Melissa- 3 Months Later
“I’m pregnant.” I was watching a movie at her apartment while Raynique was with Darius and my parents were having date night. It was so cute that after almost 40 years they still went out on the regular and made time to enjoy each other's company. Even after the pain they put each other through by cheating, they still could make it work and find joy and love in each other. My foot bounced against the coffee table as I waited for Shay’s response. Her focus on the movie that we’d see a dozen times was annoying. The bun at the top of her head bounced slightly as her head moved back and forth following the fighting on screen.
“Damn, the birthday sex was that good y’all couldn’t wrap up?” She laughed without even looking over at me. It irritated me that everyone had already accepted the fact that I wasn’t over Darius and wouldn’t be anytime soon. Whenever he came up in conversation, no one budged. “Please, spare me the jokes, I’m for real. I don’t know how I’m going to handle this with Darius.”
“Shit, like you have been. Y’all already coparent, just slide this baby on in the mix.” She tossed some popcorn in her mouth and stuck her hand out at the screen, eyes wide as Nick Fury just barely escaped the Winter Solider.
“Ugh, I fucked up. I was supposed to be getting over him, not tying him tighter into my life.”
“You have other options too, remember that.”
“I want to keep my baby though, Shay. But I thought I would be able to make a cleaner break from D.”
“I’m confused though, because you say you don’t want to move on with him, but you’re having a hard time moving on from him, and then y’all fucking too? Help me make sense of this.” She made valid points. Aside from my birthday, there were a couple, well maybe more than a couple, of nights where I lived in the fantasy that all was good between us and we spent all night tangled in my bed, or his. Well, his bed was mine too, or had been. Shit, I was fucking my own self up. Deep down I wanted Darius more than anything. I wanted to forgive him, marry him, move back home, have his baby, and move forward without lives. But I didn’t trust myself to move on. Every time he left for work, I would wonder about who he was talking to, who was looking at my man and wishing they could have him. So, aside from the sex, I tried hard to push my feelings away from him. It would take a while to get him out of my system and at this point, it would be like sifting dirt through sand.
“There’s no sense, Shay, this is my life, and I’m angry at him, I miss him, but I don’t think I can be with him because I don’t know if I can move past what he did.”
“Ok, fair, what about the fucking though? That’s being greedy and selfish and I’m all for that, but it’s not fair. Either leave that man or get off his dick.” Shay was bussing my balls, never one to sugarcoat anything between us.
A real conversation needed to happen between me and Darius. But as hard as we tried, nope that’s a lie cuz I didn’t even try a little, I couldn’t keep him away from me. It gave me a chance to still have him without having to deal with the emotions that still beat my ass on the daily. Every time the sun rose after a night of being wrapped in his arms, it hit me that my heart was still broken and that he broke it.
“See, this is why I don’t tell you anything cuz you should mind your own Black business.”
“Sis, you are my business!”
“I’m not going to tell him yet until I get my own shit in check.”
“I can support that. Don’t let your nose start spreading though before you get to that point. He gone be mad if you wait super long.”
“I know, this is going to be his first kid. I mean, Ray is his, but you know this will be his first.”
“And you get to give him that gift. He’ll love you forever.”
He already does, I thought. Every time he was deep in me, he whispered it into my ear. When he laid next to me afterwards, he would say it when he thought I was sleeping but I was awake just enough to hear it and let it lull me to sleep.