Raheem started to say something but changed his mind.
“Go ahead, say it. What is it you want to say?”
“I’m not giving you a divorce. So you need to just let it go.”
“I’m going to the ladies’ room.”
“When you get back, we’re ordering.”
Faith didn’t plan on coming back, she was going to leave his ass sitting there and catch a taxi home.
If it meant him raising his voice, she’d deal with it, if it meant him raising his fist, she would not. This time he was going to have a fight on his hands and this time she meant it.
She was not a child and was tired of feeling like she was, and now that she knew Raheem felt like she owed him, that just bothered her to the core of her being.
Wasn’t that what marriage was about? Being there for one another, being supportive. She didn’t ask him to carry her, he did it because he chose to, out of love, out of the kindness of his heart and she appreciated it, she still did, but it didn’t mean that she had to repay him by staying with him and being unhappy.
When his kids lived with them, she took care of them as though they were her own, she never once complained after she accepted that this is how it was going to be. She never once asked when would their mother be returning, she loved them because they were a part of him.
She never threw that shit up in his face and here he threw up in hers all he did when she was struggling through her addiction.
“That’s fucked up,” Faith said out loud.
“What’s fucked-up?” Elsie asked when she walked through the bathroom door. “I saw you leave your table, you looked upset, so I followed you in. Is everything okay? Is that your husband?”
“Yeah, we were just having a disagreement.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
Faith almost told her she could take her home but decided not to involve her. “No, that’s okay. I’m leaving his ass here.”
Stunned, Elsie asked, “You’re leaving your husband in the restaurant?”
Faith touched Elsie’s hand. “Listen, I have to go, I’ll see you tomorrow at the office.”
Elsie watched with concern as Faith left the bathroom. Damn, wouldn’t that be something if the person I hired to help others needed help herself.
But then again, Elsie thought, no one had the perfect life, there was always something going on with someone. Elsie went to the bathroom, washed her hands, and walked out.
As Elsie walked to her seat, she looked over at Faith’s table and saw her husband talking to the waitress. She looked around the restaurant and saw that Faith was nowhere to be seen.
Oh shit, she really left, Elsie thought.
Faith was already in a cab on her way home. She had to admit she was a little nervous about Raheem’s reaction when he realized that she left him sitting there like a fool.
Good, maybe it was time for him to feel like a fool, she’d been one for long enough. As a matter of fact, maybe it was time for her to get out and do her thing, go out with other men. Maybe she should let him see how if felt. That is, if he didn’t kill her first.
CHAPTER NINE
HARMONY
Dear Journal,
Sometimes Shareef’s very presence gets on my last nerve. How can that be when I love him so much? Is it possible to love someone all the time and not like them some of the time? I believe so. Is it possible to love someone and just want them to leave you alone? I believe so. Is it possible to want to walk out, walk away and take a break without saying a word? I believe so.
I also believe that people in relationships need time apart from one another, a time-out, but shit, even if I take a break or decided to just bounce, what point would it prove and could I really just leave my kids like that?
Sometimes I understand why women up and disappear, not that I would do it, but I understand it. I get tired of being all things to everyone and nothing to myself.
I want to be better, I want to do better, I will not let poverty or the hood dictate who I’m going to be or what I’m going to do with my life. I won’t let it happen. So if sometimes I’m selfish it’s because I’m busy planning my future and the future of my children.
Peace, Harmony
Harmony could feel Shareef inching closer and closer. She tried tightening up her body as a way of letting him know she wasn’t in the mood. He really shouldn’t be surprised because lately, she was rarely in the mood. Her mind was way too preoccupied with all the things she wanted to accomplish in the next year. Sex was the furthest thing from her mind.
Of course, he did not take the hint because the next thing she knew he was rubbing on her shoulders, moving his hands to her back and down to her ass. She knew it wouldn’t be much longer before he started rubbing on her nipples, like that was supposed to excite her.
Many moons ago it might have excited her. That is, before breast-feeding three kids and almost losing a nipple to one of them trying to bite the damn thing off. Now, it just irritated the hell out of her, sometimes.
Harmony covered his hand with hers.
“Can I get some?” Shareef asked.
Harmony turned over and looked at him.
Shareef could read the rejection all over her face. He sat up and threw his legs off the side of the bed as though he were going to get up. Instead, he turned to face her. “I’m getting tired of taking care of myself, you really need to know that shit.”
Harmony knew he was saying that he was tired of beating his dick, but shit, sometimes you have to do what you have to do and if that included masturbating, so be it.
Other women would think she was crazy for feeling that way because they thought if a man felt he had too masturbate too often, it would lead to infidelity.
Heck, Harmony masturbated and she didn’t think of cheating so why would Shareef? Harmony saw nothing wrong with pulling out her bullet and taking care of herself. At least she knew her orgasm was guaranteed in five minutes, sometimes less. It was her treat to herself when she knew she wasn’t going to have any alone time and wanted a quick release.
In the past, after discussing this issue with many of her male friends, Harmony came to the conclusion that men tend to believe that once they were in a relationship with a female, the woman’s pussy became theirs. They believed that they had ownership over it and that just because they, as the male, were in the mood for sex, then the woman is suppose to be also, like the pussy works on demand.
Harmony felt it was her duty to inform them that their belief system was not happening, nor was it true, nor would it ever be. One too many times Harmony had sex when she didn’t feel like it, when she really wasn’t in the mood. She did it thinking this what you do for the man you love. Well, that thought process wasn’t happening anymore. At least, she didn’t think it was going to happen again.
But lying in the bed looking over at Shareef, she realized that what one says and what one does are two different things.
Lying beside her was a good man. She knew it and he knew it. Hell, she had to start watching the few friends she had because they knew it too. Eventually, she was left with no friends because it became too much seeing them up in his face and she could really see herself hurting someone over them wanting what she had.
Shareef did everything in his power to make sure Harmony and the kids were comfortable and not in need for much. Until he started a business with King, he’d work two, three jobs at a time, overtime if he had to, in order to provide. He took care of all the kids, treated them equally, and even put up with Harmony’s moodiness.
Now don’t get it twisted, although he was a good man, he wasn’t perfect. He still had his idiosyncrasies. Sometimes, not often, but once in a blue moon, he would speak to her as though she was a child and not a grown-ass woman and that irritated the hell out of her. But she dealt with it because she knew it was rare for a man to take care of another man’s child like they were his own without any complaints.
On second thought, Harmony decided she
might as well give him some, so she moved from beneath the blankets and pulled him toward her.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I can’t change my mind?”
Shareef pushed her away gently, “Just like that, you go from cold to hot?”
“What? A sister can’t change her mind?” Harmony leaned forward to kiss Shareef on the lips but he pulled back.
“What? You don’t want to kiss me now?” Harmony asked, confused.
Shareef patted the spot next to him and Harmony sat up. “What?” she asked. “What’s the problem?”
“Harmony, you can’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Be on and off, think it’s okay to say no one second then the next be like, come on. Do you really think I’m just supposed to be okay with that? Because I’m not. I’m tired of trying to figure out when I’m going to get some ass. I’m tired of being afraid to ask for some pussy because you might give me the ‘here we go’ look. I think it’s fucked-up that the only time we have sex is when you want to, when it’s conducive to your schedule.” He waited on Harmony’s response, but she didn’t know what to say. “Something has to change, and fast,” Shareef told her.
Damn, Harmony thought to herself. Shit was serious. Shareef wasn’t one to speak emotionally, he never really let things bother him, his mode of operation was it is what it is.
Shareef took her hand and asked, “What’s going on with you, Harmony? Better yet, what’s going on with us?”
“What are you talking about?” Harmony did not feel like having a deep, let’s-analyze-our-relationship kind of conversation, especially this morning when she had school to be concerned with. “Do we have to do this right now?”
Harmony could tell her asking that question pissed Shareef off. He stood up, shook his head, and said, “So not only do we have sex on your schedule but we have important conversations on it as well. Fuck this shit.” He started walking toward the bathroom.
“Shareef, that’s not what I meant. It’s just that I’m taking the practice test today for my GED and I’m on edge.”
“Whatever,” was Shareef’s response, he wasn’t trying to hear that. He walked into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him.
Harmony knew she had messed up. Shareef was not one to go around slamming doors, the only time he did anything remotely close to that was when he was trying to control his anger.
She knew the right thing would be to go into the bathroom, apologize, and start the morning over by giving him some head, but there was no time for that. She still had to get the kids together and get on with her own day.
She looked toward the closed door and tried to mentally draw Shareef out, so she could at least apologize, but it didn’t work and she was too stubborn to make the first move.
I’ll make it better this evening. I’ll cook something I know he likes and then I’ll seduce his ass. He’ll be okay afterward. Harmony wouldn’t allow herself to think otherwise because the truth is as much shit that she talked to her girlfriends about being able to do this thing called life on her own and about not needing a man, she knew it was lie.
She needed a man. She needed Shareef. He was everything her other kids’ fathers were not. For one, he wasn’t a dirty old man and two, he’d never been to jail.
Four years ago, Harmony and Shareef met at Jewell’s house. Shareef and King were boys, they had a past together. It was Jewell’s idea for them to meet.
Jewell and King were having a dinner party. There were about ten people in attendance. All the men were in the living room and the women were in the kitchen when Harmony arrived.
The first person Harmony noticed when she walked in the door was Shareef’s fine ass. There really would not have been any need for an introduction because she was determined to introduce herself. That is, if the other women at the house stopped hounding him.
Jewell, who was peeping it all and didn’t want him to end up talking to any of the other women, finally decided to put a stop to it and grabbed her cousin by the arm.
“I’ve got someone I want you to meet.” Harmony saw where they were headed and noticed that Shareef was in the middle of a conversation with a female friend of Jewell’s. “I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes,” Harmony told Jewell while following her and not meaning a word she said.
Jewell pretended like she didn’t hear her. Two seconds later they were standing in front of Shareef.
“Shareef, I want you to meet my cousin, Harmony. Harmony, this is Shareef.”
The girl he was talking to looked at Jewell with a “that’s messed up” look.
Jewell looked back at Harmony, took her hand, and said, “I have someone else I want you to meet.”
A second later Harmony and Shareef were standing there looking at one another, sizing each other up. It was making Harmony a little uncomfortable. She wondered if she looked as good to him as he did to her. “So tell me, how you know King?”
“We go way back, as matter of fact, we grew up together.”
“Well, how come I haven’t seen you around?” She definitely would have remembered seeing him.
Shareef was well over six feet tall, built like a basketball player, and had the complexion of smooth chocolate. She wanted to eat his ass up.
“I just moved back into the area.”
Not one to bite her tongue, Harmony asked him was that code for “I just got out of jail.”
Shareef laughed. “If I told you yes, would you walk away?”
Of course she said no.
“Good,” he told her, “although that’s not the case.”
“Well, where are you moving back from?” Harmony wanted to know everything about this man she could possibly know because she was going to make him hers. There was something about his spirit, something about the way he looked right into her eyes when they were talking that held her attention. It was like he wanted her to believe every word he said, like he was trying to hypnotize her and it was working.
“I moved down south, needed a change of pace and scenery. I was doing things here I shouldn’t have been doing and was ready to change my life.”
Harmony loved the fact that he was being up front with her, pulling no punches. Hell, she decided to do the same.
“I have two kids by two different men,” she blurted out and waited to see his reaction. She waited to see if he would walk away. To her delight, he didn’t.
He just said, “Okay, and?”
Harmony wondered why his response was so nonchalant. Was it because he had children too? she asked him.
“Nope, no kids.”
For a second there Harmony didn’t believe him because there was no way a woman would let a man this fine get away from her. She knew plenty of girls who had trapped their men by becoming pregnant.
“Well, that’s a surprise,” Harmony told him.
“Why is it a surprise?” he wanted to know. “Every black man does not have babies all over the place.”
She wished she could agree but every male she knew over the age of twenty had at least one child. She hoped he wasn’t just telling her what he thought she wanted to hear. It would not have mattered if he did have kids anyway. She was feeling him.
That night Harmony and Shareef never left one another’s side. Jewell and King were peeping the situation and felt real proud of themselves because they knew Shareef would be good for Harmony.
Harmony got pregnant in year one of their relationship. The thing of it was Harmony wasn’t trying to get pregnant either; the last thing she wanted was a baby. They weren’t using condoms but she was on the pill. Just her luck, it didn’t take.
Harmony could recall being scared to death to break the news to Shareef. She wasn’t sure how he would react, if he’d think she tried to trap him or if he’d take her word for it that she was just as surprised.
Not having the nerves to tell him, Harmony took a pregnancy test at home and left it in the bathroom. She put it near the garbage can so it
would look like she was trying to throw it away and missed the can. She knew Shareef would spot it.
Later that morning, she was in the kitchen fixing the kids some breakfast when Shareef approached her from behind.
“Harmony!” There was a tone is his voice that caused her to jump.
“Yes?” Harmony turned to face him, She looked down at her chest because she was certain her heart was coming through it.
“Is there something you need to tell me?”
Of course, she knew what he was talking about but all that came out of her mouth was “huh?”
“I said, is there something you need to tell me?”
“Um.” Harmony was tongue-tied. She did not want to lose this man. He has treated her better that anyone she’d been with and he was good to her kids. She did not want this pregnancy to run him away and she had already made up her mind to have an abortion if he asked her to.
“When were you going to tell me you’re pregnant?”
Harmony looked him in the eyes. “I was afraid to.”
“Why would you be afraid to tell me something like that?”
All Harmony could do was shrug her shoulders.
“Pregnancy is not something you can keep a secret. You do know that, don’t you?”
She finally looked up at him. “Yes.”
Shareef pulled Harmony into his arms and asked her, “So when do I move in so we can officially start our family?”
All Harmony could do was cry, she wasn’t sure how to feel, especially when Shareef wanted her to have the baby when she wasn’t even sure she wanted to have it herself. But have it she did and when she looked back and thought about the abortion she was considering having, she knew she had made the right decision.
After Harmony got the kids together, she went into the garage, where Shareef had made himself an office space. He was putting together some paperwork and Harmony asked him, “Can you put that to the side for a minute? I have something I want to say.”
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