Live and Learn (20 page)

I balled the letter up in my fist, not wanting to read any more of her words. Not caring about what she had to say.

How could Dom betray me like that?

I closed my eyes as a vision of her and Rah fucking played like a porno before me. I threw the paper like a fastball, and it hit the wall before bouncing back to the floor.

Okay, the real.

Dom hurt me. How long had they been messing around? Who came on to who? Not that who made the first move mattered, but I wanted to know. Did they use rubbers? Was Rah on dope, too? Were they in love? Who else knew about it?

I released a breath heavy with frustration.

The betrayal of a friend.

Tears filled my eyes. Fuck Rah. That wasn’t about his crazy ass. Dom was my friend, and she committed the ultimate betrayal. I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.

Forgive her? How could I? That’s like a man who dogs you out and then says I’ll never do it again…
after
his ass is caught. All the rules say kick his cheating ass to the curb because he ain’t to be trusted. You know, that “fool me once—shame on you; fool me twice—shame on me” kinda thing.

So why are the rules different for friends? Why should someone be able to stab you in the back because their “label” was that of friend?

Knock-knock
.

I wiped my eyes and looked up at Cameron standing in the doorway of my bedroom. And looking at him felt like drinking water on a hot and dusty day. It was refreshing and arousing. Exhilarating and titillating.

“Hey, you. What’s wrong?” he asked, dropping with ease on the knee of his tailored linen slacks beside the chair where I sat.

Damn, I hated for anyone to see me cry.

“I’m cool, stranger,” I lied, trying to joke away the concern I saw in the lines of his handsome face.

“I shouldn’t feel this way ’bout you, but I can’t help it sometimes,” he said suddenly, throwing me completely off base.

My heart stopped, and I was surprised I couldn’t look away from his eyes.

“Loving somebody who doesn’t love you is hell.”

My heart soared and then it flopped. I didn’t want his love.

Did I?

Okay, I was assuming. He didn’t exactly say he loved me.

“So Serena has stuck her hook in you, huh?” I asked, tilting my head back to free my face of his all too warm hands.

He made a face and then rose, sliding his hands in his slacks as he walked the short distance to the window and then turned. “You know damn well I’m in love with you, Monica, so why play games.”

“So why date someone else?” slipped between my lips before I could swallow the words.

“Why wait around for you to deal with your issues,” he countered, his face incredulous.

“Issues?” Yes, I said it with all the attitude I could muster.

“Damn right.
Issues
. You’re a college-educated woman. You’re ambitious. You have goals. Your shit is together in every aspect of your life except when it comes to your relationships.”

“Who the fuck are you to tell me about my life?” I gripped the arms of the chair until they could snap off in my hands.

“Somebody needs to tell your behind something,” Cameron balked.

“You’re not perfect, Cameron,” I shouted back.

“I wouldn’t ever break your damn leg and screw your best friend! Maybe if I did all that and call out your name—”

I gave him the hand. “Save that drama. You already ran that line by me, remember?”

He eyed my injuries. “Obviously you didn’t catch it the first time.”

“Get out, Cameron.” I pointed to the door, not even sure why I was so angry with him. Guess the truth does hurt.

He stared at me long and hard. His face was made for poker. I held his stare.

Even though we’d just argued, it felt damn good to look into his eyes. Good and so very damn easy.

“I love you, Monica,” he said with sincerity. “I love you and I want to be with you. I want to be able to say you’re my woman and I’m your man.”

I was lost in his eyes and absorbed into his soul.

Cameron knelt before me again and held my face with his hands. My breath caught in my throat as he leaned forward and pressed his mouth to mine.

A jolt of pure awareness and electricity raced through my body and left me shivering as he drew my tongue sweetly into the warmth of his mouth and suckled it like the sweetest fruit.

Damn. He was good.

Shit. Who knew?

“I love you so much, Monica,” he whispered against my swollen lips.

I leaned back from his heat and his kisses, raising my hands to lightly touch my lips as I dropped my gaze from his.

“Am I moving too fast for you?” he asked.

“Yes,” I admitted, my voice just a whisper.

“I understand—”

“No. No you don’t understand.”

Cameron remained quiet for a moment, and the silence was telling. “Will you be able to go to classes this fall?” he said instead.

Okay, the switch in gears confused me, but I played along. I nodded in response to his question. “I started physical therapy last week, and I’m learning how to use crutches.”

“I know you’ll do well.”

“Thanks.”

Mindless chatter to cover the real issue. We were crazy.

“I hope you keep Braun, Weber in mind when you graduate.”

I smiled at him. “You act like we’re never gonna see each other again.”

Cameron just shrugged one broad shoulder. “That might be for the best.”

That stung like an m’fer which pissed me off. I wasn’t even loving him and already he had the power to hurt me. “You might be right.”

“Goodbye, Monica.”

I bit my lip to keep from telling him not to go. Maybe this was for the best.

With one final look at me he turned and left the room and, I guessed, my life.

As quickly as Cameron left, my mother stepped into my bedroom.

“You really need to get out this room,” she said, moving to open the windows.

“Ma, I go to physical therapy twice a week,” I protested, using my crutches to rise to my feet and work my way over to my bed.

“What’s going on?” she asked suddenly.

I looked up at her as I lowered myself to the bed. “Nothing much, Ma. Why?”

“Cameron didn’t look pleased when he left.”

“Ma, not now.” I had enough on my mind.

“Did you two break up?”

My head jerked up. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“It’s obvious he loves you, so I don’t understand
why
he isn’t your boyfriend.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes tightly like I could will her to go away. I loved my mom, but I wasn’t up for this right now.

“Nothing wrong with falling in love with a good man and getting married.”

“Why? So I can sit around waiting on him for the rest of my life like you,” I snapped. Okay, I shocked the shit out of myself.

When my father first left my mother, they didn’t sit down together and offer a joint explanation of the reason for the separation. If anything they confused me even more. When my mother wasn’t crying and moping around the house in her pajamas, she was busy telling me Daddy would be home soon. When I talked to my father, he only spoke of how much he loved me and that him leaving was for the best because they weren’t happy together.

I wasn’t a small child, and I had seen the gap widening between them physically and emotionally over the years. I knew there was truth in my father’s words, but I also knew my mother wasn’t ready to let him and the marriage go. All these years later and she still was grasping for straws. Love had her good and fucked up.

The pain that filled my mother’s eyes cut my soul. “Ma, I’m sorry—”

She held up her hand and stopped the rest of my words. “I’m calling your father,” she said before leaving the room.

Poof
. Just like that most of the bad feelings I had about flipping off at the mouth disappeared. It was the first time I’d given voice to my subconscious, and it felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders.

T
he doc said writing in this journal supposed to help me, but he told me writing letters to people I have done wrong would help, too. Well, Alizé ain’t answer me or come to see me yet. And Kimani too young to read hers, and Lex is dead. But I got two weeks of writing in this damn journal, and I’m still scared. Still afraid. Still hurting like a bitch. I got so many regrets. Shit I can never change. Things I can only apologize for.

But talking to Doc helps. I hate to admit that shit, but I ain’t never cried or let out my anger more than I have since I been in rehab. I look at shit a little different. I try to think before I speak.

Diane and me never gone be Claire Huxtable and one of her daughters, but I know it’s a lot of shit between us that we need to work on. But that’s hard to do when she laughed about coming to talk to the doc, talking about she ain’t the one sniffing dope. Ain’t that some fucked-up shit to say? I know I shouldn’t feel like this about my own mama, but she make it so hard to love her.

What if Kimani feels the same way about me? I put Lex, and stripping and shopping, and hanging out with my girls over my child. What if she hates me as much as I feel like I hate Diane—and I ain’t even gone talk about Doc’s face when he first heard me call my mother by her first name. He said we had an uncharacteristic relationship. Surprise, surprise.

So I write in this journal and hope it takes away the shame and the pain and hurt. We’ll see.

I’ll be getting out tomorrow, and the freedom scares me more than anything else. Thank God Cristal’s letting me move into her apartment with Mo. Thank God because I don’t know if I can stand to go back to living with my mom and stay clean.

Every day of my life I’m gone have to fight not to get high.

Just like I have to fight to be a better mother to my child.

A better friend to Alizé.

A better woman for my damned self.

A
fter all that drama with Reverend Luke, I didn’t know why I decided to trust Reverend Hampton. I don’t know why I picked up that phone a week ago and called him. All I know is when I thought of him and how kind he was to me that day in the cab, I wanted to feel that kindness again.

And my instincts—this time—didn’t steer me wrong.

“Come in, Latoya. Come in.”

I smiled at him as I slowly walked into his small office that looked more like a storeroom. “Hi, Reverend Hampton.”

He rose from behind his plain wooden desk, dressed in a short-sleeved plaid shirt and khakis. “I’m glad you accepted my offer to come down and talk in person.”

For a second as he came around his desk toward me, I tensed up, preparing myself for the feel of his hands. He did touch me, but it was a fatherly pat on my shoulder as I took a seat.

“You were very nice to me that day, and I can use some niceness right now.” I wasn’t surprised by the tears that filled my eyes. Since I ran away from my parents, I haven’t done anything but cry.

“Testify, Latoya. You heal through telling your story.”

Yes, I’d heard that before, but I never believed…’til now. Still, I was afraid.

“I think the Lord sent me to you to help you heal that broken soul of yours.”

I looked up and met his eyes, and I was taken back to that moment when I met Reverend DeMark’s eyes that first day in his office. The day I lost my innocence and my faith.

“Reverend Hampton, the choir would like to see you. Oh, I didn’t know you had a visitor.”

I turned to look at a young woman about my age standing in the door of his office. She smiled at me like we were old friends.

“Latoya, this is Olana Harris, our Sunday school teacher, church secretary, and organist. Olana, this is Latoya James.”

My first thought was,
Are they fucking?

“Nice to meet you, Latoya.”

“You, too.”

“Latoya, will you excuse me for a moment?”

I just nodded.

When they left the office I sat for a bit before nervousness hit me. What was I doing here about to tell a preacher my story? Had I lost my damn mind?

I grabbed my purse and quickly made my way to the door. As soon as I opened it, the sweet refrain of an organ reached me, pausing my steps as I walked past the doors to the small inner church.

The choir began singing “We Fall Down,” by Donnie McClurkin. Suddenly a man’s strong and melodic voice echoed inside the church. His voice was clear. The words to the song emphasized. The testimony in the music unmistakable. The music called to me.

Curious, I walked to the door, my purse tight beneath my arm as I pulled the door open and peered inside.

My mouth shaped in surprise to see Reverend Hampton holding the mic.

It was Saturday, and the choir members were dressed casually for their practice, but the presence of the Lord was there. I could feel it. I couldn’t deny Him.

I felt weak and moved forward to clasp the pew to keep myself from falling to my knees.

Tears filled my eyes.

Joy filled my soul.

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” I sighed, my eyes closing because I couldn’t fight the spirit that filled me.

The choir sang like it was Sunday. Their music surrounded me like a warm blanket. Comforting. Healing.

I had turned my back on the Lord.

I had turned my back on the church and on the blessing of fellowship.

I had lied.

I had killed.

I had cheated.

I had slept with the devil—figuratively and literally.

I had hated. My parents. Reverend DeMark. Bones. Myself.

“For a saint is just a sinner who fell down.”

“Forgive me, Lord,” I cried, dropping to my knees. “Please, forgive me.”

The choir stopped, and the organ ceased playing, and I knew without opening my eyes that they were looking at me. But all I could do was wrap my arms around myself and rock like a baby as I prayed.

Suddenly the music began again, and the choir began to sing. “Get back up again…. Get back up again.”

“Sometime…sometimes we need help getting back up,” I heard Reverend Hampton say.

Some of the choir continued to sing.

Some backed him up. “Preach,” someone nearly shouted.

“We all fall, but the Lord teaches us not to stay down but to rise and try to walk with him. Never give up!”

“Get back up again…. Get back up again.”

“Amen!”

“Hallelujah.”

“I’m so sorry. Lord, I’m so sorry,” I whispered, unable to stop my tears.

I was not surprised to feel Reverend Hampton’s hands on me as he helped me to my feet. “It’s okay, Latoya. The Lord has nothing but forgiveness for you. He has never turned his back on you, and he never will. Hallelujah.”

“Get back up again…. Get back up again.”

He held me close in his arms, and I welcomed the strength and the love of a man who wanted nothing more than to help me. No man in my life had ever held me just to hold me up when I was weak. Not my father. Not Reverend DeMark. Not Bones.

He continued to whisper prayers in my ear as he rocked me like I was his child.

“I’ve lied,” I whispered in return.

“The Lord forgives you.”

“I slept with my minister.”

“He forgives, Latoya.”

“I’m pregnant.”

“A blessing from God.”

“I killed my first baby,” I whispered, my tears coming back full force.

“Ask him to forgive you.”

I nodded, letting my head fall back as I cried like a baby. “Forgive me, Lord. Oh, God, forgive me.”

“Now your healing can begin.”

“Thank you, Jesus.”