“Take me,” Charlie said as she pushed out of the condo.
The entire ride, Charlie felt like she would throw up. The feelings they shared were real. There was no way to manufacture energy like that. Or was there? Was Demi so skilled a liar that the deceit felt like truth? He was out here masquerading ill intent for love and she felt like a fool.
“He’s not married,” Charlie whispered. Stassi’s silence told her that he was. She was being polite, not wanting to pour salt in her wounds.
She called his phone, repeatedly. Each time he didn’t answer, another tear fell. The 40-minute drive drove her crazy. Charlie didn’t even wait for Stassi to park before hopping out the car and rushing inside. She heard him before she saw him. His voice. His angst boomed through the entire first floor.
“What the fuck you want to know?! My fucking wife in surgery and my kid almost got snatched but you pussy-ass cops in my face asking questions that ain’t gon’ matter cuz these niggas is dead anyway!”
There it was. The words from the horse’s mouth. His wife. His son. He had said it. Stassi had not lied.
She stood in the doorway to the waiting room, frozen. It felt like he had cut her open, sternum to pelvic bone and all her insides were falling out. This was a hospital. This was the emergency room. Why wasn’t anyone helping her? Why couldn’t anyone see her bleeding out?
“Yo, Demi,” Day said, nodding toward Charlie.
Demi followed Day’s eyes and when he saw her, Charlie’s lip quivered.
She put both hands over her mouth and nose, shaking her head as she closed her eyes.
He stared at her, eyes red, chest heaving, a look of distress and defeat wearing him.
He saw it. He was the only person in the room who saw her insides were on the floor, in a bloody pile at her feet. Her guts, her liver, her spine… yeah, definitely, her spine because she had lost her nerve, her kidneys, her heart. All outside of her body. That’s how bad it hurt, and Demi could see it because he was the one holding the knife. A fool. Charlie had played the fool. Again. Another man had made a fool of her. She hadnever been so disappointed in herself. His eyes said what his lips couldn’t. She looked around the room. A grieving woman sat among a room full of soldiers, Demi’s soldiers. People she had never met. His family. Parts of his life that he had not shared because he couldn’t because he shared a life with a woman and a child. Charlie was screaming on the inside. Dying. Pleading. A riot of conflict lived in her, but she refused to give him anything else. She had given him her heart. She had done it effortlessly without asking him for anything in return. She hadn’t questioned anything. Damn it, why hadn’t she questioned anything? How stupid could she be? She wouldn’t give him anything else. Especially not her dignity.
She turned and prayed to God that her shaky legs would carry her out of the hospital.
“Bird!” he said, calling her in a low but desperate tone as she walked frantically down the hallway.
When he caught her elbow and turned her toward him, Charlie couldn’t talk herself out of laying hands on him. She slapped Demi so hard he tasted blood as the inside of his lip hit his teeth.
“How dare you,” she said. The calm of her tone caused his eyes to widen in confusion and alarm. It would have been better for him if she were loud, if she were making a scene. If she was fussing and fighting. Charlie was certain. Certain that this was not for her, that he was not for her. She shook her head. If only she could stop her eyes from watering. “All that love you gave me belongs to somebody else. You’re married.”
“Bird, baby, now ain’t the time...”
“Are you married, Demi?” she asked, but it was rhetorical because she knew the answer. She had seen the evidence for herself.
He rubbed the back of his neck and then ran both hands over his head, blowing out a breath so deep it felt like it would blow her away.
“I can’t even think right now. Go home. I’ma come home to you, baby. I’ll explain, but right now...” he paused and bawled his fists, bringing them to his forehead and blowing out another limited breath. He couldn’t breathe. Her man. Her love. He couldn’t breathe. She could see the invisible ants crawling on his skin. The hospital was overwhelming him. The germs. The doctors. The smell. Then, there was his wife and son. “I need you, Bird. Niggas tried to snatch my son.”
Charlie didn’t know what to say. He was hurting over a son she hadn’t even known existed.
“Demi, the doctor has an update.”
Charlie looked at the woman who had come out of the waiting room and then scoffed, giving Demi her misty eyes one final time. “I’m drowning, Demi.”
“Me too, Bird,” he replied.
She sobbed, once, one sob slipped out before she could chase it down. “How could you?”
“I can’t gather a thought right now, Bird. You got to give me a minute here. I’m seeing fucking red, Bird. I can’t think. Take my mind, baby. I’m losing it.”
He didn’t even care that his mother-in-law was behind him watching. He trapped Charlie against the wall, pressing his forehead to hers. She didn’t know how the roles had reversed but his touch now burned her. It hurt so damn bad. Toxic. All of this fucking love was bad for her health.
“Oh, Demi,” she whispered, touching his face as tears escaped her. One by one they slid down her face. “I gave you me. Why would you do this to us, babe? How could you do this to me? You fucked up so bad.” She covered her mouth, stopping herself from falling apart. She shook her head, drawing in deep breaths. She was hyperventilating she was so damn angry. She was trying her hardest to make up an excuse that made him loving her make sense, but it didn’t. None of it mattered if he belongedto another. Giving men the chance to explain after they fucked up was stupid. Women know what it is when they discover the betrayal. Allowing the explanation is merely a chance to allow yourself to find an excuse to believe the lies. Charlie knew better. She had learned that lesson before —the hard way— and she wouldn’t willingly play the fool again. “We’re done.”
“Nah,” Demi said shaking his head.
“I’m done,” she repeated, shrugging before clearing her tears. She said it stronger the second time, with more certainty, and with no hesitation. It scared the fuck out of Demi.
