I CURLED UP IN my full-size canopy bed in my childhood bedroom. Hiding out at my parents’ house seemed to be a good idea and would hopefully deter Conner from showing up. Little did he know, my parents were out of the country on a cruise ship.
‘Did you walk in on them…fucking?’ Fatima navigated Conner’s Shelby down the dark roads, opening it up on the deserted highway.
‘No, but if Amy would have had her way…’ I rehashed the events of tonight, giving her the details of what I’d seen and overheard.
‘That fucking bitch!’ Fatima hit the steering wheel.
‘Did you know?’ I turned to look at her.
‘Of course not! I’m as shocked as you are. What a thot!’
I stared aimlessly out the windows as we whipped by the tall trees surrounding us. ‘I can’t believe Conner never told me.’
Fatima was silent for a moment. ‘I’m not saying it’s right, but can you blame him?’
‘Whose side are you on, Fatima?’
‘Yours, cousin. All I’m saying is that he fucked her before he even knew you existed. And it couldn’t have been that deep, seeing that she married Quentin.’ She reached out and gave my hand a gentle squeeze. ‘It’s fucked up that you had to find out the way you did. But Conner loves you, and I bet he didn’t want to risk losing you over some girl that didn’t even matter to him.’
‘Are you going to defend Amy too?’ I crossed my arms over my chest.
‘Naw, fuck that ho.’
A chuckle escaped my throat. Leave it to Fatima to make me laugh at a time like this. We drove in silence for the rest of the way.
Fresh tears leaked from my eyes and spilled onto my pillow as images of Conner and Amy having sex racked my brain. They had sex. My best friend and my boyfriend. The father of my unborn child. My cell phone rang incessantly, missed calls from both Amy and Conner sequentially flooding my screen. After silencing my phone, I pulled the covers over my head, willing myself to wake up from this nightmare.
By morning, my sadness and shock made room for anger. In the shower, as the jets sprayed down on my body, the conversation between Amy and Conner played on repeat in my head. I dissected every bit of the painful truth. The secret that Amy and Conner shared sliced through me like a hot knife. Amy’s betrayal cut me into shreds. I scrubbed the shampoo into my scalp to the point of pain, as rage coursed through my veins. My wrath toward Amy was insurmountable. The shocking betrayal from my best friend was almost too painful for me to fully comprehend.
I tilted my head back and allowed the shower jets to wash away the shampoo and my tears. How could I reconcile the fact that Conner kept this from me? Secrets. I saw them behind his eyes from the very beginning. What other secrets did he have? I knew other secrets lay in the empty bottles of Bourbon that were often stashed in the wastebasket in his home office. I thought back to the ultimatum he gave me long ago about his deceased brother. He said it was a deal-breaker, for us to discuss his brother and whatever painful truths lay in his past. Because of my love for Conner, I was willing to take what he gave. Because of my own insecurities, I accepted what he denied me with no questions asked.
As I leaned my palms against the shower wall, I thought to myself, I can’t do this anymore. I couldn’t settle for mere parts of him. One of his secrets had just shattered the trust that I had in us. His other secrets were slowly crippling him. It didn’t take rocket science to know that his binge drinking was directly linked to said secrets.
∞∞∞
I SPRAWLED OUT IN the family den, with my back against the plush carpeted floor. I riffled through Helena’s c.d.’s for something to either soothe my soul or to empathize with my despair. I settled on Lauryn Hill’s Miseducation album. When It Hurts So Bad resounded from the living room sound system. I sang the along, my emotions spilling out into my vocals, as tears stained my cheeks. The cool breeze from the ceiling fan prickled my damp skin.
The ringing of the doorbell momentarily interrupted me from my lone serenade. I dried my wet face with the hem of my old college t-shirt. The doorbell rang three more times. When the ringing turned into incessant banging, I knew what I had to do. What I needed to do. Rising from my comfy spot, I turned down the music and unhurriedly sauntered through the house and to the front door.
I opened the door to a frantic Conner, who stood with his fist raised in mid-air, preparing to bang once again. I opened the door wide enough for him to enter. ‘We need to talk,’ he said, his tone slightly panicked. He stepped into the foyer and glanced around. ‘Can we go somewhere and talk in private?’
‘No one’s here, Conner. This is as good of a place as any.’ I didn’t lead him further into the house. We stood in the foyer as I waited for him to start talking.
‘Nothing happened last night. I swear to you, I didn’t cheat on you. I would never cheat on you.’ Conner’s skin was pale, and he had dark shadows under his eyes. His hair was disheveled. The usual light stubble on his jawline was darkened from lack of grooming.
‘So, you two never fucked?’ He winced at my bluntness. I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned my shoulder against the wall. ‘Well? Did you or did you not fuck Amy?’ I stared at him, waiting for his response.
‘It was a long time ago before I ever met you,’ he somberly said. He inched his way closer to me, our bodies nearly touching.
Hearing him admit it, even though I already knew the truth, sliced right through my core. ‘How many times?’
‘What?’ He looked guilt-ridden.
‘How many times did you fuck her? Once? Twice? Dozens of times? Too many times to count?’
‘I…I don’t know.’ He shook his head once and shoved a hand through his messy hair.
Too many times to count, probably. I didn’t think my tear glands could produce any more tears, but alas, I was wrong. As I blinked, tears leaked from my eyes, which I quickly wiped away. ‘How long did this go on for? When did it end?’
Conner reached for me, and I withdrew from his touch. ‘No,’ I firmly said. I pushed my hand against his chest and quickly removed it as if touching him would scald my skin. I needed to hear the truth. Raw and uncut without him touching me. I needed to hear and feel the worst of it, to see if it was something that I could bear.
Conner moved to stand beside me, leaning his back against the wall. ‘It lasted for about three months. We were teenagers. I haven’t touched her since.’
I felt some of the tension in my knotted stomach ease, but I was still pissed. Nausea lingered in the pit of my stomach, serving as a reminder of the life that I carried, that we created. I pressed my fingertips to my closed eyelids and groaned. ‘Did you love her, or was she like the others?’
‘I never loved her,’ he said adamantly. ‘You’re the only woman that I’ve ever loved.’
‘Yet you kept something like this from me?’ I was furious, the tone of my voice increasing with each word. ‘She’s my best friend, Conner.’
‘I fucked up,’ he said while massaging the back of his neck with his hand. ‘It was just sex,’ he explained in desperation.
‘Gee, that’s great,’ I deadpanned. ‘So, it was just fucking. Pure unadulterated, primal fucking. Between my best friend and my boyfriend.’
‘I didn’t even know you!’ He shouted in what sounded like frustration.
‘But you knew we were best friends and you didn’t tell me!’
He leaned his head back against the wall and scrubbed his hands over his face. The man who stood beside me wasn’t the confident man that I knew, who seemed as if he was always in control. The man who stood beside me was unsettled and anxious. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘For what, Conner? What are you sorry for?’
‘I’m sorry that I hurt you.’ He looked down at me. ‘That I broke your trust in me…in us.’ He hesitated. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have approached you at the wedding, knowing that you and Amy were friends.’ He shook his head. ‘No, fuck that. I’m not sorry about that. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’
Ditto, Conner, ditto. That’s why this hurt so bad. ‘You pursued me, even when you knew that Amy and I were best friends. I fell in love with you. I trusted you.’
‘It was ten years ago,’ he urged. ‘I was drunk off my ass half the fucking time. I barely even remember!’ I was startled by the boom of his voice, but quickly recovered and stared up at him defiantly. He massaged his temples with his fingertips. Upon further examination of his mannerisms, signs of a hangover were visible. ‘I didn’t know what this was going to become,’ he added, more calmly this time around. ‘I didn’t know that I was going to fall in love with you. That wasn’t the plan.’
‘What was the plan, Conner? To bag two friends? Was this a sick game to you? Just a notch on your belt? Wanted to fuck a black chick to throw something different in the mix?’
‘That’s not fair.’ A hint of anger laced his voice. But he didn’t dispute it and couldn’t even look me in the eye.
‘Wow,’ I said on a breath. Of course. He intended on treating me like the others. My dad wasn’t so far off the mark. We didn’t raise Novalee … To be used and paraded around by some rich white boy who’s looking for a thrill in some dark meat. When my father made that accusation, I knew it couldn’t have been farther from the truth. But when Conner and I first met…
Conner intended on me being just another faceless body that he could lose himself in. Maybe the perceptive hunter in him saw the truth in me that I didn’t want to see in myself. Perhaps he saw my glaring insecurities and my need to feel special, desired, cherished, and validated. Deep down, I yearned to know that I wasn’t damaged goods, despite how Keisha, Andre, and Raymond made me feel. God, I was calling my old therapist for an appointment before the day was out.
‘You’re sexy. You’re hot as fuck. I’d be lying to you if I told you that I didn’t want to sleep with you when we first met.’ He moved to stand directly in front of me. ‘Then, I saw you again. That night at the restaurant. I had a chance to sit across from you and just…talk with you. Spend time with you. That’s when I knew that you were different, and I didn’t want to treat you like the others.
‘After that night, I couldn’t get you out of my head. And it had nothing to do with me wanting to sleep with a black chick. It had everything to do with the fact that when I looked in your eyes, I saw something in them that made me feel like we were connected in some strange way. That intrigued me and confused the hell out of me because I knew you were too good for me.’ Conner caged me in, one arm outstretched over my shoulder, his open palm against the wall behind me. He waited a few beats and sighed heavily. ‘It also scared the shit out of me. It was like you could look in my eyes and see how fucking dead I felt inside.’
Conner brushed away my tears with his thumb, before cradling my cheek and leaning his forehead against mine. His breath smelled like bourbon. He squeezed his eyes shut, and I closed mine in return, as I listened to the deep timbre of his voice. ‘I wanted to forget you. I don’t deserve you. I’m too fucked up, my past too tainted. And you’re like an angel, so good and pure.’ He pressed his lips to mine. ‘I can’t let you go,’ he said against my mouth. ‘I love you. I need you.’
I breathed him in. ‘This is all so messed up,’ I croaked. ‘If I’d known about you and Amy…if I’d known that she loved you, I would have never gone out with you.’
He lifted his head and studied me. ‘Do you regret us? Do you regret loving me?’ I looked up to see pain and fear etched across his face and in his eyes.
Did I regret us? Did I regret loving Conner? The truth was easy to say. ‘No.’
His shoulders relaxed. He sighed audibly as he tucked a few curly locks behind my ear.
‘I’m mad as hell at you for not telling me, though. But I love you. I could never regret us.’ I reached up and caressed his stubbled jaw with the palm of my hand. He leaned into my touch. ‘It breaks my heart to hear you say things like ‘you felt dead inside.’ I feel like there’s so much that I don’t know about you.’
‘You know me more than most,’ he countered.
‘That’s not very comforting, seeing that most don’t know you at all. I see emptiness, pain, and shame when I look in your eyes sometimes, and it damn near kills me.’ He turned his eyes downward, avoiding my imploring gaze. ‘You were right. I felt it too. That we were connected in some strange way. And it breaks my heart, that you’d rather drown yourself in bottles of booze than talk to me.’
I looked at Conner imploringly. ‘I just wish you would let me in.’ I rested my hands against his chest. ‘Or if not me, then someone.’
‘Not going to happen,’ he said, finally meeting my stare. ‘I don’t need to talk to anyone. All I need is for us to stay together.’
‘I don’t know if we can continue like this.’
‘What are you saying, Novalee?’ He momentarily squeezed his eyes shut and ran a trembling hand through his hair. ‘Are you leaving me?’
‘No. I’m not leaving you.’ How could I? We were broken together, but apart…I would be dust. ‘I just think we need to dial things back a bit. We need to focus on building trust. I want you to feel like to you can talk to me, share things with me. I don’t want sex to be a distraction for you…for us.’ Sexing each other multiple times a day made it easier to avoid the uncomfortable stuff.
‘Bullshit,’ he challenged, with no heat. ‘How can you minimize what we have as a distraction? Why are you doing this? I get why you’re mad about the Amy shit. I know I screwed up.’ He pulled me up against him, and his hands traveled down to my backside. ‘But we’re great together, and you just want to stop?’ Conner slipped a hand into the back waistband of my sweats and gripped my bare butt before snaking his hand to the entrance of my sex. Lust pooled between my thighs, but my heart and head weren’t in it.
‘I really wish you’d consider therapy.’ I fought to keep my breathing steady and my eyes from rolling back. His hand stilled at the entrance of my sex, the tip of a finger already penetrating me. I reached back and grabbed hold of his wrist and removed his hand from my sweatpants. ‘I’m concerned about the drinking, Conner.’ I hesitated before teetering on the edge of diagnosing. ‘Do you think you may be using alcohol and sex as coping mechanisms for…for something that happened?’ I spoke carefully, hovering on boundaries that I knew he didn’t want me to cross. ‘We’re having a baby. I think we need to deal with this. Now.’ I studied his face. His stoic mask slowly clinked back into place, piece by piece. It all started with his eyes and ended with the scowl that marred his face.
‘Did you change your major to psychology?’ He asked, his words were measured with a hint of condescension.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and met his imperturbable stare. ‘You said some things one night, during a video chat, when you were away in L.A. It was months ago. You were really drunk.’
‘What did I say?’ The gray in his otherwise green eyes was icy and vivid.
I cleared my throat and continued, meeting his arctic stare. ‘You said, ‘I love to fuck, but I also fuck to forget.’ What is it that you want to forget?’
He stilled for a moment before backing up from me. Our bodies were still close, but all physical contact was gone. ‘Yeah… I’m not doing this right now.’
His blunt response crushed me, but I refused to cower. I usually bowed out of conversations like this. Conner was strong-willed and dominating. Vulnerability was something that he struggled with. But I was determined to chip away at his armor. We had our unborn child to think about. I loved Conner fiercely, and although I didn’t have experience with addiction, I wasn’t going to avoid the red flags any longer. Conner did an excellent job shielding who he was from the outside world. But I knew he was hurting. I saw the sadness and emptiness in his eyes from the very start. And deep in the pit of my gut, I knew that our pasts were more similar than he would probably admit. And I cried a little for him inside.
Conner backed up completely away from me, almost to the opposite wall of the foyer. ‘Why the fuck can’t you just leave it alone?’
‘Because I love you.’ I was met with silence. He wasn’t ready, and I knew, at that moment, that I couldn’t force him to be ready. This was his journey, not mine. But how could I sit back and watch him drown in his pain?
I leisurely rubbed the small bump shrouded by my t-shirt. ‘You’re not going to seek professional help, and you won’t talk to me.’ It was a statement, not a question. I had to verbalize it, to come to terms with it.
‘I don’t need a fucking shrink.’ Massaging his temples again, he commenced, in a more gentle but exasperated tone, ‘I know you’re only trying to help. But I told you before. I don’t talk about this shit with anyone.’
‘You’re hungover right now. I can smell the bourbon on you. It’s nine o’clock in the morning. Did you drive here?’ I asked, suddenly concerned about him and others on the road.
‘Of course not. Colin is out front.’ He leaned against the wall. ‘I had a few drinks this morning, but I thought I lost you,’ he implored.
‘You haven’t lost me, Conner. But I’m afraid that you will if you don’t curb your drinking and get some help. I need you to step up and be a good dad. A sober one.’
‘Jesus Christ. I’m not an alcoholic. I just like to drink sometimes. What the fuck, Novalee?’ he raised his voice. He was defensive, his anger palpable. ‘I don’t need fucking therapy. All I need is you!’
‘And what happens when I’m not enough to fill this void, this sadness in you? Are you going to drink yourself to death? Are you going to turn to sex with someone else to numb this pain that’s inside of you?’ The next words that were on the tip of my tongue caused tiny shivers of anxiety to course through me. ‘You have to deal with that pain that’s inside of you. If you don’t, baby I don’t think we’ll make it.’ I could literally feel Conner slipping away from me. In desperation, I rushed to him in a few swift steps. I pressed my body up against his and wrapped my arms around his waist. He didn’t embrace me in return. Only looked down at his feet.
‘You’re it for me,’ I said. ‘You have my heart. No one else ever will. But don’t push me away. Because if I have to, I’ll choose what’s best for this baby over you.’ I palmed the sides of his face, turning his head up to look at me. ‘Talk to someone about what’s going on. Do this for you. For our baby.’ For us.
He gave a curt nod. I was unclear on what our relationship would be like without sex. I hoped that through this physical separation, we would focus on building trust and repairing what was broken within ourselves and within our relationship. My heart still ached over the revelation that he and Amy essentially lied to me about their past sexual relationship. I had yet to deal with her, which I knew would cause more wounds.
I silently prayed that Conner wouldn’t spiral back into destructive patterns of excessive boozing and sexing, once our relationship slowed down and he was forced to focus and deal with his issues. It would shatter my heart beyond repair, to see him so lost, using the pleasures of temporary thrills to numb the torment that was raging inside of him.
Conner planted a kiss to my forehead, and then to my parted lips, which I readily received. He ran his hand over my stomach, resting it on my bump. ‘Don’t give up on me, angel.’
‘Never,’ I said, my throat thick with emotion. He kissed me once again before heading to the door. He didn’t look back, and I couldn’t look away. Once I heard the door close behind him, I slumped down onto the floor and brought my knees up to my chest. I slowly drew in breaths and released them, practicing my breathing exercises.
I heard the front door open, and Fatima’s voice followed, calling my name. I looked up at her from where I sat. ‘Oh, cousin.’ She rushed over and sat down beside me. I lay my head against her chest and cried for what felt like the hundredth time in a matter of days. She didn’t say anything. Just held me until my tears dried up, and my voice was gone.
