by RM Johnson
“Yes, Jayson, I know that. But what do you want me to do now? You know I’m sorry, and I’ll be sorry forever. You’ll know that firsthand, because you’ll be there with me for the rest of my life if you just let this go. I’ll tell you every day how sorry I am if you want me to, but what more can I do?”
What more could she do? She said it like she had made all sorts of efforts to make me trust her again, like after I found her out, she’d gone to Gary and told him to get the fuck out of her life because she had made a monumental mistake, and she had to find some way to repair it, as opposed to me setting his ass up. What more could she do, she said. And it was in a tone that suggested I stop crying like a baby, get over it, and either shit or get off the toilet. She was standing there looking at me, impatient, a hand on one hip, and I could imagine just under that dress, one of her toes was probably tapping impatiently as well.
“What more can you do?” I repeated the question to her. “What have you done so far outside of run around on me the entire duration of our so-called relationship, telling me one thing, but knowing good and well you had no intention of doing any of it.”
“Jayson, c,mon. We already got past that. We both agreed,” Faith said, her voice soothing, but worried at the same time.
“When did you see him, Faith?” I said, getting up from the steps.
“Jayson, what are you talking about?”
“When did you see Gary? What did you talk about? Did the two of you lie in bed afterward, smoking a cigarette, laughing at what a fool Jayson was to believe the bullshit you were filling my head with. Oh, but I forgot. He didn’t know that it was just a game, just a setup. He thought you really did love me. But he was wrong, just like me.”
“Jayson, I did love you. I told you that,” Faith said, pushing her way into me, grabbing my tuxedo by the lapels.
“Right. Sure you did.”
She rolled her eyes, and blew out a heavy sigh. “Why do you think I gave you all that hell about Asha? It was because I was jealous. I didn’t want her to take you from me, because I loved you. I just didn’t know how much then.”
“You just didn’t know how much then.” I repeated the words, not believing one of them. “So what clued you into how much, Faith? Was it one day when we were together? One time when I told you that I loved you, and you thought, what the hell, I might as well tell him back? I mean, sure, Jayson’s no Gary, you were probably thinking. But how hard could it be for him to flip me over on my stomach and fuck me like some two-dollar ho in a cheap motel room like Gary did for two years,” I said, malice in my voice.
Faith looked at me like she didn’t know who the hell I was, then sent a hand across my face with a slap that almost spun me completely around. She was huffing, chest heaving, on the verge of tears, and a little part of me wished I hadn’t made that last comment, but it was obviously how I felt.
“Two-dollar ho,” Faith said, quickly brushing a tear out of the corner of her eye. “That’s what you think of me?”
“Faith, answer this honestly for me. What else am I supposed to think of you?”
Faith didn’t answer the question, actually looked shocked that I had asked it. She looked down at her hands, as she picked at the polish on one of her fingernails. She raised her head, looking off down the street to the right and left of her, as if trying to find something out there that would make everything okay between us. But when she couldn’t, she turned to me and said, “Well, I guess that’s all there is to say, hunh? Who would want to marry a two-dollar ho, right?”
I nodded my head a little, then said, “That’s right.” Something told me that she was about to walk away at that moment, and I didn’t care. It took her a second. I guess she had to let me see a few more tears fall, give me a moment to second guess what I had said, possibly come to my senses. But when she looked up at me, and saw that that hadn’t happened, she slowly turned around and took a step toward her car. But that was the only step she took. She turned around and faced me again.
“You know, I really thought you had gotten over that,” Faith said. Here we go, I thought, that final attempt to try and repair her fucked-up mistake. “Yes, it was wrong what I did to you. You were the man I should’ve been with all along, because Gary didn’t love me, never did. I know that now.”
“You only realized that when you walked in on him screwing in your house.”
“No, Jayson. I didn’t really know that he never loved me until a couple of days after that, when he called me.”
“When he called you? Hold it, what are you talking about?” I asked her, feeling uncomfortable, knowing exactly what she was going to say, but praying she didn’t.
“He called and told me everything, Jayson. That you were blackmailing him with some tape you had, that you had arranged for a call girl, and that if he didn’t do it, you were going to go to his wife.”
“That’s what he told you?” I said, anger raging through my body, as I looked down at that broken tape, wondering if there was a way that I could fix it, and still get it out to that bastard’s wife in D.C.
“Yeah, that’s what he told me, and don’t try to deny it, because I know he was telling the truth.” She looked dead in my eyes. I looked away.
“He said that he would be flying into Chicago a lot on business, and he wanted to make up to me what had happened. He said he still loved me, Jayson, and he wanted us to get back together.”
I whipped my face back in her direction, feeling a jealous anger starting to build in my body at what he’d said to her, and a very strong fear at what her answer was.
“And what did you say?” I asked, not even sure if I wanted to hear her response.
“That’s when I found out Gary really didn’t love me, and I told him so. If he really loved me, it would’ve never gotten that far. When you came to him with your plan, he would’ve told you to go to hell. He would’ve said that if his wife had to know, so be it, but he’d never hurt Faith like that. For that reason, and another, I told him he had to be crazy, and to never call me back again.”
“What was the other reason?”
“I told him, because I love Jayson, and we’re going to get married,” Faith said.
“We hadn’t talked about marriage, yet,” I said. “How did you know then we would’ve been getting married today?”
Faith walked all the way up to me, placed her hands on my chest, and smiled sweetly. “I didn’t tell him anything about when we were going to get married, because I didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. I just knew, whatever it took, however long it took, that we were going to be together, because that’s what was supposed to happen.” Faith leaned in and kissed me softly on the cheek. “At least that’s what I thought, that is, before I became a two-dollar ho.” She took a step back from me, looked at me as though it would be the last time, then said, “Goodbye, Jayson.” She turned and walked across the grass to her car, not raising her dress like she did when she crossed the first time, obviously not caring now, because she knew it would never be used.
I watched her as she took those steps away from me, thinking about how she’d known all along what I had done. She had known it from the second day I was there and never said a thing. Maybe she was telling the truth about the child she had aborted, about being infatuated with that loss, and not in love with Gary.
I watched her as she continued toward her car, knowing that if she got in and drove off, there would be a chance that we’d never see each other again. I looked down at the tape, there on the ground. I bent down and picked it up. It was ruined, the images no longer accessible to me, no longer able to torment me. It was in the past now, as Faith had said earlier, and she was right.
She was walking around her car at that moment, opening the door, sliding in. I couldn’t believe she had known all along about that evil thing that I’d done to her, and she hadn’t said a word about it. Maybe she thought that it wasn’t worth mentioning, considering how well things were going for us then. I didn’t know, but I appre
ciated her for that. I loved her for that. I loved her for all that we’d been through, for all the horrible things that we’d said and done to each other, and strangely, for all the frustration that this love had caused us. After everything, she was still there sitting in her car, in her wedding dress, wanting us to get married.
She turned the ignition on the car, and it didn’t start right away, but coughed and then stuttered, the familar sound trying to put thoughts in my head, but I fought them off. I called out my fiancée’s name. She stopped for me, just as she was pulling away from the curb, and I ran out to her, watching her get out of the car, tears on her face again, running to hug me. And, on that day, I knew we would be husband and wife.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RM JOHNSON is the author of The Harris Men, Father Found, and the #1 Essence bestseller The Harris Family. He lives in Georgia.