Marissa in my doorway was such an unfamiliar sighting that I had to blink twice to make sure her ass was real. Her heels clacked as she sashayed her ass in my direction. She was wearing a mint green dress that clashed with her dark skin and made me take a second to admire my beautiful wife.
“Baby, I…”
“Don’t fuckin’ baby me nigga! Where the fuck did you pull up that prenup you sent to your lawyer? I know I didn’t sign that bullshit!” Marissa argued.
I quickly sat the glasses down on the counter, remembering that we had additional ears that couldn’t hear wherever this conversation took us. “Marissa, there are other people here,” I warned her, marching over in her direction.
“Let’s go into the bedroom and talk.”
“Oh no! The more company, the better. Let’s have a whole family meeting, shall we?”
The men came back down the hallway to witness the commotion, and I quickly grabbed hold of my wife’s arm.
“Don’t fucking touch me! You lost that privilege!” Marissa screeched, swatting my hands away. Her eyes wandered to the men in my family before she let it rip. “Y’all know that Quinten isn’t taking care of his kids, right? Oh, and I’m not talking about the kids that we all just found out about last year, I’m talking about Lil Q and Quincy too. I guess this nigga thinks because my uncle has money, he don’t have to take care of his kids. He couldn’t even be bothered to pay the rent on Quincy’s apartment! Then I got scouts coming around to speak to Quincy and yo ass ain’t nowhere to be found,” Marissa looked back in my direction and mushed my head after that last line.
“Not to mention, some nigga was talking shit about Quincy on the internet and I just had to check his ass! Like my kids don’t have a fucking daddy. Like, I’m not married to a boss. Sign off on the fucking…”
I yoked her ass up before she could finish her rant. Placing my hand over Marissa’s mouth, I roughly manhandled her until we were upstairs in our bedroom. She put up a fight, and even bit my finger until she drew blood, but I couldn’t have her confessing shit else in front of those vultures.
“Marissa, I fucked up. Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it. You just need to give me a chance to make this shit right. I fucked up… a lot and…”
“And what!?” She murmured through the cusp of my hands.
Unable to break free, she reverted to bouncing up and down in the bear hug I had her in. I carried her back to the doorway since we clearly weren’t about to come to any sort of agreement.
“Aye, we gone have to reconvene this meeting at a later time. Y’all popped up over here unannounced, and clearly, I got a lot of shit going on. I’ll hit everybody tomorrow!” I shouted out the doorway.
“Hit us or we’ll be back nigga,” Jamell shouted back.
A few minutes later, the front door opened and closed. I heard four different cars start and leave, then I finally released the grip I had on Marissa.
“If you don’t want the first thing I do when I leave here to be to drive to their houses and tell them everything you didn’t want them to hear, you better start making some fucking concessions.”
“Why you doing this, Marissa? This tough act been going on for long enough, don’t you think?”
“It’s not an act. I really am going through with the divorce, hence why I’m livid that a prenup materialized out of thin fucking air!”
“What do you mean? That shit is legit.”
“There is no way that I ever signed a prenup. We never discussed it.”
“Yes we did. Come on, from the first fuck to pregnancy was pretty fucking fast. Do you not remember always expressing how you were a Marucci and the last thing you wanted was to trap me with a baby for money?”
“I said that but what the fuck that gotta do with a prenup?”
“We discussed one, you said you didn’t want my money,” I confidently gaslit her with my version of events. “I fucked up trying to bleed you dry to make you come home. I see that now. I’ll put back whatever you spent from the joint account this year. There is plenty of money in there, so it ain’t like you was hurting for funds.”
“That’s not even the point. I have my own money, you know this. But I didn’t lay down and make these kids myself. I deserve help physically, mentally, and financially.”
“I know, and I’mma fix that shit. Let’s go to marriage counseling and work this shit out,” I pleaded.
Marissa took a deep breath, looking down at her hand where the empty ring finger stared back at us. It had been so long since she wore her ring that there wasn’t a tan line in sight. “Quinten, I’m done. If the kids I didn’t know about weren’t enough, this last year on my own was the nail in the coffin. I had time to find myself and realized how much I lost myself in being Quinten Bentley’s wife, and the mother of two strong willed boys. There was no time for Marissa Marucci…”
“Bentley,” I gritted.
“Oh no, nigga. I said that right. Marissa Marucci. I can’t wait until this divorce is over so I can go back to my maiden name.”
“You don’t really want this divorce, Marissa.” I lamented, reaching for her hands. “You haven’t even told your uncle yet. We both know this shit ain’t real until you do that. Divorce has never been a thing in our lifestyle, and that’s why you haven’t told him. That stunt you pulled…”
