“Once again, it’s my fault.” Throwing my hands up in exasperation, I refused to get mad. He could be miserable by himself. The joke was on him because someone wanted something to do with this woman with three kids. Humbly, respectfully, he saw that my kids weren’t stopping a thing, and he hated it.
“You fucked that nigga?” Corey’s jaw muscles flexed and it was in that moment, I knew he was off his rocker.
“And did,” I answered with a straight face, and it took everything in me not to scream from laughter at the way my comment made his eyes widen.
“You left a for sure thing and the father of your kids, so you could be a bop. That nigga gon’ play the fuck out of you. Don’t come crawling back when that pussy is ran through and you want your family back.”
“Want my family back?” I looked him up and down. “Ha! Nigga, you got me fucked up. If I dated a hundred men in hundred days and they were all trash, I still wouldn’t pick you. Do me a favor,” I emphasized each word with a hand clap. “Please understand that if it’s not about my kids, my parents, or Josie, I don’t care about it. You aren’t any of those people. You’re nothing to me aside from being the father of my kids, and you’re barely that! Please leave me be because a bitch will never make me go crazy or make my self-esteem low again. Every time you try to tear me down, I’m gon’ laugh in your face and show you why I’m really her. You’re going to hurt yourself trying to humble me. Don’t do it.”
“You act like I was the only one that changed!”
“Oh my God, Corey it’s a done deal. We are finished. There’s no need to reflect. All we can do is move forward and all I ask, is that you stop lying to my children and be more consistent with them. Not getting them on the weekends hurts them not me. I’m gon’ do me regardless of whether you get them or not.”
The shock that registered on his face was priceless. “Oh, your sister or somebody been in your ear for sure ‘cus you don’t even act like this,” he snarled.
Running my tongue over my top row of teeth, I pushed out a low chuckle. “I’m a grown woman. Nobody has to get in my ear. We were together for seven years, and I was loyal. I didn’t have a reason to pop my shit but if you ever for one second thought Ididn’t have to be appreciated and handled with care, I feel bad for you. You fumbled. Bad.”
“You think a football player wants more than pussy from you? You think he’d be faithful to you? I know you aren’t that delusional.”
“But I am,” I stepped closer to him. “I was delusional as hell when I was with you, and that’s why I let so much slide. But never again. Never again in life will I ever become complacent enough to allow a person to do me any kind of way. You’re more pressed about a football player than me. It’s giving groupie.”
Corey stared at me as if he wanted nothing more than to slap the taste out of my mouth and silently, I was daring him. If he hated me, he was late to the party because I’d been hating him. I didn’t even mention Imani being at the house because I honestly didn’t care anymore.
“Let me find out you got that nigga around my kids, it’s gon’ be problems.”
I wasn’t sure who he thought he was scaring because it damn sure wasn’t me. Sticking up my middle finger, I walked back into my parents’ house. It didn’t matter what I did. Corey didn’t have the right to be mad about anything I’d done or anything I was going to do moving forward. Too bad for him if he assumed I was going to sit around and be sad over him for the rest of my days.
“What did the idiot want?” my mother implored as soon as I stepped foot back inside the house. She was sitting on the couch reading the Bible which made me snigger.
“Not you calling Corey names while holding the Good Book.”
“God knows who He made. No need for me to sugarcoat it.”
With a sigh I sat down in my father’s recliner. “Seems to me that despite the fact he has a girlfriend, he’s way too deep in my business and somehow, he knows I’m dating Hymn. He was out there about to cry. His emotions were all over the place. A football player is going to cheat on me. Who wants a woman withthree kids? I don’t want my family back because I want to be a hoe. I better not have a man around his kids.”
My mother’s eyes cut into slits. “I wish I would have heard him talking crazy. You’re grown, and you can handle yourself, but Corey needs to go to hell,” my mother eased the Bible from her lap and onto the couch, and I knew she was about to go in.
Despite my annoyance, I had to pull my lips into my mouth to keep from laughing.
“He was with you for seven years, and you were a damn good girlfriend, and that was mistake number one. Were you perfect? Of course not. No one is. But I know you were in that house doing wife duties twenty-four seven while being unmarried. And I won’t take from him that he took care of his family. But for him to never mention marriage, cheat on you, then propose in front of friends and family in a half ass grand romantic gesture, he needs to be sliced from nut sack to asshole. And he’s worried about what you’re doing?” she screeched with wide eyes.
“You should have told him that the girls don’t have to be around any men that you date because you have babysitters that will hold the girls down whenever and however. I don’t know what he thought.”
That was it. I could no longer be angry if I tried. All I could do was laugh. After I settled down, I sighed. “But do you think I ‘m moving too fast by dating someone already? Like I was with one person for seven years. Shouldn’t I be alone for a little bit?”
“You have a boyfriend?” her brows hiked.
“No.”
“Then aren’t you alone? You’re not in a relationship. You’re hanging out with someone and getting to know him. If you should so happen to fall for him and something stems from that, then that’s what it was meant to be. Don’t purposely deprive yourself of fun and human interaction to follow some imaginary timeline.”
With a broad smile on my face, I stood up and gave my mother a hug. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too.”
A month later, I followed a realtor through a townhouse with a racing heart. I wasn’t even sure why my heart was racing. I had finally decided to step out on faith and look for a place. Leaving my parents’ home would be bittersweet, but it was time for me to get my own space. I wasn’t buying, but the home had a private landlord, and he was using a realtor to screen potential tenants.
The home was a brand-new build. There were four bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms. The fact that each of the girls could have their own rooms that fit their own personalities, and I was able to do it by myself meant everything to me. The price of the rent was steep. It was scary. But it was in a great area, and the school district was good. I went from not paying any rent to touring homes that were $2,700 a month, but I wanted it.
