Page 1 of Session 25

“Look what you’ve done to me? I can’t stop these tears from falling from my eyes.”

Mary J Blige sang with so much emotion as I took another gulp from the bottle of red wine. Forget the glass, I turned the bottle up to my lips, taking in as much as I could. Emotional damage was an understatement. I tried and tried again to ignore the fact that I was indeed fucked up in the head, and it wasn’t because of something I did. No. I played my part, followed the guidelines, and did every damn thing I thought a muthafucking woman should do. Yet, my man was out here embarrassing the fuck out of me.

I set the bottle of wine down that I had been nursing for the past ten minutes. Therapy started soon and I was winded. Usually I’d go to her office, but not today. Today was different.

If I left the house, I may turn back into the woman I had fought hard to forget. The ghetto hood rat who grew up in the projects of The Bronx. The chick that was slicing tires and busting windows. But no, I changed. Yet, Marcel obviously liked that. And no matter how much I tried to show my maturity and be better, this stupid muthafucka pulled it out of me. So, when I got up after a late night of going over some paperwork for work, I expected my fiancée to be beside me. Imagine my surprise when the side of his bed was empty.

The blankets never adjusted to the weight of his body or the wrestling he’d do in his sleep. This dude had never come the fuck home. Panic had immediately set in when I thought of all the different crazy ass scenarios. As a black man in America, it was easy for them to become just another casualty or target for mistaken identity.

I grabbed my cellphone off the nightstand. No calls. No texts. Nothing. Shit wasn’t adding up, and now my Spidey senses were on high alert. Marcel was far from an angel. He had his fair share of fuck ups. As any man who was a little boy who had grown up with you. But fifteen years of being together, heartbreak and tears couldn’t prepare me for this shit. It started the moment I called his damn phone.

“Yo. Baby, I’m out. I’m gonna be out for a while.” Was the first thing he said when I dialed his number.

“Well hello to you too. You don’t think to call or text me to let me know you’re alive? Is this how men in relationships act? Or am I getting the short end of the fucking stick?”

“Yo, relax. Damn. You always quick to jump to con-” his words were cut off by the scream of a female.

“Marcel right now? Argh! Right fucking now?” For some reason I didn’t hear anything but the sounds of a monitor beeping.

“Nigga I know you ain’t in a hospital? And with a bitch?!” Was all I said before the phone went dead.

Stunned, I sat in silence for longer than I should have before I turned into a mad woman. I stormed through our two bedroom apartment as if Marcel had left a clue behind. Nothing seemed out of place as I looked around, grunting and screaming obscenities to no one in particular. Stupidity and love had gotten the best of me. I paced back and forth, phone in one hand and a wine bottle in the other. It wasn’t even ten in the morning, and I was about to drink myself silly.

My alarm sounded, Therapy at ten. That was in a few minutes.

“Fuck!” I had forgotten all about my responsibilities. All I wanted to do was find out who this bitch was and why my man was at a fucking hospital and not in the bed where he belonged.

I immediately called up my new therapist. After two years with a crappy therapist, I switched to a black woman in her mid-forties who could relate to me and my struggles. The sessions started off awkward. I felt as if I might have been judged. But that was far from the truth.

Rae picked up on the third ring. “Is this an emergency?” I took a gulp from the wine, sighed, and told her that if I didn’t have a video session, I may end up on someone’s news station today.

“Should I be worried? Should I alert the authorities?”

Protocol or not, my jaw clenched and my right eye twitched. “No, I’m not that far gone yet. But I can’t promise you anything if I can’t speak to you today, but I can’t leave this house, Rae. I can’t.”

“Okay Koi. Relax and breathe. I will schedule a video call with you in thirty minutes. Is that okay? Can you hold off until then?”

“Yea. I’ll shower and try to look like something.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

The laptop chimed with an alert from Rae exactly thirty minutes later. Drained, I pulled my robe tight, close to my chest. My curly hair was all over my head. Disheveled, I looked just how I felt. Like shit.

“Hey, good morning. So, talk to me.” She didn’t beat around the bush, but I could tell that my appearance had caught her off guard.

My eyes were puffy and red from crying. My lips were dry because of the lack of moisture. “I’m here. But I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hold it together.”

“What’s going on?” She squinted her eyes.

“What the fuck it look like, Rae? I’m in shambles. My man is cheating on me,” I sobbed into the camera. “Can I prove it? No. But that doesn’t change what the fuck I heard and feel!” I was beating on my chest for emphasis. “This dude has been playing me for years! I’m tired, I’m so fucking tired!”

I had reached my breaking point. For years I’ve allowed this man to walk over me because he was all I knew. He was all I wanted. Marcel was tall, handsome, and dark. All three of my favorite things. He kept his hair cut low with a goatee lining his thick lips. The gold fronts added to his cocky manner, drawing the ladies in more. But he didn’t always look like this. Nope. He grew into his looks as he got older.

When I met him at the age of eighteen, Marcel was just starting to peak. His neck braids and sporadic facial hair had yet to connect, causing me to chuckle now that I thought about it. But you couldn’t tell me shit. He was my man, and that’s all I needed to know, whether the fast ass bitches from the hood were drooling or not. Marcel made it known he had a thing for me, and I ran with that. But now, fifteen years later, I wasn’t so sure.

“I can see this is tearing you up. What makes you believe he’s cheating on you, Koi? And what do you plan to do now that you suspect this?”

I didn’t need Rae spoon feeding me like she did her other clients. That type of strategy bullshit wasn’t going to work. Not this time.