Ch. 11
CHEYONNE
Afew months had gone by, and I had yet to leave my home.
I was too emotionally torn because I knew deep down in my heart, I did the right thing.
However, I couldn’t escape the guilt that followed behind it.
The expression on his face when I spoke to the cops was like a gut punch.
You could see the hurt from the betrayal through the tough exterior he tried to hide behind.
I disappointed him and that haunted me days on end.
It was crazy how my dull and routine life had resurfaced so quickly. Those three days consisted of more excitement and anticipation than I’d experienced over the past now thirty years of my life. Black left an impression on me that I couldn’t shake.
I found myself missing his presence and that was the biggest part of the reason I was so slumped. My body instantly craved him the moment he was taken away. The regret hit me hard, especially after I was left alone once again.
“You belong to me, Brat.” Words from a man that set my soul on fire, and they played on a loop torturing me as the days passed. To make it so bad, I cried silent tears at times thinking I ruined his life. I knew how the judicial system fucked over black men, and I threw one to those same wolves.
“Che-Che. Che-Che!” I was pulled out of my emotional cloud by the shouting of my best friend calling out to me. “Where you at, boo?”
“In here on the couch,” I yelled back.
She came around the corner with Chinese food, and I immediately ran to her. My stomach tended to touch my back several times throughout the day for the past week or so. I was so glad she came baring gifts, and this was one she couldn’t take back.
“Ooouuuu, you brought me food,” I sang while grabbing the bag from her.
“I did but that ain’t even why I’m here bestie. Turn this fuckin’ tv on now!” She snatched the remote off the coffee table and pointed it at the television screen. “Have you seen this shit?”
The reporter on the news had a picture of Black next to her on the screen. Instead of Black being written under his picture, the name Genesis Atkins was there and so was his age. Twenty-three? The nigga is twenty-three? Jesus, Cheyonne you got your world rocked by a YN.
I instantly locked in to hear what was being said.
“The suspect SPD has had in custody regarding the shooting that happened at Kinfolk Galleria a few months ago is Genesis Atkins. However, those charges were dropped today after Donald Higgins gave his official statement to SPD. He will only be charged with the armed kidnapping of former model Cheyonne Afor.”
He didn’t shoot him? But he had a gun and the diamonds. Why isn’t it him?
The reporter went on to say the shooter was described as a tall, darkskin man with a low cut. He described someone that looked nothing like Black, and I felt so bad about having him arrested. Tears streamed down my face with so much regret. I fucked up and now I didn’t know how to fix it.
“Bitch, an Atkins? Fuck all that. A fine ass Atkins? No, back to the original. An Atkins? You made it seem like you were kidnapped by a crackhead or something,” Toneshia raved.
“Do the looks really matter, Nesh? I was in here during an episode and against my will. Whether the nigga mirrored Michael Ealy or Morris Chestnut, it really doesn’t change the fact that I was a hostage, now does it?” I was over her ass gawking over the nigga I couldn’t forget.
“I’m sorry, that was inconsiderate as hell. Shit, you might as well give me the real about those three days, Cheyonne. You gave me the most watered-down version I ever heard,” she said flopping down beside me.
I handed over her plate of food and we dug in. She must’ve known it was going to be some real tea spilled because she came prepared. I crossed my legs and scooped up some rice. That first bite tasted like heaven I couldn’t even lie. I stuffed my face for a minute or two before speaking.
“First off, please tell me when the hell do we tell each other I love you? I threw you so many SOS signals it wasn’t even funny, Toneshia. In the parking deck, over the phone, hell, even when you called to come over. Bitch how slow are you?” I questioned with so much aggravation on my tongue.
“If you were in so much trouble, why not let me come over when I said I was instead of stopping me? You know I stay strapped and would’ve got you up out of here. Trust me,” she said stabbing at her food.
“I was trying to protect you honestly. Black isn’t right in the head. He talks with his gun more than anything.”
“Huh? He hit you with his gun? What the fuck, bestie?” she shouted jumping to her feet trying to assess me.
If looks could kill, she would be six feet deep right now.
I was so over her dramatics that the more she did the more I wanted her to leave me be.
I was depressed as fuck and really irritable at the moment.
I didn’t want to take my misplaced emotions out on anyone when they were all for one person specifically.
“That man sends a lot of threats, but he never once disrespected me. Pulling his gun on me was his way of keeping me in check and it worked until it didn’t. I got a side of him I wasn’t supposed to, I’m sure of it.”
All of the little things he did while I was going through my episodes flooded my thoughts.
Being catered to as if I was really his had me stuck in a place where I couldn’t move on.
I thought I was doing what was right but now guilt was all that consumed me.
He was that fresh breath of air I didn’t know I needed.
He made me want to do more and appreciate what I had. He was… missed.
“Che-Che, what really happened between you and that nigga? You never want to leave this house. It’s a fuckin’ mess in here which is mind blowing to me knowing you suffer from OCD.
Something is bothering you, and I want to know what it is.
” It was serious for Nesh when she stopped eating completely to give me her undivided attention.
I placed my plate down as well and almost cried.
My feelings behind Black were all over the place and not one feeling seemed to dominate the other.
I was drowning in emotions, and I truly didn’t know what to do.
Talking to Toneshia wasn’t doing anything but making me unhappier than I was the day before.
“With everything that happened in the mall, my anxiety was already sky the fuck high. When I get in my car, he’s there with a gun to my head.
He asked me to drive back to the house, and I did, but I flared up so bad that by the time I got here, I couldn’t move, Nesh.
I was in a full-on episode. He carried me when I couldn’t walk, helped me with my meds, helped me take a shower…
he did what I couldn’t and didn’t complain.
It wasn’t even about the help though best friend; it was the fact that he was gentle as fuck with a bitch after learning that I had fibromyalgia.
Yeah, he called me names but the name calling didn’t bother me for some reason.
Aside from that, he fucked me so good every time I have a flashback my body yearns for him. ”
Toneshia laughed waving her hands in the air stopping me in my tracks. “Bitch, I know I didn’t just hear you say you slept with that man. Y’all fucked?” she screeched with her voice echoing through the house.
“Uh, yeah. I thought I told you that,” I said trying to breeze over it.
“No, you didn’t. I see why you ain’t want me here for real,” she said shaking her head smirking. “Was it good?”
“Bomb ass fuck!” I answered closing my eyes recalling another memory from that night. “You getting me off track. Any who, this is a man that held me at gun point after robbing a jewelry store and shooting that guard.”
Oh, right… it wasn’t him.
Toneshia reached toward my face causing me to flinch back.
I was talking to her, but I was so deep in thought that I got lost in my own sauce.
Black’s presence was sickly missed and so was his shit talking.
I ain’t never had a man talk so much shit to me as he admired me all in the same breath.
Truth be told, I never had a man talk shit to me period.
“I didn’t mean to startle you, bestie, but you’re crying.”
“What?” I touched my face, and sure enough tears were streaming down it. I didn’t even realize it. “I’m sorry,” I apologized wiping them away with my fingers.
“Why are you apologizing, Cheyonne?”
“I feel so bad for sending him to jail now and that shit is eating me up, Toneshia. Like, is there something wrong with me? I’m missing the same nigga that brought chaos into my life.
Here I was thinking the security guard wasn’t going to make it and justice needed to be served but in that same thought, I didn’t want him gone for real.
Hell, he made me cum so many times I was still on that high.
Then when the police came and took him you should’ve seen the way he looked at me.
That expression alone haunts me every time I try to sleep. ”
The tone of her voice had softened to the point where sympathy was heard. I didn’t need her feeling sorry for me. “Oh, Che-Che you fell for him, didn’t you?” she asked.
I went to respond when a queasy feeling washed over me.
The pillow that sat in my lap was thrown to the floor as I rushed to the guest bathroom around the corner.
Today was the first day I felt so uneasy.
It could’ve been from the lack of eating on a regular or the emotional stress I’d endured. Either way, I was calling hurl.
On my knees, all the contents I housed in my stomach was now being released into the toilet. Toneshia was bursting through the door seconds later with questions I didn’t have an answer to.