After a while, I finally got up and cooked. I baked manicotti, zucchini, and crusty Italian bread for dinner because Italian washis favorite food. I ran to the store and picked up a nice Prosecco to go with it. We would have cannolis for dessert, and hopefully he would drink from my well and have me as a nightcap afterward.
With that thought, my thighs clenched as I sat on the couch doing a crossword puzzle. I reached forward and grabbed my mug of tea off the table in front of me, just as my phone rang. I set the crossword puzzle aside when I saw that it was Aria.
“Hey, Aria.”
“Boo, you have to go on Sociogram and go to Clayton’s account.”
“No, I don’t. Why would I do that? Besides, I don’t follow him anyway,” I replied as my stomach clenched in knots. Anytime his name came up, I became afraid because I had no idea what he was up to or what he was capable of doing next.
“Girl, just go on there.”
“No. I don’t want to hear anything that he has to say. Besides, why are you still following him, Aria?”
“You know why. I’ve been praying for that nigga’s downfall, so I’m just lurking in the background and waiting.”
I sighed and pulled my phone away from my ear. “Just a second.” I put the call on speakerphone so that I could talk to her while I navigated to the popular social media app.
“I don’t know if he found God or had a coming to Jesus meeting or what, but . . . you know what? Just check it out. He’s apologizing.”
“About what?” I asked as I typed his name in.
“You.”
“Me?”
“Yeah.”
Clayton’s livestream video popped up, and I clicked on it.
“I’m a good man. I mean, I know that I’ve made some mistakes in the past, and I’ve done some not so good things,including dragging my ex-wife’s name in the mud when we were going through a divorce. But you all know that is human nature.
“We don’t often do what we should do, but we allow circumstances, emotions, and other people’s opinion to drive the narrative. That’s what I did when I was going through my divorce. As a result, I’m here to apologize because I wasn’t honest about who she was, including the tales of abuse. I’m ashamed that I behaved that way and that I allowed other people to get in my head and coerce me into saying the things that I did. I took a few key moments in our relationship and distorted them into something else for my benefit.”
“Bullshit! You pulled that shit out of the air, and what wasn’t pulled out of the air was you taking what you had done to me and twisting it around!” I screamed. I was furious, and I knew that I shouldn’t have come on here to listen to his lies.
“But now she’s mixed up with this guy who’s worse than I am. To top that off, he’s a lawyer who opposed her in a recent court case. That’s all I’ll say about that. But she needs prayer. Please send prayers her way, because she’s about to go down a dark and dangerous path. She doesn’t even see it coming. I could warn her, but she doesn’t listen to anything that I say.”
I ended the livestream because I did not want to see anymore.
“He hasn’t changed, Aria. I knew that I shouldn’t have watched that. Now it’s messed up my energy,” I complained.
“I’m sorry, baby. In some ways, he was trying to take responsibility for some of what he’s done, but that went left quickly.”
“He’s not taking responsibility; he’s placing the blame at other people’s feet. What do you want me to do with that?”
“Nothing. I genuinely thought that he was going to keep on keeping it real. Do you think that he’s going to report Naijhel?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I’ve been worried about for a while now.”
“Can you call and get through to him?”
“It would be a waste of time. Clayton’s an idiot.”
“Well, call Naijhel and warn him.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I will.”
“What’s going on?”
