Changing Stiles

by Elaine Allen

  “I’m his girlfriend—"

  “WHAT BITCH?!” I turn to my father, who is now looking at the female like she’s crazy.

  “Tonya, I need to speak with my daughter,” he tells her.

  “I DON'T HAVE SHIT TO SAY TO YOU!” I yell. There are other hotel guest staring at us now, but I don’t give a fuck. Let them look. I’on care.

  Bile is bubbling in my stomach making its acidic way up. I swallow to rid the watery taste in my mouth from my mouth. I don’t have time to reach a trash can, so I double over and begin to throw up all over the other woman’s shoes.

  My stomach isn’t feeling any better and minutes have passed. I guess it’s because I’m staring at the sight that made it sick in the first place. I feel like standing up and throwing up all over his ass. We’re in the bathroom of our suite. My father is here, minus the mistress this time.

  Carter helpingly hands me a full glass of water and says, “I’ll leave the two of you alone,” and leaves but not before giving my father a disgusted stare. He shuts the door behind him.

  My hands are shaking, and I have tears in my eyes when I finally muster enough nerve to stare at my father. I don’t even want an explanation because it’ll just be an excuse. All I want to know is how he could do this to my mother.

  My loving mother. This nigga is supposed to be at a fraternity convention.

  Fuckin’ liar.

  “It just happened, Lieas.”

  I ball up my fist, flex my fingers, and shift my weight from one foot to the other.

  This muthafucka. I hate liars. I seriously feel like taking a swing at him.

  “SHIT LIKE THIS DOES NOT JUST HAPPEN!!” I’m waiting for him to say more buts he’s silent. “You don’t bring some bitch that is young enough to be your daughter to the fuckin’ Bahamas while your wife of twenty-something years is sitting at home, loving you.”

  “Alieas, stop yelling and listen. Please?”

  Listen? Listen to him justify why he's cheating on my mom? “What do you have to say, Darrien?”

  “It’s wrong, I know. I love your mother. I really do.”

  “Love? You don’t love anything but your dick apparently!!”

  What does he know about love?

  “Alieas!” he exclaims.

  I can’t believe that this is my father. I don’t see him. I only see all the niggas in the past who have done me wrong.

  “This girl doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  “Just get out.”

  “Sweetheart, you don't understand what’s going on. I need to ask you that you let me tell your mother,” he fruitlessly pleads.

  I suck my teeth and even that hurts. “Are you crazy? No. I’ma tell her as soon as I get home. NOW GET OUT!!!”

  “Baby, don’t—" He can see that I’m not going for this act of his. This has probably been going on for years. To think I wanted my future husband to be like him. Tears roll done my cheeks so rapidly that I don’t even attempt to wipe them away. “Baby, don’t be like that.”

  “CARTER !!” I holler at the top of my lungs for my boyfriend. “GET HIM OUT OF HERE!”

  Carter opens the door just when my father is reaching to take me in his arms. “Babe, calm down,” he advises because I’m wheezing. Then he looks at my father. “Mr. Stiles, I think that you should leave.”

  “Listen, son—"

  “Now, please,” Carter requests.

  As soon as he exits, I fall into Carter’s arms. There are no words to describe what I’m feeling right now. Trembling, I cry uncontrollably as my tears become racket sobs and Carter takes me into his arms.

  *****

  I awaken a couple of hours later, barely coherent. A headache is pounding like drums on my temples. “Carter,” I whisper, slowly opening my eyes. He’s right beside me.

  “I’m here,” he quietly says, supportively squeezing my hand.

  “I need some Motrin. Please.”

  He leaves me on the bed for a second to go into the bathroom. When he comes out, he has a glass of water and two pills for my headache.

  “Thank you,” I say, swallowing the coated tablets and then drinking down the water. “How could he do this to my mom, Carter?”

  I can see that he wants to be supportive, but he doesn’t know how to respond without hurting me any more than I already am.

  “I don’t know, but I packed up our things while you were sleeping. I called the airlines to see if we could catch an earlier flight.”

  I roll onto my back, “I’m sorry, Carter”. This is his gift to me, and my family is ruining it. Damn my father.

  “That’s your family. You gotta take care of your business. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

  Eighteen

  February 2003

  Alieas

  For some unknown reason, my mom decided to let my dad come over to lunch to talk about their separation. Of course, I think that it is a bad idea, but she knows what she’s doing. He hasn’t slept a night in their house from the moment I told her. At first, I suspected that my mom wasn't as blindsided as I was. She took the news way better than I expected. After my intuition told me to dig deeper, I discovered that this isn't his first indiscretion. There was a trail of many women and years of tears beneath the façade of their “perfect" marriage. Most of that façade was built up by me. My idea of their relationship without actually seeing their relationship. Growing up, I was mesmerized by their attraction to one another. Both are attractive, still, to be almost fifty. They were always touchy-feely, full of love. My mom's eyes light up with pride when she watches my dad, unaware that she'd been watched by me. I can't recall ever seeing them overly upset with one another or in horrible fights or anything like that, growing up. Yet it seems everything I thought I knew about love and life proves that I don't know shit. I've based my dreams of lasting love on my parent’s marriage, and it’s all been a fucking lie.

  My mom confessed with teary embarrassed eyes that they'd been through marriage counseling my freshman year of college, and my dad had even moved out for a couple months during my junior year. How did I not fucking know this? Gray knew and ain't say shit to me about it. Must be hereditary. Him and my dad been at odds forever over Gray's choices and lifestyle. Now, I'm thinking that contempt could go both ways. He still on my damn list for not saying anything to me.

  Tyree is pissed. He'd modeled himself after my father— a good man, strong family values. He's not speaking to him either since my Gram let it slip that my dad had dated his mother, my aunt, my mother's older sister, before he dated my mom. Family rumors go that my Aunt Layla was as loud and rowdy as she was beautiful. Like all the men who paths she crossed, my dad had wanted her, had loved her. She was too free and reckless for him, though. She wasn’t the marrying type, so he settled for the calmer, sweeter sister. I guess that’s why my mom clung to him, always, like he was a prize. She'd won him, so I guess he was.

  And my dad; Mr. ‘My Word is my Bond’ is a liar and a fuckin' cheater. Still hard to swallow. Even harder when I'm pretty sure my mom wants to reconcile with him. I’m beyond pissed at this point. Pissed the fuck off that she doesn’t realize how fuckin’ decent she is. How beautiful. How wonderful she is as a mother— and as a person. Anyway, I told her that I’d come over after breakfast to be the buffer and give my dad the death look.

  “Carter, I know that I promised to go, but my mother needs me today,” I explain, disappointing him. Today is the Universal Negro Improvement Association’s day of celebration for the traditional African family. And before all this shit happened with my family, I had agreed to go with him.

  Carter sighs and looks away from me. “We need you too,” he says so lightly that he might as well have breathed it. “For the last month, you’ve been running to the aide of your mom—”. He stops as he catches the death stare in my eyes and begins again. “Babe, don’t get me wrong. You’re supposed to be there for her, but you’re not supposed to forget that you also have obligations to others.”

  I shake m
y head. I don’t want to argue about it. This is not the first time that he’s mentioned that he thinks I’m neglecting our relationship, and I’m not in the mood for it. “My family is falling apart and you want me to go to some damn celebration. What do I have to celebrate?” I’ve been spending most of my nights at his place as it just seemed natural because he has Mira and his place is so much larger. I don't think I've slept in my own bed for more than a handful of days since week arrived back home. I figure I can use some space. Maybe he can too.

  Feeling closed in and overwhelmed, I go over to my designated dresser drawer and pull out the jeans I’d just brought over and put them back in my overnight bag.

  “It’s not about the celebration, Alieas. You been ducking out on plans with us all month.” He motions with his arm to my overnight bag. “You packing up your overnight bag and ain’t even tell me you weren’t staying.”

  I can’t figure out why I’m so angry with him but I am as I put my toiletry bag inside the bag with the clothes. “I wasn’t aware that I had to let you know my plans,” I snap.

  “Alieas, your parents are going to be fine. If you would just stay out of their business and allow them to work out whatever they need to discuss between them.”

  Now, I know why I’m upset. We are in total disagreement about what my parents should do. I think that they should get a divorce. But for some reason, Carter thinks that my father’s indiscretions should be overlooked because of the years they have invested in their relationship.

  The memory of catching him cheating is still fresh in my mind. He wasn’t wearing his wedding ring. So, not only did he pretend that he wasn’t married, he forgot that the ring represented the family he and my mother made together. Therefore, he disregarded his children. That is one thing I will never forgive.

  “We’ve discussed this, Carter. It’s not alright that he cheated on her!” I yell.

  He steps toward me; I step away, farther from him and my rational emotions.

  “I never said that it was, only that you need to back out of it and let them work things out for themselves,” he clarifies.

  I roll my eyes. “I have to go,” I tell him, zipping up my bag in angry jerks. I walk around the bed towards the door.

  Carter grabs my arm. “Alieas, I’m not done talking to you,” he grits out.

  Jerking my arm from his grasp, I return with equal annoyance, “I’m done talkin’ to you.”

  He steps in my path. “This is bullshit. You need to take some time out for your own relationship,” he warns.

  I step back and look up, my eyes shooting daggers at him. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I question angrily.

  “It means that while you been so busy consoling your mother and her broken relationship, you basically forgot that you have one of your own,” he replies smugly. The darkening of his eyes signals that he is beyond upset.

  So, that makes two of us. How he gonna say that our relationship is in trouble? I can’t believe that this man has the nerve to stand in my face and question my feelings for him.

  But if he feels that way, he may need a couple days to think about it.

  I’m leaving.

  Carter steps aside when I reach for the door handle. He follows me down the stairs and through the first floor of the house to the front door. Trying like hell to shield the hurt in my eyes, I force a blank stare before I turn back to face him.

  “If this isn’t working out for you all you have to do is say so!” I shout, grabbing my coat and angrily putting it on.

  “You know that’s not what I’m trying to say. Is that what you want? To leave? You’n wanna be with me no more?”

  My mind goes blank and now, I can’t even think clearly. I don’t have the heart to contemplate if breaking up with him is even an option.

  “That’s not what I’m sayin’, Carter. It is important to her that I be there today,” I stress, hoping that he can take that and leave all this breakup talk alone.

  “It’s important that you be with Amira and me today. Like you promised,” he reminds sternly without touching me. I want to say that promises are made to be broken so bad, but I think of Amira.

  I understand that he’s giving me an ultimatum. “Don’t make me do this right now,” I plead, not caring if I sound half as whiny as I feel.

  He stands firmly with his arms now folded over his chest. “Is there a better time to do it, Alieas? Either you gon’ be here or you aren’t. The choice is up to you.”

  I hate ultimatums. They make me defensive and resentful, but my mother needs me, and that’s my only thought as I continue for the front door.

  “So, you’re just gon’ leave?” he asks when I reach past him for the handle to the door.

  “I have to,” I reply sadly with my head still held high.

  Carter nods and shrugs the answer off as if it doesn’t even affect him. “I guess you have to do what you have to do.”

  That just pushes me over. Even knowing that this could be the biggest mistake of my life, I turn the handle and let myself out. I lean against the door for a moment, expelling the breath I’d been holding. I want him to follow me because now, I want to be talked out of leaving. Carter has never been one to placate me, so I know that he’s not.

  His pride won’t let him.

  And mine won’t let me go back in and admit that I’m wrong. That I want nothing more than to spend my life with him and Amira.

  A champagne-colored Mercedes Benz is parking in front of the house. I take note that the driver is a heavyset, light-skinned female, and since the neighbor’s house is about twenty yards away, I assume that she is here for Carter.

  I pause as she steps out of the car. Casual clothes mean casual visits. She's bundled up in a black Baby Phat bubble jacket, pulled down to her hips, jeans, and Timberland boots.

  Who the fuck is she? I wonder as she begins to approach the house. Without a second thought, I make my way over to her.

  “Yes, can I help you?” I ask, even though I know I have no right. The first thing this woman does is look down at my hand. She must be checking for a ring.

  She smiles and asks, “Is Carter home?”

  “And who might you be?” I question, tapering down my anger that this— “stranger” was just checking for a ring.

  “I don’t think that that’s any of your business,” she retorts angrily as she eyes the shit out of me.

  I roll my eyes just as she lets out an agitated sigh. “You must be the girlfriend,” she wonders nastily.

  “That’s right,” I confirm, staring her down and prepping for a beatdown.

  “No need to be so defensive, girl.”

  I’m frowning now. Did she just call me girl’?

  “I’m not interested in your man, rather something he has that belongs to me—” We both turn our heads toward the house when we hear the front door open.

  “Well, hello, Carter,” the mystery woman purrs. She has a slick grin on her face that I want to slap off with my freshly manicured acrylics.

  “What the fuck are you doing here, Latoya?” Carter growls.

  Latoya?

  She starts walking toward the house. “Is that any way to greet the mother of your child?”

  “Mother of his child?!” I repeat loud enough to have them both turn to me.

  That’s who this bitch is? And she has the nerve to be giving me a hard time? Fuuuuuck that. “I know you don’t think that you’re just going to walk up here and be able to spend time with Amira,” I interject before I give Carter an opportunity to respond to her question.

  “She’s my daughter!” she shoots back.

  I’m close enough to reach out and bust her lip if I want to, but I won’t. “You didn’t think so when you left her, now, did you?”

  Carter gives me a dismissive stare. I know that her arrival is a complete surprise for him. Bitch just showing up here to fuck up my family.

  Latoya and I are so busy taking pot shots at one another that neither of us notices
just how pissed Carter really is. “Alieas, don’t you have somewhere to go?” he finally interrupts the arguing.

  What? I stop talking and eye him for a minute, assessing his cool demeanor and the firm set of his lips.

  “It can wait,” I tell him just as firmly.

  “You do what you have to do, remember? I have this under control.”

  He says it so easily that my feelings are hurt instantly. The ball of hurt lunged right into my chest. I rub my hand over my heart. “You cannot be the fuck serious,” I respond.

  I admit that after all that’s gone on today that he is entitled to his anger. But petty, selfish, and stupid? I guess he will need a couple of days.

  “Yeah, I am,” he says clearly enough to create a couple of ripples in my heart. It seems like he’s staring straight through me.

  That’s Fine. “You take care of your business, ‘cause I’m damn sure about to take care of mine.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Carter

  Unhinged with raw emotions, I grimace at Toya. Her coloring had returned; she didn't have the dead, uncaring eyes she'd been sporting the last time I'd seen her. She was plumper than she had been when we’d been together. Remembering that Vonn had mentioned she'd been pregnant, I figure that she must've still been holding on to some stubborn baby weight.

  I ain't care about any of that, though. I'm trying to figure out how she got my damn address. “Like I said, just what in the hell do you think you're doing here?”

  The nervous smile inches up over her lips uncomfortably. Nerves also have her clasping her hands together before she lets them go. None of the attitude she gave Lieas was present. She finally speaks, “Carter, I'm sorry.”

  This bitch, I think to myself but don't say aloud. I had loved her once, and she did give me Mira. I generally don’t make a habit out of disrespecting women, even women I despise. The calm, reserved brotha in me is fighting to let the fuckin’ Hulk out. Rational and calm thoughts aside, I don't give a fuck about no apology.

  I raise my hand to cut off any potential words liable to fall from those lying, traitorous lips. “Just stop. You're not seeing her. So, you might as well take your ass back to whatever hole you crawled out of.”