The Good Neighbor

by Beverly Ligon

  LIVING WITH UNCERTAINTY

  Weeks passed and Nyla admitted to Chance that he was right…she didn’t need to go back to college. Pleased with her decision, he started coming home from work at a reasonable time again and spent time with her and the boys, like he used to. All of his actions began to portray the man that she fell in love with and married many years ago.

  Nyla was happy that the tension was gone between her and Chance. She was also happy that she didn’t have to live in fear anymore, although she hated that Aaron was responsible. Still, she rather it had been him than some random person that she didn’t know anything about. Besides living with her secret, her life and routine were almost back to normal.

  One night, Nyla was awakened by Chance’s touch. It felt so right to her, but she still couldn’t shake the thought of Aaron from her mind. She hadn’t seen him since he left the hospital and wondered if he had gotten scared and ran off after all. She remembered their conversation, how sincere and apologetic he was after confessing what he’d done to her. It just didn’t suit him to be capable of raping anyone, especially her and definitely not twice. It was at that moment when Nyla felt that maybe she cared for Aaron too. She hadn’t seen him in weeks and started to miss him as she pictured his smile that greeted her for so many years.

  Just as Chance was about to start making love to her, she asked, “Have you seen Aaron lately?”

  “We’re in the middle of having sex, and you’re asking me about Aaron? What’s up with that?”

  “I’m sorry. He just crossed my mind for some odd reason.”

  “Why would he cross your mind now?”

  “I don’t know. I just realized that I hadn’t seen him in a while. I’m just wondering if he’s okay?”

  “He lives right next door. Why didn’t you go check and see?” Chance got off Nyla and laid back down on his side of the bed and turned his back towards her. “He’s been gone for almost a month now and you hadn’t noticed?”

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to upset you!” Nyla said. “Come on and finish what you started.” She reached over and rubbed his chest. He turned on his back, then she climbed on top of him. Chance loosened up and they made love.

  The next morning, Nyla was up and almost finished preparing breakfast when Chance walked into the kitchen and hugged her from behind. He kissed her on her neck and said, “Aaron’s out of town on a business trip. I was outside when he was leaving. He should be back sometime today.”

  “Oh, okay.” She avoided eye contact because she felt like her eagerness to see Aaron would be apparent. “I was just being a concerned neighbor.”

  “I know. He’s your friend...and a good neighbor.” Chance commented. “Anyway, I’ll be working late tonight. So, you don’t have to wait up.”

  “On a Saturday?”

  “Nyla, don’t start, okay? You think I’m working late because I want to?”

  “Maybe.” She answered sarcastically.

  Instantly angered, Chance said. “I have to work! After all, I am the bread and butter in this house! I don’t know why I’m even explaining myself to you! All you need to do is relax...cook, clean, take care of the kids and take care of me! Oh, and you could try closing your mouth and listening for a change!”

  Nyla didn’t respond to his quick change of temper until he scared her by slamming his fist on the counter. “Chance, I do everything you want! I can’t tell a joke?”

  “No, you cannot!” He answered. “They’re unnecessary and I don’t want to hear any! Is that understood?”

  “No!” Nyla shook her head.

  “No?” Chance grabbed both of her arms firmly and with a low voice, he said, “I’m going to ask you again and before you answer, I want you to know that I can make things happen to you and nobody would know or even suspect that I had anything to do with them. I’ve done it before. Now...do you understand?”

  Nyla looked at Chance in disbelief more than anything. Who was this crazed man? She thought. “Yes, I understand.”

  “What are y’all doing?” CJ unexpectedly walked in.

  Chance loosened his grip of Nyla and gave her a kiss on her forehead. Then, he hugged her tightly and whispered in her ear. “Hug me back and tell me you love me.”

  She did as he told her.

  “Watch son, and learn how to get and keep your woman when you get older.” He kissed her on her cheek and walked out leaving her inwardly upset and confused.

  CJ smiled as he was fooled by both of his parents. Nyla wasn’t moved by Chance’s fake expression of love for her no more than he actually felt it, but she played along with it for the time being.

  Later that day, Nyla took the boys to her parents, then called Dee to see if she wanted to go out to eat at their favorite seafood restaurant and she said yes. They arrived at noon and as always, they were extra excited to see each other.

  “What’s up, girl?” Dee asked as she greeted Nyla with a hug.

  “Starving! Besides that, not much.”

  “Well, what are we waiting on then? Let’s eat!”

  Nyla and Dee ordered their food, then talked about their day until their food was served. Normally, Dee would eat, two times the amount of food that Nyla ate. This time, Nyla took the medal. She ate and ate until Dee noticed and jokingly said, “Girl, what’s wrong with you? You’re eating like you’re pregnant or something!”

  Nyla stopped eating and looked at Dee. She thought about the two encounters some months prior. Her eyes filled with tears and chin trembled as she tried to fight away her emotions.

  Dee asked, “Nyla what’s wrong?”

  Nyla didn’t answer.

  “Are you pregnant? If so, that’s great news! Maybe this time, I can get my niece.”

  Nyla shrugged her shoulders and a tear fell from her eyes.

  “Why are you crying? Do you know what I’d give to be able to just have one baby? This is a blessing unless Chance is tripping again.” She thought about it. “Oh my God! Is he tripping again?”

  Nyla shook her head. “No.”

  “Then, what’s wrong?”

  Nyla didn’t answer.

  “Come on, Nyla. Please talk to me. You’re always my counselor when I have problems. Now, let me be that for you.”

  Dee continued asking questions and Nyla continued shaking her head. Dee got frustrated after a few minutes of getting nowhere. So, she stood up with her hands on her hips and yelled, “Spit it out, Nyla, right now or I’ll be at your house when Chance gets home! I bet I’ll get some answers then!”

  “I can’t, Dee!” Nyla said.

  “You can’t what?”

  “I can’t tell you! Please just let it go!”

  “Oh, yes you can…right now or I’m calling Chance!” She took her cell phone out of her purse and appeared to stroll through it to locate his number.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you! Put away your phone and sit down please!”

  Dee sat, but keep her phone in her hand just in case Nyla didn’t tell her what she wanted to hear.

  “I need some water first.” Nyla said.

  Dee asked the waitress for a glass of water. Nyla gulped the whole glass down, then started to explain. After only a few words were spoken, she became nauseous and hurried to the restroom to throw up. Dee followed closely.

  “Oh my gosh...you are pregnant! “Dee said. “I don’t understand why you’re crying about it, though?”

  Nyla wiped her face with a few wet paper towels and looked at Dee without giving her any answers.

  “Nyla, is there something you need to tell me?” Dee held up her cell phone as a warning.

  “I don’t know!”

  “You don’t know what?”

  “I’m scared, Dee!”

  “Why? It is Chance’s baby, right?”

  “I don’t know!”

  Dee gasps. “You’ve been cheating and you didn’t tell me?”

  “No! I was raped!”

  “What? Wait...you were raped? When?”

  “A fe
w months ago!”

  “Did you report it?”

  “No, I’m afraid of what could happen if Chance finds out! Somebody may get hurt!”

  “And they should! They hurt you!” Dee said. “So, Chance doesn’t know?”

  “No, and I can’t find a way to tell him.” She answered. “Do you know what he’d do to him?”

  “Wait! So, you know who raped you?”

  Nyla nodded. “It was Aaron.”

  “Aaron? Your neighbor, Aaron?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, hell naw! I’m going over there!”

  “No, Dee! Please...just stop for a minute!”

  “Stop?” Dee took a deep breath. “Okay, then I’m gonna need you to help me understand how that happened to you and why you’re not mad as I am!”

  Nyla didn’t respond.

  “Did he come over one day and while y’all were having sex, you started to feel guilty and said no, but you really meant yes? What the hell happened? I thought y’all were friends!”

  “We were and no, it didn’t happen like that.”

  “So, how do you know it was him?”

  “Because he told me.”

  “He was bold enough to tell you that he raped you? Now, you’re pregnant and you’re okay with that?”

  “It wasn’t like that, Dee! It took all the nerve he had left to tell me that it was him! He felt horrible for what he did and apologized,” explained Nyla. “He’s not running away or anything. He’s actually waiting on me to do whatever I want to do about it.”

  “Nyla, that doesn’t make it okay! He was wrong…very wrong for doing this to you! He knows you’re kindhearted and he’s playing on that fact alone! You, out of all the people in this world, don’t deserve this!” She felt sorry for Nyla and began to show her more compassion than anger. “I don’t think you should let him get away with what he did to you, but it’s your choice...and how are you dealing with being his neighbor?”

  “I don’t know how I’m going to deal with it. I haven’t seen him in about a month. He told Chance that he was going up north for a few weeks with work. He’s supposed to be back today. I prayed about all of it and believe God will see me through. I am hoping that you would help with that too.”

  “You know I’m here for you…always!” Dee reassured her. “I have one more question. Does he know you’re pregnant?”

  “No, nobody knows...except you.”

  “Why not? Wait…don’t answer that because I wouldn’t know what to do either if I were you. Just know that I’m here for you, whenever you need me…I promise.”

  “Thanks Dee!” They hugged. “Well, I don’t have much of an appetite anymore. Are you ready to go?”

  “Yeah, let’s go.”

  After paying their bills, Dee walked Nyla to her car and said, “If you ever feel like you’re alone, remember that you’re not. We’re in this together and everything will be okay.”

  Nyla nodded. “Okay, but we can’t tell anyone…at least not until I figure some things out. If anybody found out what I’ve been through twice, they…”

  “Wait a minute! This happened to you more than once?”

  Nyla didn’t answer.

  “Come on Nyla! You can’t let him get away with this!”

  Feeling overwhelmed about the whole situation, Nyla started to feel dizzy and fainted. When she woke up, she was back in the hospital.

  “Hey babe!” Chance said as he smiled down at her. “I heard the wonderful news! Maybe we’ll get our little princess this time.”

  Nyla smiled weakly.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I wasn’t sure yet.” She answered as she looked over his shoulder and saw that Dee was there too. “I didn’t have a test done yet.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, the doctor said you and the baby are okay. You will be able to come home today.” Chance’s cell phone rang and he excused himself to answer.

  Dee walked over to Nyla and said, “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Dee, what am I going to do?”

  “Just try to stay calm if you can.” Dee answered. “Take one day at a time and don’t forget that you are the innocent one in this big pile of mess. So, no blaming yourself, okay?”

  Nyla nodded. “Okay. I love you!”

  “I love you more!”

  Dee left and after a few more hours, Nyla was released to go home.

  THE SHOCKING TRUTH

  Nearly three months later, Dee was at a restaurant eating lunch with two coworkers, when she saw Aaron walk in. She immediately got so upset that she started sweating. She tried her best to remain calm and ignore the fact that he was there, but she failed. She politely excused herself from her table and went over to have a talk with him.

  “Hey Aaron.” She said calmly.

  He turned around to see her and replied, “Hey Dee, how are you?”

  “Funny you ask.” She responded sarcastically. “I’m pissed! So, I’m not going to beat around the bush with you! How could you do what you did to Nyla?”

  Unprepared for the question, he dropped his head in guilt and shame.

  Dee continued, “She’s too sweet of a person to be going through this. I just want to know why you did it?”

  “I have no excuse. I was wrong.” He started to explain.

  “Damn right!”

  “And I was drunk.”

  “That’s no excuse!”

  “I agree, but I wouldn’t have done that to her if I wasn’t. I woke up the next morning and bits and pieces started coming back to me. Then, when I saw her one day at the grocery store, sitting in her car crying...it killed me to see her like that. I couldn’t live with her not knowing and being suspicious of everyone she saw. She almost died because of me. I had to tell her.”

  The more he spoke; the more furious Dee became. “Aaron, you can save the speech for someone who’s stupid enough to believe it!” Her voice got louder. “You wanted Nyla all along! You’d probably been watching her for some time, waiting on the perfect time to do what you did to her…you, sick bastard! Nyla won’t call the police on you because she’s pregnant, but if I was her, you’d already be behind bars!”

  “She’s pregnant?” He asked.

  A manager from the restaurant and Dee’s coworkers heard the heated conversation and they all interrupted to see if everything was okay. Dee and Aaron both said they were fine and decided to finish their conversation outside. As soon as they reached the parking lot, Dee turned around and punched Aaron in his lip and it started bleeding.

  “Yes, she is pregnant!” She answered, “You know…it really bothers me to hear you blame your actions on alcohol! I probably could accept that as a reason if you raped her once, but not twice!”

  Dee balled up her fist again and swung at Aaron, but this time, it landed in the palm of his hand.

  “Hold up, Dee! What do you mean twice? I couldn’t do that to her again! One time was already too many! It wasn’t me...I swear!”

  Dee didn’t expect to hear that. “It happened twice!”

  “It wasn’t me, Dee…not the second time!”

  “Nyla told me that you admitted to raping her at her home. Then, on the night that you confessed that it was you, it happened again at the hospital. She said that she was drowsy from the pain medication, but could tell by the soreness, that she was raped again.”

  “I promise you...I did not do it! Nyla told me to leave and that’s what I did! Whoever raped her on that night, came after I left.”

  Dee was confused. “All of this is crazy!”

  Aaron wiped the blood from his lip.

  Dee asked, “Who could’ve done this?”

  “I don’t know, but we need to find out who it was for her safety…and the baby’s.”

  “Right, but I don’t know where to start.” Although Dee strongly disliked Aaron at the moment, she agreed. She looked at him and thought, Nyla was right, he has a way of making you feel sorry for him. He really is a nice guy...just messed up when he touche
d Nyla.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  Before he could ask, she said, “She doesn’t know.”

  “Huh?”

  “To answer your question, she doesn’t know if it’s yours or not. She thought you and Chance were the only possible fathers, but now we find out there’s someone else involved. Out of all the bad people in this world that deserve for a few bad things to happen to them, why Nyla? She just doesn’t deserve this.” Dee dropped her head into the palm of her hands and shook her head.

  Aaron remained quiet at this point, not sure if he should say anything at all. Dee looked at him as tears fell from his eyes that he quickly wiped away.

  “Aaron, I can’t say that everything is going to be okay because this whole situation is so messed up that it’s hard to tell how any of it is going to play out. I really hate that the only one that seems to be suffering from it all is Nyla.” Dee shook her head. “I told her that I’m going to help her get through this...and I am. I feel like you owe her that too, especially since she has already forgiven you.”

  “She did?”

  Dee gave him a look of disapproval, but nodded. “Yes.”

  He took a deep breath and exhaled. “Of course, I’m going to help her! What should we do in the meantime?”

  “I’m going to call her and see if she could meet me at the hospital alone. It’s going to kill her, but she needs to know that there is someone else involved. I’m thinking, since the hospital has cameras, maybe they captured something from that night that could show us who went in her room. I’ll call you as soon as I find out something.”

  “Okay, let me give you my number.”

  “I already have it. Nyla gave it to me a while ago in case there’s an emergency. I think this qualifies as one.”

  Aaron nodded. “Right! Okay, call me as soon as you find out something.”

  “I will.”

  “Thanks, Dee!”

  “I’m doing this for Nyla.” She said as she walked back into the restaurant.

  Aaron went to his car and sat inside. He started praying, God, I ask Your forgiveness for what I did and pray that You have mercy on me, but at the end of the day, this is not about me. Please keep Nyla and the baby safe. I drove her smile away. Now, I’ll do whatever it takes to bring it back. I just want to see her happy again. In Jesus name, Amen.