Page 15 of Only if You Catch Me
I simply nodded because I knew she heard me.
“So, David beat him up right? Or got beat up while he was telling him to go to hell?”
Knowing that she didn’t think I overreacted had me blinking back tears. I hated the amount of time I’d spent crying over the past few days. A part of me wanted to believe that I was doing too much, but Tina’s reaction made me aware that I hadn’t. Shaking my head, I sipped more wine.
“He agreed to it. The man really came home and told me that he said he wasn’t going to try and have sex with me. He also said he promised that he wouldn’t hurt me. Then, he proceeds to tell me that he just needed the two weeks to come up with the money.”
“Wow.” Tina’s mouth was still partially open. “Persia, that is crazy. I’m so sorry. Did you have to spend the twelve hours with him?”
“No, because I knew he had at least $20,000. I put thirty with it, and I sold my wedding rings. It literally took me two seconds to come up with a way to get the $60,000. He knows I’m not broke. He didn’t know how much I had, but the nigga didn’t even try, Tina. He was really going to let me spend twelve hours with a man that I don’t even know.”
“That’s some lame ass shit. I’m not even going to hold you. You have every right to be pissed because what?”
I drained the wine from my glass, and Tina wasted no time snatching it up and refilling it for me.
“You deserve the whole bottle, sister.”
“It gets worse,” I informed her after taking another sip.
“Oh Lord.” Tina turned her back on me to check on the food.
“The other night, I went out to have drinks with a client. I was getting dressed when David came in. By then, it had been two days since he gave Kastian the money. He had the nerve to ask me where I was going and when I didn’t answer him, he started pleading his case begging me to forgive him and kissing on me. I was repulsed. Like, David knows when I’m not playing. I was pushing him off me with everything in me. The more I told him no, he started getting mad. I kept saying no.” My voice cracked. I didn’t want to go into detail.
The entire drive to the lounge, I cried and tried to convince myself that I was overreacting. I even believed the shit he said about a man not being able to rape his own wife.
“Oh hell no,” Tina hissed. “I’m going to fuck that nigga up. Let me grab my shoes,” she turned the burners on the stove off.
The situation was very serious and heavy, but I had to laugh as I hopped up off the stool. “Tina, no. You’re freakin’ crazy,” I giggled. “He’s not worth it. He’s going crazy right now going by ma’s house and trying to find me. He thinks I’m playing, but I’m not. We’re done, sissy. He violated one too many times in the last few days alone. He’s not someone that I want to be married to.”
As I said the words, a lump formed in my throat. How could he love me when his natural reaction wasn’t to protect me? That man was ready to hand me over to the wolves in order to save himself. And the messed up part was he didn’t even try. He didn’t come up with a plan to rob niggas, sell all the guns he had left. Nothing. Just give his wife to the next man like I was a pair of sneakers or something. Kastian had handled David like a bitch one too many times for my liking. How could I look at him as a leader when he constantly let Kastian son him?
“Kastian is super fine though. David might have done you a favor by letting you spend twelve hours with him. He’s rich. Single. Super fine. Rich.”
I chuckled. The wine was taking effect, and I was tipsy. The wine in my system helped me to recant the details of my night at the lounge with Tesha. “If you keep bucking your eyes out like that, they’re going to jump out of your head,” I giggled.
“Baby, you’re better than me. As long as I knew he wasn’t on no weird creep shit, I would have given him exactly what he wanted. Shoot, David told the man he could spend twelve hours with you. I can think of worse places to be.”
“It doesn’t matter how fine a man is. No woman wants her husband to be pussy enough to cooperate with such an insane request.”
“You got that, right. Please believe me when I say you have every right to feel the way you do. And I’m only going to ask you this question one time. Are you really sure you want to leave him, or are you just angry and need some space?”
I looked my sister square in the eyes. “I’m serious as a heart attack.”
The next day, I didn’t go into the office. David usually slept until around nine, and he would leave the house every day around noon. Most days, he was in and out the house and sometimes, he wouldn’t come back until around ten or eleven when he was in for the night. I kept waiting for the outside cameras to detect motion, so I’d know when he left the house.
David didn’t like the constant alerts every time the cameras detected motion, so he would often silence them until he set the alarm for the night. I was praying I’d be able to get in the house and grab some of my things without him being alerted. I wasn’t in the mood for his apologies or him begging me to stay. And Lord knows if he tried to force himself on me again, I’d be smiling in my mugshot. I wasn’t his possession to loan to another man or to have sex with whenever he wanted to.
In the past I’d never had issues with David cheating on me or disrespecting me. I’d never really had a reason to turn up on him, but I wasn’t the quiet, demure person he thought I was. He’d just never had a reason to see my savage side. The moment I saw him on the camera getting in his car, I grabbed my keys and ran out of the house. It was sad that I had to try and sneak into my own home. I thought of how excited Tesha was to be leaving her cheating boyfriend. It felt good knowing that even though I practically emptied my savings account to get David out of a jam, that I wouldn’t have to live with my sister long. I could have a place of my own in the next few weeks.
She didn’t mind me being there, but we were both grown and needed our own space. I didn’t want to wear out my welcome. Once I made it to the house, I rushed into the bedroom and went straight for the closet. After unzipping the largest suitcase I had,I started throwing my favorite pieces in it from work clothes to the clothes that I lounged around the house in. It wasn’t like I had the luxury to be able to go shopping since I was practically broke. I needed my things. It didn’t take me long to fill that suitcase. I grabbed another one and began the process all over again. I’d toss my shoes into a duffel bag, grab some of my purses and jewelry and be out. I had enough things in those two suitcases to last me a good little while.
After I collected all the things I was going to take, I stopped myself from walking out of the house. Instead, I went into David’s closet. I didn’t even know what I was looking for. Maybe a secret stash of a few hundred dollars. Condoms. I had no clue why I was in his closet, but I was. I lifted the lid off shoe boxes one after the other. Nothing. Looking around, I saw his Louis Vuitton luggage. Holding my breath, I unzipped the suitcase. Nothing. I put it back where it had been and unzipped the matching duffel bag. Sticking my hand inside, I felt around in the bag. My hand hit something, and I grabbed it and pulled it out of the bag.
It was a box with a pair of clippers on the front. The box felt really light, so I figured the clippers weren’t inside. I was about to put it back in the bag and leave, but I froze mid-action. Opening the box, I peered inside. Stacks of money were stuffed inside the box. My heart galloped in my chest as I pulled them out one by one. Stacks bundled in $5,000 increments. I counted $15,000. This muhfucka had $15,000 stashed when he agreed to hand me over to Kastian like I was some sort of possession.
That $15,000 along with the $20,000 came to a total of $35,000. That was more than half of what he needed to pay Kastian. He could have asked me for the rest, sold some of his jewelry, anything. He could have robbed a damn bank. But his go to was to let the next man borrow me. I was livid. Getting up off the floor as tears rolled down my cheeks, I put everythingback the way it was. Even if he knew I’d been in the house, I didn’t want him to know I’d taken the money. If he found out fuck him, he owed me anyway.
As I backed out of the driveway, I could finally understand why money was the only thing my mother felt men were good for. Trusting their asses wasn’t a smart move at all. It didn’t matter that David wasn’t the most handsome man in the world to me. It didn’t even matter that I wasn’t head over heels in love with him. He looked good enough. I loved him and trusted him enough to be loyal to him and to do right by him. This man actually looked me in the face and said he wanted babies, and he couldn’t even do what it took to make me feel safe.
