Tell Me No Secrets Page 5

  Stephanie was a vicious woman and her words could attack you and hurt worse than anything physical she could throw at you. That was another thing, the physical altercations we’d had were enough to make anybody think of divorce. The kind of marriage we had at the moment was not what I had envisioned. Times changed and so did people. She and I both had changed and it didn’t seem as if it was for the better, at least not when it came to me and her.

  I finished off the bottle of water and headed upstairs. She was already out of the shower and drying off by the time I had gotten in there.

  “Took you too long so I just got out. I left the water on for you,” she said as she dried herself off.

  “Took me a minute to get myself together. You took the little strength I had away,” I replied.

  She smiled and looked away like she was thinking of something.

  “How did your meeting go with.... her?”

  I knew it was coming sooner or later. “She got sick and had to leave. Didn’t really get much accomplished.”

  “What did you have to meet with her about anyway?”

  I watched as she sat at the vanity mirror she’d bought that same day and looked at me before grabbing her mango body whip.

  “Asked her for a DNA test on the baby,” I answered.

  She stop twisting the top, finally opening it and slowly laying it down, still keeping her eyes on me. “So, you don’t think this baby is yours then?”

  Before answering, I removed a wash cloth and bath towel from the linen closet. “I didn’t say that. I have no doubt the baby is mine, just want to be sure for legal reasons.”

  She didn’t hide the hurt on her face. At that moment, she stopped looking at me and started to apply the whip to her legs.

  “So is she going to give you one?”

  I removed my watch and wedding band before I answered her. “She’s a high risk pregnancy and this could potentially hurt her and the baby. So she doesn’t really want to give me one right now.”

  “You sure that’s the only reason?”

  “I’m positive.”

  She didn’t say or ask anything else so I went ahead and showered. Thoughts of Chyanne still cluttered my mind. I needed to call and check on her before I closed my eyes for the rest of the night. Thoughts of the child she was carrying and the strong possibility that it could be mine brought a minute smile to my face. I still wanted to hold off on my excitement until I knew for sure.

  Stepping out of the shower, I dried off, applied some baby oil to my skin and pulled on black cotton PJ’s.

  “I love you so much Aric and I really want this to work,” she said to me after I had walked back into the bedroom. “There was so much passion in what we just did. I don’t care what you have going on outside of these walls, I will always be where your heart is and you know that. You don’t have to say anything back to me right now, but you know I’m telling the truth. We’ve been together for almost over twenty years and you know like I know nothing can compare to that.”

  There was silence between us after she said that. I had nothing to say. She felt one way about what had happened and I felt another. So to avoid hurting her feelings or another argument, I remained silent. I noticed my phone was lying on her vanity. I knew for a fact I’d left it downstairs. She saw where my vision had gone and decided to speak up.

  “She called, wanted to speak with you. I told her we were busy and that she should not call this time of night unless it was an emergency.”

  I rolled my tongue over my teeth and licked my lips. I could feel my annoyance level rising.

  “She’s pregnant Stephanie. It could have been an emergency,” I said as I folded my arms and turned to look at her.

  She had her back resting against two pillows while sitting in the bed. “It wasn’t. She said so.”

  She said that and cut her eyes at me like her word was final.

  “Next time she calls, I would appreciate it if you let me handle her.”

  She only gave a tsk and slowly shook her head. “I don’t want to fight Aric. Just come to bed. We can discuss her tomorrow.”

  “Nothing to discuss,” I said as I turned the lights out.

  “There is a lot we need to discuss just not tonight,” she said as I crawled into bed.

  My stomach growled and reminded me I was hungry.

  “Why is your stomach growling? I thought you ate when you went out to meet her.”

  Anytime she said the word ‘her’ is was with spite. I was more concerned that we’d been together long enough for her to know that I was always hungry after sex. I reminded her of this and she laughed quietly.

  “Well go and get something to eat. I’m tired and just want to fall asleep. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow,” she said before turning her back to me.

  As sleepy as I was, hunger made me get up.

  “Aric?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t forget to clean up after you’re done and pick your clothes up from the front room and the kitchen,” she said.

  “Go to sleep, Stephanie.”

  I couldn’t help to think, as I made my way down the stairs, that Chyanne would have gotten up to cook for me and she would have picked up my clothes.

  Chyanne

  I was sitting in the lobby of the CheeseCake Factory waiting for Jamie to arrive. I had finally gotten back around to returning his phone calls. It took me a while because Aric and I had finally agreed that I would do the prenatal DNA testing. I knew I shouldn’t have been agreeing to do it, but he wouldn’t get off my back. It seemed that since I’d refused to have sex with him he had become more adamant about it, not letting up until I’d finally given in to his demands. I looked around the lobby glad to be feeling better after I’d started taking the Phenergan the doctor had prescribed for me. That helped so much with the nausea and dizziness that I’d been able to go out and get the things done that I’d been putting off, like grocery shopping.

  I was sitting next to the bakery and the bar was behind me. I wished like hell I could have a drink but knew it was a no go. Sitting there I stared at the reflective glass in front of me and caught a glimpse of myself. I looked pretty decent. My hair was starting to get its fluff back. I hadn’t straightened it since the first time Aric had talked me into it. I had dressed down in a nice pair of black dress slacks and a cotton mouth red dress shirt with red Chanel flats and a touch of chocolate MAC lip gloss was the only makeup I had on. Thoughts of the last conversation Aric and I had ran through my mind. He had come over the day before to make sure that I hadn’t changed my mind about the testing. He was so cold and distant. He didn’t try to come on to me like he usually did and I don’t know why that bothered me. It shouldn’t have, but it did, made me feel some type of way.

  I hate to admit that I had wanted him to reach out and touch me, do something. I guess it had more to do with the fact that his wife had answered his phone and hung up on me when I called. That pissed me off, but I guess I’m glad she did that because it gave me clarity. I was about to ask him to come back and finish what he’d started a couple of nights before. My body had started to betray me. He didn’t even sit down when I had offered him a seat. He just wanted to see that I had done the paperwork and that I had, indeed, talked to my doctor and made the appointment. My doctor was livid and insisted over and over that I think more about what I was doing and the risk it was putting on me and the baby. But I knew to get Aric off my back I would have to do it.

  Looking at my watch, I pulled my sweater tighter when the front doors opened and a cool breeze wafted in. I really had a great disdain for the weather in Atlanta. One minute it was cold and the next it was hot, then the next it was raining and the humidity wreaked havoc on my hair. February was less than a couple of days away and the weather would only get worse from here on out until around late March, if even. I shivered and looked up into the face of Jamie.

  He was as sexy as he had always been. His mocha colored skin and vibrant smile lit up the room while
the neatly done locks spilled around his shoulders. His smile was instantly contagious and dark chocolate eyes reeled me in as well as a few of the other ladies in the room. His physique could be seen clearly from underneath his clothes. It was clear he was a man who took pride in his body and it wasn’t lost on me that he caused most of the room to stop and stare. I quickly stood and went into his outstretched arms. Jamie had that kind of effect on me for some reason and I couldn’t explain it. He made me as scatterbrained as a school girl.

  “How are you?” he asked as he pulled me into a tight hug.

  “I’m good,” I responded.

  “You smell nice. Look beautiful as well.”

  I giggled a bit as we both pulled away from the hug.

  “Thank you,” I said as I smiled up at him.

  “How’ve you been?”

  He asked me that after the hostess told us our wait would be another ten minutes. The Factory was pretty crowded for the lunch time rush. We had sat down on the bench I was occupying before he walked in.

  “Pretty good, I suppose.”

  “You sure? I went to your job looking for you and they said you no longer worked there. I’d gotten worried when I didn’t hear from you after your birthday.”

  I pretended to fix a button on my sweater to stave off the distressing feeling in the pit of my stomach before looking back into his inquiring gaze.

  “Long story Jamie.”

  “Does it have anything to do with the bruises around your neck and on your face?”

  Once again, I looked away from his piercing eyes. Jamie had always been able to look right through me. I could tell he was already drawing his own conclusions, but before I could give him an explanation the hostess came to escort us to our table. Once seated and after drinks had been ordered Jamie wasted no time getting back to the discussion at hand.

  “Did Aric put his hands on you, Chyanne?”

  I was kind of taken aback by the question and even more so by the tone of his voice. It was as lethal as the look in his eyes. I was too embarrassed to tell him the truth. Too afraid it would make him look at me differently.

  “What? No. Why would you ask me that?” I lied and chuckled.

  “So what happened?” he asked after he took a sip of his Long Island Iced Tea.

  “His wife is what happened.” I decided to tell him at least half of the truth.

  Shock registered across his face and both his eyebrows arched.

  “That dude is married?”

  “Yes and before you assume I’m some home-wrecking whore, I didn’t know.”

  He smirked and cast a skeptical look at me. It annoyed me.

  “What the hell is that look for Jaime? I didn’t know! I had no idea.”

  He shrugged. “Not saying that you knew he was married, but you had to know something.”

  I put my glass of water down on the table after taking a quick sip and stopped fumbling around with the napkin in my hand. I felt as if I needed to defend my character because it sure as hell felt as if it was being attacked.

  He continued, “I mean when you were at my place over the New Years, you hinted that you had no idea what was going on with you two and whatever it was that you guys had. That tells me that you at least knew there was another woman or something.”

  I didn’t say anything to that as tears started to sting my eyes. Had to be because of the hormones.

  “I’m not saying any of this to make you feel bad Chyanne, but I have to be honest. The only time a man keeps a woman on a string like that is because there is another woman. You had to know something. The signs had to be there. So whether you knew he had a wife or not, you knew there was another woman.”

  I still didn’t say anything. What could you say when you had just been read like a book? Jamie didn’t look as if it had bothered him to do it either.

  I wiped the tears from my eyes and asked, “So you think I’m stupid, huh?”

  He leaned forward and clenched his hands together. “Nah. I think you’re a smart young woman who made a stupid decision. We’ve all been there Chyanne.”

  “Gee, thanks!”

  “Hey, I wouldn’t be your friend if I couldn’t be honest with you,” he said sitting back and taking another swallow of his drink.

  We sat silent for another minute or so as our waitress set out appetizers on the table. We had both decided to share Sweet Corn Tamale Cakes.

  After we both took a few bites, he wiped his mouth and asked, “So his wife just out of the blue attacked you?”

  I briefly told him the whole story of what had happened the day Aric’s wife attacked me. I knew he was getting a kick out of the animated way I was moving my hands telling him the story. He actually laughed out loud when I told him the reason I fought back was because the slap hurt so badly that I couldn’t think straight. My only reaction was to reach out and grab the first person within snatching distance!

  “At that moment, I was so sick of people putting their hands in my face. I’ve been getting slapped since I was a kid. My dad slapped me so many times I lost count. So when Aric slapped me the night before and then this unknown woman . . .”

  I stopped talking when his facial expression hardened and his eyes darkened. He slowly sat his drink back down on the table and balled his lips.

  “What?” I asked.

  He grimaced before speaking. “You just said Aric put his hands on you. When I asked you earlier, you said no.”

  I sat back in my chair when I realized my mistake. Swallowing hard, I looked away from him and dropped my hands to my lap.

  “How many times has he hit you Chyanne?”

  “Look, Jamie it’s not like you’re thinking. We were arguing. Tempers were flaring. I hit him, he hit me—”

  “That’s no damn excuse for the man to be putting his hands on you! Don’t be stupid Chyanne.”

  His voice was laced with so much venom that my defenses immediately shot up and April came to mind. He sounded so much like her when she was being condescending. I was sick of people calling me stupid too. Hell, Aric and I wouldn’t have even been arguing if Jamie wouldn’t have come to my job and kissed me in front of everybody. or even if he wouldn’t have sent those pictures to me!

  I tried to tell him as much. “We were only arguing because you decided to show up—”

  “Oh, so it’s my fault he’s whooping your ass?”

  He’d said that so loudly that I quickly dropped my head when people at surrounding tables started to look at us.

  I leaned forward and said through clenched teeth. “He’s not beating me. He slapped me once.”

  “Once is too many damn times and I’m willing to bet it’s been more than once.”

  I don’t know, but it was something in his voice, his eyes. The way he was looking at me made me feel as if he was calling me all kinds of dim-witted fools in his mind. He had one arm on the table and one on his lap. His jaw was twitching and he was looking at me directly in my eyes each time I got enough nerve to look across the table at him. He made me feel stupid.

  “Screw you, Jamie. I didn’t come here for you to judge me,” I came back with, and threw the napkin that had been in my lap on the table.

  I stood and was preparing to leave him sitting at the table alone when he stood and gently placed his hand around my wrist to stop me.

  “Please, Chyanne. Sit down. I’m sorry.”

  We stood that way staring at each other until I noticed other people starting to gawk at us so I sat down first. The waitress appeared as soon as we had sat down and I could tell by the look on her face that she had been waiting to see if she should bring the food over. We sat quietly as she set our food out in front of us and Jaime stared at me. I knew by the way he was looking at me that he was trying to assess which bruises were from Aric and which came from the fight between me and his wife.

  After the waitress left he said to me, “I didn’t mean to offend you, Chy, but the truth is someone needs to tell you what you don’t want to hear and I
love you enough to do that.”

  By now tears were raining down my face because I knew he was right on so many levels. Aric had abused me on more than one occasion, but I was too embarrassed to admit it, especially to Jaime. I wiped my eyes and tried to pull myself together.

  “Has he hit you more than once, Chyanne?”

  “Hit? No.”

  I could see one of Jaime’s legs shaking as we both sat there and looked at one another. It was a tense moment for the both of us, more so for me. I didn’t know what Jaime thought of me at that moment but, I could tell his mood had changed. He had folded one arm under the other while his right hand covered his mouth like he was trying to keep what he was going to say in.

  “Abuse is abuse, no matter what form Chyanne,” he said as he leaned forward with both elbows on the table.

  “Can we please not talk about this anymore Jamie?”

  “Talk about what? The fact that he and his wife are whooping your ass? What part of the game is that baby?”

  I rubbed my hand across my forehead to try and stave off the headaches I felt coming on. “Please Jaime. Not now.”

  “If not now then when. You have to face the facts sooner or later.”

  “I will and I am. Just. . . . can we talk about this later and somewhere else?”

  This time I looked at him dead on hoping that it would help me to get him to stop talking about it. He stared at me for a couple of seconds before deciding to let it go. We ate in silence for a while after that, both of us picking at the food we had ordered because it was clear that the mood had changed and our appetites had gone. I figured since Jamie probably already thought I was a stupid home wrecking whore, I might as well have finished telling him everything.

  “I’m pregnant,” I whimpered out.

  I looked over at Jamie and his fork had stopped an inch away from his lips.

  “I’m sorry, what?” he asked.