by Cachet
“Umph, I guess the bitch wasn’t lying after all,” I whisper to myself as tears fill my eyes.
I feel like such a fucking fool right now.
The door shakes as Terry continues to hit it repeatedly, and I know that if he keeps it up it’ll eventually come off the hinges. I don’t want him tearing up my damn house, so I wrap up my investigation of his phone. I have one last thing to do before I hand it over. After pressing the voicemail button, I listen as the operator comes on and tells him that he has no new messages. Once she’s finished, I navigate to the settings and changed the passcode to his voicemail to only something I would know. Since he doesn’t have to enter one when he calls from his phone, he’ll never know that I have access to it. After deleting that last call from the call log, I darken the phone and open the door.
Terry is standing on the other side looking crazy as hell. The wild look in his eyes let me know that he’s upset, but after what I’ve found out, I don’t five a fuck. There are droplets of water on his shoulders and chest. His hair is white from what I assume to be shampoo, and his boxers are not only inside out, but bunched around his waist from him putting them on in such a rush. Just the sight of him makes me even madder, because here he is standing here pissed at me because he’s the one who’s fucked up.
It’s always him.
Before I step out of the bathroom I chuck his phone at him as hard as I can and watch as it hits him square in the forehead before falling to the floor.
“Youse a trifling ass nigg—”
“Bitch!” he yells cutting me off.
Before I get a chance to do anything else, Terry grabs me up by the front of my shirt and snatches me completely out of the doorway. My body collides with the adjacent wall before I slowly slide down it with the wind knocked out of me.
“Didn’t I tell you to stop fucking playing with me? You don’t listen though, do you?”
Not giving me a chance to respond, Terry lifts his hand and brings it down across my face. The side of my head jerks and bounces off the wall with a thud. Dizziness consumes me, and my eyes roll around in my head. Once that subsides, I quickly scramble to my feet, upset by the fact that he believes that he has the right to attack me when he’s the one who should be getting his ass kicked. Now in a standing position, I push him backwards with all my might, but he doesn’t budge. With a wild look in his eyes, he goes to grab me again, but this time I duck and slide to the floor. As he attempts to grab me, I crawl as quickly as I can out of the kitchen and into the dining room.
“Come here,” Terry demands through clenched teeth.
He grabs my leg and jerks me toward him, flipping me over in the process.
“Ouch!” I cry out when my shirt rolls up and I begin to feel the carpet burning my back.
As he continues to pull me, I reach out and grab ahold of the dining room table leg. Terry leans back and pulls at my leg harder. This not only tugs me, but the table as well. As it slides across the area rug, it tilts the chair closest to me, which tips over. I watch in slow motion as the heavy wooden seat comes right at me. In an attempt to protect my head and face, I release the table leg and put my arms up, but not soon enough. Before I can catch it, it clunks me right on the top of my head.
“Are you fucking crazy?” I ask holding the spot where I was hit.
Terry doesn’t respond, instead he drags me back through the kitchen and into the bathroom, where he closes and locks the door.
Chapter 16
Terry
If it ain’t one muthafucking things it’s another. Here I am thinking that everything is going great for me, and then I’m hit with a shocker of a lifetime. When Brittany called and told me that she was pregnant, I damn near crashed my car into a fucking ditch. I literally had to pull over on the side of the road and collect myself, because I was fucked up. I knew that I had messed up a few weeks ago by fucking her unprotected, but after she didn’t say anything, I guess I figured I was safe. That sad ass phone call ruined my whole fucking day.
After I told Brittany that I’ll call her back, I took my ass home and jumped in the shower. As if my day wasn’t bad enough, Shanair brings her bad ass in there and starts to question me about where I been. I guess I didn’t answer to her liking, because her nut ass grabbed my phone out my pockets and ran into the downstairs bathroom with it. I had no clue what exactly she was looking for, but whatever it was, I didn’t want her ass to find it. Before I knew it I jumped out the shower and chased her ass right on downstairs, dripping wet. When I got downstairs I asked her over and over again to give me my phone, but she wouldn’t listen. The only thing that stopped me from knocking the fucking door down was the fact that my kids were in the house and I didn’t want to scare them.
Once Shanair saw all she needed to see, she waltzed her ass out the bathroom and not only started to flip on me, but hit me in the head with my damn phone; a phone that she didn’t have permission to have. From there I lost it. I snatched her ass up and beat the shit out of her. Now I feel like shit because I know that I was wrong. Yeah, Shanair had no business touching my phone but my anger wasn’t totally directed towards her. I was more mad about Brittany being pregnant, and I guess I took my anger out on Shanair because I couldn’t hurt who I really wanted to and that was me. I couldn’t believe that I could be so stupid.
I just came from dropping my kids off at their houses, and now I’m on my way over to Brittany’s apartment. She says she wants to talk, but truthfully there is nothing for us to talk about unless she’s trying to get an abortion. I’m not trying to have no baby by her ass, and I’m going to let her know that. I already have three kids by two different woman; neither of them are my woman. So to have another one is a no-no, not only because I don’t want to hurt Shanair, but because I don’t want to deal with Brittany for the rest of my life. Katrina is already bad enough, and although Brittany isn’t ghetto, I have a feeling that she will act just as crazy as she has.
Once I make it to Brittany’s place, I climb out my car and make my way to her apartment. Before I get a chance to knock, the door flies open and Brittany stands there with a dumb smile on her face. I don’t know why she’s all happy and shit, because after I say what I’m about to say, I’m sure that smile will turn into a frown.
“Hey baby,” she greets me, before leaning in for a kiss. When I dodge it her lips meet my cheek. “Damn, what the hell is wrong with you?”
“Come on now Brit,” I tell her making my way into the apartment.
While she closes the door I walk into the living room, where I take a seat on the couch. Brittany sits beside me and I can tell that she now has an attitude. Her arms are folded tightly across her chest and she looks like she’s about to cry.
“I guess you having an attitude about me being pregnant, huh?”
“What do you expect Brit? You know I didn’t want no more kids!” I barked.
“Well, I didn’t have plans on having kids right now either, but what’s done is done.”
“What’s done is done? You sound crazy as hell right now.”
Brittany unfolds her arms, and places her hands on her stomach. “We are having a baby.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want another baby,” I explain to her honestly.
“Terry, why are you acting like this? Just the other day everything was cool. You came over and didn’t have a problem them.” Brittany laughed, “I guess it’s because I was giving you some pussy. Is that what you want? Do you want some pussy…would that make you feel better?”
As much as I want to say some real smart shit, I bite my tongue because I don’t want her hurt her feelings, but Brittany better stop playing with me.
“Look, I don’t want no more kids, so you gotta get an abortion.” There wasn’t much else for me to say at that moment.
“You should have thought about that before you came inside me.”
“Bitch—" I jump up.
“Watch your mouth when you talk to me. I’m not these other hoes that you fuck with,
” Brittany hissed. “You will respect me.”
“I’m sorry for calling you out of your name, but this is your fault Brit. You climbed on the dick knowing that I wasn’t wearing a condom.”
“You knew you weren’t wearing one as well. Why didn’t you insist that I get up?” she counters with a smirk on her face.
I spent the next hour trying to get her delusional ass to understand that having another baby is not something that I want to do. After breaking down the cons of why it wouldn’t work, Brittany was still dead set on having the baby. It didn’t matter what I said, she had an answer. Since her family had money she let me know that money wasn’t an issue, and we could move into one of her father’s houses when the baby was born. I ended up having to tell her the truth, and that was that I just didn’t see myself being with her like that. Once I told her that, she flipped out and told me to get the fuck out her apartment, which I did gladly. Before I walked out I left four hundred dollars on the coffee table for an abortion that I hoped she would have.
Since I didn’t want to go home right away, I decided to go to the bar and have a few drinks. I ended up staying for close to three hours before finally deciding to go on home. As I drove I kept praying that Brittany would make the right decision about the baby, but something in me knew better. Not only did she shoot down every excuse I had, but she was way too happy about being pregnant. Although I was only there for a little over an hour, she rubbed her stomach about twenty times.
Once I made it to the house, I climbed out of my car and walked inside. As soon as I stepped in the door, Shanair started in on me. Since Kendrick was still gone, we had the house to ourselves, and she let it be known each time she raised her voice. She told me about how Katrina had called her phone and told her how we were still fucking. Shanair explained that that the reason why she grabbed my phone, because she wanted to see for herself. As she cursed and fussed about leaving me, all I could do was drop my head into my hands, because I didn’t have the energy to fight with her. There was just too much going on.
As Shanair continued to threaten me with everything under the sun, I made a mental note to check Katrina’s petty ass the next time we talked. She had no right to call Shanair and tell her anything. That was one of the reasons why I only dealt with her every blue moon, because she was messy as hell. Katrina always let it be known that she wanted me back, so I’m not sure why I didn’t expect this from her.
With the guilt of not only taking my anger out on her and knowing that Brittany was going to keep the baby, I apologized to my baby and let her know just how sorry I was about everything. Since she knew how was, I lied and told her that I did in fact go over there, but we didn’t fuck because I didn’t have any condoms. I know you’re probably thinking that I was still wrong, and you’re right but to Shanair, me not fucking her because I didn’t have protection is better than me fucking her with protection. When I was done apologizing I was damn near in tears. Just looking into Shanair’s eyes and knowing that I would soon have to tell her about Brittany being pregnant, broke my heart. There I was causing her the same pain that I promised to never cause her again; this time with yet another different woman.
Apparently I must have scared her, because before long she started to cry while asking me if I was alright. There was no way I could tell her what was really wrong with me, so I continue to act as if it were because of our fight the night before. Shanair told me that she accepted my apology and we went to bed. As we both drifted off to sleep, I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close, because I was truly afraid of what was going to happen when I revealed my latest fuckup.
*****
The constant sound of my phone vibrating on the nightstand pulled me from my dream. When I opened my eyes I saw that Shanair was still sleeping, so I pulled my arm from under her as careful as possible, so I didn’t wake her. Once I was finished, I slowly rolled over and checked to see who was calling. I sighed when I saw that it was Brittany. After letting the call roll over to the voicemail, I saw that she had called more than ten times in the last hour. As I was checking the call log, the phone vibrated again. Again, I allowed it to roll over to the voicemail.
Just as I was about to lay back down, my car alarm sounded. Not thinking anything of it, I pulled my key ring out of the drawer and climbed out of the bed to stop the beeping before it woke up the entire neighborhood. As soon as I got close to the window, who I saw in our front yard damn near made me piss myself.
Chapter 17
Shanair
“Terry, did you hear that?” I ask as I sit up in the bed and stare at the window. “It sounds like somebody is fighting in the front of the house.” When he doesn’t respond, I nudge his pillow trying to get his attention. “Terry, get up. Do you hear—” I stop mid-sentence when I notice that his ass isn’t even in the bed.
Once again my man has left in the middle of the night while I slept. Sometimes I wonder what the hell goes through his mind at times. Frustrated, I shake my head. When will this bullshit stop? As I stretch, I groan because my arms are extremely sore. One by one I take my hands and try to massage away the throbbing pains in both of my shoulders, but after a few seconds I realize that I’m only making them hurt more. With my eyes closed, I lean my head back and roll it around in a circular motion a few times trying to work out the cramp in my neck. When that also doesn’t work I give up. My upper body is killing me. My arms hurt, my head is throbbing and neck is tender. I’m not sure if I’m up for feeling this way for the next few days. Unfortunately for me, I don’t think I have a choice in the matter.
After Terry pulled me into the bathroom and locked the door, he proceeded to beat the shit out of me. Since the bathroom downstairs is only a half bath and small as hell, I knew that there was no way that I would get out of there past him; especially with him standing directly in front of the door, so I tried to fight my way out. I swear I kicked my feet and swung my arms as hard as I could, but none of that mattered, because Terry always seemed to have the upper hand. If I kicked, he swatted my foot away. If I swung, he grabbed my wrist and twisted it. It only took me a few minutes to realize that I didn’t have a chance at defending myself, so I grabbed my legs and balled up in a knot. Usually that works, but this time it did nothing, because Terry was determined to punish me. He didn’t even seem to care that his kids were sleeping just upstairs.
I cried when he took each of my arms, roughly prying them off my legs. When he was finished, he yoked me up once again by the front of my shirt and stood me up. He was holding on to my collar so tight that it was digging into my neck and burning my skin. Over and over again, he smacked me in the face with an open hand, until I begged him to stop. Even that didn’t work. He continued to hit and slap me around for the next few minutes. Turns out the entire ordeal from beginning to end only lasted about ten minutes, but to me that shit felt like it took forever.
The following morning was a quiet one. As we ate breakfast at the table with the kids, I silently seethed inside, because I was still ready to get to the bottom of the shit between Terry and that raggedy ass Katrina. Since I’m not one to show the kids just how crazy things can be when they are around, I kept my mouth closed until Terry took them home. While he was gone I called up Katrina and let her know that I knew all about their little “thing”, while also letting her know that I was going to beat the breaks off her ass whenever I saw her. Of course she talked a bunch of bad shit, none of which I paid any mind. I had already made up my mind that I would let her know the real when I saw her.
Once I heard Terry’s car pull up, it was on then. I didn’t give a damn about the fight the night before; I was ready for round two. Yeah he had fucked me up, but I wasn’t going to let him think that he could get away with the shit he pulled. Up until that point I hadn’t even mentioned Katrina to him at all, but I damn sure was going to then. All the big and bad shit he was speaking the night before was gone when I told him that I was going to leave his ass. Now I knew I wasn’t going anywhere, b
ut I wasn’t sure if he did or not, because over and over and again he continued to apologize. I can’t put my finger on it, but something was different. Terry actually looked sorry for what he had done. I didn’t remember seeing him look that remorseful since he broke down and told me about Katrina being knocked up. If the sorrow I saw on his face is about anything similar to that; I don’t even think I wanna know.
Finally, I make up my mind to get out of the bed. My plan is to go downstairs and check to see Terry is down there, even though I doubt it. More than likely he’s gone, but the only way I’ll know for sure is to go check. If not I’ll be just jumping to conclusions, and I hate that. As I slide my feet into my house shoes and stand up, the commotion outside grabs my attention once again, so instead of going out my bedroom door, I pass it and head to the window. Separating the blinds slightly, I look down and just like I thought, there are two people arguing on the opposite side of the street in front of my house. It’s raining like hell out there, but it doesn’t seem to bother them because they’re standing right in it.
It’s a male and a female. I can’t really see him too clearly from all the rain drops on the window, but from where I’m standing, I can see the female swinging on him. He’s wearing a hoodie and his back is leaned up against a car, as he tries his best to block her hits, but she’s not having it. When I see her rush toward the trunk, I know that shit is about to get real. I wonder to myself why they couldn’t have taken the shit down the street, and not act up in front of my shit. After a quick glimpse in the direction of the alarm clock, I see that it’s almost three o’clock in the morning. Thank God I don’t have to work or I’d really be upset. I’m quickly tired of watching the nonsense, and turn to walk away to go and check and see if Terry is downstairs, but when I hear the sound of glass shattering, I reface the window.