Full Figured 13

by Mona Love

  Secret doubled over at the waist, and she gagged. She felt like someone had punched her in the stomach and kicked her in the chest until they’d knocked the wind out of her. Secret had to steady herself because her legs became weak.

  “No,” she gasped. Leaning up against the door for support, Secret scanned over the words on the paper. “Oh, my God.” Secret clutched her chest as she read further. David had served her with divorce papers. No discussion. No warning. No courtesy. Just a cold service of divorce papers in the middle of the morning, seemingly out of nowhere.

  A golf-ball-sized lump formed in the back of Secret’s throat, and she gripped the papers so tightly the paper dug into her skin until it stung. As soon as the tears came to her eyes, she heard her kids moving upstairs.

  “Mama!” yelled Bella, Secret’s 6-year-old daughter. Secret could also hear her 2-year-old son, DJ, calling out for her.

  Secret couldn’t move. She was paralyzed with shock, and her feet seemed to be rooted to the floor. She stood stock-still in disbelief at what David had done.

  “How dare he? How could he?” Secret groaned, holding her chest as if she were having a heart attack. The pain she felt was probably worse than a heart attack. This was definitely what a broken heart felt like.

  After everything she had been through with David. After everything she had sacrificed for the sake of their marriage, for his career. She’d sacrificed her health and her body image. It was all for nothing. All for nothing! All for nothing! Secret’s mind screamed. Thoughts whizzed through her brain of all she’d given up. She felt dizzy just thinking about her life in retrospect. She had literally given up her own dreams, hopes of a modeling career, college, and just her entire life for David. She had dedicated it all to him. How could he betray her like this? Was he really that shallow? Was it really all about the weight she’d gained? It couldn’t be. Secret swallowed hard, but she couldn’t stop the stream of tears from falling. She couldn’t pull it together and fake for her kids this time. This hurt too badly.

  “Mommy, why are you crying? Did you hurt yourself again? Is your boo-boo hurting again?” Bella asked, her little angelic voice laced with concern.

  Secret stretched her red-rimmed eyes to look into her daughter’s, whose face resembled David’s down to the one dimple in her right cheek. Secret hadn’t even realized her kids had come downstairs and were now standing right in front of her. Secret was on the floor by the front door, sobbing uncontrollably. She inhaled and tried to pull herself together for the kids. She could barely get to her feet. Her head swam with grief and confusion.

  “I’m okay, baby. Are you guys hungry?” Secret said as she swiped roughly at her tears. She parted a phony smile and tried to sound happy and excited so she could put her kids at ease.

  “Yes. Pancakes. We want pancakes,” Bella sang out innocently, speaking for herself and her baby brother.

  Secret dragged her feet into her gourmet kitchen so she could feed the kids, but also so she could get to her pills. She needed something to ease her mind. She whirled around in the big kitchen, confused. It seemed so much bigger and lonelier now.

  As Secret went about preparing breakfast for her babies, Secret had several bouts of racking sobs each time she thought about the way David had done things. She felt so betrayed. He hadn’t had the decency or respect to come and talk to her about his plans. He never told her he wanted a divorce. In fact, Secret was under the impression that David felt bad about the surgery and the complications and that he would be more sympathetic and just move past her botched body. Although he had never said it was okay that she wasn’t the same anymore, Secret had held out hope that he would just accept her once and for all. But no. David had shown her just how shallow and disgusting he really was.

  Secret slammed her fists down her on the granite countertop and bit down into her lip just thinking about being all alone with two kids. This wasn’t how she’d envisioned her life turning out. She felt nauseous, and her legs got weak as she waited for the pancakes to brown. The thought of divorce had not fully settled into her mind yet. She could not believe David was leaving her just like that. Secret had nothing of her own except two kids. Everything was David’s or theirs together. What would she do with her life now? David had been her whole life and identify for so long, what would she do now?

  Secret gripped the side of the counters now as she thought about her situation. She gripped harder the more she felt like her life was slipping away from her.

  Secret managed to pull herself together enough to feed her kids and then put them in the bathtub, where they usually played for about an hour. Secret sat on the closed toilet seat to watch them play in the water. She usually played with them or sang songs with them. Not today. She was in a haze and stupor. Even the two Percocet pills she’d popped didn’t help ease her mind. Her head still throbbed. Every time she thought about what was happening to her, her mind would slip back and forth to and from the past. Some memories were good, and some were bad. She and David had been through so much over the years. But as she searched in her mind, nothing stuck out that warranted a divorce. What could be so bad in his eyes that he would just abandon her and the kids like this?

  While Secret sat half watching the kids, she pulled out the divorce papers again for the twentieth time since she’d been served with them. This time her mind was together enough to read them carefully. As she read, some of the words stuck out to her like, “irreconcilable differences, and cruel and unusual treatment.” Secret could feel her blood pressure rising the more she read. David was actually saying that she was responsible for the demise of their marriage and his wanting a divorce. That was just like him to blame her for everything, another habit he had picked up over the years. No matter the issue, Secret was always responsible.

  “Oh, hell no! This bastard can’t get away with this,” Secret mumbled mindlessly, stepping out of the bathroom with the crumpled papers still wadded up between her balled fists. She had not even thought about the leaving the kids alone in the tub, which she never did, not even for a minute.

  Too angry to remember the kids, Secret stomped into her bedroom and picked up her house phone. She blocked the number and dialed David’s business cell phone number. He had already ignored the last twenty calls from her cell phone. At this time of day, Secret knew, he had no choice but to answer an unknown call because he would probably think it was a client. She bit into her lip as she waited for him to answer.

  “David Johnson,” he said, his deep voice filtered through the phone.

  Secret felt a flash of nerves, but they quickly congealed into a white-hot ball of fury. “You motherfucker! I cannot fucking believe after all I gave up, after all the shit I did for your ass, you have the fucking nerve to file for a divorce without so much as a conversation! For no fucking reason, David?” Secret boomed into the phone. It was out of character for her. She was usually calm and collected, and she damn sure had taken a lot of David’s shit over the years without so much as an argument. The impending divorce had sent her to a different place though.

  “Listen, Secret. I will talk to you about this another time,” David responded with sheer indifference in his tone.

  His smug tone made Secret’s blood boil even more. He sounded so arrogant and composed, while she was frazzled and a complete wreck. Secret could just picture him now, a smirk on his face and his arms folded like he was taking great satisfaction at her pain.

  “You sadistic piece of shit! Don’t tell me it’s not the fucking time! My life is on the line! Our life is on the line! What am I supposed to do, David? What did I ever do to deserve this but try to love you and take care of you? I gave you everything I had, including my beauty, my body, my whole self,” Secret shrieked, her voice cracking and tears running like an open faucet down her cheeks.

  Everything was spinning around her. Secret felt like she was on one of those amusement park rides where the floor falls out from under you and you’re stuck to the wall, unable to move, unable to sc
ream, unable to control anything. She couldn’t help the tears. They just wouldn’t stop flooding down her face in buckets. She clenched her fists tightly, and the vein in her neck throbbed fiercely. Secret was mad at herself for letting David hear her cry but she just couldn’t contain her pain. She sobbed and sobbed. Secret had not felt so off-kilter and crazed since the day she realized her mother had died.

  “Secret, we have been over for a while now. You and I both know this. Don’t act like there was any love left. Things haven’t been the same for a while now,” David continued in his smooth, calm voice.

  His words were like a gut punch, and Secret flopped down on her bed, exasperated. What the fuck did he mean there wasn’t any love left? How? She had loved him so much she cut up her body to please him! That was love!

  She loved David with every fiber of her being. Didn’t he know that? Secret didn’t think anything could change that. His words were so cruel in her opinion. She felt overwhelmed with anxiety, like she’d just found out someone close to her had died. What would she do without David? Secret had admitted to herself long before this that she loved him more than she loved herself.

  “Please, David, don’t do this. I’m begging you. I will do anything you want. I will lose the weight. I’m sorry I had another baby. I’m sorry I got the surgery. I’ll get my body fixed the right way. We can work this out. Pa-lease!” Secret pleaded, her words muffled by her sobs. Secret didn’t know which of these things had caused her husband to want to leave, but she was willing to fix them all.

  “Please, David, give us another chance!” Secret cried, her words barely understandable. She was a blubbering mess. Secret didn’t care if it made David mad. She couldn’t help but let her feelings out if it meant it would save the most important thing in the world to her: her marriage.

  “C’mon, Secret. Don’t do this right now,” David said, his voice gruff, like he was getting choked up. “Secret, you’re better than this. Pull yourself together. You have to finally be your own person. I don’t see us being together ever again. It’s over, but I want you to be okay. I want you to be the strong woman I know you can be,” David said.

  “But why?” Secret screamed, letting her raw emotion be known. The nerve of him telling her to be her own person after he had completely destroyed who she was years ago. But Secret didn’t say this. She didn’t want to say anything else that would piss him off. She just wanted to beg him to come back home and work things out.

  “Look, we have to just face it. Both of us. I’ll say it: it is over,” he replied, putting emphasis on his words. “You knew this before you went and got the botched surgery. You’re far from a dummy, Secret. You can start over. You’re beautiful. You can surely find someone at some point. It just didn’t work out for us. I have to go. I will be by to pick up the kids for a visit later this evening. Please have them ready,” David said with finality.

  Secret felt like someone had slapped her around, or maybe even punched the shit out of her and stomped on her head. Her body ached with an overwhelming feeling of rushing adrenaline and electrified anxiety. “No! No! David, don’t do this!” Secret screamed in a last-ditch effort to convince him to change his mind. Her efforts fell on deaf ears. Nothing she did would make him change his mind.

  “Get yourself together. You sound like a mess. And like I said, have the kids ready,” he said.

  Secret’s mode switched gears like someone had put an up-and-down switch on her back. A pang of pure anger flashed in her chest and replaced her previous feeling of sorrow. Secret searched her mind for something to say or do that would make David hurt as much as she did right now.

  “You will not see your kids if you do this! I’m warning you, David Johnson! You will never see them again!” Secret boomed, her emotions hanging out there like a sore thumb. David was quiet.

  “Do you hear me?” Secret screamed. “You will never have my kids. They’re mine! We are a package! If you don’t want me, you don’t want them!”

  Then suddenly Secret heard something that made her heart feel like it would burst. It was like her worst nightmare had come true. Secret could hear a woman’s voice in the background talking to David. Secret pressed the phone to ear harder so she could hear better. She had to be sure her ears weren’t deceiving her.

  “David!” Secret screamed. He didn’t answer, but Secret could tell he was trying to keep the woman in the background away from the phone. Secret heard a bit of shuffling and fumbling. Secret was fully focused and homed in on the phone sounds now.

  “Who is that?” Secret screamed, her voice high-pitched and jagged. “We are still fucking married, David! How could you? So that’s it! That’s what this is all about. Just like that? Out of nowhere! A bitch is making you do this! I can’t believe you would betray me like this! After all I’ve done!” Secret cried out. She felt defeated and weak. He was cheating on her, and now he was leaving her for another woman.

  “How could you disrespect me like this? How could you give up on what we have and our kids? Don’t you think they deserve better than their father leaving them over a bitch? I guess you want your kids to be statistics just like you were, huh? No father around?” Secret said cruelly.

  “Look, I have to go. Either you let me get the kids or you don’t. It’s all up to you, but I won’t fight you,” David replied.

  Before Secret could formulate a response, the phone went dead. He had hung up in her ear, one of the things she considered most disrespectful right up there with spitting on someone.

  “David! David!” Secret screamed into the dead phone. He was really gone. Flabbergasted, Secret dialed his number back over a dozen times, but he refused to answer his phone. After her thirteenth call, it began going straight to his voicemail. Secret threw her phone across the room in frustration and anger, sending the back cover and the battery pack flying in opposite directions from the phone itself. Secret started pacing for a few minutes.

  Suddenly, she was snapped out of her own agony when she heard coughing, gagging, and splashing noises coming from down the hallway where her babies were taking their bath. A rush of heat came over Secret, and she was sprinting through the house before her mind really even registered anything like danger.

  “Oh, my God!” Secret shrieked as she was spurred into action and her legs started moving. She raced down the long hallway between her bedroom and the kids’ bathroom. Secret almost fainted when she reached the doorway of the bathroom. Secret’s eyes grew as wide as dinner plates and her throat was desert dry as a feeling of fear and panic gripped her tightly by the throat.

  “DJ! Oh, my God!” Secret screamed. With one swift move, she was at the side of the bathtub, snatching her baby boy out of the bottom of the deep porcelain tub. The tub was almost filled with water. They must have been playing with the faucets and turned the water on after Secret had walked out. She never put more water in the tub than just enough to cover their little legs.

  “DJ, baby! C’mon, breathe!” Secret belted out frantically. Secret started shaking her youngest child frantically. The baby’s eyes were rolling as he fought to breathe. Secret continued to shake him, and then she turned him upside down. She didn’t know what else to do. She didn’t even think about shaken baby syndrome or the damage she could’ve inflicted on her baby by jerking him so roughly. All Secret was focused on was getting her son to breath properly.

  “DJ! Please!” Secret screamed, shaking the baby even more violently than before. Bella was still standing in the water, screaming and crying and calling out for her daddy. Secret couldn’t comfort her other child right now. She had to save her baby.

  “C’mon, baby!” Secret belted out, hitting her 2-year-old on the back hard now. Suddenly, the baby started coughing and throwing up water. Secret had never been so happy to see vomit in all of her life. A sense of relief swept over her.

  “Oh, thank God! Baby! My baby! I’m so sorry! Mommy is so sorry,” Secret cried, clutching her son to her chest. He was trembling, his teeth chattering. Secret
helped Bella out of the tub and wrapped both of her kids in their cartoon-character towels. The close call was enough to get her back to reality.

  “Mommy is sorry. It’s all my fault. Everything is my fault. Neither of you deserves this kind of life,” Secret said, holding her babies tight to her body. Secret and her kids sat on the wet bathroom floor for the next half hour. Secret didn’t know what to do next. She didn’t know how her life would end up, but she knew it couldn’t be good without David.

  Chapter 4

  Secret hadn’t slept the entire night after getting served with the divorce papers and her baby’s near-drowning scare. Although Secret had calmed down a little, she was far from mentally okay. In fact, she felt obsessive, like she needed to do something about her situation. Secret literally felt like she was losing her mind. She paced. She ate a whole bag of snacks and then threw it up. She put on a full face of makeup and then washed it off. She was spiraling. She felt herself coming apart at the seams.

  Secret rummaged through her closet. There were only a few things from when she’d first gotten together with David that could still fit her. Secret held up an outfit he used to like. She smiled and fumbled and twisted into the old sweat suit. It was too small and put pressure on her stomach scar. It also barely fit over the lumps and bumps in her ass cheeks that Dr. Mungia had left behind.

  Every time Secret looked at her ugly scars and uneven butt-to-thigh ratio, she wanted to go back to the Dominican Republic, find Dr. Mungia, and murder him in cold blood. Nothing in her life would ever be the same anyway.

  Secret combed her fingers through her long weave and tried to get it to look like something. Weaves were another of David’s preferences. Secret personally had preferred to wear her hair natural and short. She’d changed everything for him. Everything.

  Secret glanced at herself in the mirror and didn’t even recognize the person staring back at her. She cupped her hand over her mouth and gulped back a sob. She had changed over the years so much, and she hadn’t ever taken the time to notice just how much. Maybe it was her fault that David was leaving her. “You look disgusting,” she scolded herself in a harsh whisper. She had dark rings under her eyes now, where before she had flawless, blemish-free caramel-colored skin. Looking at herself caused another wave of anxiety to come over her. She envisioned David’s new woman to be gorgeous, in shape, and everything that she was not right now. David had preferred Secret as a model, not as a mother.