Chapter 5 #3
Duke tensed up a bit. Stopped rubbing my arm and unwrapped it from around me, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I’m here because I don’t want to lose my wife. I want to do whatever necessary to make sure she’s happy.”
“Even if she decides that she’s happier without you?”
Oop.
“Hold up,” Duke intervened, sitting up. “We’re not here to divorce, Nicole. I thought you said this was marital counselin’, Ne’.”
I sighed and ran a nervous hand through my hair. “Okay look. Can we just get to the beginning? He gave you his why and I gave you mine. I feel like we’re getting off track.”
I didn’t want to talk about leaving. I didn’t want to talk about any of it really.
I didn’t like who I became when the ugly shit was brought up.
I wasn’t me. I was her. That little na?ve, broken ‘girl’, who still had a lot of unresolved issues.
The broken part of me that recoiled at the mention of us breaking up.
The insecure part of me that hated the thought of him loving someone, the way he loved me.
I—I hated it. I wanted to run. Wished there was a big, oversized clock on the wall for me to shift my eyes to.
Wished we were more than five minutes into the session.
I just… Chanté was right. I did like to run.
Nicole was right. I didn’t like to sit with the uncomfortable.
The uncomfortable being that girl. The weak one.
The desperate one. I wanted to be fiery.
Wanted to sit with my shoulders pushed back, poised, and confidence on ten.
I wanted to be the bitch who’d cheated back.
Not the one who cried on the car ride home after every time.
Nicole sighed. “Okay, gotcha. We will build, like I said before. Whatever’s comfortable for the both of you. Duke, would you like to share how you two met?”
“Shit, if every session like that, baby we gon’ be ‘cured’ before we know it,” Duke stated with a dry ass laugh. “I didn’t like how she kept cuttin me off but other than that, shit was smooth.”
I paid him dust. I wasn’t in the mood, and he felt it.
I was over it. I hated every fucking moment of that therapy session.
I thought talking about the why would be the hardest part but I was wrong.
When Duke started talking about how we met, gears shifted and we were in a territory I hated.
The past. The good stuff. Reminiscing about what we used to do, how we used to be, and how much he loved me back then was a complete waste of time.
I was fifteen.
Duke was sixteen.
That wasn’t love. That was delusion. That was kid shit.
But for some dumb ass reason Nicole thought it was wise to start at the beginning.
I hated the beginning. Why? Because there shouldn’t have been a beginning.
Not for us. Not the way it unfolded. And I loved my baby to pieces.
Loved every last one of my blessings but baby, if I had a choice, I would have done something else.
Something more with my life. I wanted to talk about that.
The regret and why there was regret to begin with but no…
the professional just had to start at the fucking beginning.
“NeNe—”
I looked over at him, brushed my hand down the back of my neck and continued my stride towards the parking lot.
“Ne—“
“What Duke? Damn, I’m thinking. Trying to see where I’m going to stop for dinner.”
“You not cooking?” He questioned with raised brows.
I eyed him up and down with a snarl, getting ready to get into the car. “Nigga, hell naw I’m not cooking. I’m tired as hell.”
Emotionally tired. I couldn’t remember how many times I had to quickly swipe away at tears I didn’t want anybody to see earlier.
I felt like I’d gone unnoticed enough but wasn’t no telling.
Nicole was attentive as hell and probably noticed every forced uncomfortable giggle and quick rub of my eyes too.
I didn’t know much about her but by how sharp she was at the tongue, and quick with that Apple Pencil, I knew enough to know she was for no games at all.
I had plans to cook. Before Nicole and Duke pissed me off.
The fucking beginning. Fuck the beginning.
Yes, I was still on that and would be for a minute.
Talking about who I was, and the innocence I had before it was stripped away from me was painful.
I missed her . Fifteen-year-old Mahogany.
Sassy, smart, witty, church girl Mahogany.
It was the beginning that pegged me. I might’ve been fifteen, but the delusion made me sick to my stomach.
I needed to let it go. Tried to. Had been trying to let that go for years.
For the most part, I did a pretty good job coasting through life barely thinking about it.
However, today that reality taunted me. Made me mad at life all over again.
And then there was next week…
Next week we were going to divulge deeper into the story of when Duke met Mahogany.
Yep… when Duke met Mahogany because that nigga was on my ass!
I didn’t want anything to do with him. He was too popular.
Too… Duke. And to be Duke Morris was to be a smooth-talking ho.
I did not want to talk about any of that shit.
But hey… we were taking it slow. Molasses on the pavement on a cold, frigid, winter day, slow.
At least that’s what it felt like. Every word that muthafucka spoke, I wanted to go upside his head.
It was cute, and reminiscent for him. He smiled his way through the story.
I wondered if he’d smile, proud, when we talked about what happened when I was pregnant with Aubry.
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he did.
He looked at every hard stage in our relationship as a triumphant moment we got over when in reality it wasn’t.
I was the one forced to overcome. Forced to push my feelings down and carry on while he, for the hundredth time, got away with something he should’ve been sent to the pits of fuckin’ hell over.
But that was neither here nor there right? I was supposed to just move on, right? Brushing my hand over my forehead, I sighed and told myself that I’d unwrap old wounds when it was time to unwrap them.
“Fuck it then,” he said with a nonchalant shrug. “What we eatin? Popeyes?”
“I don’t want Popeyes. I’m getting me and the kids hibachi,” I dismissed, before flipping my sun visor down to check my eyeliner. “I promised it to them last week.”
“Aight bet,” he replied, leaning on the car, most likely going over the menu at the hibachi restaurant all of a sudden.
How relaxed he was after therapy annoyed the hell out of me but instead of addressing it, I ignored him.
After about five minutes of him rambling about a bunch of nothing, he kissed me on the cheek and told me he’d meet me at the crib.
No, I love you, no drive safe… nothing that would soften me up a bit.
Just Duke being Duke. The mask he wore during therapy, completely off.