Second Time Around

by Darrin Lowery

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The next day Korie awoke to a thunderous knocking at her door. She looked at the clock and it said 6:00 A.M. She and Jayna weren’t scheduled to run until 8:00. Having only gotten home at 3:00, she was exhausted. She tried to cover her head with the covers and pillow.

  The knocking continued. Korie became upset, but then gave it some thought. Jayna recently lost her man. She probably wanted to get an early start to the day. She probably needed consoling and support. Jayna had been there for Korie when she went through her drama with Darren. She was there when Darren broke her heart and was there to pick the pieces up for her. Early or not, friendship had no bounds. Friendship had no time constraints. That being the case, Korie got up from her bed and headed to the door as the knocking started again. Once again she tied her robe over her teddy and headed to the door.

  “I’m coming, just a minute.”

  Korie spoke in the most pleasant voice she could after only having three hours of sleep. She stopped in the kitchen and hit the automatic-brew button on her coffee machine. She would certainly need a cup of java to get through the day. Korie opened the door and was surprised to see Darren. She did a double take. She couldn’t believe that he was there.

  “What—what are you doing here?”

  “I had to see you.”

  “What? Darren no—I mean, what are you doing here? Vaughn could have been here.”

  “Is he?”

  “No but . . .”

  Darren stepped into the apartment without warning.

  “I need to see you.”

  “What is it? I mean, what do you want?”

  “You, I want you. I miss you. I need to talk to you.”

  Korie’s mouth was open and she was speechless. Darren was dressed in dark blue jeans, white-on-white gym shoes, and a T-shirt. He smelled good, he looked good, and he had a look of hurt and wanting in his eyes. He sat on the couch that was in the same place that it was years ago when he left. On the table were photos of the two of them. It was obvious to him that she too had been reminiscing. She must have just pulled the photos out. He picked one of them up. It was a picture of them when they were their happiest. Seeing the photos sprawled out on the table gave him hope. It told him that there was still a chance. Clearly she had been thinking about him also.

  “Darren, what are you doing here?”

  “Baby, I miss you.”

  “I have a boyfriend.”

  “DeVaughn Harris? He’s old enough to be your father.”

  “Don’t go there. He’s a good man.”

  “That I don’t doubt. But he’s not the man for you.”

  “Oh really? Let me guess, you are?”

  “I am.”

  “You were.”

  “You can’t mean that. From the looks of these pictures on the table here, you can’t mean that.” He pointed at the photos.

  “I was getting ready to throw them away.”

  “Bullshit. Korie, I’m sorry. I messed up. When I called you a few weeks back, it was because you were on my mind. It was because you’re still in my heart. All these years later I still think about you. Baby, I sometimes dream about you.”

  He went to hug her. She shrugged him off and walked away.

  “I dream about you too. I dream that you and I are together in love, and although things aren’t perfect, we’re working toward the same goal. Then, in the midst of the dream, you up and leave me. Oh wait, that wasn’t a dream. That shit really happened!” She turned around and pointed at him.

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Isn’t it, though?” Korie put her hand on her hip as she spoke.

  “Don’t act like I am the only one that caused our breakup. I’m not the only one at fault!”

  “No, but you are the only one that bailed out on the relationship! You’re the one that jumped ship!”

  “That was after you sabotaged our relationship and got pregnant!”

  It was a low blow. When they fought, both of them fought to win. Darren regretted saying it the second it walked out of his mouth.

  “I didn’t mean that,” he said apologetically.

  “Of course you did. And I admit getting pregnant on purpose wasn’t the answer, but I did it to save our relationship.”

  “You did it to sabotage my plan.”

  “Oh, here we go with your precious plan again.”

  “Korie, the plan had merit. There was a means to the end. All you had to do was stay the course and see things through.”

  “And where would that have led us, Darren? I didn’t want to wait for you to be successful. I wanted to be there with you every step of the way as you moved up in your career.”

  “And had you waited, we would be living nice right now.”

  “I’m not living bad now. In fact, I have my own business.”

  “A business that I planned for you. A dream that you had for yourself that I saw for you before you saw it for yourself. Had you just listened to me instead of being so damned stubborn, we could be together doing great things!”

  “I do great things on my own, without you!”

  “With what? DeVaughn Harris? An old man who is trying to recapture his youth? What’s so damned special about him?”

  “He took me to Tokyo a few weeks back! Can you top that?”

  That shut Darren up. What was worse was the trip to Tokyo was his idea. Talk about bad karma. He paced back and forth as he tried to think of ways to win Korie back.

  “Look, I didn’t come here to argue.”

  “What did you come here for?”

  “I came back for you. Baby, I need you. I’m sorry.”

  “Darren, do you remember how you left me? You left with no damned warning and you left a check on the counter over there like I was nothing to you. Like I was a damned whore being paid for her time.”

  That hit home. She was right. If there was one thing that Darren would have taken back, it was the way that he left her. It was the mother of all mistakes.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re damned right, you’re sorry.”

  “Baby . . . look.”

  “Don’t baby me. You lost that privilege.”

  “Korie, look. Everything that I did then, everything that I do now, is to lay the foundation for us to be together. Back then we needed a break and—”

  “If you needed a break then you should have said that you needed a break. Leaving a note like you did . . .”

  “. . . was the biggest mistake of my life. Leaving you was the biggest mistake of my life. Baby—Korie—I’m sorry. I’m asking you to forgive me.”

  “Why now, Darren? Why now? Is it because I’m with Vaughn?”

  “No. No. I didn’t know you were with Vaughn until yesterday. I’ve been trying to get with you for months now. You’ve been on my mind everyday since I left.”

  “I can’t tell! I haven’t heard from you in years. Years!” she shouted. Korie walked to the kitchen to retrieve a cup of coffee.

  Silence over took the apartment. Darren walked around the living room. The place hadn’t changed much. There were a few new pieces of furniture, but nothing had really changed. He sat on the couch and thumbed through all the pictures of them. If she was going through the photos, she was reminiscing. She had thought of him. She had been asking herself what-if. It was on him to answer those questions. Korie walked back in the living room and sat across from him. She looked upset with him, disappointed.

  “What do you want?”

  “I want a second chance.”

  “I’m seeing someone. In fact, I’m seeing your client. Isn’t there some ethics violation there?”

  “There may be, but I don’t care. I want you back. I want us back.”

  “What about your girlfriend?”

  “Who?”

  “Karen, the thirtysomething student who just went back to community college.”

  Darren let out a sigh.

  “It’s not a serious relationship.”
/>   “She seems to think it is.”

  “What?”

  Darren was confused. He didn’t remember seeing them talk at length where they could get to know one another. With the way Korie responded, it must have been written all across his face.

  “Darren, I know you. Right now you’re trying to figure out when we got so acquainted that I could know this. Well, I got to know Ms. Karen very well at the party.”

  Darren was still trying to figure out when. Then, as if to read his mind, Korie responded.

  “While you were at the bar, throwing back those rum and Cokes when that woman who looked like Keyshia Cole was talking to you.”

  Darren was thinking, you saw that? Of course he didn’t say so, but that too had to be written across his head because again, Korie responded.

  “Yeah, I saw that.”

  He had a look of surprise on his face. She knew him. All these years later and she still knew him—well.

  “It doesn’t take a long time for women to get to know one another. We know exactly what to ask each other and how to mark our territory. She thinks you’re a good man and the real deal. She thinks you’re feeling her just as much as she’s feeling you. Now if she’s mistaken, that means that you’ve misled her in some way. And if that’s the case, that means that you haven’t changed one bit. What do you plan on doing with her, leave her a note too?”

  It was a low blow. But like Darren, Korie fought to win.

  “It’s not serious.”

  ‘Then what is it?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not us. She’s not you.”

  “Does she know that you feel that way?”

  “What? No.”

  “Then you’re not being fair with her. And if you can’t be fair with her, how can you be fair with me?”

  Darren let out another sigh.

  “Korie, this doesn’t have to be this hard.”

  “Oh, but it does.”

  “Can’t we just start again?”

  “Are you kidding me? You date me, leave me, don’t call for years, and think you can just waltz your happy ass back into my life, is that how this works?”

  “No. I will have dated you, left you, which we both know was a mistake, and come back to you after learning from my mistake, and you’ll give me a second chance and we’ll live happily ever after like we were meant to do in the first place.”

  “And it’s just that simple.”

  “Well, maybe not that simple. But that’s the plan.”

  “And we both know that you are the master of planning.”

  “I planned your business pretty good, didn’t I?”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “I looked you up on the Net. I saw your Web site. Every idea that I left on your laptop you used. You even went back to school when neither of us ever thought you would. After all my lecture and insistence, you went and you did well. Just as I knew you would have all those years ago.”

  “Do you hear yourself? You just said, all those years ago. Darren, it’s been five years. We could have been married by now. We could have had at least two babies by now.”

  “It wasn’t our time then. Our time is now. Back then I couldn’t give you the lifestyle that I wanted to give you. Back then I couldn’t give you the storybook wedding that you wanted. Now I can. I can give you all that and more.”

  “I never wanted that. I never wanted any of that. That’s just the thing. All I ever wanted was you.”

  “Baby, I’m here.”

  “Five years later. Five years too late.”

  “So I guess you get your way and my plan failed.”

  “Your plan failed when you walked out that door.”

  They sat in silence. Darren put his head in his hands and Korie crossed her legs and looked away. Both were hurting. Both opened up old wounds and both still cared. Everything that came out of Korie’s mouth was from her head. Her head still had her defenses up. Her head considered how Vaughn would feel in the midst of all this. Her heart . . . her heart wanted Darren back. Her heart longed to know how he was. Her heart wanted to hear more about how he missed her. Her heart wanted to open the door again to love.

  But it was her head that was in charge.

  From her mouth shot venom about sins past. Anguish and hurt that she’d felt over the past five years. She had dated off and on since him. She dated. But nothing ever developed because she always longed to be with him. It was his babies that she wanted, and no man who she dated was ever his match. That is, until Vaughn.

  Vaughn was the best person to come along and distract her, but that was because he was charming as well as a man with means. Part of her told her that Vaughn was just a rebound. After all, he was the first real relationship that she had had since Darren. Maybe Darren was right. Maybe Vaughn was too old for her. Maybe their relationship was doomed to fail. In many ways, Vaughn simply reminded Korie of an older version of Darren.

  Korie sipped her coffee. She thought about what could have been. She thought about how much she longed for him over these past few years and here he was in her living room. He was right there, but he seemed thousands of miles away.

  “The place hasn’t changed much.”

  That snapped Korie out of her trance.

  “What?”

  “The apartment. It hasn’t changed much.”

  “There wasn’t a lot around here that needed to be changed.” She cut her eyes at him.

  Her tongue was still sharp. She was still mad. But Darren decided if he had to crawl over hot broken glass to get her back, that’s what he would do.

  “I miss you.”

  “You said that.”

  “Yeah, and if I have to, I’ll say it a million times more.”

  Korie let out a sigh.

  “Did you buy Karen’s implants?”

  “What? No.” Darren said, laughing.

  “How did you meet her?”

  “I, um . . . met her at the barbershop. Her son was referred to the agency I work for.”

  “There’s no ethical breach there.”

  “No. I don’t see her like that. She’s not my client.”

  “Hmm.”

  “How did you meet Vaughn?”

  “Jogging. Jayna and I were jogging and he saw me and asked me out.”

  “Ah, yes . . . Jayna.”

  Darren never liked her. She was a venomous, hateful, and spiteful woman in his eyes. Jayna was promiscuous, she could never keep a man, and Darren always felt that she monopolized too much of Korie’s time. She was a beautiful woman, but she was needy as hell in Darren’s eyes.

  “Don’t start. She was there to pick up the pieces when you left.”

  “Hmm.”

  Darren hated Jayna. She was a nice-looking woman with an incredible body but in Darren’s mind she was trouble. She always came to Korie crying about some man. She always wondered what it was that she did wrong and why no man would ever fall in love with her.

  It was because of how quickly she gave away her goods. She had a problem, a serious mental problem, as far as Darren was concerned. Always she cried to Korie about men and always it was because they slept with her and then dumped her. To be such a smart and business-savvy woman, Darren had no respect for her. He also knew she was trouble because of how provocatively she dressed.

  Back when Darren and Korie were together, Jayna would dress in jeans, skirts or shorts that were always too tight. Her cleavage was always too revealing. She wore white pants on the weekends with red thongs or low riding pants with her behind out. She was a very attractive woman. She was dangerous and a temptation for him. That was part of the reason that he didn’t like her. Korie never said anything to Jayna about the way she dressed around her man. She never said anything and she never thought twice about leaving Jayna around Darren.

  Of course, she should have been able to leave the two of them alone. Jayna was her best friend and Darren was her man. The two people that she trusted most in the world should be able to keep their han
ds to themselves. Shouldn’t they?

  Although Darren found Jayna to be attractive, his love for Korie was stronger than his lust. Jayna and Korie were like night and day and for Darren, there was a time that he could have had the best of both worlds. Jayna dressed provocatively and had a reputation for her skills in the bedroom. Everything she wore was revealing, everything about her reeked sexuality.

  Korie was just the opposite. She had a nice body, but she remained clothed. Korie always dressed so you would have to imagine what she looked like. She was the type of woman who dressed conservatively on the surface but would have on something naughty and sexy underneath. Darren used to remark how at the end of the day when he would undress her, it was like unwrapping a Christmas present. It was always a surprise. With Jayna, what you see was what you could get.

  Darren had his opportunity to get it.

  Because he loved Korie, he declined.

  It was a hot summer night six years ago that Darren’s love for Korie was truly tested. He had the day off and Korie and Jayna were scheduled to go out. Jayna had just broken up with some married executive, and she and Korie were going out for drinks at a nightclub in Dolton, Illinois.

  Korie got tied up at work. She couldn’t get home until 10:00. She called Jayna and told her. Jayna said she was running late as well. She said she would meet Korie at her place at 10:00. It wasn’t uncommon for Jayna to get dressed at Darren and Korie’s place. There were many times that Jayna would come over and Darren would go out into the living room, or leave altogether as the two women went out for girls’ night. They used to dress up at their place and then go pick up their girlfriend Eula. The three women would often stay out until 2:00 A.M. If they were too tipsy, Korie would let them both sleep over and take them home in the morning.

  This particular evening, Jayna got to their place at 8:00. Two hours too early. Two hours way too early. Darren heard a knock at the door. He opened it, thinking it might have been one of his boys, but it was Jayna. Back then, they were cool. The hate hadn’t started yet. The hate wasn’t warranted yet. Darren opened the door with a confused look.

  “Hey Jayna, what are you doing here?”

  “I thought I was going to be late, but I got out of work early.”