Chapter 1 #2
“I love you for real, but no. Rome knows where you stay, he knows your car, he even knows your mama house. He knows too damn much, and I’m not about to have him pulling up on you with his bullshit because of me.
I’m going to a hotel tonight, and tomorrow I’ll figure out if I’m going to stay there a few days or look for something short-term. ”
“With what money? You said you was moving stuff to storage, but hotels add up.”
“I got money.”
The second I said it, something in me told me to check.
I didn’t know if it was God, my nerves, or just that little voice women get when something didn’t feel right, but I pulled the phone from my ear and put Tasha on speaker while I opened my banking app.
I had been checking that account all week, making sure I had enough for the hotel, gas, food, and anything else I needed until my next direct deposit hit.
Rome had access to certain things from when we first got serious, back when I thought sharing meant building and not handing somebody a key to ruin you.
I had been meaning to move my money around, but between work, packing, and trying not to look suspicious, I kept telling myself I had time.
Yeah, Rome had money, but he was the type to spend it on me before he actually gave it to me so everything I had in my account was literally off of my own muscle.
The app loaded while Tasha kept talking, but her voice started sounding far away the second the balance popped up.
I stared at the screen, trying to make the numbers make sense, but they didn’t.
I refreshed it, signed out, signed back in, checked the transactions, and each second I stood there looking made my blood boil even hotter.
The transfers were there, but not one big amount that would’ve triggered me right away, there was enough little moves to clean me out without making it too obvious before I looked for real.
That was Rome all day, just sneaky when he wanted control over the outcome.
“Nay?” Tasha called. “Why you quiet?”
I didn’t answer right away because I was too busy scrolling through the account, reading each transaction.
My hotel money was gone and so was my emergency money.
The little cushion I had been proud of because I earned every dollar of it was sitting somewhere else and Rome had me messed up.
My hands shook from anger, and I wanted to punch something and cry at the same time.
“Navy, what happened?” Tasha asked, in a lower tone.
“He took my money,” I said, and the calmness in my own voice almost scared me because I didn’t feel calm. “That bitch ass Rome took my money.”
“What you mean he took your money?”
“I mean it’s gone, Tash. The money I had put up to leave, it’s gone. He moved it out little by little like I wasn’t gone notice.”
“Call the bank! Call them right now! I’m so sick of Rome’s ass!”
“I am, but that ain’t fixing it tonight.” I said sounding frustrated as hell.
“Then come here.”
“No!”
“Navy, stop saying no to the only person trying to help you!”
“I’m saying no because I know Rome. You think he took that money for no reason?
He knows I’m leaving. I don’t know how he know, but he knows.
He didn’t just wake up and decide to play accountant with my shit tonight.
He did it because he wanted me stuck here.
” Every word I spoke was the truth and this is the part that partially made me love his toxic ass, at the same time, toxic wasn’t peaceful and I was tired of the bullshit.
I went back to the messages and the first few were the usual telling me to ‘answer the phone’, ‘stop playing with me’, where you at?
’ as if he didn’t already know. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had all kind of hidden cameras in the damn house.
Next, he asked why my side of the closet looked different.
He asked why the blue tote from the garage was missing.
He asked who I thought I was sneaking around on and by the time I got to the last message, I had stopped moving completely as my eyes locked on the screen while my stomach twisted into knots.
‘You really thought you was gone leave while I was gone?’
I read it a few times and each time it got worse because that message told me he hadn’t just guessed, his ass had been watching. With Rome, it could’ve been anything because that man didn’t believe in boundaries unless he was the one demanding them.
“What he say?” Tasha asked.
I swallowed hard, still staring at the phone. “He knows.”
“Know what?”
“That I’m leaving.”
“Navy, listen to me. Get your keys and walk out right now. Don’t worry about them bags. Don’t worry about none of that shit, just leave it.”
I looked around the room at everything I had left from my documents I had already pulled from the safe earlier to my grandmother’s ring sitting in the small jewelry box on the dresser.
I looked at the bag with my nursing school pictures and the old cards my mama had written me before she passed.
People always tell women to just leave, and I got it, because being alive mattered more than stuff, but it’s different when the stuff in front of you is the little pieces of yourself you’re trying to take back.
“I’m not leaving my important stuff,” I scoffed.
“Navy,” she sighed once again. “As smart as you are, I swear sometimes I wonder if you have a brain, but then again, you love him… I don’t. So, I can’t even sit here and act like I don’t know how hard it is to actually leave.”
“Listen, I got a few more things and then I’m gone.”
“You being stubborn as hell right now.”
“I’m being real, if I walk out with nothing, I’m still trapped, just in another way. I need all of my shit.” I told her in all seriousness.
Tasha let out a deep breath of frustration. “Then keep me on the phone.”
I rolled my eyes. “I can’t, I need both hands.”
“Put me in your pocket then heffa.”
“Tasha!”
“Don’t Tasha me. You called me, so now I’m here. You don’t have to let me come get you, but you not about to hang up and have me over here pacing holes in my damn floor. I’m already trying not to roll a fat one and smoke my nerves away.”
I didn’t argue because I didn’t have the energy, and truthfully, hearing her voice was the only thing keeping me from flipping that whole dresser over. I set the phone down on the bed, still on speaker, and started moving again grabbing the rest of the stuff I needed.
My mind was running through everything at once.
The way Rome had smiled at me last week like he wasn’t plotting on keeping me stranded and the way his other bitch had sounded so proud on that phone, like being pregnant by him made her untouchable.
I almost wanted to call her back and tell her to ask her baby daddy why he was stealing from a woman he claimed he didn’t need but I wasn’t about to give either one of them the satisfaction of hearing me unravel.
“You still there?” Tasha asked again.
“Yeah girl.” I answered damn near breaking a sweat trying to get everything.
“What you doing?”
“Grabbing everything. I told you that,” I mumbled rolling my eyes.
“Good, get all that shit and go.”
“I know Tasha! Damn, I’m trying to think.” I snapped slightly agitated although she meant well.
“No, you don’t know because you still over there grabbing scrubs and shit like you got all night. Navy, if he know you leaving and he coming back, you need to move like he already at the light down the fucking street.”
That made me move faster because she was right, and I hated when Tasha was right while I was mad.
I grabbed my purse, slung it across my body, and reached for the duffel on the bed.
It was heavier than I expected, and I cursed under my breath while dragging it toward the bedroom door.
My second bag was still open, stuffed halfway with clothes I probably didn’t even need, but I couldn’t make myself leave it yet.
I turned back, grabbed the last of my shit, and shoved them down inside.
A new text came through before I could zip it up. The sound made both me and Tasha stop talking. I picked up the phone and opened it, already knowing it was him. ‘Don’t make me come in there and embarrass you.’
I stared at the message with a funky frown on my face.
Embarrass me? As if he hadn’t already embarrassed me by having another woman call my phone pregnant.
As if he hadn’t embarrassed me by putting his hands on me and then sending flowers to my job like roses could cover bruises.
As if he hadn’t embarrassed me every time he made me defend staying with him to the little piece of myself that still knew better.
“Tash,” I said, in a ‘oh shit’ tone.
“What?”
“He just texted me talking about don’t make him come in here and embarrass me.”
“Come in where?” she asked, and I heard her moving around on her end. “Navy, where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Look outside.”
I didn’t want to, I really didn’t, because some part of me already knew what I was going to see, and once I saw it, I couldn’t pretend I still had a few more minutes, but I walked to the window anyway, careful not to move the curtain too much, and looked down toward the front of the house.
At first I didn’t see anything but the driveway lights shining over the pavers and the palm trees moving a little from the breeze.
Then I looked toward the curb, and my whole attitude got even worse.
Rome’s black truck sat across the street with the lights off and I shook my head cause his ass was already here.