Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
Bailey
I reluctantly pulled myself from the cozy comfort of Bright’s embrace while he was still snoring into his pillow.
I shot a quick text letting him know that I was going to my mom’s to shower and change.
I planned to reconnect with him later for lunch.
I knew he would probably be disappointed that I dipped out on him, but I needed a little bit of time to myself to process all of the thoughts and emotions swirling inside of me.
My mom, Bayliss, Perkins, and Church were already at my mom’s kitchen island as she made breakfast when I walked into the house. “Good morning,” I said to all of them collectively.
“Good morning? With you still looking like last night?” Perkins gestured toward my wrinkled outfit.
I ignored her as I dashed up the stairs to both brush my teeth and shower.
When I reappeared in the kitchen, my mom gave me a knowing smirk. “You hungry?”
Bayliss laughed aloud at that comment.
I slid onto an empty stool. “I am.” I took in the array of food choices she had arranged on the island, grabbed a plate, and began to fill it with food.
We all must’ve been pretty hungry because for the first few moments, there was no sound except our forks hitting the plates.
Finally, I took a gulp of orange juice and spoke.
“Yesterday I took Bright sightseeing. We went downtown. We saw the fountain, the Bean, Grant park, and the museum campus. We had lunch and dinner down there. I even took him on a boat tour, and we watched the fireworks at Navy Pier.”
“Oh, that sounds fun.” Alisha glanced at Bayliss. “I need to show you Chicago like that.”
Bayliss nodded.
“What I realized,” I continued, “is that I really love Chicago. There’s so much beauty here and so much to see and do. But at the end of the day, there is absolutely nothing keeping me tied to this city.”
My mother’s face broke into a huge grin. “Don’t get my blood pressure up, Bailey. Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“I turned my letter of resignation in to HR yesterday.”
Perkins whooped loudly. “Praise the Lord! Because I really didn’t like the idea of leaving you here all by yourself.”
“The lone Kingsley sister.” Church chimed in.
My mother came around the island and pulled me into her arms, hugging me tightly to her. I let her. “Yeah. I figured that I don’t have to be present here to sell the house. I’ll hire a realtor and let them facilitate the sell while I work on building a new life in Jackson Falls.”
“So, you’re going back with us when we leave the day after tomorrow?” my mom questioned.
“I’m definitely not staying here without y’all.”
“Well, we need to rent a U-Haul and go get everything from the house that you want to keep,” my mother said.
“I’ll start working on that,” Perkins offered.
“Yes.” My mother clapped her hands together as if it was all decided. “We’ll ship what we can to Oregon. Anything that we can’t ship, we’ll store it here.”
I would let them figure that part out. I needed to figure out how to deal with Xander.
As far as I was concerned, I didn’t have any reason to be bitchy or bitter toward Xander. I called him and told him about my plan to gather my belongings. When we showed up at the house, I didn’t want there to be any confusion about why we were there.
My mother, Bayliss, Perkins, Church, Bright, and I moved through the house. My mother had given me a roll of blue painter’s tape to tag everything I wanted to take. As I walked through the house tagging items, Xander approached me.
“Say, Bailey, can I get at you for a moment in private?”
I really wanted to deny him. Like what was left to say?
But I decided that if I let him have his moment, he could leave me alone going forward.
I followed him into the bedroom we used to share.
It didn’t look like the bedroom we had as husband and wife.
The place was overrun with the other girl’s stuff.
Her hair accessories, her perfumes, and her skincare products were scattered across the top of the dresser now.
The bed sheets were cheetah print instead of the neutral sheets I preferred.
The candle I used to burn, the one that smelled like a scent you would find in nature, had been replaced with a scent that smelled like cupcakes.
I could admit that it was a little bit of a mind fuck, but it was also necessary for me to see Xander moving on.
“Hey, just so you know I hired a realtor today to help sell the house like the judge ordered us to do. She’ll come by tomorrow to see it.”
He lifted his arms in a shrug. “I don’t give a shit about that. I don’t even want this house. Too many damn memories of bad decisions in this house. Plus it ain’t the same being here without you.”
I stayed silent.
“Once the house goes on the market, I’m moving into my mom’s crib for a minute to regroup.”
“What about old girl? The fiancée? The one who hit you over the head with the skillet?”
“I wasn’t lyin’ when I told the judge that I ain’t with that girl.
She’s crazy as fuck. And like I said, she needs anger management.
Every time something doesn’t go her way, she lashes out.
I don’t need that shit. She’ll fuck around and have me locked up for beating her ass.
Right now I’m working on how to get the right custody agreement so my seed isn’t her next victim. ”
I nodded. “Good for you.”
He eyed me.
“What, Xander?”
“You seem different. I know it’s because of that light-skinned nigga that’s hanging around. I saw how he was watching you at the courthouse. That nigga a simp and you falling for it. Nigga keep muggin’ me every time we make eye contact. I know it’s ’cause he want my wife.”
“Ex-wife.”
“Whatever. You’ve been different ever since you found out the baby was messed up.”
“No, my guy. That’s when you started acting different.
Our marriage was never good. Never. Even on its best days it was a messed up, unhealthy union.
There was always an imbalance of power where I gave and you took.
You demanded and I acquiesced. You threatened divorce and I begged you to reconsider.
But even with all that, you never showed your ass the way you showed it when you found out the baby wouldn’t make it.
That’s when you got outrageous with it. And when my mom and sisters moved to Jackson Falls, your behavior became even more egregious.
Always throwing it in my face that you were all I had. ”
“Whatever, Bailey.” He waved me off dismissively. “Now that you got the divorce you wanted, you wanna act like I never loved you. Like I treated you like shit.”
“Uh, I never wanted the divorce until the day of Hart’s memorial, even though I should’ve wanted it much sooner.
It wasn’t until that day that I realized the extent of your dislike, maybe hatred, for me.
The fact that you could tell me that you knew I was in a fucked up space but still dump your pregnant side chick bullshit on me, finally let me know what type of time you were truly on.
It never really dawned on me before that.
Even when you used both the threat of divorce and the fact that you were the only family I still had in Chicago to control me, I never saw the truth for what it was.
Even when you were visibly annoyed when I announced my pregnancy to you, I didn’t get it.
“I didn’t even let the thought enter my mind until I tried to talk to you about the issues with our baby. I mean, it should’ve been a red flag that you left me at the appointment without a ride home. But I overlooked your immaturity and selfishness like I always did.”
“Well, you made that shit up in your own mind, Bailey. I wasn’t annoyed that you were pregnant.
I was scared as fuck, because she was pregnant and I didn’t know how to tell you.
I had two babies on the way, and I didn’t know what the fuck to do.
Your baby was messed up. Hers wasn’t. It seemed like the best decision was to concentrate on the baby that was actually going to make it to term. ”
I refused to let the selfish motherfucker see me cry.
So, even though Bright told me the night before that my days of being a fighter were over, I still fought back my emotions—just one last time, for old time’s sake.
“I had to join an online support group just to have somebody to talk to about the hell I was going through.”
“I ain’t know that.”
“You weren’t around to know that. My family had to fly from two thousand miles away to be with me during the procedure because I wasn’t sure you would even bother to show up . . . which you didn’t.”
“Man, who the fuck wants to be there to see their son come out dead? You think I could’ve handled that? You think I wouldn’t have flipped over everything in that damn hospital? I did what was best for me.”
“You always have.”
He eyed me meanly. “That sounds like a diss. But fuck you. Because everybody on Earth has to choose what’s right for them.” He gestured toward the door of the bedroom. “I guess that nigga out there is perfect.”
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. “Go to hell, Xander. This is dumb. I don’t have to do this with you.
You are no longer my problem and I’m no longer yours.
Have a good life.” I turned to walk away.
I had spent five years letting this dude tangle me up in knots.
I’d bent myself into a pretzel on numerous occasions for the opportunity to feel worthy of his love.
He wouldn’t get not another second of my time.
Fuck him, his momma, and everything he stood for.
“Hey! I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Bailey.”
The apology was unexpected but also too little too late. But I did turn back to look at him.
“I fucked up. I made mistakes. I’m man enough to admit that.”
I barely nodded, realizing for what seemed like the first time what an energy drain dealing with him really was. A five minute conversation left me spent. “It’s whatever. The realtor’s coming by tomorrow.”
Later that day, after we’d finished packing my belongings and loading them into the U-Haul while Xander watched, looking like a sad and lost puppy, I turned to Bright. I’d handed the keys to my SUV off to him because I wasn’t up to driving. So, I sat in the passenger seat taking in his profile.
He was such a handsome man. Not that Xander wasn’t. Xander was handsome as well. But the differences between the two men were vast. The way my nervous system responded to Xander as opposed to the way it responded to Brighton was something that could be studied.
I reached over and flipped on the radio, smiling at the song that came blaring out of the speakers. Sade’s voice crooning, “This is no ordinary love. No ordinary love.”