Chapter 19 #2
Her head felt like someone was taking a hammer to it, and as she rolled over, her eyes fell on him.
She screamed, caught off guard as she pulled the sheet over her naked body from instinct alone.
It was pointless. He knew every inch of her body by heart, but still, she clung to the sheet.
Demi sat in the accent chair in the corner of the room, staring at her.
He was so still that his presence sent chills down her spine.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” she shouted in exasperation. Just like a woman to lash out when someone scared her. Fear turned to instant anger when a motherfucker snuck up on her.
He didn’t respond. He just sat there staring while rubbing his chin and nodding, his eyes blank, but on her.
It wasn’t until Demi’s goon walked into the room with moving boxes did she realize they weren’t alone. She was both enraged and relieved. Embarrassment filled her as she covered her body better with the sheet, although she knew that Demi’s goons knew better than to look.
“You got ten minutes to grab what you need and go,” he said.
Charlie’s eyes welled with tears and her heart sank.
She was caught. Caught cheating. But it couldn’t count if he had been caught first, right?
He was married. So, he was the foul one at play, right?
She honestly didn’t even know anymore. It all just felt so wrong.
She was staring at the man she loved with the scent of another man on her skin.
She wondered if he could smell it, her night of passion.
..from the look of contempt on his face she was sure he could.
“Go where, Demi? Huh? Where am I supposed to go? You made me give up my apartment. I’m not even talking to my dad or sister. So, where exactly do you suggest I go?” she asked.
“I don’t really give a fuck where you go. Better have that other nigga save you,” Demi said.
It was a punch to the gut. It hurt, eventhough she saw it coming a mile away.
“You know, when my lil’ nigga hit me and told me you had a nigga over here, I ain’t rush to get here.
I was handling business. I knew he had to be mistaken,” Demi said, scoffing.
“Guess God knew what I would have done had I pulled up while that nigga was still here. When he sent me a pic of the nigga leaving out the crib I bought you, I snapped. I don’t even know how I got here.
You lucky I don’t hurt you in this bitch, Bird.
I sat here, thinking about it all night.
So, you might want to get your shit and get out. ”
“You have a lot of fucking nerve,” she said, coming up on her knees.
“I found out you were married days ago. Do you know what I’ve been through?
” It was rhetorical because she knew he couldn’t possibly know.
She hadn’t told him. He was adding pain to years of expired hurt that had been sitting on her emotional shelf.
“You looked me in my face and told me you loved me, knowing you had a wife at home, but I’m the bad guy? ”
The cave in Demi’s chest was dark. Deep and wet with pathways so intricate that even the most experienced lover would get lost in them.
She had no idea how much he loved her, how much it damaged him to see her lying there all night with the remnants of another man all over her.
Was it hypocritical? Yes, but he couldn’t help it.
“It’s not a conversation,” he said. Charlie recoiled.
Dismissive was something he had never been and his coldness stunned her.
Conversation meant there was room to fix things.
A conversation left her with a voice. This wasn’t that and as Demi stood to walk out of the room, hopelessness settled over Charlie.
“Demi, please just listen to me. Last night was a mistake. I’m just confused, and I’m hurt,” she cried out.
Clinging to the sheet that covered her indiscretion, bunching it at her heart as her eyes followed him out the room first and then her feet followed when he didn’t stop.
He was fleeing. Leaving. She was chasing. How the hell had they gotten here?
“Yo, get all her shit out of here. I want it to feel like she ain’t never been in this bitch,” he said. When she discovered two more men in her living room, Charlie lost it. The lump in her throat spilled out of her as she cried.
“I’m not leaving,” she said. “I’m in love with you.”
Demi laughed and her blood ran cold.
“Say, man,” he snickered as she shook his head. “You hear this shit, man?” he asked, pointing at Malachi, his young gunner. “Bitches be on that bullshit.”
He was embarrassing her, reducing her to someone unimportant in his life.
Demoting her, or perhaps she had never occupied a place of significance at all.
His wife had to be his priority, right? So, what did that make her?
Number two? Damn. Charlie was a pencil ass bitch — #2 might as well have been etched on her forehead. She was sick.
“Get over here,” he said. His tone didn’t leave room for anything other than compliance.
She stood before him at his mercy. He was wrong. He was married. Yet, she was the one on trial.
“You led us here,” she said, her words breaking under emotion as she lowered her eyes to the floor, taking a break from his scrutiny. “I was in it until I found out you weren’t, Demi. You at least owe me a conversation.”
“I don’t owe you shit,” he said. “You fucked a nigga in my bed, in my crib. Ain’t no love after that.”
“So you being married is okay? You’re going to pretend like I’m the bad guy?
You’re destroying me!” She sobbed, tears of resentment ruined her pretty face, causing her cheeks to stain in red as a migraine built from the pressure.
“What am I supposed to do? Be faithful to a married man? You got me out here looking stupid.”
“I was gonna tell you,” he said.
“When?” she shouted. “Huh? After you made me fall for you? Fuck you! Fuck your wife! And fuck your son!”
Demi grabbed her throat so abruptly that Charlie gasped.
“Nah, fuck you,” Demi said with a nonchalance that cut deep. He wasn’t even bothered by the fact that this was ending. It had run its course. Charlie had proven disloyal, and for Demi, there was no coming back from that. He had cut people off for less.
Charlie wasn’t prepared for her own damn reaction. She slapped him so hard it felt like she broke her hand. It was like a match that lit a firework.
“You got to go,” he said, grabbing her by her upper arm, squeezing so tightly that she was sure bruises of his fingertips would linger on her skin.
“Go where, hmm? I have nowhere to go!” she shouted, resisting, as he pulled her toward the door.
The rest of the room was still, spectators to her heartbreak as she fought him, swinging and twisting and grabbing onto whatever she could get her hands on to stop him from getting her to the door.
She fought so hard her nails broke with every blow, but Demi was unmoved at her effort.
The scuffle was out of control. The more she fought to stay, the more he tried to get her out.
Demi lost his grip as Charlie fell to the floor.
He was livid. Disgusted. Done. Demi was done as he snatched her ankle, dragging her into the hallway, naked.
The sheet was gone. Her body and soul were on display.
Her skin was burning and red from being dragged across the carpet and she tasted blood on her lip, somehow, through the chaos it had busted.
“All yo’ shit is out here already,” he said. There was no sympathy, no love in his stare, just nothingness. It was like he was passing a bum on the street. Even then, he would have felt more than he felt in this moment. Charlie had turned Demi off. Once that occurred, he lost interest quickly.
“Where’s my dog, Demi? What about Bails?” she asked.
“Bails is on me. He’s good,” Demi said, crushing her heart because Demi had no idea how much Charlie needed that dog. He was her emotional stability when she had none.
“He’s mine! Demi! You can’t take my dog!” Charlie said. “Please, I need him!”
The him she was talking about wasn’t the dog.
It was Demi. She loved him so damn much and he was leaving her.
Permanently. She felt it. Even when she had discovered he was married she felt in the back of her soul that one day they would find one another again.
One day. She hoped. She was sure she had touched his soul in a way that he would hunger for her so badly that she would be worth leaving his unhappy home.
But now, she knew that her him was never coming back.
Demi ignored her tantrum and changed the subject. This wasn’t a debate. It was a dictatorship. This was going his way and his way only. He was too enraged to give a damn about her feelings, even when he could see them being crushed under the weight of every word he spoke.
“Anything that’s left out here after an hour, toss that shit,” Demi said. He walked away and Charlie felt the abandonment issues creeping to the surface.
“Fuck you, nigga! I hope you die!” She didn’t even know she had that much rage in her and apparently neither did he. He turned, staring at her one, long, final time, a flicker of pain flashed in his eyes and disappeared in a milli-second, leaving her wondering if he felt anything at all.
“I really never knew you, huh, Charlie?” He searched her eyes. “I’m finally meeting the real you and you fucked up just like the rest of us.” The elevator arrived and he stepped on. It took everything in Charlie not to go after him. She marched back to her door, distraught.
She grabbed jeans and a top from the mess that laid in the middle of the hallway as one of Demi’s men guarded the door. It was clear she wouldn’t be getting back inside.
“I.. I... need my bag and my keys,” Charlie said, voice shaking. She was so hurt. Her pride was incinerated. This was a stage of shame and she was the star of the show. “They’re on the floor right next to the door.”
Demi’s goon looked at her sympathetically. She knew she looked pathetic. Still, she held her head high, despite feeling like Demi had walked all over her.
The man disappeared inside and by the time he came back out, Charlie had managed to pack a survival kit. She stuffed as much as she could inside one box that she could manage to carry alone and then she took the purse and her keys before walking out.
Heartbroken.