Truth & Consequences: A Miss Independent Novel

by Leach, Kiki

  “It was as if after sleeping on it, he realized that the decision we were making was final and that I wasn’t going to accept him changing his mind on me again, ready or not. And then he went to see you at your office to talk about me writing for the magazine.” She laughed to herself and bobbed her head while reaching for her glass. “He was so hateful to me on the phone right after that…. I knew that seeing you could make him crazy, Vanessa, but it wasn’t until then that I realized just how much and why.” She drank back the rest of her wine and sat the glass down in front of the bottle. “I’ve never had a man love me like that before.”

  “I don’t think what Nathan has for me is love anymore, Sheila,” Vanessa replied in a sincere tone. “I think it’s some sort of unhealthy obsession due to his severe attachment to what we had in the past. And I think he feels that way because it was the only time in his life when nothing else mattered. We had no real responsibilities, no outside commitments, just us. He doesn’t remember the hell he put me through by being a dick to me for one reason or another -- which in truth, hasn’t changed all that much – because he doesn’t want to, just like I didn’t.

  “And as it stands today,” she continued, “I don’t think that he can deal with the fact that what I wanted from him back then and when he first came back to the city isn’t what I want from him or for myself anymore. His ego won’t let him believe it.” She sighed. “Being with someone like Mo is such a different and beautiful experience. The first time we were together, I thought my entire body was going to explode from how good he made it feel.

  “I’ve had sex -- good sex, bad sex and even some unspeakable that I’ve forced my brain not to remember all that well. But sex with him… making love to him was the first time I felt like a man actually worshipped every part of my body and enjoyed doing it because he knew it’s what I needed and wanted, and it’s what he wanted too. His love for me is like living in the Promised Land and overindulging on milk and honey without the fear of ever gaining too much weight. Even with the bumps chartering every path along the way, it’s still worth it to experience.” She smiled and reached for her glass. “In comparison, Nathan is equivalent to being trapped within the snare of the devil.” She gulped back her wine. “You were right to be worried about us in the beginning, but…”

  Sheila’s eyes darkened, the skin around them crinkled as she stared into Vanessa’s face.

  “…as time went on,” said Vanessa, “there wasn’t any need to worry about us anymore, at least not from my end.”

  She bent down on the table and dropped her chin. “Did something happen with you two?” she asked.

  Vanessa raised her head and stared directly into her eyes. It wasn’t until that very second that she realized she might have said just a little too much. For once, she had been like Sheila and let her mouth run before her mind had time to catch up and stop it.

  She could see both the fury and worry growing in Sheila’s expression as she waited for an answer, and as much fun as it might have been to throw the happenings of that night in her face a few months ago, this was the last conversation in the world she wanted to be having right now.

  She slid back up in her chair, then thought about it for a few seconds and sank back down. “The night of the reunion, Nathan came to see me at my office. We talked for a little bit, and then he--”

  “Nathan was with you? Was he in the office with you when I called?” she asked, her voice rattling after every forced word.

  Vanessa nodded. “Yes, but nothing really happened--”

  “It could’ve,” she shot back. “If I hadn’t have called, a whole lot could’ve happened in that time, V. A hell of a whole lot.”

  “Yeah, sure, it’s all possible but none of it happened, so it no longer matters.”

  “The hell it doesn’t, Vanessa!” She shot up from the chair like a rocket, her chest rising to meet the tip of her chin as the chair fell back against the wall and left a small dent in the paint.

  “You’re gonna pay to have that shit fixed--”

  “Shut up!” yelled Sheila, wildly waving her hands around either side of her face before slamming them down to the table.

  Vanessa turned her eyes up to her, opening them so wide they nearly bugged out of her head. “Bitch, what?” It took every ounce of strength she had to keep from balling a fist and slugging her directly in the face.

  “I said shut up, V.”

  “I heard what you said,” she replied in a stern tone. “Which had nothing to do with my question.” She stood to match her face to face, and stared. “Who the hell do you think you are talking to me like that inside of my own damn house?”

  Sheila exhaled and took a step back. She knew she had crossed a line, but hearing about Nathan and Vanessa in a compromising position was just more fuel added to her already blazing fire. “I just,” she started before stopping to clear her throat. “I just wanted you to hear what I have to say--”

  “I can hear you just fine without you talking to me like you’ve lost your gotdamn mind. Try that shit with me again and see if you won’t find your ass in that glass over there too, huh? Or out in the street beneath a pile of traffic with ya teeth knocked in the back of ya throat.” She fell back down in her chair and wrapped her hands around the wine bottle. More and more, she was contemplating smashing it up the left side of Sheila’s head.

  “Vanessa,” she stated in a low voice. “You have given me nothing but grief since I’ve been back, all because of what I did with Nathan in high school. To hear you just casually tell me that you almost fucked him in your office…” She shook her head. “You act like I’m just supposed to be okay with that!”

  Vanessa slid the bottle across the table and carelessly opened her hands while leaning back in the chair. “What the hell choice do you have here, Sheila? You knew that the man screwed around. It’s not like it was some big secret when you’re the one who turned him onto the art of doing it so ‘successfully’ in the first damn place. Did you really think your pussy was just that damn good that he wasn’t going to stray the moment you gave him that supposed chance?”

  “No!” she hollered out. “Because if you couldn’t keep him in check, then no pussy was good enough to keep him around. I just thought that at least you knew better after all the anger and hatred you threw at me.”

  “What I did with Nathan in that office is nothing compared to what you did with him in that shower and all the months leading up to it, so don’t get it twisted.”

  “There’s nothing to twist about this, V, because a sin is a sin all the same.” Sheila fixed her chair beneath the table and sat back down. “One is no bigger than the other.”

  “It is if the act of that sin causes the lives of everyone else around you to flip inside out and become a spectacle to the public. I didn’t actually go through with having sex with him that night and had the good sense to stop before someone actually got hurt in any capacity. I knew better, okay? I knew better. But my heart had yet to sync up with my mind at that point. I still wanted him. I wanted him like crazy, but you know what? The part that wanted him so badly died the moment I realized that no amount of love from me was going to fix just how broken he really is. I’m not some kind of healer. I can’t help him. I didn’t have the black magic for it then, and I sure as hell don’t have it now.”

  Sheila outstretched her arm and wrapped her fingers around her glass. She looked at Vanessa from the corner of her eye and wrinkled her nose. “I saw you walking out of the hotel after we had brunch the day after the reunion. Are you saying that nothing happened then either?”

  Vanessa cringed, remembering yet another incident with Nathan that she would’ve been more than glad to completely erase not only from her mind, but her history as well.

  She leaned her head left to right and stared down at the table. “We kissed, which is as far as we went in both situations.”

  “So much for being done with it, Vanessa.”

  “We were done. Once I officially got i
t out of my system for the second time, and realized that he had already been with you right after leaving me, there was no way in hell I could’ve gone through with much of anything else.”

  Sheila shut her eyes and scoffed, remembering back on the night before.

  No wonder Vanessa was so pissed with her at brunch after learning that she and Nathan had made love.

  Tears filled her eyes as she closed them, and rolled down her cheeks. She felt sick to her stomach, recalling the look on his face when he came back to their room after their big fight earlier in the night. She remembered how lust filled his hazel eyes became when he touched her, how deeply and possessively his tongue ruled her mouth as he kissed her, how aggressively his hips slid between her thighs as she unleashed her inhibitions and allowed him to ride against her. She remembered how his dick caressed both sides of her flesh as he entered her, soft and slow, then quick and steady; how she cried out his name while digging her nails into every part of his caramel skin that she could get to. And how instead of looking into her eyes as she repeatedly asked him to, he kept his eyes closed, so tight she could see the creases rising in the center of his forehead.

  It was about Vanessa, just like everything always seemed to be about her.

  She shook her head and poured herself more wine.

  “Adrian and I had sex,” she blurted out.

  Vanessa’s head snapped up so hard that she almost put a crick in her neck. She furrowed, then arched her brows and reached over to snatch the wine bottle, placing it at her side. “Say, what?!”

  After taking her last gulp, Sheila sat the glass down again and spun her fingers around the rim of it to keep her thoughts steady. “That’s what I came over here to tell you,” she said. “What I was so afraid to say because I wasn’t sure of your reaction. But now that you’ve told me that you almost had sex with Nathan and don’t seem to care just how much it might have actually made things worse between us, I’m almost glad to tell you that I had sex with Adrian.”

  Vanessa twisted in her chair like a pretzel and blinked so rapidly that it was starting to make Sheila nervous. “When the hell did this happen?”

  “Tonight.”

  She dropped back in her chair and wrapped her hand around her forehead. “You and Adrian had sex, tonight. Before you came here?”

  Sheila nodded.

  Vanessa rattled her head back and forth a few times in pure shock and then suddenly started laughing. After a few seconds of repeating the words inside her head and picturing them in bed, arms flapping, heads smacking, legs moving wildly against each other like two fish out of water, she was unable to control herself – laughing so hard and strong, she slapped one hand down on the table and the other on her leg. When she realized she couldn’t stop, she covered her face, then brought her hands down to her mouth to diffuse the sound.

  “Oh my God, I’m sorry,” she said between rampant giggles. She tossed her head back, unable to fully catch her breath. She brought it back down and rested a hand on her chest to feel the sudden incessant beating of her heart. “I’m so sorry, I don’t mean to laugh about it.”

  Sheila was taken aback by the reaction and didn’t know whether to join in on the laughter or be pissed that Vanessa didn’t seem remotely upset about it.

  “Maybe it is funny from the outside looking in, but for me, it’s not--”

  “You’re right, it’s not,” Vanessa said, wiping away the tears that fell in the wake of her laughter. “It’s not funny at all for anybody, but what you did with him tonight is just typical you. You don’t even need a reason for it and for that, I’m not shocked about it, nor do I really care.”

  Stunned, Sheila set back even further in her chair. “You don’t?”

  “No.” Vanessa took a sip of her wine. “I know that you’ve been obsessed with being at the top of everyone’s list since we were kids. But truth be told I’ve got more on my plate to worry about than you screwing yet another man I was involved with first.”

  “I wasn’t with him for that reason, you know.”

  “I gathered as much.” Vanessa watched Sheila as she lowered her eyes. “This started after you originally went to see him about me, didn’t it?”

  “Not then,” she said. “I didn’t even like him when I first met him and thought he was an asshole. Handsome in a nonconventional sort of way, but still an asshole.”

  “He’s never really been known to make the best first impression. That being said, if you two didn’t get along--”

  “I never said we didn’t get along, V, I just said that he came off like an asshole.”

  Vanessa rolled her eyes up. “Whatever. How did that meeting lead to what happened tonight?”

  “The night you came by my hotel room screaming at me about contacting him the first time, I had just come back from Bar Nineteen with Melanie. I checked my phone messages before going inside and like I told you that night, I had one from you, as well as him. After you left, I called him back and he came to the room while Nathan was out at some sports bar, and we talked.” She smiled thinking back on the second time they met. “Nothing happened that night, but I felt something with him that I never felt with Nathan before.”

  “What was it?”

  She looked Vanessa in the eyes and smiled even wider. “He made me feel like I mattered, V. He complimented me on things that Nathan never seemed to even notice or care about. And he was nice to me, genuinely nice. I barely even knew this man and I could still tell that he cared. I don’t know if I’m even explaining this very well, but there was a connection there that night. And then again when he found me on the beach after our big fight…”

  Vanessa could relate. It was the exact way she felt about Maurice.

  “So what’s been happening between you two over the last few weeks is what led to this.”

  “Yes and no,” Sheila told her. “I drove out to Queens tonight to talk to him about Nathan because he refused to come back here after what happened in the Hamptons, and we got into a fight. That’s what led to the actual sex.”

  “Oh, well, the best sex always comes from fighting,” she claimed. “At least if you’re with a man who knows what he’s doing. When he doesn’t, it’s not so much fun.” She sighed. “I’m hoping that if Maurice and I actually manage to work shit out between us that he’ll blow my back out. Unless he blows out Melanie’s first, and then we’ve got a problem.”

  “What?”

  Vanessa glanced at her, then shook her head. “Nothing. They’ve just been hanging out ever since we ended things and it just doesn’t sit right with me.”

  “So, you think they’re screwing?”

  “No. I said unless.”

  “How would you feel about it if they were?”

  “Sheila, just drop it, alright? Once again, I shouldn’t have said a damn thing about it. Especially since you seem to be friends with her ass all of a sudden.”

  She shrugged. “We’re this and that, I don’t know what we are. But if you don’t want to discuss it, fine. We can get back to the subject at hand.” She smirked and reached for the wine bottle. “To be honest I don’t even know if I should ask this after what you’ve told me, or what I’ve done, but now I feel like I have to.”

  “What is it?”

  “When you were together with Nathan back then, before things got so bad that he started--”

  She arched her brows and pinched her lips to the side. “Fuckin’ you?”

  Sheila cleared her throat and tried her best to ignore the question. “Did you ever have sex like that? Wild, crazy, angry? Dirty, sex?”

  Vanessa scrunched her face and readjusted herself in the chair. “Now you’re gettin’ just too damn comfortable over here after all of that wine, calm down.”

  “Sorry, I was just curious. He told me some things about you two being together, but--”

  “Yeah, I bet he did,” she said under her breath.

  Vanessa rested her elbow on the table and placed her head in her hand. She stared at Sheila,
who looked off into the distance, and sighed. Neither of them seemed to love him in the same way anymore, which led her to believe that there may have not been too much harm in answering a simple question in that regard.

  “I’m not exactly sure what Nathan told you and believe me, I don’t ever want to hear what it was. But from my experience in us being together, we were never like that. We fought of course, everyone knows that, but it never led to sex after, good or bad. That’s what he had you for anyway, right?” She snatched the bottle again and poured the wine into her glass until there was none left.

  Sheila shrank down in her chair and winced. “Sorry. Again.”

  “It’s, whatever… Despite my constant picking at you, mostly because it just makes me feel better about everything, I don’t really care all that much anymore.”

  “Nathan still seems to. Which is why he came here first instead of coming to see me.”

  “Does it really matter though?” Vanessa lifted her glass and fell back in her chair. “You had sex with Adrian while you two are still engaged, which in my opinion says a hell of a lot more about your relationship than you might be willing to admit to yourself, and maybe even to him.” She drank back her wine, then pulled the glass away from her face and dipped her head back over the chair.

  “I want to admit it to him,” said Sheila. “Ever since I left Adrian’s, I’ve been wrestling with whether or not I should, just to put us both out of our misery. And I think I will, tonight. Just pull the trigger and end it once and for all when he finally decides to come back to the hotel.”

  Vanessa readjusted in her chair and stretched her neck. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  “To tell him tonight?” she asked.

  “To tell him at all.” She set her glass back down on the table and rested her hands in her lap.

  Sheila sat back in shock. “After everything that just blew up in your face with Mo because of the secrets you kept from each other, I would’ve thought you’d be the first to agree with me.”

  “Under normal and very, very different circumstances, I would completely agree. Especially if I thought that telling Nathan anything would do any good. But after what happened here tonight, I’m positive that it’ll only make things worse for all of us. He won’t just laugh this off like I did – the man will go out of his way to destroy you both until there is absolutely nothing left to grind into the ground.”