Underneath It All (10 page)

             
One thing I learned from my experience with Envy is that you only know so much about a person as they’re willing to share. If they never tell you they like apples and you never see them eat an apple, how would you know? As much as you would like to think, you never really know someone no matter how much time you spend with them. I know now to ask a lot more questions and to pay attention to the signs no matter how good things appear, to dig beyond what they’re giving you and to trust your gut.

              It took me a while to get over everything because I was so used to talking to him everyday and to suddenly have to stop that cold turkey left a hole in my life. As the days went on everything started coming together and it now made sense why he didn’t want me to do the show, realistically he couldn’t be with me publicly because I was known and there were other people that knew he was married.

             
He never wore his ring, never talked about her and never acted like a married man but he went home to his big house and white picket fence and his perfect family when in all actuality they sleep in separate bedrooms, are miserable and don’t have sex with each other but they front and pretend like everything is all peachy for their families and community.

             
Monday through Friday they don’t even speak to each other. Monday through Friday he was my man and one of hip hops biggest DJ’s that come to find out has had plenty of relationships even before me. Funny thing is after I found out and time went on the same girl that I brought to him to have a threesome with he ending up sleeping with behind my back.

             
A cheater will always be a cheater. He cheated on his wife with me and me with my friend and the cycle goes on. As much as I was embarrassed there were plenty more of me out there that he had done this to. I didn’t want people to label me as something I’m not but here he is doing this to more than one woman yet he gets no fingers pointed at him.

             
It’s crazy how men are always praised for their infidelities and the amount of women that they sleep with but when a woman is put in the same situation or in my case, caught up in something that she didn’t know the full details of, we’re classified as hoes, home wreckers and all other kinds of bullshit. It isn’t fair but sadly enough, it’s never going to change.

             
I had to take full responsibility for something I knew nothing about. If I’m guilty of anything it’s that I tried my best to really hide it and up until now I hadn’t said anything. It’s no ones business, not even his wife but I have to tell my end of this.

             
He can call it what he wants but deep down even if he was to read this himself I’m sure he would be channeling all our good times and one thing I never wanted to do was have this be out there to hurt him or his children. I hid it to protect his family because in the end I didn’t know and it wasn’t their fault that their father was trying to be something he wasn’t, that her husband was trying to please me and not her.

             
I tried to be loyal to him and deny everything and it got me nothing but bad publicity. I would never expect someone to go out there way to defend me or speak on my behalf but I thought he would at least have the decency to respect the fact that I hadn’t been grimy and just trifling about everything. I thought he would take up for me given that I didn’t rat him out for lying and being married to another woman while he was with me but he didn’t.

             
When he had his chance to do so on his own show it proved that I really didn’t owe him anything. I was always told that when a person shows you who they really are, believe them and in that moment, when he chose to play innocent on his own fucking show that let me know who he truly was.

             
Yea I loved him and it felt good when we were together but he could’ve stood up for me and cleared up accusations that he knew first hand weren’t true. The least he could do was give clarification to malicious and fictitious rumors that he knew the answers to. I think he’s really weak for that, his backbone is nonexistent and his life is a lie. The feelings he claims he has for his wife are all lies.

             
Loyalty is the one thing that means the most to me in any relationship as well as the way I do things in life but in covering up for Envy, loyalty for the first time, worked against me.

             
In my silence I lost power and that’s the reason why it’s depicted the way it is on these blogs. I’ll be honest; as much as I was attracted to him he’s beyond disgusting to me now. He slept with so many women including me yet no one in none of these blogs can even out the score of how hard they go at me verses him but that’s why I leave situations like this up to karma. I wish him and his family the best and I’m pretty happy this happened; I can’t say that all of it was bad because it wasn’t. I just wish I had made better decisions.

Chapter Fourteen

             
I

loved watching Marie dance. She moved across the stage with such elegance and grace as if she was floating on air. I attended her shows as much as I could when I was in town and after everything that had happened with Envy I needed to be with her.

              Marie was my safety net. From the day we met we had an instant connection and although our first intimate encounter was with Raul I knew that we were more into each other than we were into him. I loved her energy and the light that seemed to come from her spirit was just what I needed in a time that I felt things couldn’t get any darker.

             
Once the show was over I handed her roses and we went to go get dinner. I told her about everything that had happened with Envy and instead of being judgmental and condescending she offered me compassion and her shoulder to cry on.

             
I reached a point in the night where my eyes couldn’t even form tears anymore. It was like my heart shut off and was suddenly immune to any and all feelings. Aside from Draya I had never been hurt by a woman and although I was let down and disappointed by what happened with her it wasn’t the same because I never really put my all into her during the time that we were together.

             
First it was my father, then Trent, Pedro, Brian, Raul, and now Envy. How many more times did I have to be hurt before I finally got it right? What was it about me that kept making the men in my life leave me? Maybe I was rushing things. Perhaps it was my fault and the reason I kept hitting all these dead ends was because I was searching the wrong places. I was trying to force love in situations where it didn’t exist.

             
I was supplementing the things that were lacking in one person and replacing it with something from the other. In the end I seem to have put together a monster, not in them but in myself because I had no idea of what love really was.

             
A part of me knew that it wasn’t fair to keep coming back to Maria but she never said anything so I didn’t think it was an issue. She never complained about what we had or tried to complicate it with titles. I think in a way I was to her, what she was to me and that was a sense of safety. I wasn’t worried about her hitting me, I wasn’t worried about her being married or having kids because unlike the men before her, she was honest and open about the things that she did.

             
We knew about each other’s relationships with other people but that didn’t change the bond we had. We shared the same fears and a lot of the same goals and I think that’s what made us so close.

              I agreed to do Love&HipHop and my relationship with Rich was really unexpected. I was still dealing with Raul and I had recently had to relocate after he found out where I was staying in LA. My intentions of doing the show were more so to get the music thing jumping off and to give a different side of what being a video girl could be. I wanted to let people know why I worked so hard and why I wanted this so much.

             
I wasn’t expecting to do more than lock him in as my manager, the last thing I was expecting was to be put on the spot and asked to sing. That was probably one of the biggest mistakes I had made in a very long time. I was being prepped for the scene and after what happened with Kimbella, Yandy and I agreed that it wasn’t a good idea for her to represent me since that was her best friend.

             
Yandy suggested that I meet Rich and assured me that he would be a good fit and could lead me in the right direction. I didn’t know the full extent of his background but I had done a little research and was comfortable with meeting him. I was extremely nervous when I met him, not in a sense of me needing to impress him but nervous in a way that I was feeling something that was not normal for me.

             
I wouldn’t say that I liked him or had butterflies but he made me feel good instantly. I knew I wasn’t trying to get into anything so whatever those feelings or sensations were, I turned them off.

             
My audition was probably the funniest reality TV moment ever. When I saw it I wanted to crawl under the couch and never come out. I knew I did horrible and I knew I would have to face that moment as well as the critics for the rest of my life. You guys got to see the bad version but I promise there’s a better one that they didn’t show.

             
After I got my nerves together and I tried again he gave me the look that said he liked what he was hearing. From that point on I couldn’t get him out of my head and it’s weird because I’ve never been like that. I’ve been around attractive people all my life and I can be with whoever I want but for some reason I was stuck on him.

             
As time went on we exchanged numbers and we spoke quite often. We would video chat because I was back and forth between shooting for the show and going back to LA for other things. We talked about the business side of things a lot. We discussed where I could go and different ideas as far as what I could be doing.

             
I didn’t want to get too attached or too open off of him because I was just getting over what had happened with Envy and occasionally things would pop into my head from that situation that would make me pause and make me nervous as far as getting involved with someone else.

             
When I headed back to New York to shoot some more of the show, Rich and I decided to meet up for some Spanish food and from the time I got in the car from the time we got to the restaurant I was nervous. I had butterflies and I reprimanded myself for even agreeing to meet up with him in the first place.

             
We ate dinner and we talked about the show, business, and what we should do moving forward. I had the same sense I had with Pedro when I was younger, I felt like as long as he was in my life I would be okay.

             
In that one conversation he gave me new hope and made me realize that there was more to do. He gave me that feeling of “if they can, why can’t you” it was kind of the same thing Trent used to say to me when he would talk to me and try to encourage me to do something new.

             
I was still battling feelings of me keeping my guard up but then again who gets the opportunity to be around someone who challenges your way of thinking and gives you the inspiration you need to move forward and accomplish your dreams?

             
We went to the 40/40 club after dinner and I was wearing these awful, comfy jeans, a black top, a black jacket and a fur scarf. I really wanted to keep the night going although I wasn’t dressed for it. We went back to his apartment so he could change and I remember walking in and being amazed at how clean it was. I felt like he was opening the door to his life by allowing me to see his home and that was a very special moment for me.

             
I sat on the couch while he poured me a drink and turned on the TV while he walked away to get dressed. I ended up walking over to his window to take in his view which was breath taking. It was the little things that made me smile that night. I could tell that he lived alone and hadn’t been in a relationship for a while. He didn’t have any curtains, no food in the refrigerator, and not many pictures on the wall; his place was definitely lacking a woman’s touch.

             
Once we got to the club we instantly started to get funny looks from people. We weren’t there to prove anything to anyone, we were just spending time together yet at the same time we were sending a message and setting the tone for the events that would soon follow.

             
We were asked to take pictures and I could feel everyone looking at us, somehow we turned into the main focus that night. Everyone was there that night and I’m sure that’s how the word got out so quickly that we were together

             
We started drinking and he grabbed me by my face and we exchanged a shot of patron. When we first did it I was surprised but then the second time he puckered up his lips and asked for a kiss. After a few more shots we went back to his house and I don’t know why but I didn’t want to leave his side but I also knew that he wasn’t going to get any that night either.

             
We laughed the entire way back to his house and our conversation was amazing. I went back to his house just to feel him out and see what the respect level was. If anything, I knew that I could take a cab back home so I really wasn’t concerned about things going wrong and me being stranded. When we walked in he started to undress and I did the same. It was like we had been friends forever because the comfort level we had around each other was so natural.             

             
He put his arms around me when we were in bed and before I knew it I had fallen asleep. Nothing happened that morning either. I felt relieved to know that not only did he not try anything but he had held me the whole night. It took some months for us to do anything sexually. There was a different level of passion in our relationship because not only did we have love for each other but we were also in love with our potential and the things we could accomplish together.

             
With him, I was beginning to love myself again. I wanted to come out and tell him about the relationship I had with Envy but I wanted to leave that in the past and not tarnish our future by something that was over and done with. What happened with Envy was a mistake on my part because I didn’t know any better. How was I supposed to tell him that I had been in a relationship with the same man that he would probably have to face to release my record and get it played on the radio or in the club?

             
I wanted Rich and I to work, I wanted us to be happy. He’s a lot older than me and I believe that he’s more content than I am with life right now. In a way that’s a good thing because I probably need that. I need someone who has already done the things I’m still experiencing in terms of being wild, partying, and staying out all night. I need someone who can calm me down and help me start living. I believed that person would be Rich.

             
I want to have more kids and I want to get married and never have to experience divorce. I want every night to feel like a slumber party with my best friend. I want our sex life to be amazing even after having kids. I thought I could have that with him and I was willing to do whatever I could to make that work.

             
Rich and I went wrong for a number of reasons. The pressure of the show and people coming at him about my past in the sense of what happened with Envy. It started to make him wonder and I guess it was a big mistake of mine because he was getting people that would tell him me and Envy were still together, that they had seen us out, he say she say, rumors and bullshit and the truth got lost somewhere in the middle.

             
It got to him just like it would eventually get to any man and he asked me about it several times but I denied it all the way and acted as if we had never talked and were just friends by passing. Everything I did to try and hide it made it worse because it was lies being piled on top of more lies. One thing about lying, you always have to remember the lie you previously told to keep it going. If you tell the truth you never have to go through any of that but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

             
I didn’t want to tell him or anyone for that matter because I was still embarrassed. Some of my friends knew but that’s it. I’m sure everyone that was responsible for digging up dirt on the cast probably came up with the idea of putting me on blast just to make it juicier not caring how it would affect the people involved.

             
One thing I can say is that I pretty much did what I could to prevent that from happening by lying to him and saying that it didn’t happen. I could’ve been a grown woman and owned up to it but I didn’t and that probably gave him reason to believe the people that were in his ear.

             
It’s hard when your career really is all that you have and all that you know. Your career will never wake up one day and decide that it doesn’t love you. Life throws these petty scenarios at you and you kind of try to do what you can to get through it and sometimes you make mistakes and sometimes you do the right things. It really isn’t fair when people get in the way of other peoples relationships and that played a big part in our undoing.

             
Rich did a lot for me; I’ll give him that. He did want me to win. What he didn’t do was give me the benefit of the doubt and that was due to everything that was surfacing about Envy along with his mother doing her own search to find stuff online. I always respected their relationship from day one and that’s probably one of the things he liked about me. He went to her for everything and she gave him advice, they have a business together and you can tell that they’re each other’s best friend and I can only hope my son and I will be that close.

             
After awhile him confiding in her worked against us and no matter what I said I knew that her word would always carry more weight than mine. I understood it but at the same time I didn’t understand why he couldn’t tell her what he really felt about me yet he told her everything else. Why couldn’t he tell her how I felt about him? Had he done that I think that would’ve given her a better idea of our relationship.