by B. M. Hardin
Chevey Marie.
I closed the journal.
Chevey was in love with…me?
What!
******************
CHAPTER SIX
“Thou shall say what you mean; or just shut up!”
“When did you fall in love with Chevey?”
Dakota looked at me. I tried to look him in his eyes, but his beard kept stealing my focused. His beard looked like an unshaved pussy and just staring at it made me itch.
I mean, I get it.
He was stressed out or whatever, but damn! He didn’t have walk around looking like he belonged in somebody’s bible story or something.
“What?”
“You heard me. When did you fall in love with her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you think that we are past the lies at this point? She’s dead. Probably because of you. The least that you could do is answer my questions.” I knew that my remark was kind of a low blow, but I knew that it would make him feel guilty and talk.
Dakota huffed. “Remember that day that you were panicking because we were running late for D.J.’s first soccer game, and you couldn’t find his shoes? And Chevey came by to go with us, and she calmed you down so that you could focus? That was the first day that I noticed how genuine and kind she was.”
I remembered that day.
She could always take the stress off of my shoulders. She always had a way of helping me relax. My legs started to shake but I motioned for him to keep going.
“And then a few weeks later, your birthday, at the dinner that I had for you. She was the life of the party that night. I found her jokes funny. Her wit intriguing. I’d never really paid her much attention before. I guess I was just always so damn busy to noticed. But that night, I noticed.”
“And that’s why you tried to kiss her at the party?”
He looked at me confused.
Shit! I wasn’t supposed to say that! He wasn’t supposed to know that I suspected his feelings for Chevey, before she’d died. I needed a lie.
“I walked by the kitchen that night.”
Dakota sat on the bed beside of me.
“I thought I was crazy for thinking that I saw you try to kiss her. I thought I was drunk. I convinced myself that I hadn’t seen it. And I forced myself to forget about it. But now, knowing the truth, you’d tried to kiss her, the night of the New Year Eve party, didn’t you? You were already in love with her, weren’t you?”
For a while he just looked at me.
“No. I don’t know what it was. Or why I started to feel something for her. It just happened. And I don’t want to talk about this anymore Yaya. It was a mistake. If I could take it back, I---,”
Before he could finish his sentence, I slapped him.
“You had no right to do this to me! I was a good wife to you! I loved you! I respected you! I gave you everything!”
Dakota, still holding his mouth, stood up and headed towards our bedroom door.
“Yeah. You did. But for some men Yaya, even everything isn’t always enough. No matter how bad they want it to be,” Dakota said, leaving out of the room, and closing the door behind him.
His words reminded me of the day that my Daddy walked out on my Mama.
I was young, but I remembered it so clearly.
She’d been raised by Big Mama Banks, so of course, at first, she was a hell of a woman. I used to watch her wait on my Daddy hand and foot. She always had his food ready when he came home. The house was always clean. She always smelled good. But it wasn’t enough.
He started picking up extra shifts at work and then he started to get to the point to where he wasn’t coming home at all. I remembered Mama asking him who was she.
He would always say no one. He would swear that he wasn’t cheating on her. He would simply say that he just wasn’t happy. That the life that he was living just wasn’t enough.
And then one day he left home for work, and he never came back. We never seen him again. He never called us, not even on birthdays or for Christmas. To this day, I don’t know where he is or if he was even still alive. He just left.
I remembered seeing Mama call everyone. She’d even called the police, thinking that something had happened to him, until my Uncle told her that he was fine. He told her that he’d just left. He didn’t know where he’d gone or where he was going, but he’d told him that he was leaving.
Nick was just a baby, but I remembered him.
I remembered that everything changed once he was gone. We lost everything. Mama became depressed. She stopped caring about life. She stopped caring about us. She stopped caring about everything. And then she became an alcoholic and she started using men for whatever she could. I saw what it had done to her and a part of me was scared that the same thing would’ve happened to me, which was another reason why I’d held my tongue when it came to Dakota and Chanel’s affair. One of my biggest fears had always been, ending up just like my Mama.
~***~
I couldn’t even properly bury my brother.
With all of the media attention and protestors, it was just too much of a hassle. Too much of a scene.
They’d kept his body way too long anyway, as “evidence” they said, and by the time that they released him to me, he looked horrible.
So, I had him cremated. We didn’t have any family; none close enough that would attend a funeral anyway. Especially after what he’d done.
So, I sat alone at the park, with Nick’s ashes in an urn beside me. I talked softly to him. I told him jokes. I cursed him out for not following directions and I scowled him for leaving me.
“Is this seat taken?”
I looked up to see Jerome. I shook my head no.
“Is this safe? Us talking?”
“Yeah. I told them that I wanted to see if I could get anything else out of the wife; you, that might could help with their case. They feel that this case being so close to home is an issue, but in a way, maybe it could be a benefit. At least that’s what they think.”
He relaxed and somewhat glowed as the warmth of the sun caressed his face.
“What about you?”
“I was defending my home from a criminal. The witness saw a man in all black, I walked in on an attack, it’s all good. He had a history. A criminal one. I’m all clear.” He glanced at the urn. “Had I known…”
“I know.”
We sat there in silence for a while.
“Are you coming to Chevey’s funeral?”
“I don’t know, considering…”
“Yeah. Chanel is taking it pretty hard.”
“She was sitting outside of my house one day.”
“Why?” He paused. “I can’t file for a divorce until all of this blows over. Wouldn’t want to raise any suspicions about me wanting out, even after the infidelity. It’s safer. As for your husband, it will depend on the trial and jury. Your brother’s statement, and our testimony will help, but with his past, they will discredit him in every way that they can. And I’ve heard that the lawyer on your husband’s side is top of the line. So, there’s no guarantee. I’m sorry that this hadn’t turned out the way that either of us hoped that it would.”
“To be honest, I don’t even care anymore. With the publicity of this case, Dakota has lost everything. All of his clients, all of his employees. His company. And me. Once I take most of his money, he won’t have much else. So, I say even if he doesn’t go to jail, a job well done?” I tried to sound okay about the situation, but I wasn’t.
He didn’t respond.
“Is she still pregnant?”
“Yeah. As far as I know. We don’t talk much these days. She doesn’t talk much to anyone. I guess she misses her twin.”
I was disappointed. I guess this was the price that we had to pay for our sin. Despite what we’d done, Chanel was still going to have the baby and there wasn’t a damn thing that either of us could do about it. We most certainly couldn’t come up with another plan. We
didn’t have a choice but to let it be.
He stood up. Good luck with everything Yaya, really. Sorry for your loss. Times two.” he said.
I half-smiled.
And with that, he walked away.
I couldn’t help but watch him. Had we had any sense, we would’ve just started screwing around and called it even. Hell, I could’ve stolen as much money as I could from Dakota and Jerome and I could’ve just ran away together. That would’ve been a hell of a lot easier than all of this. At least the two people that I loved the most wouldn’t be dead.
Dakota and I weren’t speaking since our conversation the other night, the one where I’d asked him all the questions about Chevey.
I’d followed him out of the room and things got worse. He told me that Chanel wasn’t the only woman that he’d cheated on me with. He admitted that there had been others. He’d said that Chanel found out that he was dealing with someone else, other than her, and that’s when she decided that she was going to keep the baby. He said that she bragged about how she was going to make his life a living hell. Imagine that. One side chick being jealous of another side chick. The irony.
Dakota said that she’d threatened to tell me about their affair on several occasions, unless he continued to see her. He said that one day, she’d been sitting outside of our house and said that if he didn’t leave and follow her, that she threatened to knock on the door and tell me everything.
I hated the ground that she walked on. I swear if I wasn’t scared of going to jail, I’d shoot her in the throat and in the stomach. Dakota explained that I hadn’t done anything wrong. He said that I’d always been a perfect wife. The only explanation that he had was that he’d just wanted his cake and wanted to eat it too.
Of course, that pissed me off, even though it was the truth, and after I threw every dish in the house at him, he packed a bag, and I hadn’t seen him since.
He never did answer my questions as to when he’d officially fallen in love with Chevey, and I guess it really didn’t matter. She was dead, and she didn’t love him back. As I’d learned, she’d secretly been in love with me.
I’d read a few more entries where she’d expressed her feelings for me. I never knew. It never showed. Chevey had never been into women, at least as far as I knew. But she’d definitely been into me. Some of the things that she’d written about me had made me blush.
It just goes to show that no matter how well you think you know someone, the truth is, you will never know everything.
I glanced at the urn and then at the ducks, gliding across the pond.
The breeze started to blow as I headed in that direction. The park was busy. I smiled at the little girl who was feeding the ducks on the other side of the water.
She stared at me as I opened the urn.
As Big Mama Banks had said about our Grand-Daddy’s ashes: “There’s no sense in holding on to dirt.” And with that in mind, I opened the lid and poured out Nick’s ashes. The wind started to blow them all around me and I laughed as though it was Nick trying to tickle me like he used to.
“I’ll take care of all of your kids. Just like I always took care of you,” I promised him from my heart and then I kissed the urn, and threw in in the pond too.
Once I’d made it back to my car, I noticed that Jerome was still sitting in the parking lot. He was parked right beside my car. He appeared to be talking on his cell phone. I felt bad. I felt sad. I needed a hug. I needed…
He saw me approaching his car and rolled down his window. He told whoever he was talking to that he would call them back.
“Is it safe for you to follow me? Would anyone notice?”
“Is everything okay?” He asked.
“No. Follow me.”
I walked to my car, not knowing if he would follow me or not. But he did. I drove towards the back road that he’d met me on, when he picked up the burner phone.
I’d noticed a small path on my way there that day, off of the main road, that went down past the woods.
I wasn’t thinking clearly as I headed in that direction. Once we arrived, and I turned down the path, Jerome pulled up beside of me, and immediately, I got out of the car. He rolled down the window.
“What’s wrong? What are we doing here?”
I didn’t answer him. Instead, I walked around to the passenger side of his car and waited for him to unlock the door. I was glad that he was driving his own car, instead of the police car, so there was plenty of room.
“Yaya, come on, what’s wrong?”
“Shh…,” I said to him, touching his lips.
Jerome looked at me confused as I traced his lips with my finger. Then, I touched his chest and headed down to the bulge in his pants. “This is your chance to stop me,” I whispered.
Jerome breathed hard. “What if I don’t want you to stop?”
I was emotional and though I’d wanted to be better than Dakota and Chanel, logic at this point was out the window. Dakota had been sleeping with other women for years. Chanel was still pregnant. We might as well enjoy each other, just one time. It was only right.
Jerome stared at me, intensely, as he scooted his driver’s side seat back and I lifted the armrest that had been in between us. I unzipped Jerome’s pants, slowly, as he watched me. I hadn’t been with another man in forever, but I needed to feel good. And I wanted Jerome to do it.
I stroked Jerome’s long and hard stick as he cooed. I could tell that he hadn’t been touched in a while. I could only assume that he didn’t want to have sex with Chanel, considering that she was probably pregnant by another man. His dick probably didn’t even get hard for her these days, but he surely wasn’t having that problem with me.
Neither of us spoke, and though I wanted to put my mouth on him, instead, I pulled up my dress, and sat on his lap. We were deep in the woods, with nothing but nature all around us. Face to face, I waited on him to make his move. And finally, he did.
Jerome kissed me, hard. His hands started to roam all over me and I closed my eyes and simply enjoyed the moment. I wanted him. I wanted him so damn bad! His right hand found its way to my panties and I waited impatiently for him to move them to the side.
Jerome sucked and kissed on my neck as he started to caress my clit. I was damn near baptizing his fingers with my sweet juices as he fondled me. I didn’t want to rush him, but I was ready. I was ready to take a ride.
Once he brought his hand up and then grabbed me by the waist, I smiled at him, knowing that he was about to put it inside of me but then…
A horn wailed.
We both jumped and looked for a car but we didn’t see one. All we could hear was a horn.
We were too deep in the woods to see the entrance of the path, but with the horn continuing to sound, nervously, we separated, and pulled ourselves together. It was as if someone was just sitting there, pressing on a horn, refusing to let up.
Without saying anything, I got out of Jerome’s car and just as he started his car, the horn stopped blowing, but Jerome proceeded to drive away, without so much as saying a word to me.
Back inside of my car, I just sat there. Saying that I was disappointment was an understatement. I couldn’t seem to get anything that I wanted these days!
Knowing that there would never be another opportunity, I frowned and headed back up the wooded path.
When I got there, Jerome was gone. And I didn’t see any other car around. So, I sat there for a while. I sat there unsatisfied, and horny. And then I got an idea.
With Jerome still on my mind, I opened my legs. Luckily, I knew how to finish the job myself. With the windows up, and the doors locked, facing the street, I closed my eyes and pleased myself right there on the side of the road. Anything was better than having sex with my husband.
After I finished, I stopped by the store to grab a few things to take over to Dakota’s mother’s house for the boys.
“Yaya? Is that you?”
I turned around. Well, what do you know?
It was Jimmy. My first love.
Jimmy and I dated during high school. He was my introduction to love. I’d never really known what it was since I hadn’t been shown much of it at home, but I can truly say that he loved me. And I loved him.
Long story short, he had a girl-friend before me, Trinity, who had a hard time letting go. We were just teenagers, but she hated to see Jimmy and I together. She and her little crew harassed me, and she would even try to convince Jimmy to break up with me and go back to her. I’d tried to keep my cool for as long as I could, but she kept pushing me and pushing me, until one day, I tried to burn the bitch up…literally. She was a cheerleader and in the middle of her sentence, I pulled out a lighter and set the ribbon that was in her hair on fire.
She deserved it. And I enjoyed watching her scream. The fire burned some of her hair and her parents pressed charges on me. And then Jimmy’s parents forbid him to see me again. We couldn’t date anymore. He wouldn’t even talk to me. He was the first guy that had ever broken my heart and after him, I swore off high-school boys and only dated older men, which led me to that married man.
“Girl, I knew that was you.”
“Hey, Jimmy. It’s been years.”
“Yeah. It has. How are you?”
“I’ve seen better days.”
He nodded. “So, what have you been getting into? Are you married?” I wasn’t wearing my wedding ring, so it wasn’t that obvious.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Oh. You still looking good. You were always sexy as hell. So, are you looking for a little friend on the side?”
I looked at him confused. “Excuse me?”
“You know. Somebody to hit it for you every now and then. Somebody to make you feel good, when your man acting up,” he said.
I shook my head in disbelief.
He could’ve asked me about anything; my family, if I had a career, what I was doing with my life, anything! Anything other than about getting some ass!
Chevey had said that men these days were cut from a different cloth; I guess she was right.
I didn’t bother to respond to him. I just walked away from him, with him screaming comments behind me.