Chapter Eighteen
Ny’Airy Buckle
“I trusted you Cozart.” I shook my head and looked at him like he was shit on the bottom of my shoe as I walked through his condo grabbing all of my shit.
The last few weeks had been the best ones of my life.
After the Mayor’s ball, Cozart and I had gone to the Waffle House and gorged on the unhealthiest breakfast food, then we went back to my place, and he made love to me.
Two weeks later his divorce was finalized.
After that night, I forgot Larry existed.
Cozart and decided that it would be best to keep our fling out of the public eye since he was freshly divorced, so we snuck around like secret lovers.
In the gym we were strictly professional, barely said two words to each other, no laughter, no lingering looks, but after hours we were enjoying each other.
We didn’t have a title. Things weren’t serious.
However, I expected that we were at least exclusive.
He was the only person I was sleeping with, and I foolishly expected him to respect me the same way, like a leopard could ever change its spots.
“I didn’t sleep with that girl please let me explain,” he begged and I stopped throwing things into my spend the night bag long enough to listen to him.
“Trallis and I have been fucking around for about a year. No dates, no feelings, just fucking,” he paused.
“Like me and you,” I shrugged feeling more hurt now that I had more context.
“Nothing like me and you. We didn’t go on dates, I didn’t have feelings for her, she didn’t even know where I lived. We were in and out of hotel rooms,” he explained like that was supposed to make me feel better.
“Wow poor girl,” I shook my head at him and continued throwing things in my bag.
“It wasn’t poor girl because she was with it.
She thought I was married, she had no problem being pussy on the side.
So, she comes to me a few weeks ago and says she’s pregnant.
I told her to get rid of it. This was before you and I had started talking.
I asked her every day if she took care of it and she didn’t reply.
I invited her over a while ago so we could talk then you and I began dating and I didn’t want me and Trallis drama to spill over into our thing, so I just ignored it and we never talked.
She hit me up today and asked if we could talk about the baby.
I invited you because I wanted you here while we talked.
You aren’t a dumb woman Ny’Airy, would I have invited you here tonight if I wanted to sleep with that girl? ” he asked me.
Before I could reply his phone dinged. He pulled it from his pocket and his eyes got big a few seconds later.
“I KNEW IT!” he exclaimed angrily as his face twisted up.
“She just texted me and said she wasn’t even pregnant. I knew it, that’s why I was going to make her take a test in front of me,” he griped.
My heart broke because I knew that he was telling the truth about tonight, but I couldn’t unsee what I saw.
Another woman, naked, on top of him, in his bed.
It was hard to trust a man like Cozart. A man who was this desirable.
A man who had women so obsessed that they would lie about being pregnant just to hold on to him.
I should have gone by my first mind and kept him and I as friends.
I had watched his ex-wife come into his gym and destroy the glass because he hurt her.
This was the man he was. He was a heartbreaker and I willingly walked into his clutches.
“Say something,” Cozart said as he tried to reach for me.
I pulled away from him and threw the last few of things of mine that I spotted in my bag before zipping it up.
“She was lying, but what about the other women. You have too much baggage Cozart. This is still your fault because of the way you have treated women like toys. You’ve broken hearts.
That is the man you are and the man you will always be.
I was fooling myself to think otherwise.
No one knows what happened between us so let’s just keep it that way.
I will switch trainers and when you see me, please don’t speak,” I told him as tears filled my eyes.
I ran out of his door and got inside of my car.
I didn’t know why I was crying. I hadn’t cried over a man since Larry.
This wasn’t supposed to get that deep, it was just fun.
Cozart didn’t mean anything to me. I took the scenic route home, in no hurry to be alone, as a light drizzle began.
Less than ten minutes later, the sky opened and the soft drizzle turned into a full downpour.
I put my home address in the GPS and got on the interstate quickly to get out of this bad weather.
The only thing that would make me feel better right now was a large tub of Chunky Monkey.
It had been so long since I drowned my sorrows in ice cream but tonight, I needed a sugar fix.
When I arrived to my driveway, there was a car sitting there.
My eyes went wide as I turned the windshield wipers on max speed to try to see who was sitting in front of my door.
The car wasn’t Cozart’s and I had never seen it before.
There was a man standing on the porch, in the rain, and I had no idea who it was.
Curiosity got the better of me, and I killed the engine, grabbed my purse, and got out of the car quickly walking to the front door.
He turned to face me and my heart split into two.
Larry was standing in the pouring rain, clothes drenched.
“I COULDN’T TAKE ANY MORE I LEFT HER. PLEASE LET ME IN!” He yelled as he dropped to his knees in front of me. The tears that I had been holding came flooding as he held me around the waist apologizing for hurting me and begging me to come back.
“Get up we have to get out of this rain.” I pulled him to his feet and walked over to the door. I unlocked it and pulled him inside behind me. I went to the laundry room and returned with towels and some dry sweats and a t-shirt that he left.
“Thank you,” he whispered as he stood in my foyer dripping water all over my floor.
“What happened Larry?” I whispered as I wiped the tears from my eyes.
“She treated a nigga so bad and I know I deserved it because of the way I did you. You were the only woman that was ever good to me. I’m sorry I hurt you.
Please take me back,” he begged. My phone rang and I reached into my pocket, COZART was on the front of my screen.
I exhaled and ignored the call. He called right back and I ignored the call again.
He called again and I looked at Larry who was looking at me angrily.
“I need to take this.” I told him as I turned away from him and answered the phone.
“Yes Cozart,” I answered as my heart thudded.
“I’m sorry, she came on to me. I’m sorry and…
I’m in love with you. Remember the first time we worked out together in Piedmont Park, I told you there was a woman I wanted that I didn’t call because I knew she wouldn’t give me the time of day?
That woman was you. You have inspired me to be a better man a better father a better brother and a better business owner.
Everyone else has always accepted whatever I dish out, but you challenge me and force me to see my flaws.
I don’t want those other women; I just want you.
Forgive me for what you saw tonight and give me a chance to show you that I can be a one-woman man.
You said the man I am and the man I always will be is a heartbreaker, that’s not true.
You’ve made me ashamed of the man I was and I will never be him again. Let me prove it to you,” he begged.
His words were music to my ears. I felt the same way about him, but part of making him be a better man was demanding that he show me different and waiting to see if he would revert to his old ways. If what we had was real, there was no need to rush into anything.
I turned to look back at Larry, the man I had loved since I was a college freshman, my first everything, the man who I wanted back so bad that I convinced myself to get back in the gym so I could snatch him back from his new wife.
Larry was my everything. If he had never broken my heart, I would never have gotten in the gym, never realized that I could be resilient.
“I care about you, but I need some space to process everything. I won’t let you rush me into something just because you have caught feelings. I love me too much to put myself back into a heartbreak loop. See you at the gym tomorrow. Don’t be late it’s leg day,” I told Cozart.
“See you then,” he chuckled as he ended the call.
I turned back to Larry and before I could say anything he spoke, “I’ve missed you so much,” he smiled at me triumphantly like he just knew I had chosen him even though he didn’t choose me.
“A few weeks ago, at The Mayor’s Ball when I saw you, my dick instantly got hard.
All those old feelings I had for you returned.
You look so good since you’ve lost that weight.
You look like the woman I married and fell in love with.
” Larry rubbed my face with his hands, and I felt sick to my stomach.
So, as I learned as I stayed a certain way he wouldn’t leave.
What about if we ever got pregnant and I ate anything in sight would I be too “fat” for him then and drive him to leave me for another woman?
I watched him and realized I didn’t feel anything for him anymore.
I only wanted to get him back because I felt like I had lost something and I didn’t want to lose.
He had outgrown me physically and I had outgrown him mentally.
I deserved a man that loved me enough to stay with me whether I gained three pounds or thirty.
Larry loved me as long as I didn’t change but I couldn’t guarantee that I would always be that woman he fell in love with.
Maybe the journey hadn’t been about losing weight to get him back. Maybe the journey was about gaining strength, learning that I could lean on myself, and learning that I didn’t need a man’s love to validate me.
“It’s storming outside and unlike the bitch you left me for, I’m not coldhearted.
I don’t want you to go back out there in that, so I will offer you the couch for the night.
I wouldn’t get back with you if you were the last man on earth Larry.
You left me because you thought you found better, but there is no woman alive that can love the way I love, Fat or Skinny.
To think I actually begged God to send you back to me.
He did just that so I could tell you no thank you.
You made your choice, stick with it.” I told him as I walked away and left him standing in the center of the living room with a shocked expression on his face.
“The spare blankets and pillows are in the same closet they’ve always been in,” I called over my shoulder as I walked up the stairs and flipped my hair over my shoulder.
When I made it to my bedroom, I shut my door behind me and locked it.
I then walked over to my closet and pulled out all of the things that reminded me of Larry.
All of the dresses I was holding on to because he told me he loved how they looked on me.
Anything that I hated, but he loved, was getting purged like it should have been when he left me.
As I pulled out all of the things that reminded me of the man on my couch, I came across my pair of jeans, the ones that I had to use a safety pin to keep zipped. I had gotten so lost in being the best version of myself that over the past few months I hadn’t bothered to check my progress.
I stepped out of my joggers and slipped the jeans on.
The minute I pulled them up they fell right back down and lay in a pool around my feet.
I smiled, picked them up from the floor, and threw them in the pile of things that reminded me of the past. I expected pressure in my chest to make me feel uncomfortable; the pressure never came.
I had made the right decision by choosing me.
The next morning, I expected to smell coffee brewing because Larry loved to brew coffee in the mornings. When I didn’t smell anything, I got up from the bed and walked downstairs. The couch was empty, and there were the spare blanket and pillow folded up neatly.
There was a piece of paper sitting on top of it.
I walked over to the front door and opened it; Larry’s car was gone from the driveway. I closed the door and walked over to the blanket and pillow; I grabbed the note, unfolded it and began to read it:
My Dearest Ny’Airy.
I’m sorry for being a shitty husband to you and breaking your heart.
I didn’t deserve you then, and I don’t deserve you now.
I cheated on you with my new wife, and I thought the grass would be greener.
BOY, was I wrong. So now, I have to deal with the consequences.
You are a good woman don’t make the next man pay for my fucked-up mistakes.
YOUR EX HUSBAND
I reread the note four times, and I didn’t know that I was crying until the tear splashed on the paper.
I didn’t need his apology to have closure, but it felt good to get it.
I guess the saying was true. Nothing could keep a man that didn’t want to be kept.
Not marriage, not a baby, not a skinny body, or a thick one.
It had to be in him to want to be loyal.
I was thankful that Larry broke my heart because he taught me that the only person I couldn’t afford to lose was myself.
I wiped my eyes, crumpled the note up, and went upstairs to grab the bag of trash that reminded me of Larry and to get into my gym clothes.
Maybe Cozart and I needed to have a conversation.
Maybe he was worthy of the chance that I had been holding for my ex.