Chapter 11
I was well into REM sleep when my phone rang on the nightstand. By the sound of the ringtone alone, I already knew who it was. I huffed before lifting the eye mask from my eyes and rolling over to answer Pat’s phone call.
“Hello?”
“Baby, I need you to come pick me up from the hospital.”
My heart instantly kicked into overdrive. “The hospital? What happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“What happened, Pat?”
“Some drunk maniac attacked me at the club. But I’m fine, I promise—just bruised up with a busted nose and lip . . . maybe a slight concussion.”
I tossed the sheets off me and leaped out of bed. “Oh my God! Are you serious? What hospital are you at?”
“The same one where Poppy was.”
“Okay, okay. Sit tight. I’ll be there soon.”
“Thanks.”
I ended the call while racing to my drawers to pull out something quick to throw on.
When I raced through the automatic ER doors a half an hour or so later, I was directed to the exam room where Pat was being cared for.
I pulled back the curtain, expecting to see him sitting alone with maybe an icepack over his eye or maybe even resting since it was so late.
Instead, he sat up, arguing in a hushed tone with a woman I’d never seen before.
At first, I thought I was seeing things.
“Pat?” I called out. “Who the . . . what the hell is going on?”
The woman turned to look at me, and my eyes instantly dropped down to her protruding belly. She was visibly pregnant. But that didn’t explain why she was there having a heated, emotional exchange with the man I was days away from marrying.
Pat froze at the sound of my voice, and almost all the caramel drained from his face. “Baby . . . I can—”
Before he was able to get out the rest of his sentence, the pregnant woman interrupted. “You must be the blushing bride-to-be.”
My forehead creased. “And you are?”
“The mother of his child,” she disclosed, resting her hand on her round belly.
Her words may as well have been a physical blow to the face because that was exactly what they felt like. My entire body went numb.
“W-what did you just say?” I probed, having difficulty processing something that was well beyond my comprehension skills at three in the morning.
Pat shook his head. “Alexis, don’t listen to her, she’s—”
I held up my hand to stop him from blurting out any more half-baked excuses.
Because in that moment—the cheating with the flight attendant before he proposed, the weird voicemail, the shameless flirting with the nurse at Poppy’s assisted living facility—all came flooding back.
Whether it was him on the voicemail or not no longer mattered.
It was painfully apparent that I would never be the only woman in his life.
“Is it true, Pat?” I asked, already knowing the truth was obvious, but there was something in me that wouldn’t rest until I heard it from his mouth.
Instead of poisoning the air with more lies, he dropped his chin to his chest and tore his eyes down to the floor.
“Look at me!” I demanded as my hands shook and my heart galloped in my chest. “It’s the least you could fucking do.”
The minute his defeated eyes landed on mine, and I saw his bent posture and how his arms hung limp at his sides, I got all the information I needed in his body language.
I didn’t need to hear anything else. I couldn’t stomach another spoonful of his lies.
Pat reached out his hand toward me, and I immediately stepped back as if his touch would infect me.
“Don’t you dare try to touch me, nigga.”
“Listen, baby. I—I fucked up, aight?” he admitted, voice cracking.
I scoffed. “That’s an understatement, don’t you think?”
“I said I was wrong, okay? But she was never marriage material like you are. I didn’t even know about the baby!”
“That’s bullshit, Patrick, and you know it!
” the pregnant woman interrupted. “I wonder why you don’t know about your daughter.
Maybe it’s because you got me fired from my job after telling HR I was a fucking stalker?
Or maybe it’s because you chose to block me on every social media platform and through the phone so that I couldn’t get through to you! ”
Hearing all the trouble he’d put her through almost made me feel bad for her. But I couldn’t feel worse for her than I did for myself. Truth was, he’d played us both in different ways. He lied as easily as the rest of us breathed.
After laying him out, she turned to me. “Look, I didn’t come all the way to Chicago to break up your wedding or whatever it is y’all have going on. All I want is for him to finally acknowledge that this baby is his.”
“Is this how it’s always going to be, Pat? I’m here, you’re wherever with whoever? Having babies with whoever? And I’m just supposed to take it?”
He sat there muted. Emotionally, I was at my breaking point.
The future I’d imagined with him had suddenly imploded.
I thought I’d be the first to carry his seed and bear his children.
I thought we’d overcome every obstacle life seemed to throw our way.
But all of that was one sick, twisted delusion wrapped up in make-believe, and I was sick and tired of all the mental and emotional gymnastics.
It was time I accepted the fact that the fairy tale I’d crafted in my head wasn’t going to come to fruition.
Pat’s voice sliced through the silence. “I still love you, Lex. It can still be you and me.”
“What makes you think I would still marry you after all of this? Did the nigga who beat yo’ ass in that club give you a concussion or something?”
“Don’t be like that, baby. I can’t lose you now. Not after all we’ve been through.”
“Don’t try to guilt-trip me into marrying you when I’m standing here looking at your fuckin’ baby mama. That’s not fair, and you know it!”
He lowered his gaze. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I don’t want to lose you. Not like this.”
I scoffed while swiping a hot tear from my eye before directing my words to him one last time.
“This goes without saying, but we’re fucking done, Pat.
For good this time. I hope the streets take care of you,” I confirmed before sliding off the expensive engagement ring from my finger and hurling it at him as hard as I could.
I pushed back the curtain and sailed toward the exit, refusing to break down in front of him, his baby mama, or the hospital staff.
I was already mortified enough. By the time I got back to my car, I knew exactly what Poppy’s words meant.
I’d accepted the ring and Pat’s proposal for all the wrong reasons.
It was a pacifier—a placeholder until he messed up again.
It wouldn’t change anything, especially not him.
I’d had one foot in and one foot out of the relationship for too long anyway.
For months, I’d been asking for a sign, and I’d finally received one.
I needed to slap a bumper sticker on the back of my car that read, ‘Free all the baddies dealing with lying, bitch ass niggas.’
Hell, I can probably order that shit off Etsy right now.
It was after four o’clock in the morning, and I’d found myself parked outside of Liv’s apartment with my heart about as heavy as my eyelids. I didn’t wanna go home. I couldn’t. Instead, I tapped her name and put the phone on speaker.
“Hello?” she answered, sounding more awake than I’d anticipated.
“Liv? What are you doing up?”
She huffed into the receiver. “It’s been a long, crazy ass night, girl. But I guess I could say the same for you.”
“Unlock your front door, and I’ll tell you.”
“Wait, you’re outside?”
“About to walk up now. What I have to tell you deserves to be done face-to-face.”
“Yeah, we’ve got a lot to discuss.”
In the minutes that followed, I’d marched up to her apartment, slid off my shoes, and plopped down on her couch. She sat beside me with her feet curled up underneath her. “Okay, girl, spill it.”
My nostrils pushed out a long gust of air before I parted my lips to spill my embarrassingly piping hot tea. “I don’t even know where to begin . . .”
“Start wherever.”
“Pat’s going to be a father . . .”
Liv’s brows heightened in shock. “Y-you’re pregnant?”
“No. Hell no. Not me. He got some other bitch pregnant, and not just a little pregnant, like, stomach popped out, already knows the gender type of pregnant. He called me to pick him up from the hospital, and when I walked into his exam room, I caught them arguing.”
I watched my best friend’s mouth fall open. “Shut the fuck up.”
“I’m deadass serious. Wish I wasn’t, but I am.”
“So, he admitted to it?”
“Not at first, but of course, Homewrecking Holly was there to fill in all the blanks for me. She said he got her fired, reported her as a stalker to HR, and then blocked her everywhere so that she couldn’t even get in touch with him about the baby. What kind of fucked up shit is that?”
“Like . . . I can’t even believe what I’m hearing right now. I mean, it’s Pat, so I kinda can, but still. I hate him for fumbling your heart like that! I just wanted you to get the happily ever after you deserve, but I promise you that nigga won’t be the reason you don’t find real love.”
I bobbed my head. “He absolutely won’t.”
“Shit, I’m ready to go beat his ass for playing in your face like that!”
“You and me both, but whoever tagged his ass at the club got him good.”
“Yeah, . . . about that. You’re gonna wanna hold onto your edges when you hear what I have to say.”
My brows creased. “What do you mean?”
“My brother was the one who beat the brakes off his lil light-skinned ass.”
I almost choked on my spit. “Oak?”
Liv nodded as confirmation. “Yup. I got the two in the morning call from jail to prove it.”
I fell back against the couch as if I had fainted. “I cannot! When Pat called, he said some drunk maniac attacked him in the club.”