No Ordinary Love (20 page)

How many times had she cried on borrowed shoulders over him? Too many to count, she thought as she twisted the doorknob to her bedroom.

She opened the door and spotted him sitting comfortably on her bed with the television remote in his hand.

He’s here.
Catrina could have cried at the sight of him. Was there any way to explain the mixed emotions that came along with his unexpected presence? Happiness, hurt, confusion all rolled into one.

Tired with defeat, she gave up, leaned against the back of the door and massaged her right temple.

“What are you doing here?” she choked out.

David sat up and stared at her for a brief second. She looked very tired and rumpled in her white linen pant suit.

“I needed to talk to you earlier, but I wanted to respect your wishes about the wedding even though I really wanted to be there to support you. But, I had to see you.”

Catrina shook her head as she stepped out of her high-heeled Nine West shoes. “I really don’t want to talk to you right now, David, so I think you need to leave.”

David stood up. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s going on with you. What’s all this about?”

Catrina cleared her throat. “You really want to do this?”

“Bey, something is wrong when you tell me that you’re not interested in talking to me. Especially when you think I’d leave it at that.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

David frowned at her and began to move around the room. “I don’t have a choice? Really? You gon’ have to do better than that, bey.”

Catrina shrugged and removed her jacket. She contemplated hanging it up, but threw it over the back of a chair instead. “I’m tired. And I really just can’t take it anymore.”

“Let me know what the problem is straight up.”

“Atlanta. You’re moving to Atlanta,” she answered.

It would take a minute for the shock to pass, she knew. His expression and his silence were signs of his guilt, Catrina assumed. With more patience than she realized she possessed, Catrina sat on the arm of the chair and looked up into his surprised face.

“You mighty quiet now,” she said laughingly, but it hurt.

It would be best for him to just explain everything before he questioned her on who supplied her with the information. It wouldn’t prove to be difficult, David figured, his choices were limited to two people.

“I was going to discuss it with you.” It was a weak attempt at an excuse. One that he understood wasn’t good enough before it left his lips. “Bey, I love you.”

“Love?” she questioned, jumping up. “What the hell do you know about love? How can you say that you love me when you’re moving to another freaking state in a month, and the woman you ‘love’ knows nothing about it? It’s just like you’re nineteen again. Stupid and thinking that I am too.”

She was presenting a heavy case against him, he realized. “I don’t think that you’re stupid, and I’m not behaving as if I’m nineteen. This time I’m loving you as a man loves, and I’m not scared or confused about how I feel.”

“So I’m just supposed to fall in line, ‘cause you’re ready now? Fuck the fact that you obviously don’t give a shit about my feelings. That we’ve been sleeping together for over two months, and I thought it was so much more, and you didn’t feel the need to tell me that you got a fucking job in Atlanta. Fuck that you’re my best friend, right? Fuck all that, ‘cause you say you love me.”

Catrina wasn’t as skilled as she’d once been at shielding her true emotions against the onslaught of questions.

Despite the language she chose to use, David could see that she was hurting. He reached for her, but she backed away. “Bey…”

“You asked me to trust you and I know that I shouldn’t have, ‘cause everything always has to be your way. And when shit end up being your way, my feelings always get hurt. Always. I’m so tired of this. Back and forth.” She made a hand gesture from her to him and back to herself to emphasize her point. “Always going through the motions, trying not to get my feelings hurt. Not trusting my heart, ‘cause it ain’t reliable. You have no idea what I’ve been going through attempting to trust what you say. Trying to trust that you love me, tryna trust that I love you and, the fact that I thought it’d finally be enough.”

“Bey, I apologize. I didn’t expect for you to find out from somebody else. I just needed time to get things together in my head. I knew that if you knew that I was moving that you wouldn’t have given us a chance. I know you, Catrina, and I know that is how you would have handled it.”

She smiled at that. A pitiful smile. “You know me,” she repeated. “How can you know everything that goes on inside me and not know that all I’ve ever expected from you was the truth. How could you not respect me enough to give me a choice to something so important in my life?”

David sighed heavily. “I wasn’t thinkin’ about anything but getting you. About nothing but having you feel the way you felt about me before I messed everything up. I’d give anything to have you trust me with your heart again. I didn’t care what the end result was. I didn’t care about what I had to do to get you as long as I got you.”

Catrina spread her arms out. “And you still don’t have me.”

“You never make it easy on me. What about what I’ve been going through? Having to watch you go from one nigga to the next and act like we cool enough for you to do that shit. Fuck me, right? Fuck that I’m always here when you need me.”

Catrina frowned and held up her hands. “You are not going to turn this around on me. I was right from the beginning. There is too much stuff between us to ever have anything.”

Though he had been trying his best to remain patient, David’s annoyance with her was beginning to show. “You keep saying that, and although you apparently think that I’m not capable of loving you, I’m good enough for you to fuck.”

Catrina nodded and accepted his words with the hurt of truth. “Maybe I deserve that.”

David took a second to massage his left temple. He was about to take the conversation to a place beyond anything they had ever discussed and he wasn’t sure what her reaction would be. “Always the victim,” he murmured.

Catrina narrowed her eyes and glared at him. She couldn’t believe that he had turned the whole situation on her. As if she were the one who had been lying. “What?”

“You haven’t been honest about everything between us.”

“What is that supposed to mean? I’ve always been real with you, Dave. I didn’t tell you that I loved you, because I wasn’t sure how to deal...”

His laughter stopped her. “So you’re going to continue to pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about?”

Confused, Catrina stared at him and didn’t respond.

He eyed her suspiciously.

“What are you talking ‘bout?”
He cannot be talking about what I think he’s talking about. He better not be talking about what I’m thinking.

“The baby. My baby. You ain’t tell me you were pregnant.”

“Your baby? Riiiiight. I guess you got me,” she responded dramatically. She showed no traces of her surprise at his knowing. Inside, her head and heart were pounding.

David folded his arms over is chest. “That’s all you’re going say?”

Catrina shrugged and shook her head sadly. “My baby was never real to you.”

David grabbed both her wrists and pulled her to him. “‘Cause you ain’t feel the need to tell me. I had a right to know. Things would have been so different had I known.”

Catrina resisted the urge to yank her hands free but instead stared defiantly into his eyes and even laughed. “Things would have been different because of the baby. What, you would have stopped cheating and straightened up for our baby?”

“All you had to do was tell me.”

“I’m not going to discuss this with you. You don’t really wanna hear why I didn’t tell you. You already have your mind made up. You wanna make accusations.”

David let Trina’s wrist go with a little force that had her stumbling back a few steps. He turned his back. “Fuck accusations, Catrina. You know what it’s like to have someone you barely even remember walk up and ask about how your kid is? About four or five-years-old, right? I’m thinking, what kid? I mean I have no idea about what dude is talking ‘bout. So I asked him, and confusion was written all over his face as he revealed that his girl mentioned way back that me and you were having a baby. I told him that he was mistaken, and that you and I didn’t have any kids.”

She could imagine how he felt. “And then you didn’t ask me about it?”

“Ask you about it? You have any idea how confused I was? No, of course you don’t. I got people walking up to me questioning me about a kid I don’t have. So guess where my mind goes?”

“You thought I got an abortion.”

“You know me, I have to piece everything together. So I’m trying to pinpoint everything. You just all of a sudden stopped talking to me, moved with your grandma to Jersey. You were really just trying to get away from me.”

“You thought I got rid of it, didn’t you?” It hurt her to think that he thought her capable of something so petty.

“Yes, I did.”

“And this is the way you chose to bring it up to me? In the midst of your mess.”

“Let me talk for a minute.”

“The floor is all yours, David.”

“Don’t be smart, Trina. So here I am thinking that you got rid of my baby, so I ask Ty what I should do. Of course he like, ‘ask her. You want me to ask Bri?’ Of course, all your friends would know about the baby. I called your dad, shit. I was sick. And to my surprise he was open to discussing what you weren’t. It put my conscience to rest that you didn’t get rid of my baby ‘cause I was an asshole. Then I found out that you lost it, and it hurt that you wouldn’t share that with me.”

“How long have you known?”

“Since last year.”

There was entirely too much going on. Entirely too much for her to cope with at the moment. Nothing had been resolved. In fact, they had been presented with a new set of problems that needed to be dealt with.

“Last year? This secret shit is becoming redundant. And it’s basically no point going over any of this. You got a promotion and didn’t tell me; I lost a baby and didn’t tell you. I guess we’re even.”

There was no hint or traces of anger in her voice now. That scared him. Calm Catrina always scared him.

“Even? Now is not the time to shut down on me, bey. When I was a young boah, you were everything to me, and I was scared of how I felt. I needed to be a man, and back then I thought that was proved by how much weight we moved on the block, and how many girls I had on my dick. Fuck, I ain’t know what I had ‘til I lost it. That’s not gonna happen twice, bey. I’m not about to let you kick that not speaking to me shit again.”

Confidence was one thing that she’d always admired about him. He barked out orders and never thought to question if they’d be followed. “It’s not up to you, Dave.”

David stepped in front of her. “If I leave it up to you, I’ll be waiting forever.”

Catrina attempted to side step him but was brought to a halt by his stopping hands at her waist. “For what?”

Then he was dropping down on bended knee, pulling a small box from his pocket. “For you to marry me,” He said opening the ring box.

This doesn’t make it right, she felt. With closed eyes and tears she told him, “I love you, Dave but I can’t.”

Chapter Eighteen

Aftershocks

Casey

Nerves were unraveling with the anticipation of seeing Tamika face-to-face in what had been six years. Manicured nails were bound to be bitten. She’d hate to ruin her cotton candy coat in an impatient fury. The nerve of the woman, Casey fumed as she paced across the living room floor.

Anticipation was cut short with a brief buzz of the doorbell. “I’ll get it,” Daemon said from the kitchen.

Casey endured one minute of anger, pain, frustration, and twinge of envy as she stood waiting for Tamika and Daemon to make their entrance. The moment Tamika did, Casey remembered why she’d hated her. From head to toe, Tamika was a picture of perfection. She was a black Barbie come to life. Tamika’s height matched that of a model’s and was just two inches taller than Casey. Her slim-almost willowy frame always made Casey wish that she was just a bit thinner. She had a heart-shaped face topped by a mile of wavy black hair inherited from her Native American roots, and her eyes were… What color were her eyes today? Violet, she’d always worn color contacts. That was something Casey had never been envious of. The make-up was flawless, and her style of dress was well chosen for the day based on the low humidity weather forecast. Irritated, Casey rolled her eyes. As she scanned Tamika, she noticed the little girl hiding behind her mother’s leg.

This hoe is scandalous
. She was trying to use her child to gain sympathy. What mother is going to bring a young child to meet her “father” when nothing had been discussed between the two?

“Hello, Casey,” Tamika spoke first. There was a spark of attitude in her voice.

Casey was thrown off by it. This was a fight that she was not about to walk away from.

“Tamika.”

“How about we all sit down,” Daemon suggested.

“Karea.” She was pulling the girl from behind her leg. “She just has to warm up,” she told Daemon. “Say hi, baby,” she told her.

It was no question that the little girl was gorgeous. Karea’s complexion was somewhere between Daemon’s golden brown and Tamika’s mahogany, which would put her somewhere close to a medium shade of brown, and the eyes were the same shade of rich cinnamon she saw when she looked into Daemon’s.

Casey shrugged off the brief feeling of familiarity. The color of eyes meant nothing, she chastised, hopeful that she was telling herself the truth. The child was also tall and thin and was topped with the same dark wavy hair as her mother.

“Hi, what’s your name?” Casey waved in an attempt to make the child feel comfortable.

The child smiled at Casey, responded in a very low gentle voice that said, “Karea Deana Hicks. What’s your name?”

“Casey, but everybody calls me Case, and this is D,” Casey said introducing him.

Karea looked up in wonder at Daemon. Casey could see the curiosity her eyes and wondered if Tamika had given the little girl any idea of what would be going on around her. From the way Karea was staring, Casey could only think that Tamika had done a job pumping that she would meet her daddy today.