Chapter 10
A Week Later…
Kehlani's I Need You had been one of the songs on repeat for the last seven days straight.
She needed to be alone to center herself, and it filled the silence she couldn't seem to outrun.
Sleep had become a stranger. Food had become an afterthought.
Other than water and the occasional cup of tea, she couldn't remember the last thing she'd willingly put into her body.
Grief had a funny way of stripping away necessities.
It convinced you that breathing was enough when your heart felt like it had been ripped from your chest. Florida wasn't home anymore, but it was familiar, and right now, familiar was all she could handle.
The sunshine.
The beach.
The rhythm of the waves.
The melody drifted through the luxurious suite she'd rented at The Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island, which was forty minutes away from Jacksonville, Florida.
Promise sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor, staring blankly at the ocean beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows.
The water was peaceful, steady, predictable.
Everything she wasn't. Florida was exactly what she needed to provide that sense of normalcy she so desperately needed in order to process and decipher between her mind, heart, and intuition.
She hadn't returned any of Monroe's calls, and hadn't had the capacity to respond to any of his texts.
Over and over, she'd tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but she couldn't unsee those images.
Another woman's hands were on her man. Another woman had violated a space that no one could tell Promise wasn't exclusive for her alone.
Promise had replayed every memory in her mind since the day she met Monroe at least three times, and still, there were no red flags, or small moments she'd overlooked.
Some indication that another woman had existed somewhere in the background.
They'd spoke multiple times a day, and even though they were maintaining a long-distance relationship, Monroe had pursued her with intention from day one. He’d made it his business to fly across states to come see Promise no less than three to four times a week, even if it was just to spend a few hours with her.
And, that's not including the times Promise had pulled up on him unannounced, or when he'd surprised her with weekend trips around the world and out of the country. He’d memorized small details about her that most men overlooked, and had made her feel chosen every single day.
That consistency was part of what made the pictures hurt so much.
At some point she'd grabbed the hotel notepad and drew a line straight down the middle of the page.
On one side she wrote… Everything I Know About Monroe, and on the other she wrote, Everything These Pictures Are Telling Me.
She thought seeing it on paper would make the truth easier to accept.
It didn't. The list only made her heart hurt more. The good had outweighed the bad by a long shot because there were no suspicious phone calls, no late-night disappearances, no perfume on his clothes that didn't belong, no hidden messages, no unexplained absences. Monroe was a real ass man, and that’s what blew Promise’s mind the most. A nigga had to wake up extremely early in the morning to fool her, and she never slept late.
She read both columns over and over, searching for the version of Monroe that matched the photographs she received in the mail.
She never found him. His facial expression, his body language…
Promise could sense something was off, but none of that mattered.
Who this mystery woman was, and why her man was with her trumped everything.
The betrayal wasn't just in what she'd seen, it was in what the pictures forced her to question.
Every beautiful moment came with doubt attached.
And that hurt more than she cared to admit.
Promise wasn't naive. She wasn't desperate for love.
She wasn't one of those women who stayed because they couldn't imagine life without a man.
Promise had always trusted herself. Always.
If something felt off, she listened. If someone moved funny, she paid attention.
If a situation lacked clarity, she walked away. Simple.
Promise often wondered how he made time for her on top of running multiple businesses legal and illegal.
Monroe had been the reason Promise believed wholeheartedly that if a man wanted you, and was all about you, their woman would never have to guess about it.
She'd never have time to wonder about how he was moving because the shit would be abundantly clear.
So clear that even Ray Charles could read it without his fingers.
Promise was a woman who thrived in reading a nigga right the first time, and was no nonsense to the core.
She didn't allow women or men to play in her face, ever.
Not only was her time valuable, she had a pure heart, and she felt everything deeply.
Those who had access to her knew this was big facts.
Which is why being blindsided with images of Monroe and another woman had shattered her heart.
He had bypassed every defense she'd ever built, and he had touched her.
She wasn't ashamed to say she belonged to him in front of the entire world, and Monroe had reciprocated the same energy.
Touched her mind.
Touched her heart.
Nudged her soul, and owned her body.
He'd become woven into places she didn't even realize existed until they started hurting. Tears slipped down her cheek, and she didn’t bother wiping them away.
At some point during the last week, she'd become exhausted from cleaning up evidence of her pain.
Her father had been right years ago, and his words echoed clear as day in her mind as she sat in the middle of the floor.
Never let a man control your peace or happiness because when he does, the weight of his moves will hold the power to make or break you.
Promise had taken the gems her parents had dropped on her through the years to heart, applying their wisdom in her daily life, but Monroe had been different.
He wasn't like other men, he'd proven that to her.
She released a bitter laugh because Monroe had never felt like a threat to her peace.
The pictures were so contrary to who she knew him to be, but the after effects of the assault on her heart had influenced her to entertain a myriad of thoughts that were foreign to her heart.
The truth was, Promise had picked up her phone more times than she cared to admit.
She'd unlocked the screen, stared at Monroe's name, even hovered her thumb over the call button until it trembled.
Every single time, she'd locked the phone again and sat it back down.
It wasn't because she didn't want answers.
Lord knows she needed them. She wanted Monroe to tell her the pictures were fake, explain why another woman's hands had been on him, and somehow make sense of the chaos that had invaded her heart.
But the version of Promise that existed in that moment wasn't emotionally equipped to hear anything he had to say.
Pain had a voice. One she'd learned a long time ago not to trust.
Pain assumed the worst. It filled in blanks that didn't exist, replayed painful images until they became facts, and convinced broken hearts that every fear they carried was the truth.
Promise knew herself well enough to understand that if she'd confronted Monroe while her emotions were high-key bleeding so profusely.
She knew one of two things would've happened.
She would've believed everything he told her simply because of how she felt about him, or she would've said something so hurtful neither of them would have been able to come back from. Neither option sat right with her spirit, and she didn’t trust herself, so she chose distance. Not because she was running from Monroe, but because she couldn’t afford to lose herself.
She needed silence more than she needed explanations.
She needed room to separate what she'd seen from what she'd started convincing herself it meant.
Most importantly, she needed to know whether the voice leading her was her intuition...
or simply a heart that had been shattered by something it wasn't prepared to survive.
As she rose from the floor, Promise grabbed her phone to change the song, but a text notification from her sister, Rae, came through before she could do anything else. It was perfect timing because it had immediately softened something inside her.
Hey Missy! I'm missing you like crazy girl. Tell me something good.
Hey, Sissy! I miss you too. Just taking one day at a time. How's everything your way?
No complaints. My'Dymond Angel been giving me a run for my money, but I love her lil bossy self.
Don't do my niece. She just outspoken. Send me some pictures of my baby.
3 images **text photo**
A small smile tugged at Promise's lips for the first time all week as she looked at the images of her niece with tears in her eyes.
She was the sweetest little girl, and her innocence warmed Promise's broken heart. Truth and Rae had named her niece My’Dymond Angel right because there was something so angelic about the way her light shined through her.
My'Dymond's eyes transferred a peace to Promise that she didn't have before.
Everyone in the family and close friends called her a little angel because she had that effect on all who came around her.
Promise was reminded while looking at her niece that goodness still existed, and despite what she was going through, life hadn't completely lost its beauty.
Thank you for sending me some updated pics of my girl. I'ma have to come get her soon.
Yes Lord. I need a break, LOL!