Chapter 2 #4
I sat in the plush, blue chair with my arms crossed, my attitude louder than my voice. My knee bounced as if it had something to say before I did. I wore my “I’m not trying to talk today” outfit—an oversized hoodie, black leggings, no makeup, no earrings, no effort.
The receptionist smiled at me warmly.
“Jonay Jacobson?”
I stood slowly. My name sounded foreign when pronounced by someone who had never heard it screamed in a fight or moaned in a lie.
The therapist’s office was cozy with soft yellow walls.
Books with titles like Self-Care for Black Women by Oludara Adeeyo, Black Mental Health: Patients, Providers, and Systems edited by Ezra E.
H. Griffith, M.D., et al, Sisterhood Heals by Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, and The Strong Black Woman by Marita Golden lined the shelves.
A box of tissues on the table already felt like a setup.
Mrs. Rawlins was older, Black, wearing tortoise-shell glasses and a loc bun styled so tight it probably kept all her patients’ secrets inside.
She didn’t look up from her clipboard at first; she just gestured to the couch as if I was supposed to make myself comfortable in a space that felt too safe.
I sat down, apprehensive, but ready to get this over with.
“You look like you’d rather be anywhere else but here,” she finally said, her calm voice rich with just enough bass to feel like home.
“I do,” I answered honestly.
She smiled. “Then that’s where we’ll start. Why did you come?”
I shifted. “My sister said I needed to talk to somebody before I black out on somebody.”
“That’s not therapy motivation. That’s probation prevention.” I cracked a tiny smile I didn’t mean to. She leaned back. “So, tell me, Ms. Jacobson. What brought you here in one piece?”
I scoffed. “Piece is generous. I feel like shattered glass with lip gloss on.”
She nodded as if she’d heard that before, but she still let me own it.
I took a breath. “My fiancé cheated on me.” Pause. “With my cousin.” Longer pause. “…While bent over.”
Her eyebrows lifted slightly. “Bent… over?”
“Yeah. There was a strap-on involved. He moaned her name like it was lyrics to a damn song.”
She blinked once, twice, then offered a solemn, professional nod, the therapist version of ‘Daaaaamn’ from the movie Friday. “And this was recent?”
“Two days ago. I caught them in my bed. My sheets. My house.”
“And how’d you respond?”
“I beat the fuck out of them. I didn’t shoot them,” I said with a half-hearted shrug. “So… progress?”
We sat in a quiet silence for a moment as I gathered my thoughts.
“I’m not sad he cheated,” I whispered. “I’m mad I didn’t see it sooner. I’m angry I wasted my time. Mad I let him convince me I was the one delaying our future because I didn’t want to get pregnant. Angry that I let him gaslight me when I knew something was going on.”
Mrs. Rawlins leaned forward. “Did he ever ask you why you weren’t ready?”
“He didn’t care. He just made me feel like my hesitation meant I was broken or selfish.”
She nodded again. “And were you?”
I shook my head. “No. I was just scared to bring a child into something that didn’t feel solid. I thought that made me wise. He made it sound like I was being difficult, like I was trying to control the pace.”
“Were you?”
I paused. My voice cracked on the answer. “Sometimes.”
And there it was. The admission. The ache.
She handed me a tissue like she had already been waiting for that tear to fall. “Ever heard of weaponized softness, Ms. Jacobson?”
I blinked. “What?”
“It’s when someone presents their needs, their hurt, or their expectations in a way that makes you feel guilty for having boundaries.”
I nodded slowly, that phrase cutting deeper than any insult Kam ever threw at me.
“I think I lived with a man who only needed me when I was silent, submissive, or sexually available.”
“Then let’s work on making you feel safe when you’re vocal, vulnerable, and valuable.”
Something about that sentence knocked the wind out of me. It was as if my spirit had been waiting for it this entire time.
I didn’t say anything, just nodded as my fingers clutched the tissue like it was a lifeline.
By the time I left, I still felt broken. But for the first time in a while, I didn’t feel alone in it.
I decided to go for a run, just a little jog to clear my head. Nothing major; just me, my Bluetooth, and a pair of old leggings that hugged my thighs like memories I wasn’t ready to confront.
The streets of Self Ridge were unusually quiet, the sun stretching its arms across the sky and casting long, crooked shadows on sidewalks that felt too familiar.
I didn’t even stretch; I just took off, my feet hitting the pavement like punctuation marks at the end of unspoken thoughts.
My breath came in short spurts, choppy like the voice messages I used to leave Kam when I missed him.
Now, I just missed myself. I missed the version of myself that didn’t know heartbreak by name or betrayal by blood.
I made it four blocks before the tension in my chest started to rise. It wasn’t physical fatigue, but that emotional weight that lived in the joints of your spirit after too many disappointments. I pushed harder, letting the rhythm of my sneakers drown out the noise in my head:
You weren’t enough.
That’s why he cheated.
Your womb isn’t worthy.
Your intuition stayed silent too long.
Each lie wrapped itself around my lungs like barbed wire, making it harder to breathe. The air got thick, as if betrayal had a flavor, and I was still tasting it.
By the time I reached the park bench at the corner of Richmond and Bellows, my knees buckled like my faith had arthritis. I collapsed, not gracefully, not poetically. I crumbled, hands on my knees, gasping for breath, tears spilling from my eyes as if they had been waiting for the cue.
A couple of folks walked by pretending not to see. One elderly lady looked like she wanted to stop but didn’t. I didn’t blame her. Broken women were hard to look at. We held up mirrors that people didn’t want to face.
I sobbed quietly, the ugly kind, shoulders shaking, mouth open, but no sound coming out. Not because I couldn’t talk, but because what I needed to say didn’t have words yet, just wounds.
In that moment, I felt like a mixtape of contradictions: faithful but furious, exhausted but restless, empty but heavy, beautiful but battered. I looked up at the sky as if maybe God would blink back at me.
“Why?” I whispered. Not just at Him, but also at the world. At Kam. At Taleah. At myself.
Why did I let myself believe love had to come with bruises, just because they weren’t always on the skin? Why did I keep ignoring the gut feeling in my spirit that told me something was off? Why did I stay? Why did he do me like that?
I didn’t have answers. I just had pain, and it was loud.
I finally stood, shaky but upright, and wiped my face with the sleeve of my hoodie. My lashes were nearly hanging on for dear life, and I didn’t care. I didn’t feel stronger yet, but I felt lighter, like grief had peeled off one layer. And that was going to have to be enough… for today.
My eyes were still rimmed in red, a tender ache that burned with every blink.
My nose stung from the rough scrape of my hoodie sleeve because I’d rubbed against it so many times it felt raw enough to bleed.
My soul felt wrung out, twisted until nothing was left but damp scraps, hung on some invisible clothesline for the world to mock, then stomped flat by muddy boots that didn’t care what they destroyed.
Still, I walked back into Self Ridge Memorial like I hadn’t been split in half, like I wasn’t unraveling thread by thread on the inside. That’s what people say, right? Fake it till you make it.
The problem was, I didn’t have the energy to fake anything. My chest was heavy, my heart sagging low like a half-deflated balloon clinging to the corners of my ribcage, wheezing with each breath. Every inhale squeaked against my lungs; every exhale felt like surrender.
I kept my head up, though, forcing my body forward past the nurse’s station.
The receptionist gave me a polite nod. I nodded back, like we were two actors trading lines neither of us believed.
I rounded the corner, bracing myself for the weight of memory waiting behind the next door, only to stop cold.
Elias.
He was there again, leaning against the wall like it had invited him. He didn’t just stand there; he shifted the whole atmosphere. The sterile hallway didn’t feel as harsh with him in it. His presence was gravity, pulling me toward him without asking permission.
His signature black T-shirt was stretched across his chest, badge clipped low on his waistband, and jeans hugging his thighs like both a threat and a promise.
His beard was lined to perfection—sharp, precise—with not one hair out of place.
And even from a few feet away, I caught the faint scent of sandalwood and something deeper, something steadier, something that whispered of second chances I wasn’t sure I deserved.
When his eyes found me, his face softened. Just like that, his edges melted into warmth, which slid over me like butter melting into cornbread, no effort, just pure comfort. It wasn’t pity. It wasn’t pressure. It was I see you, and for a split second, I almost crumbled from the relief of it.
“You good?” he asked, stepping forward a little, just enough to make me feel seen, but not trapped. The way he carried himself made it clear; he wasn’t trying to corner me. He was offering space I didn’t even know I needed.
My feet stalled. My body betrayed me, too unsure to keep moving. “I’m getting there,” I muttered, tugging my hoodie sleeve down over my hand like fabric could erase the shame still clinging to my fingertips.
His eyes studied me gently, and Lord, that gaze was dangerous. Not nosy. Not judgmental. Just observant, as if he were cataloging bruises no one else could see. He nodded once.