe if she went away, the baby would go away, and everyone would disappear. They were already invisible. Darius wouldn’t see her, she couldn’t see their baby, and their baby should’ve seen his father and mother standing side by side. Neither saw the other.
That night, depressed and lonely, Ashlee had cried herself to sleep. The next morning, when she went to check on little Darius, she entered his room, then lifted the blanket.
Nothing could’ve prepared her for what she saw.
Rocking back and forth on the leather sofa, staring at her baby’s picture, Ashlee wondered if she’d ever see Darius again, then mumbled, “I don’t deserve to live.”
Why did men use her? Having Darius’s baby should’ve been the happiest day of their lives. But before she’d given birth, Darius had already moved on. Nine months of carrying a child inside her womb and Darius, without a conscience, had abandoned them. If she didn’t have a conscience, she would’ve aborted his child, but then she would’ve been the murderer. And she wouldn’t have a reason to desperately cling to Darius. Either way, the way Ashlee saw it, one of them must die for the others to survive. Since she was the saddest, might as well be her.
No one ever blamed the runaway dad when a mother killed her child. Why couldn’t she move on too? After all the wrong Darius had done, why did she still love him so much? Maybe Darius was right, she didn’t love herself enough.
Don’t do it.
Ashlee’s fingers wrapped around the cellular. She needed to call Darius but phoned her father instead.
“Hi, Daddy. You busy?”
“Never too busy for you, sweetheart, but I do have a client coming in ten minutes. What’s wrong? You sound sad.”
“Of course I’m sad, Daddy. I’m a single parent. Mother won’t babysit. You refuse to keep my baby overnight. I have no—”
Her father interrupted. “Not again. Well, we’ll discuss this later. I gotta go, sweetheart. And don’t forget to take your medication. Bye.”
“But—” Daddy had hung up. Ending the call, Ashlee whispered, “Good-bye, Daddy. I love you.”
Ashlee screamed into midair as though someone was seated on the love seat facing her and listening. “I was the one who went with Darius to the hospital years ago when he thought he’d contracted HIV from his ex-fiancée, Maxine. I was the one who held his hand, saw him through his moments of despair, always there to pick his inconsiderate, sorry ass up, encouraging him that he could accomplish anything whenever he was down. No matter how low. And now he has the audacity to despise me!”
Ashlee cried, recalling her rendition of how the lies had started with one phone call. That evening when she’d dialed Darius’s cell number, right before his wedding, she’d said to him, “I need to tell you something and, well, I didn’t want you to think I was trying to ruin your wedding, but you need to know. And if you would’ve come to visit our son’s grave, I would’ve told you then.”
Truth was, if Darius would’ve come the first time she’d asked, he would’ve known that his son was still alive. But no, Darius got upset with her, like she was annoying or interrupting him, when all she wanted was for him to want her. Want them.
Instead Darius had replied, “Ashlee, stop playing games. I gotta go. Bye.”
“Darius, wait,” Ashlee had pleaded to Darius on his wedding day in a trembling voice. “Please don’t hang up.”
“What? Ashlee! What the fuck is it?”
Whoa, what the fuck is it? she’d repeated in her mind. For the first time Darius had cursed her, so Ashlee decided to curse him. She was calling to tell him the truth, but Darius didn’t deserve to know the truth. “You remember how I never told you the cause of our son’s death?”
It sounded like Darius had stopped breathing when he replied, “Ashlee, why? Why now? Why are you doing this to me?”
Doing this to him! Doing this to him! Wrong fucking answer! What about me? Ashlee thought as she’d replied, “I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. And no matter what, I love you. But you need to know.”
“Then tell me.”
Ashlee vividly recalled crying. Knowing how important sex was to Darius, she’d told a lie on top of a lie. “Our son, Darius Junior, died from HIV complications.”
“And you?” Darius had whispered.
Oh, now she had his undivided attention and Ashlee knew what he’d meant, but she was in too deep to tell the truth or give Darius a reason to doubt her, so she lied again. “Positive.”
The next voice Ashlee heard was that home-wrecker Fancy. “What did you tell him?” Not knowing what to say next, and refusing to talk to Fancy, Ashlee had quietly hung up.
Tired of running away from her lie, from herself, Ashlee pried the knife from the wall, returned to the kitchen, slid the blade into the slot, swallowed two prescribed tablets, and then decided the time had come to tell Darius the truth. Little Darius shouldn’t have to grow up without his father.
After all, Darius had risked his life to rescue her from his burning office building. Didn’t that mean he loved her unconditionally?
Ashlee spoke softly to herself. “Call him now.”
Returning to sit on the sofa, before she changed her mind, she dialed Darius’s cell phone. No answer. She dialed his cellular again. Immediately she got his voice mail. Determined to tell Darius the truth, Ashlee would try every single number she had for him until he answered. Frantically, she dialed his Los Angeles home, and when he picked up she blurted out, “I lied! It’s not true! Please forgive me! Our—”
“Ashlee?” a woman’s voice responded quizzically. “What’s wrong with you? I’m glad you called, because we need to talk. What did you tell my man on our supposed-to-be wedding day that still has him so upset he won’t tell me?”
Narrowing her eyes, breathing heavily into the receiver, Ashlee asked what she already knew, “Fancy?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I fucked him last night,” Ashlee said, then screamed, “Bitch! I hate you!”
Raising her arm high in the air, with all the strength in her body…slam! The phone crashed
to the snow-white carpet. The battery bounced one way, the phone another. Ashlee jumped up and down until her feet ached, just like her heart.
“Screw you, Darius!”
Darius didn’t give a damn about anyone except himself. Little Darius was better off not knowing his father or his mother.
CHAPTER 12
Fancy
A man should never date a stupid woman; because not only did he not know what she was doing, she didn’t know what the hell she was doing.
Maybe at one point in her life, people labeled Fancy a gold digger, a slut, a straight-up ho, but that just proved she was no man’s fool, trophy, or easy lay. If he wanted to get laid, Fancy had to get paid; well, and in advance. No exceptions. Before Fancy fell in love with Darius, no man had captured her heart. Darius took her on a never-a-dull-moment, unpredictable, emotional ride so exhilarating she couldn’t imagine being happier with anyone else.
Glancing around Darius’s spacious bedroom, Fancy bounced up and down on the edge of his king-size bed. “I don’t have anything to worry about. Darius loves me and that’s all that matters.”
The gold wedding gown she’d removed last night now hung in the closet, forever a memento. Fancy couldn’t possibly wear the same gown twice, and if Darius didn’t marry her in a few months, her pregnant belly wouldn’t fit anyway. Even after catching Darius with other women in the same bed she was now rolling around in, she still loved him. Forgave him.
If infidelity was the worst she had to deal with, Fancy figured she was in the ninety-plus percentile with the majority of other women. Her difference was, Fancy was marrying a megamillionaire and she didn’t lie to herself or try to psyche herself into believing Darius would never cheat again. As long as he didn’t bring home any incurable life-threatening diseases, sex with those desperate women was what it was, sex. How many of those women could say their man would die for them? How could Fancy ever repay Darius for sacrificing his life to save hers? How many men could match Darius’s good looks, supersized dick, or financial status?
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