Flashback
“Girl, calm down. Hell, you’re making my nerves bad. You are the most beautiful bride in America.” My grandmother beamed as she fixed my veil. I tried to breathe through my nose and out of my mouth, but it wasn’t helping.
It was the day that I was about to marry the love of my life.
The man who saw past the tomboy in me who just wanted to keep up with the boys.
The man who cleaned my rebel wounds since I was eleven years old and knocked out the boys in the neighborhood if they got too rough with me or too disrespectful.
Though he started as one of my closest childhood friends, we lost touch throughout the years.
We ran into each other once he moved back to Sacramento and have been inseparable since.
Brandon and I had been together for the last two years, and I loved him more than plants needed water.
He was so smart, handsome, and so affectionate with me.
I placed my hand on my stomach and hummed. What would normally calm me down in seconds did nothing in that moment.
“Breathe, Bossy.” My father coached me from my side, calling me by the nickname that he had given me when I was just a toddler.
He kissed my forehead.
The room felt like it was swallowing me whole.
“Can everyone just give me a minute?”
I asked, glancing around at all the moving parts in the room, which were overstimulating me. There were hairdressers with hot tools and pins, the makeup artist waiting to touch up my look, the designer who had come to do any last-minute alterations and steam my sister’s dress.
All the movement stopped at once.
Some nodded knowingly, and the others just scurried out of the room. I was grateful for the silence and a second to be left with my thoughts and have a minute to breathe. But then the door opened.
I swung around, ready to snap like the Bridezilla I was slowly becoming.
“Didn’t I say-” My words trailed off as I realized that it was Daya. If anyone was in my space, it might as well be her.
“I’m so damn nervous. I’m glad it’s you. For some reason, my body is in shambles right now. I feel like I want to shit and throw up all at the same time.” I laughed. But she didn’t.
Her eyes were wide, and I couldn’t quite read the sympathetic look in them.
“Leah, I have something I need to show you.” The tone of her voice made my lunch rise to my throat. I immediately expected the worst.
“Is everyone okay?” I shot back.
“Yeah… Have a seat for me.”
“No. I’m already nervous. Daya, if you don’t talk, I swear to God.” I threatened, leaving the back of the threat open-ended because I literally couldn’t do anything but wait for her to tell me.
“I’m only showing you this because I am confused as fuck and I need you to clarify things for me.”
“DAYARI, SPIT IT THE FUCK OUT!” I screamed. I was stressed and already agitated, and here she was talking in code.
Whatever it was, it had to be bad, because she didn’t seem the least bit fazed by my response. Instead, she still took her time handing me down the information.
She reached into her bra and then pulled out the phone that I had given her, and she handed it to me. What I saw didn’t shake me the way she thought it would.
As soon as I unlocked the screen, I saw a social media post of Brandon and another woman. Veronica. The woman that he said he had just broken up with before he moved back. The caption read “You can’t break what you didn’t build.”
There was an arsenal of them, old and new.
Then I went to the comments.
Secret commented: Girl, I love this for you. Congratulations.
To which she replied: Thank you so much, friend. This love story has been six years in the making. We’ve come too far to turn back now.
My response? I posted photos of us on her wall. My caption was “I ain’t sorry. Cheers, bitch.”
A knock came at my door, and I was too busy posting even to shoo them away, but Daya did it for me. There was so much to process, and I didn’t know what the hell to do.
When Brandon moved back to our hometown a few years ago, I wasn’t looking for a relationship. I ran into him at the gym, and we reconnected. He was handsome, and it felt so good to see a familiar face. I didn’t know he was in a relationship; in fact, he told me his breakup led him to move back.
The information Daya showed me wasn’t new. I found out about Veronica a couple of months ago. Only then did it cross my mind that Brandon might have been living a double life.
“Leah, you’re quiet. I’m sorry.” Daya said, wiping a lone tear from her eye.
“This is not for you to apologize for. Can you give me a minute and let me pull myself together? I can’t walk down the aisle like this.”
I could see the shock all over her face.
“What? You’re still going through with this?” she asked.
“Daya. Our daddy bust his ass on trucks for months, day in and day out, so that he could give me money toward my dream wedding. I did so many baby showers that I can’t smell pasta and meatballs without gagging. Today is the fucking day.” I sniffed.
She looked at me sympathetically.
Then my shoulders dropped, and my tone showed just how defeated I actually felt.
“And… I love him.” I admitted. I was mad; I was hurt beyond belief, but still. The na?ve twenty-three-year-old me thought that there could be a bright side to this. That he proposed to me in a third of the time when they had been together for six years unmarried.
That didn’t take away the hurt I felt, but it damn sure rationalized it.
Brandon was so good to me, the best man that I had ever known. At such a young age, he reminded me so much of my father. Then there was our history. Knowing he had always been these things to me confirmed that he always would be.
“You know, when I came in here, you said you were nervous. Why would you be nervous to marry the love of your life? Your body knew something was wrong with this nigga, and you’re still going through with it, Leah. You’re going to regret it.” Daya said before she spun and left me to myself.
As soon as she did it, I jumped up from the chair that I was seated in and threw up all over the toilet. I couldn’t make it there in time. My lunch escaped my body with a vengeance.
I pulled myself up from the floor and then tried to get myself together.
I hummed the whole ride to the church.
My family didn’t know it, but today was the day that he made a decision.
By the time I stood in the doorway of the church, everyone watched me like they'd seen a ghost as I pranced down the aisle. No one uttered an “ooh” or an “ahh,” and I walked in the baddest dress, with a 10-inch train handmade by a designer I flew in from Ghana. I spared no expense today.
Even Brandon was sweating bullets as I walked to the front of the aisle. He didn’t shed a tear; I didn’t see the love in his eyes that he had for me. All I saw was complete guilt and fear. Once I reached him, I stood there. I spoke to him with my eyes.
Once my veil was lifted, I reached for his hands and smiled. Just witnessing the fallout from me standing at the altar made this the best day in the of my life.
Complete mayhem broke out.
Still, I had to set the tone: Leah wouldn't be played with, and if he wanted me, he had to choose.
***
After going through the embarrassment at the wedding and swearing I’d never talk to Brandon again, all it took was a stupid ass apology, a couple of soft kisses, grand gestures, a sea of tears, and being fucked into complete oblivion for me to give in.
He swore that he and Veronica were done, and like a fool, I believed him.
But this time, I did on my own terms. Every late night at the office, every text message that came to his phone, every phone call were all being tracked by me.
I put hidden cameras in his office and installed a parental control app on his phone that mirrored it.
I saw everything he did, apps he installed; I even tracked his steps on the health app to see if they were consistent with him being at work.
And for a second, I thought that I was doing the most. For months, nothing changed.
I'd convinced myself I didn’t need to do this anymore.
I thought that maybe what Brandon said about him not wanting to lose me was the truth.
Seven more days, and you’re done, Leah. I told myself. I would give myself until July 15th to keep the app installed on his phone, then delete it permanently.
Three days remained in the week when he received a message from the same woman who had ruined my wedding day.
“Brandon, can you come by the house?”
I kept the message open, waiting for his response, not even trusting technology enough to close the thread and risk losing it.
It appeared. “You said you were done with me.”
“You cheated on me! You blindsided ME! You can’t think I was wrong.”
“I’ll be over there after work.”
This time, tears rolled down my face. It hurt on a different level because, aside from being my lover, he had also been my friend. At the very least, he was supposed to respect me enough not to do this. But he didn’t care.
Not only was he married to one fool, but he also had another one on retainer. As soon as I saw that message, I was done being his fool, and I had decided to be his karma.
My sister told me I would regret what I did that day. This is one of the times that she might be right.
She and I haven’t talked since the night of the wedding. It was sad that we had such a great bond, and the only thing we’ve ever fallen out about was me choosing to be with a man who disrespected me like this.
I stopped by the gas station and then waited for him to get off work. He texted me as soon as he pulled out of the parking lot.
“Hey baby. I’ll be working late tonight. I’ll see you when I get home.”
I rolled my eyes so hard.
“Love you,” I responded.
“Love you more, beautiful.”
As soon as his lying ass texted me, he told her to leave the door unlocked.
I waited for him to arrive and then followed the GPS to a community not far from our place. I arrived about fifteen minutes after him and parked the car right behind him, blocking him in.
I walked up to the door and twisted the knob. For their sake, they’d better be glad that it was locked. Then, I pressed the doorbell and walked back to the car to get exactly what I had come for.
I got my sledgehammer and demolished Brandon’s new truck. I’m sure they heard the noise, but no matter how many times I pressed the doorbell and called out, they didn’t come. By the time that I had finished dousing the house in gasoline, the cops were pulling up.
I got arrested for a mile-long list of shit. And apparently, telling someone that they had “ten seconds to come out of the house before you blow this bitch up” is a terroristic threat.
Somehow, he convinced her to drop the charges, but it didn’t stop the consequences of what he did.
I didn’t let that man have a moment of peace after that.
I should have walked away with my head held high and never spoken to him again.
But instead, I kept watching the cameras, listening to his conversations, and tracking his messages.
I hated how much it consumed me, but it turned into a full-time job.
I would be out and glued to my phone waiting for the next message to come through.
I called him constantly day and night. I called his work phone, his cell, the office.
I just gave him hell. At some point, it was less about being hurt and more about the principle.
Doing these things doesn’t warrant good karma, and I was determined to show him that, even if it took my last breath.
I made fucking up their day my favorite part of mine.
He wasn’t the only person who was taught a lesson, though.
Eventually, it landed me in Mind over Matter for a year. While my life had fully stopped, theirs went on, and she stayed with him.
They lived happily while I was stuck with the realization that he made the choice, and it wasn’t me.