2
NAVY DONOVAN PRATHER – TOO LATE TO APOLOGIZE
ONE YEAR LATER
“Yo, Prather!” our center and my close friend, Mark Whitaker, shouted. I looked to where he pointed at a billboard across the street from the arena. It was a live feed from the Wildcats and Coyotes game. The screen showed a woman kissing a man as they held hands in the stands. When they parted and looked up to see their faces on the jumbotron, they were shocked. He whispered something to her, and she immediately jumped up and left the row. He slowly followed her.
The screen lit up with the words ‘Left winger, Navy Prather’s fiancée, Natika Dawson is giving the king of the ice the cold shoulder and heating up her nights with Jaguars’ defensive tackle, Shannon Pratt.’
I was frozen, and my heart dropped from my chest onto the floor. Someone took their hockey stick and slammed that shit into the goal. The hit was so hard that my heart didn’t survive; it exploded into millions of tiny black fragments.
There was no way that my fiancée was sitting at that damn Wildcats and Bears game when she couldn’t even make it to my game because she had an out-of-town work trip. No way her jealous ass was kissing another nigga.
I had been faithful to her. I spoiled her and treated her like a queen. What had that gotten me? A cheating ass woman and a broken heart. Thirteen months of believing that I couldn’t live without her, and all she could do was say “fuck you” publicly.
“Aye, Prather, you all right?” one of my teammates asked.
I didn’t say a word. My jaw clenched. I grabbed my hockey stick from my bag and threw my bag as far as I could. I stormed out into the street, avoiding cars as I went.
“Prather! Where you going?”
I ignored the voice shouting my name and kept right on going.
“Prather, the bus is gonna leave you, yo!”
I didn’t stop until I crossed the street and made it to the stadium.
“Prather, have you lost your goddamned mind? We have to go.”
“Prather! This is gonna cost you a fine!”
All those rants went on, as my teammates and coach followed me. I didn’t care; it didn’t stop me from going right into that arena, jumping the gates, and racing down the hall even as security and the ticket agents tried to stop me, my coach, and teammates. By the time that I found Natika and Shannon, I had a throng of people with me.
Natika pulled up short when she saw me. Shannon put his arm around her protectively.
“The fuck is this, Tika?” I asked, reaching for her.
“Navy, it’s not what you think,” she replied even as she shrunk into his embrace.
“Your ass was just kissing this nigga on a fucking screen over fifty feet wide for the world to see, and you’re gonna tell me this ain’t what I think? Then tell me what the fuck I’m thinking, Tika!”
“Hey, don’t speak to her that way,” Shannon boldly stated.
“Come on, man. Not here,” Marc stated, gripping my shoulder.
I shook him off. “Nah, she did this shit in public, so we gon’ dothisshit in muthafuckin’ public!” I took one step closer, and Shannon thrust his hand out to stop me from moving closer.
I looked down at his hand on my chest, took my stick, and whacked his ass on the wrist with brute force, making him drop his hand. While he nurtured that wrist, I dropped my stick, and I immediately threw the first blow, hitting him in the jaw. Natika screamed, someone grabbed her, and I followed up with several more blows to Shannon’s nose and eyes.
Before I knew it, there were hands grabbing me and pulling me off him. He got a couple of hits in, but I didn’t feel shit with the way that adrenaline was flowing through me. Shannon’s bodyguard had gotten involved, but so had my teammates. Blows were being exchanged everywhere. The minute I was free from their grip, I snatched my stick and Natika up and carried her ass to an alcove away from the noise and the drama.
“This how you gon’ end things, Tika?” I demanded the minute that placed her on her feet.
“I wasn’t trying to end things, Navy.”
“Oh baby, nah, you muthafuckin’ ended things, cheating on me.”
“You made me look like a fool out there, and you embarrassed me.” She sobbed.
