Scandalicious (41 page)

Eric blinked at her, held his hands up in the air.

Dyeesha’s mouth was twisted, like she’d eaten something rotten. “Don’t nobody care about your raggedy-ass gown. You better get your damn deposit back. Eric’s not leaving me for you or any other trick-bitch.”

Dyeesha’s slanderous words had lost their sting. Nivea was deep in thought. Like a broken record,
the wedding is cancelled,
repeated inside her mind.

It was unbelievable that Eric had been leading a double life. Nivea tried to imagine sitting her parents down, and telling them this horror story, but it was too humiliating to ponder. She had to figure out a way to fix this awful mess.

“You gotta go, Niv,” Eric told her. “You’re upsetting my family.”

“Fuck your family!” Finally giving into the rage that was bubbling inside, Nivea grabbed both silver-framed photographs and sent then zinging toward Eric’s head.

Eric hit the floor. His eyelids fluttered as blood oozed from an open wound on the side of his head.

“Help!” Dyeesha screamed. Dyeesha raced out of the apartment and out into the hallway. Neighbors began to open their doors. “Help. There’s a crazy bitch in my crib. She’s tryna kill my whole family,” Dyeesha’s shrieked.

With the single thought of escaping punishment, Nivea left Eric moaning and bleeding on the floor, and ran out of the apartment.

“There she is. Somebody catch that trick.” Dyeesha’s voice climbed higher. “Don’t let her get away!”

Whizzing past several puzzled neighbors, Nivea bounded down the stairs and out the set of doors.

Nivea rushed along the slushy pavement. Slip-sliding across the icy street, she jumped in her car.
A few stitches should take care of Eric’s head
, she told herself. She gnawed at her bottom lip as she pulled the Mazda forward. The tires thudded against a mound of hardened snow.
Fuck!
She had to get out of the tight parking spot before the police arrived.

Suppose he’s dead!
Nivea grimaced. The idea of doing jail time for murder was far more distressing than being dumped six months before her wedding.

Ramming the car behind her, she forcefully gave herself room. As she zoomed away from the scene of the crime, hot tears splashed against her face. Eric deserved to be dead, but for the sake of Nivea’s freedom, she needed him to live.