by Yoshe
“No, Officer, I’m a CO and this is my personal firearm!” Sean laid the gun on the top of the staircase banister. “If you want to see my badge, I can run upstairs and get that for you but the person you want is downstairs,” Sean said. “I removed the gun from her possession so she’s unarmed right now.”
The two officers and Brandi followed Sean down a flight of stairs, leading to the family room. But before they could reach the bottom of the steps, they heard a single gunshot. Both of the police officers immediately drew their guns and told Sean and Brandi to stay back. The cops walked down the last couple of steps, leading to the family room. There, they saw Yadira’s limp body sprawled on the floor. One of the cops walked over to Yadira and checked her pulse, while the other one held his firearm over her. A grim look came over the face of the pulse checking officer. He motioned for his partner to holster his gun.
The cop stood up and looked back down at Yadira, who was still holding the weapon in her bloody hand. He pointed to the lone gunshot wound on the right side of Yadira’s temple.
Brandi and Sean were standing a few feet away from the horrific scene. Brandi began crying and buried her head in Sean’s chest. Yadira’s thick hair was matted with blood and there was brain matter all over Sean’s hardwood floors and wall. The pellets from the bullet looked like they were lodged in the wall nearest her body.
“I think that this young lady is dead,” the officer said, as he radioed for more backup and an ambulance. “Two patrol cars are outside and the paramedics are on their way,” he told Sean.
Sean just stood there in shock, staring at Yadira’s lifeless body and embracing the crying Brandi. Then he remembered one horrifying detail. The gun that Yadira had used to kill herself was her own firearm! He had carelessly left it behind the bar and she was able to get a hold of it.
Throughout the entire ordeal, Sean was able to maintain some self-control. But after thinking about everything that led up to Yadira’s suicide, his guilty thoughts and the image of her dead body became too much for him to bear. Sean felt himself slowly losing his composure.
He let go of Brandi and tried to walk over to Yadira. “Why, Yadi, why? Why did you do this to yourself?” he yelled at the dead corpse, forcing the cops to restrain him.
As the police officers tried to calm the inconsolable Sean down, Brandi couldn’t stop crying. She had her own thoughts about Yadira’s death. The vast similarities between her and the woman were entirely too much for her to bear. And for some strange reason, the memories of what her son’s father, Maleek last moments may have been like before he was murdered, came flooding back into her memory with a vengeance.
“Oh, my God! What did I do to you, Maleek?” she whispered under her breath. “Why did I do that to you?”
It wasn’t until five months after Yadira’s suicide that Sean was able to sleep peacefully. The cool April breeze that was blowing through his open bedroom window put him to ease. But just as Sean was about to close his eyes, his ringing cell phone interrupted his restful slumber. Sean reluctantly answered the call, slightly annoyed that his sleep was being interrupted.
“Hello?” he answered, groggily.
“Hey, Sean.”
Sean knew that voice all too well but needed to make sure that he was hearing right. “Hello?” he repeated, sitting upright in his bed.
“Hey, Sean. It’s me. Brandi.”
Sean got real quiet. He didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t spoken to Brandi since the suicide. Shortly after the incident, she changed her numbers and hadn’t bothered to reach out to him. So there was no use in Sean beating around the bush. He wanted to tell Brandi exactly how he felt.
“What the hell do you want, Brandi?” he said, in a voice that was callous as ever. “It’s been five months since I heard from you and now you fucking decide to call me? What’s up with that?”
Brandi let out a long sigh. “Look, Sean, I don’t have any excuse for not attempting to contact you. It’s just that I needed some time to get myself together.”
“Get yourself together?” Sean replied. Deep down in his heart, he knew that Brandi was right. She was the one who suffered physical violence at the hands of the mentally disturbed Yadira. But Sean could only feel sorry for himself and how much he had been through. “Brandi, Yadi killed herself in my got damn house, remember? What about how I was feeling at the time?”
Sean’s selfish attitude made Brandi lash out in anger. “I don’t believe that after all of this got damn time, you’re only thinking about yourself, Sean!” she yelled. “After everything that happened that night, you never called to see if I was all right or ask me how I was doing! So you know what I did? I changed my got damn number! That’s right! And do I need to remind your ass that you were the reason why I was in that fucking predicament in the first place? Huh? Do I?”
Sean took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down. Having never taken the time to think about how Brandi must have felt, he felt bad about the way he reacted to her. She must have been just as traumatized as he was. The fact that Yadira could easily have killed her, too, must have crossed Brandi’s mind hundreds of times.
“Got damn it, Brandi!” Sean exclaimed, getting up from the bed. He began pacing the room. “Look, you’re right, babe. I apologize for lashing out on you. And I apologize for not calling you after everything went down. It’s just that I wasn’t up for accepting any phone calls from nobody other than my family members. It was about a month later when I tried to call you. But it was too late. You had already changed your numbers and from that alone, I knew that you weren’t messing with me,” Sean admitted.
Brandi sighed. “Maybe I need to apologize too. We both had our reasons for not calling each other. But I didn’t change my number because I was upset with you, Sean. It’s just that people were calling my phone like crazy—news reporters, detectives; and then there were my problems with Shamari. Anyway, what we went through on that crazy night was devastating for the both of us but we survived it. Now let’s get off that. How are you, Sean? How have you been holding up these past few months?” Brandi asked.
Sean shook his head. “I’ve been doing all right, sweetheart. I just wish that things wouldn’t have turned out the way that they did.”
“Yeah, I know. It was definitely tragic. So sad. Did you attend Yadi’s funeral?”
Sean wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead. Yadira’s suicide was always going to be the big elephant in the room. There was no way around it.
“No, I didn’t go to the funeral but I was able to speak to her mother and her daughter’s father not too long after the funeral. They both told me about Yadira’s deteriorating mental condition. She was suffering from bipolar disorder and something else that I can’t remember. Her daughter’s father told me that she was on medication, too, but she refused to take it.”
Brandi gasped. “For real? Yadira was on psych medication? Wow! That’s crazy! She was such a beautiful woman! Who would have ever known that she was dealing with that?”
Sean shrugged. “As the old saying goes, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover,’” he said.
“Ain’t that the truth!” Brandi paused. “Look, Sean, I just called to let you know that I still care about you and that I miss you so much.”
“I still care about you too, Brandi.” There was a brief silence between them. “Would you like to come over? I would really like to see you.”
“Sounds like a great idea.”
An hour later, Brandi arrived at Sean’s house. When he opened the door, he was taken aback by how good she looked. She had lost a few pounds but she still had some weight in all of the right places.
Sean invited Brandi into the living room where he had some chilled Moscato and wine glasses waiting for them. Sean poured them some glasses of wine and they made a toast. Afterward, they stared at each other for a couple of moments but didn’t say a word.
Brandi was the one to speak first. “You look damn good, Sean,” she said, rubbing his tone
d bicep. “You look really good.”
Sean rubbed his washboard abs. “Yeah, I’ve been working out. I had to alleviate some of that stress. Plus, I started training again, you know, with the boxing and all that. And you look good too, babe.”
“Thanks.” Brandi cleared her throat. “I wanted to clear the air with you. I know we had some drama in our lives. I also know that you and I are still trying to put the pieces together. But what I came here to say is—” she began before Sean cut her off.
Sean looked down at his glass. “Brandi, I don’t think that it’s a good idea for us to be together,” he said, out of the blue.
Brandi had a look of surprise on her face. “Excuse me?”
Sean was too caught up with what he was saying to see the hurt in Brandi’s eyes. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I think that being with each other will just be a constant reminder of what happened with Yadira. And honestly, babe, I don’t want to ever remember that shit.”
Brandi stood up and walked away from Sean. He got up to comfort her but she pulled away from him. “I’m so sorry, baby,” Sean continued. “I care about you, Brandi, you know I do but after everything that happened, I’m too afraid to take a chance and be in a relationship with any woman right now.”
Brandi grabbed her pocketbook and headed to the door. “Where are you going?” Sean asked, with a confused look on his face. “I didn’t say that you had to leave!”
“Couldn’t you have told me this bullshit over the fucking phone?” Brandi screamed at him.
Sean tried to convince Brandi to sit back down but she pulled away from him again.
“I didn’t want to tell you this over the phone, Brandi.” When she didn’t reply, Sean started to explain. “Brandi, I just want the best for you, babe; that’s why I’m keeping it real with you! This shit with Yadira has scarred me and you don’t deserve to be with someone who’s not going to give you all of him.”
Once again, Sean tried to comfort Brandi. But she pushed him off her and walked out of the front door. He followed her outside and stood on the stoop, watching helplessly, as Brandi walked down his front steps. It was that moment that Sean wished he could take Brandi into his arms, make love to her, and tell her that everything was going to be all right. But the truth was everything wasn’t all right. Sean was still dealing with Yadira’s suicide and he didn’t trust himself or anyone else for that matter. And because of that, all he could do was stand there and watch the woman he had fallen in love with disappear from his life for good.
Chapter 1
October, 2012
It was a hectic Friday for Brandi Wallace. She was so looking forward to her weekend off from her demanding job.
A career-driven woman and a stickler when it came to her job, Brandi loved her position as a director for the Administration of Children’s Services. She had a great rapport with her subordinates and, more importantly, they all got the job done. But even though Brandi was quite successful in that area, there was something missing from her life: a meaningful relationship. She sighed loudly, as she thought about her lackluster love life.
Brandi hummed along with Beyoncé, as she drove her Audi Q5 truck across the Brooklyn Bridge. She was a little exhausted from putting in some hours at work but for some strange reason, she was not in the mood to go straight home. So instead of heading straight to her East New York residence and letting a Calgon bubble bath take her away; Brandi made an unexpected detour.
As soon as Brandi arrived in the borough of Brooklyn, her hometown, she headed straight for Halsey Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant. She wasn’t going to visit anyone in particular, or even had a real destination. She just wanted to recapture the memories of what could have been.
Brandi pulled up on Halsey Street and parked her car. She got out of the vehicle, standing a few feet away from a lovely brownstone. She took a few seconds to admire the oak double doors and natural stone steps. But the beautiful home wasn’t what brought her to the Halsey Street address. The home belonged to her former flame, Sean Daniels.
Brandi smiled to herself as she thought about the fun times she had with Sean. They met each other in September of 2009, in a place that she would have never expected to meet any man. He was a strapping thirty-three-year-old man, three years younger than the thirty-six-year-old Brandi. But the small age gap didn’t bother the sexy cougar one bit; she just loved Sean’s laidback demeanor. And what she really liked most about Sean was that he wasn’t intimidated by her at all. He had a silent confidence that even men her own age lacked.
It was obvious that Sean left quite an impression on Brandi. It was refreshing for her to have met a man who had his act together. Brandi wouldn’t have it any other way.
Brandi laughed to herself. She couldn’t believe that she was actually standing in front of Sean’s house! But she couldn’t help herself; it was hard to stop thinking about him. It was also part of her that made her curious to find out how his life turned out after they went their separate ways. Brandi sighed. The end of their budding relationship started with a woman by the name of Yadira Cruz. Yadira’s deadly obsession with Sean was what really ruined their chances of ever having a normal union.
Now it was almost four years since the death of Yadira. The emotionally disturbed woman had taken her life, right in Sean’s house. But even after so many years had passed, Brandi just couldn’t bring herself to sympathize or even empathize with Yadira. It was hard for her to feel sorry for a woman who committed suicide because she couldn’t have a man.
Brandi hated Yadira for killing herself. Her tragic death was always a reminder of why Brandi never got with Sean, a man who could have potentially been her husband.
Brandi took one last look at the brownstone and sighed. She was probably the only one out of the two of them who was still obsessing over the what-ifs. And Sean hadn’t tried to contact her in three years. It was painfully evident that he had moved on. It was definitely time for Brandi to let go of the past and move on too.
As Brandi walked back to her parked vehicle, the thoughts of Sean didn’t end there. She began reminiscing about the very first time that she met the charming bachelor. In the late summer of 2009, Brandi’s nineteen-year-old son, Shamari, who was facing robbery charges, had to be detained on Rikers Island. Before the incident, no one could have ever told her that her only child would be in jail at all, let alone for some robbery offense. Brandi was heartbroken, for she had given him everything that a child could ask for and more; in other words, Shamari wanted for nothing. But although the idea of her son being locked up had her upset, she stood by his side. After all, she was all that he had.
Brandi remembered how it used to take everything for her to walk through the doors of the jail to visit Shamari. She was so stressed out about the entire ordeal. Jail was no place for anyone, especially her baby, and she found it hard to believe that the intelligent Shamari put himself in that position. Brandi knew her son was much smarter than that.
Walking through the doors of that same facility was where Correction Officer Sean Daniels entered her life. He was very helpful to them and assured Brandi that he would keep an eye on Shamari for her. Being a mother, she was more than grateful for that. But while she was looking at the attractive thirty-three-year-old, she couldn’t deny the strong physical attraction that she had to him. Aside from everything that Sean said that he was going to do for Shamari, Brandi found herself wanting to get to know him better.
On the day that Brandi met Sean, she had left work early. She had to do that in order to make the miserable trek from her job in Manhattan to Rikers Island in Queens to see Shamari, her incarcerated son.
Usually, on the days that Brandi visited Shamari everything would go smoothly. But on this day, things weren’t getting off to a good start. For one, Brandi had forgotten her change of clothes at home. She hated wearing her professional clothing to that jail. When she did, she got the stares and dirty looks from the other visitors. Even a few correction officers looked at h
er funny. It was as if they were wondering who she was coming to Rikers Island to visit.
After arriving at Rikers and going though the grueling registration process, search, and waiting procedures that day, Brandi was finally seated at a table on the crowded visit area floor. As she anxiously waited for Shamari to walk through the sliding metal doors, she could feel the butterflies fluttering in her stomach. Brandi was looking forward to seeing her son, even though every time she saw him in that Godforsaken correction-issued jumpsuit, she just wanted to break down and cry. But she did her best not to do that in front of Shamari. He hated when she cried and she wanted to be strong for the both of them.
When the sliding door opened, Shamari walked out onto the visit floor. He appeared to have adjusted to his environment well; it even looked as if he had grown an inch or two in height. Brandi didn’t think that it was possible for Shamari to gain any weight but he had managed to put some pounds on his lean frame. And peach fuzz on his chin had gotten a little thicker since the last time she visited him.
When Shamari approached the table, Brandi stood up and greeted him with a smile and hug. Shamari hugged her back and kissed her on the cheek.
“Hey, Ma,” he said, while attempting to smile back at her. “Thanks for coming to see me.”
Brandi felt a lump building in her throat. “Now you know that I was gonna come and see my baby, Shaki,” she said, calling him by his childhood nickname. “Even though I despise this got damn place, I can’t let you sit in this jail without coming to visit you.”
Shamari managed to smile at his mother. He held her hands in his own and kissed them. “Love you, Ma,” he said, looking as if he was about to tear up. “You know that I appreciate you, right?”
“I know you do, baby. I know you do,” Brandi gushed.
A visit officer approached their table, interrupting their mother-and-son moment. Brandi wanted to protest but when she looked up at him, she was staring in the face of an exceptionally handsome man. Damn! Who the hell is this? Brandi tried to take in all of the officer’s manly attributes in one glance. She saw that his uniform was fitting him to a tee. When she felt her eyes wandering to his crotch area, she caught herself. Brandi almost forgot that Shamari was sitting there, watching her reaction to the officer’s presence. She could tell from Shamari’s facial expression that he caught an instant attitude.