“I said no charges!” Oak roared. He lunged toward the officer who was holding me, but the others were ready. One officer pushed him back. The secretary tried to calm him down, placing a hand on his arm.
“Oak, please, just let them handle this,” she said softly. I watched her try to calm my husband and regretted not whooping her ass too.
He snatched away, his dark brown eyes darker. “Get the fuck off me! This is between me and my wife! You shut your fucking mouth.” He didn’t care that he was almost naked, didn’t care about being arrested. The police officers tightened their grip on me, pulling me toward the door.
Oak tried to grab me while cursing the officers. This was the true Oak. He was brash and loud, a bully. He had actually bullied me all throughout high school, and then told me in college that it was because he liked me. My stupid ass fell for it, and now look what it had gotten me.
“Sir, you need to calm down,” one officer advised when he followed us downstairs still running his mouth, making threats about the officers’ jobs. “We’re taking her in. Do you want to go too?”
He gave up then. “I’m sorry, Jordin,” Oak shouted, trying to push past the secretary who was now crying, pleading with him to stop.
A few neighbors were out. I was so fucking embarrassed. I dropped my head.
“Jordin, please!” Oak yelled as they put me in the back of the squad car. His eyes met mine, and I saw the tears. But I turned away. Fuck his tears.
The ride to the police station was silent. What had just happened settled in my chest like a stone. I had fucked up, let my anger get the best of me. My hands were shaking. At the station, they processed me, taking the money and cellphone from my pocket. They searched my thick hair locs. Cut the underwire out of my bra. Face hot, I kept my eyes low, humiliated. They took my fingerprints and led me to a holding cell. I was lucky to be the only one in it.
Hours passed. I kept debating on who to call. My momma wouldn’t be any help. She’d moved to Ghana with some young dude she met on Facebook. All I really had was Oak and clients I wrote songs for. I was screwed. I didn’t cry though. I couldn’t. I was numb. I knew I didn’t really have to call anyone. Oak would come for me. I just had to wait.
Finally, an officer came to get me about five hours after I was arrested. “Your bail’s been posted,” he said, unlocking the cell door.
I processed out, given everything they had taken from me but my dignity. I walked out to find Oak waiting in the lobby. I took my time studying him—6'1", with dark eyes, dark hair, and an athletic build. Handsome in a volatile, dangerous way that always made my heart race. He was in jeans and a polo shirt.
His eyes met mine as I approached him. I walked right past him and out of the door.
“I’ll take you home,” he said when he caught up with me.
I shook my head. “No. Stay away from me, Oak. I mean it. Don’t fucking come near me again.”
“But you need—”
“If you say one more word, I swear I won’t talk to you ever again,” I threatened. He knew I would. He knew my temper. I cut people off for less.
I saw the guilt in his eyes flash to anger for a second. He had the nerve to be mad? For why? I was the one that might end up with a fucking domestic violence case on my record, and he had fucked somebody else. I didn’t.
He ran his hands through his hair and tugged, then growled like a wild animal.
“Fine, I’ll leave you alone for now.”
I turned and walked away. I didn’t look back. The cool night air hit my face and kept me grounded in reality when I was ready to check the fuck out. I kept walking until I found a bus stop. I caught the first bus that came, not caring where it was headed. I just needed to get away. It was empty, I assumed because it was after seven. I rested my head against the cool window and forced myself not to think. I rode until the bus driver said it was the last stop.
I got off and started walking. I kept replaying the story of us in my head.
I had to send for an Uber to take me somewhere to sleep when it started getting too hard to keep my tired eyes open and I got tired of walking. I had been on the road with Ciarán, writing new songs for him and reworking his old songs. I was exhausted. I thought I was going to go home and lay up under my husband for a few days. My ass had been wrong about that. I chuckled to myself, though everything felt grim.
I ended up at my best friend Leyani’s house. She lived in a high-rise in downtown St. Pete. But she was working out of town for the next two years, but I knew the codes to her door and system. I let myself in and collapsed on the couch. My eyes closed immediately. When I woke up a few hours later, what had happened was waiting for me. I turned over on my back and stared at the ceiling. Tears streamed down my face as I curled into a ball, clutching Leyani’s couch blanket tight. What the fuck was I going to do now that this motherfucker had broken me?
Three- Jordin
Three days later…
The whiskey burned going down, but it was the only thing keeping me from screaming into the empty condo. Tyrese sang in the background about the shame he was experiencing. Leyani’s place smelled like vanilla candles and money. I sat curled on her white leather couch in a black hoodie I found draped over a chair, a bottle tucked between my thighs.
I was drunk. Sloppy drunk. That crying-while-laughing, voice-cracking kind of drunk. I let my head fall back against the couch and stared at the ceiling, the city lights bleeding through the floor-to-ceiling windows. My chest was tight, my eyes swollen, but I couldn’t stop replaying that day. The shoes at the bottom of the stairs. The smell of sex in the air. Oak’s face when he saw me.
I tipped the bottle up again, gagged on the taste, then laughed at myself. “Stupid bitch,” I muttered.
Oak was a stupid bitch from the very beginning. My mind pulled me backwards, dragging me through the history I swore I’d outgrown but never had.
