No Ordinary Love (6 page)

“Would it have been that bad? Evidently I want you to.”

Daemon shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You wanna be like every otha little girl I don’ fucked?” he snapped.

“It wouldn’t be like that—”

“That’s what you think. I won’t take your virginity because I can’t offer you the relationship or the type of love that goes with that gift.”

Defiantly, Casey lifted her face to his. He didn’t want her; she understood that now. It hurt to think that way but unless she was deaf, that was what he was telling her. “You don’t want me?” They both realized that her question had nothing to do with the sexual, but everything to do with the emotional attachment that came along with the sex.

Daemon closed his eyes and cursed himself. He couldn’t find the right words to soften the blow. However, Daemon confessed that, he knew that he would hurt her. Then he answered her question, “No, not in the way that you want.”

Casey remained silent for a moment. She nodded and smiled.

“You’ll change your mind, Daemon.” He’d be sorry if he didn’t, Casey reflected when she found a man who wanted her in the same way that she’d always wanted him to.

He frowned. “You think it makes no difference that you’re his niece? I just proved to you that it does. Otherwise, you’d be on your back with the hammer inside you and nothing to offer you afterwards. So be happy that I care enough about you not to take advantage of you that way.”

Casey shrugged. “Maybe that’s true. It still doesn’t stop you from wanting me.”

“Nothing probably will,” he admitted.

“Okay, as long as you know. Now I’d like to get dressed,” she said surprising him. She watched him, and smiled to herself. “I don’t want make us late for the movie.”

His eyes widened, and his anger exploded. “You think you still going out wit’ some dude?”

“Why shouldn’t I? You don’t want me, right?” she challenged.

The Decision

Crying didn’t seem to solve anything. Not the fact that she’d miscarried her baby, the fact that she’d completely disappointed her parents, or pretending that David never existed. It didn’t help at all, Catrina concluded on day ten, even as the tears streamed down her light-skinned face. She almost seemed pale against the deep red of her sheets.

Restless, Catrina flipped onto her back to stare at the star covered ceiling.
‘Aim for the stars.’
She recalled her father saying the day he’d uncovered her remodeled room at thirteen. Catrina honestly doubted that this is what he had in mind for her at sixteen.

Half of the room was painted sky blue with soft fluffy white clouds. The other half the room was painted midnight blue with silver stars creeping up to the ceiling to shine over her bed. There was a poster-sized black and white photo of Catrina blowing a kiss over her bare shoulder at her onlookers above the bed’s headboard. Above the picture silver painted letters arched to spell her name.

Most of her things were color coded, separated and organized by type. There was nothing out of place. She was meticulously organized. Pictures of her family and friends decorated her desk and bookcase. Party favors she created for events that she’d planned were also out on display. Jewelry boxes were open to show off her prized collection of diamond earrings and bracelets.

Catrina caught a glimpse of herself in the full length mirror mounted on her bedroom door and sighed. The two braids she’d put in her hair had begun to fray. Her eyes burned with redness. The full lips that were usually glossy from thick layers of lip gloss were dry. Catrina licked them and felt the quick burn from the small cracks in them.

Hurt, she thought back to the way the on-call obstetrician had treated her, as if she were just another statistic. Some urban youth who got herself knocked up, one who’d been destined for nothing. It was in the way she spoke to her, the way she turned her nose up in the air.

Though the thought made her uncomfortable, Catrina figured she had no way of knowing that she was a straight “A” student, or that she was one of the top students in the city. No, she had no way of knowing any of that, because all she knew was that a sixteen-year-old girl had shown up, losing a baby. How many times in this day and age did that happen?

The reason, her family doctor informed her and her parents days later had been that during the cross-over of genes important information had been lost and without this information the pregnancy was doomed from the start. The baby had continued to grow until the needed information had come up missing, and at that moment, the baby inside her died without it.

“You don’t know how I feel,” Catrina moaned at Casey’s insistence that everything would be okay.

How did she know?
Catrina wondered. She’d never lost a baby, a boyfriend, and two years of her life in the span of a week.

After having read the do’s and don’ts of helping a loved one cope with miscarriage, Casey was pretty sure that saying, “No, I don’t, but I’m sure that everything will work out in the long run—” was okay.

Catrina sucked her teeth. This moment in time was what she was currently concerned about. “Please don’t start that bullshit.”

“Trina,” Casey gently pressed. “You can’t lay in the bed for the rest of your life.”

Sighing heavily, Catrina pulled the covers up over her head. “Ahhhaaaaaaaa,” she yawned and stretched in a way that she hadn’t stretched in days. “I know.”

Casey smiled a bit when her friend uncovered her head. “Aunt Tima suggested that I get you out of the house for a few hours.” Casey spoke of Catrina’s mother suggestion. “She actually said,
‘Peppa you and Spin take Salt out for a while to get her mind off things.’,
” She added doing an impression of Catima.

“She would tell you that,” she laughed pitifully. To those who knew them they were affectionately called; Salt and Peppa after the all female rap group since they’d performed the group’s classic track
Push It
in a neighborhood talent show.

The fact that she hadn’t chosen to confide in her mother about this pregnancy had caused a rift between the two. Catima had been there for her, but Catrina couldn’t mistake the look in her mother’s eyes for anything more or less than disappointment. And beneath the disappointment there had been the hurt that her mother had been unable to disguise.

“She’s worried about you.”

The tears began to well again. This had been the only thing she’d ever been mute about and to think that her actions not only hurt herself but her parents as well was added stress. Catrina shook her head. “And she’s hurt that I didn’t go to her. She asked if there was anything wrong for like a week, and I kept telling her no. Then when I found out that Dave was cheating, I didn’t tell her anything. She asked why I wasn’t talking to him and where he’d been, and I -I lied.” Catrina shrugged. “I guess that’s all done with now.”

Casey sat beside her on the bed. “Awww, Trina, I’m so sorry that all this happened to you,” she mumbled wrapping her arms around her friend.

“Thanks,” Catrina mumbled back, drawing from her friend’s strength. She closed her eyes and vowed only to allow herself this one weak moment. And that once it was over, she’d be done with David for good. “I loved him so much,” she cried, tightening her grip on Casey’s shoulders.

“I know. He thought you had an asthma attack. Your mom and dad wouldn’t tell him where you were when you were at your grandma’s. He was going crazy and is mad as shit that none of us would tell him what was going on.”

She’d made the decision to not tell him about the baby. “So, he still doesn’t know?” she asked. Just because she wanted it that way she really didn’t expect for it to go that way, but since it was…. No need to fix it if it’s not broken, she figured.

Having been against keeping the entire baby thing a secret, Casey shook her head and said, “No, he doesn’t know, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t still tell him.”
They’d been over this before, and Catrina was set on not telling him and cutting him out of her life. Casey saw that as her being stubborn. Telling him didn’t mean that they had to get back together. She wasn’t so naïve as to think that.

“Why? This will never be real to him. The baby was never real to him. It’s not like I aborted it and decided not to tell him.”

“I’on think that you’ll be able to keep this a secret for long, Trina.”

Catrina frowned as she thought up something cold and calculating to say to make this official. “As far as I’m concerned, when I stop bleeding, this entire mess will be over.”

Casey doubted that and didn’t hesitate to say so. “If that’s what you believe.”

She ignored her. “I’m not talking to him anymore.”

I believe that one.
Casey laughed because she knew that Catrina was serious. “You don’t have to be that drastic.”

Catrina shot her a look. “That is not drastic. I wanna be through with this and him.”

Tonight she would go out, check the neighborhood to see who was having a dollar party, and enjoy herself like there was nothing on her mind. She couldn’t have everybody talking about her like she didn’t exist. There’d been entirely too much talk about David having broken up with her and in turn, made her hide out. There were things to prove. That’s what she set out to do. And if she just happened to see David, then she would just happen to ignore him.

PART TWO

Letting Go of Yesterday

Saw it all as if it were part of a dream

Except then I remembered I lived through it

So what does that mean

I’m strong, I survived

And yes, I’m still living

But damn, I look back

And all I can do is remember

They say to forget it and just let it go

But that gets me confused

‘Cause the past is all I know

Catrina Price 2001

Chapter Four

Big Girls Now

May 2001

Casey

Lazy mornings were what she’d dreamed of since childhood, Casey realized. She had yet to reach the point where she was able to enjoy any of them. Between her busy schedule of taking summer courses in Art History at Temple University to earn credits toward her senior year, completing a certificate degree program in Interior Design, and styling hair, Casey barely had time to close her eyes for a good night’s sleep. At twenty-one-years-old lying around in bed was still a distant dream.

Casey did, however, make time for other indulgences like shopping, reading, an occasional date, some mild partying and although styling hair was a job; Casey enjoyed it like free time. The freedom of determining her own work schedule made her an entrepreneur and she was very proud of her self-employment. Daemon had converted their basement into a full service salon equip with everything she needed to wash, curl, straighten, perm, style, and braid hair. It financed her weekly shopping trips and her recent addiction to shoes.

Both Catrina and Briannah had chosen to attend universities outside of the state of Pennsylvania leaving her to figure out her way through college life without either of them. Their separation had left her shaken and lost without them for the first year and some of the second but by the third she’d discovered enough about herself to exist happily without them.

Adults
, Casey thought to herself. Over the course of their college years, they’d all become adults. Both Catrina and Briannah had graduated only weeks before. Catrina from Howard University with a degree in Institutional Management with a minor in Marketing and Briannah from Savannah Art and Design with a business degree in Sales and Marketing along with an Art degree in Fashion Design.

She could barely hold back her excitement for them to adjust to their new adult lives with jobs, bills and some overdue girl time. Catrina had started working at The Downtown Marriott as a Sales and Marketing Representative; living out her passion for event planning. Briannah was pregnant with her and Tyree’s first child and they were engaged to be married.

Life, she thought, really couldn’t get any better. Serena had moved to Virginia during her third semester at Temple University after marrying Jonathan Tilghman, an active duty Army man. Though she missed Serena the way a child missed their mother, she was happy for her. Casey smiled as she recalled the whirlwind romance that had Serena falling head deep in love after many years of taking care of both Daemon and her as a single parent.

Casey, sighed as her thoughts turned to Daemon. Happiness was not something she could claim to have achieved with him. They resided in the same residence but lived separate lives. He made a point to stay out of her way, Casey knew. It proved easy to do with him working in his auto mechanic shop and setting up and maintaining various business ventures. His entrepreneurial investments included a music production studio, rental properties left to him by his grandmother, and two food vending trucks. He had plans on opening a full service hair salon within the next year. All that kept him busy and away from her.

Along with all his women
, Casey reminded herself.

She turned on the bathroom stereo to play R&B singer, Kelly Price’s title track from her “
Mirror Mirror
” album. The song told the story of how she felt for Daemon and his resolve to never touch her or look at her in any way that did not exude that he was a brother figure and nothing more. Her own resolve was just as solid as his but in the end she hoped that his would falter. Casey had no intention of giving up on him.

She adjusted the volume on the stereo so the music would drown out the sound of the water as she slipped into the shower and began singing off key. The song was on replay because it was currently her favorite. When she favored something she didn’t let it go easily.

“Case, I would like talk to you when you’re out of the shower,” Daemon said angrily, pounding on the bathroom door.

There was no answer. He could hear the music blasting and realized that she couldn’t hear him. Annoyed, he opened the bathroom door. Immediately, the scent of what had become her signature scent; Lancome’s
Miracle
hit his senses causing him to reassess his plan.