“It was New Years Eve when it happened. My mom had a little something at the house. She had some of her girlfriends come over, they brought their men, and their kids. It was a fun night. The adults were drinking. My mom had gotten sloppydrunk, so once the party was over, your dad stayed around to tend to her. I was the oldest, so I helped my sisters get ready for bed. I’m not even sure what time it was, but I had been sleeping, and the TV was on in my bedroom. It was loud, but back then, I was a hard sleeper, that could literally sleep through anything. I just remember being awakened to someone being on top of me. I remember trying to scream out for my mom, but he put his hand over my mouth, stopping me. I…” I couldn’t even finish.
“You don’t even have to give me all the details, baby. That’s all I need to know, aight?” he asked me, and through my tears, I nodded my head, thankful that he wasn’t going to make me sit here and give him intimate details about it.
I couldn’t talk about it. I don’t think it was something that I would ever be able to speak on. After getting shot last year, I started going to therapy, and I would never even share that part of my life with my therapist. I remember her always telling me that one day, I was going to open up to her, and tell her details about my childhood, but that moment never came.
Tank pulled it out of me, and it hurt to speak on it, even though I didn’t even share everything with him.
Instead of using his hands to wipe away the tears that had fallen, he used his lips, kissing them away. His hands went on my hips, pulling me closer to him, and my legs that were slightly parted, he went ahead, and stood in between them. I still hadn’t locked eyes with him, so he eventually took one hand off my hip, so that he could place it under my chin, where he forced me to look in his eyes, and this felt like the hardest thing in the world.
I felt so dirty. I felt overly exposed. I lacked confidence right now, which meant a lot coming from me because I truly believed that I was the prettiest bitch in the world, so for me to sit here, and struggle with holding eye contact with him, I knew that there was a brokenness in me.
“I want to go home,” I eventually told him.
“Come on. We can go,” he responded, stepping back a little, so that he could give himself enough room to lift me up, and he put me back on my feet.
Before we left the bathroom, I turned my body around, so that I could look at myself in the mirror for the first time since I’ve been in here. Just like I thought, my eyes were big, and puffy from all the crying that I’d done. My eyes were also super red. You could literally take one look at me and see all the hurt that was lying there.
I couldn’t stand to look at myself like this any longer, so I turned around, and Tank opened the door. He stepped out of the way, so that I could walk out first, but I was so embarrassed to walk out first, since I knew that his mom was still out front, so I shook my head no, telling him to go first.
Tank was able to read the room, so he walked out, and he reached his hand back for me to grab it. Instead of walking in the direction of the front door, he took us in the direction of the living room. I knew he’d only gone that way because my purse and phone were out there. He let go of my hand, and I stood here, waiting for him to get my things.
From where I was standing, I could see his mom. She was sitting on the couch, and her head had been down. The second Tank made his way into the living room, she looked up at him, and then she turned her head, so that she could look at me. Her eyes mirrored mine. They were red, and puffy, letting me know that she had been crying as well. She heard everything that had taken place. She was standing right there when I revealed my truth.
I watched her as she stood up, and she walked over to me. The second she was in front of me, she reached her arms out, so that she could wrap them around me, hugging me. The hug that she gave me was a tight one. For whatever reason, the hugbrought back out the emotions that I thought I’d left in the bathroom, but it didn’t. Before I knew it, I was crying again.
We didn’t pull away from each other until two minutes, and when we did, she held my hands in hers, looking at me with sympathy in her eyes, as tears continued to fall from her eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Dionne,” is what she said to me.
I was crying again, so I couldn’t respond. Instead, I just nodded my head, and that head nod allowed her to know that I heard her, and I understood. I could tell that there was so much more that she wanted to say to me, but she was able to read the room and knew that it was something that I didn’t want to talk about anymore, so she didn’t.
She eventually let go of my hands, and Tank came over, holding my purse, and my phone in his hands, passing the items to me. Before we left, I watched him as he hugged his mom and kissed her on her cheek. I could hear her telling him to take care of me, and he assured her that he would. We made it out of the house and walked over to Tank’s car. He opened the door for me, allowing me to get inside. My phone was in my purse, and I sat the purse in my lap, as I threw my body into the seat, turning my head, just looking out of the window.
Tank made it inside the car, started it up, and the ignition roared just like it always would whenever his car started. I was in my seat, praying to God that he didn’t bring it back up, and he didn’t. We drove in silence. He went in the direction of my condo, just like I’d told him, and we were pulling up almost fifteen minutes later.
Tank chose to go through the garage. He was able to find a spot on the visitors parking floor, and he quickly pulled his car into a parking spot. He shut the car off, got out, and came around, so that he could assist me in getting out.
We walked through the garage in silence, and I used my fob, so that I could let us through the side door in the garage. Oncewe were in, we went over to the elevators, where we took it up in silence, all the way to my condo.
The walk was so cold, slow, and depressing. What made it even more depressing is the moment we walked into my condo, and it was a reminder that Bagel was no longer here. I still haven’t grown accustomed to walking in the house, and my baby not running out of his bed, jumping on me, excited to see me. His doggy bed was still in the corner, and knowing that it was empty, knowing that he was nowhere in this condo, was still something that was breaking my heart.
I kicked my shoes off, leaving them right by the door, and I walked to the back, going to my bedroom. Tank didn’t follow me. He stayed up front.
I cut the light on once I was in my bedroom, and I went over to my dresser, so that I could pull out a pair of pajamas, along with some undergarment’s. Once I had the items, I brought them with me to the bathroom, sitting the items down on the counter. I went into my bathroom drawer, pulling out a claw clip, so that I could twirl my hair, and put it up, and once that was done, that’s when I started my skin routine at the counter. Literally, the whole time that I washed my face, the visuals of Tank’s dad kept popping up in my head. I was in this bathroom being haunted. No matter how much I was trying to scrub my face with the cleanser, the tears continued to fall.
I finished up washing my face, and then I stepped into the shower, where I allowed the water to go up to the hottest setting, feeling like I had to scrub trauma, and hurt from my skin.
My shower lasted at least 30 minutes, until I eventually reached over for the knob, so that I could turn the water off. The second that I opened the glass shower door, there was so much fog in the bathroom that I literally had to wave my hand, airing it out the way, just so that I was able to find the bathroom door, and open it.
I wrapped a towel around my body, and I stood at the sink, so that I could brush my teeth, and rinse my mouth out.
The bathroom was hot, so I dried off, and added my oil, and lotion to my body in my bedroom, and that’s where I put on my pajamas as well. I wanted to crawl in my bed, but I knew that Tank was still here, so I slipped on my house shoes, and grabbed the throw blanket that was lying at the foot of my bed, and I went out front, where I found him, sitting in the living room, at the edge of the couch, with his head buried into his hands, but the second he heard me coming over, he lifted his head up, and motioned with his hands for me to come over to him. That’s what I did too.
I walked over to him, and I lay on my side, with my head in his lap, and my body facing him. He took the throw blanket, so that he could wrap it around my body, and once it was on me, he kept his eyes down, staring at me. I could see the anger that was there.
“If you never saw his picture in that photo album, you would have never told me that shit?” he wanted to know. I sighed at his question, and I really gave myself a few seconds to think about it.
“Probably not,” I was honest. I didn’t want to lie to him and tell him that I would eventually tell him the truth because I meant it when I said that this was going to be something that I took with me to the grave.
