Before I Let Go (2 page)

Moving from the couch to the bed was a blur, but I do know that we made some serious love all over my apartment. At one point we were on the balcony with me standing behind her, causing her to release unbridled moans of pleasure as the sun rose over Atlanta.

We were both exhausted by the time we hit the sheets to actually sleep. It was late the next afternoon before she left my apartment to beat her husband home.

There was every
indication that, in the beginning, our relationship was based mainly on sex. But so was every relationship that I had ever heard of.

Gradually, though, things changed over the following couple of years. Somehow the sexual attraction gave way to an emotional bond. We grew extremely close, and at times we both seemed to forget the little fact that she was married. Eventually I had to hide that I dated other women. She couldn’t handle the fact that I might get into a serious relationship with someone else. Even if I had I doubted that I would have ended things with Paula. If nothing else, I had become seriously attached to her and I often professed that I loved her, though not as intensely as I had her believe.

She often confided in me that she thought her husband was cheating on her but that she didn’t care because she had me. She, of course, stayed married, but claimed that she didn’t love her husband anymore. Paula admitted that she didn’t think she would ever leave him, and I never griped. She had gotten so used to sneaking around with me behind his back, it seemed like there was no need. I knew that she was in love with me, as evidenced by the way that she would do anything for me. No request was too freaky, and no gift was too expensive.

She showered me with gifts, attention, and sex. It never bothered me that she was so dependent on me in her day-to-day life. It was as though she lived for my conversation, romance, and our lovemaking. I treated her as well as I could. I often sent her the white roses and violets that she loved so much but no longer received from her husband. I took her to Hawks basketball games and outlet shopping in Tennessee. We enjoyed the theater, ski trips, and horseback riding. I even took up tennis for her, because she was a Venus and Serena wannabe.

The thing that kept us closest, though, was the fact that more than anything we both enjoyed just being together, laughing, and loving each other. Those moments came mostly at night in my apartment. She would tell her husband that she was doing research and correspondence work with a professor in California for a textbook, and because of the time difference she was required to work into the wee hours of the night at least twice a week. He never questioned this.

I believe that it’s safe for women to assume that the only reason why men don’t question lies like the ones she told him is because we’re too busy being up to no good ourselves. Paula and I never knew when his ignorance would end and perhaps bring a conclusion to our affair, but we both knew it was a day we dreaded.

When I took
time to think about what I was doing—getting caught in a situation with a married woman—I felt bad. Not only because I was an adulterer, but also because I enjoyed it so much. It felt safe, believe it or not. I knew that Paula couldn’t truly hurt me. The fact of the matter was that she didn’t belong to me. The only problem was that she didn’t fully understand that I wasn’t truly hers either. It wasn’t spoken, but it was clear to me that we used each other to get what we needed. She needed somewhere to run from her unfulfilling marriage, and I needed to run from that empty space in my heart that would make itself known to me every time I heard Joe or Maxwell crooning on the radio.

B
rendan and Renee had been friends since junior high school, when she was one of the smartest girls in class and Brendan was one of the laziest boys. In fact, whenever one of them needed a favor from the other, the first thing that would come out of their mouths was “C’mon now…you know how far we go back. At least to the Bush and the Bump.” But their friendship was much deeper than convenience. Unlike so many people who call themselves friends today, they shared a genuine love and respect for each other.

They made each other’s acquaintance by more than chance. The two of them sat next to each other in three classes because his last name was Shue and hers was Shoreham, and when teachers sat students alphabetically, seldom was there a last name in between. Renee saw those seating arrangements as an opportunity to get to know one of the cutest guys in the eighth grade, and Brendan saw it as an opportunity to copy her homework and cheat off of her tests all year. They both accomplished their goals, and out of their newfound union grew a lasting friendship.

They had been there for each other in the darkest of times. During their junior year in high school Renee gave her virginity to a twenty-five-year-old married man, who told her the next day that he didn’t think it would be a good idea for her to call him anymore. Without hesitation or reservation, it was Brendan who called the guy’s wife and told her about the situation—before breaking the windshield of the guy’s car.

Brendan also took half the money he had been saving for a car during his freshman year of college and wired it to Renee to pay for her last-minute airline ticket home from Boston when her father was in a near-fatal car accident. Renee long regarded that act as the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her.

For her part, Renee was the one Brendan counted on when he needed help doing almost anything. Whether it was a ride when his wheels were down or typing his term papers, Renee accommodated Brendan. When Brendan and Trina’s breakup left him so heartbroken he could barely get out of bed, let alone go to work, it was Renee who refused to let him out of her sight for nearly two weeks. Nor did she ever tell him “I told you so,” even though she had warned him about Trina several times.

Renee’s suspicions had been based mostly on the fact that she had heard rumors about Trina in the hair salon, and from mutual acquaintances. Even though Renee couldn’t stand Trina, she never thought much would materialize from her indiscretions. She definitely had no idea that Trina eventually would crush her best friend.

The moment of truth had come when Brendan left work early on a hot August afternoon and went to pick up a couple of tickets for a Jill Scott concert at Pier Six in nearby Baltimore Harbor that was to take place that evening. Brendan knew how much Trina loved Jill Scott, and since the Roots were performing with her, he was hyped up about seeing the show himself.

Brendan pulled into Trina’s parking lot and was about to park in her reserved parking space when he noticed a forest green Toyota Sequoia parked in her spot. He expected her spot to be empty because she’d dropped her car at the dealer’s for service that morning. He parked his Corvette next to the truck in the spot that was plainly marked with the word “visitors” stenciled on the curb and headed off toward her apartment building.

As he walked up the steps to her building he laughed to himself about how he had better be prepared to hear Trina cussing about her inconsiderate parking place intruder once he delivered the news that someone had parked in her fifty-dollar-a-month spot again. Brendan’s heart was filled with anticipation to see his sweetheart of almost two years as he reached her door. He was looking forward to surprising her with the tickets. Just as he was about to grab the knocker, the door eased open. In an instant Brendan’s heart fell into his stomach; he saw a brother standing in front of him in wrinkled linen slacks and a white dress shirt that had only one side tucked in. Under the stranger’s arm he held a blazer and an attaché case with a tie hanging out of it.

He looked at Brendan’s face and saw the shock and anger and realized that he should depart as quickly as possible. The stranger nervously called to Trina and informed her that she had company, and hastily sped out the door past the still stunned Brendan without even an “excuse me.”

Brendan was still standing at the door as he watched the guy disappear down the steps and out of the building. He stood there partly in disbelief and partly in preparation for what he feared he had stumbled upon. Before the door could swing shut Brendan managed to snap out of his semicomatose state and catch it. Trina was calling out to her guest, not realizing that he’d already left the apartment. She was asking if it was the paperboy, all the while walking toward the living room. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head when Brendan greeted her with a searing look on his face that scared Trina to her soul. There was not much that she could say, since she was standing there in only a sexy silk robe, with her hair all over her head.

A vicious argument ensued. For most of it Trina tried to deny that any actual intercourse had taken place. Finally she tried to explain that he was an old friend who had stopped by and that things had gotten out of hand and eventually…one thing had led to another. All the while she insisted that he had not penetrated her. Brendan was not buying it for one minute. He began tuning her out while she was explaining herself. Somewhere during their argument he sat down on the arm of her love seat and placed his hands on his forehead.

His mind began to fill with thoughts ranging from choking her right then and there to wondering who was the dark-skinned brother who obviously had just finished body slamming his girl. Suddenly the image of the stranger’s face popped into Brendan’s mind, and it was the same face of the car salesman who had sold Trina her brand new Toyota Avalon just three weeks before. Then, all of a sudden, in the middle of the argument, Brendan jumped up and sped off toward the bedroom. Trina quickly caught onto the idea that he was going in for some concrete evidence. She gave chase, but it was too late. Before she could catch him he was inside her bedroom with the door locked. She began banging on the door. Brendan was oblivious to her screams and demands to be let into the bedroom. He looked into the trash can expecting to see a condom wrapper. When there wasn’t one he felt slightly relieved and thought for a second that she might be telling the truth. Then he moved to the bed. He stared for a second taking a quick inventory of it. He pulled back the sheets. Immediately his heart sank and his stomach felt as if it had shot up through his chest and was now lodged in his throat. She was busted. There was a wet spot on that bed that was the unmistakable result of some funky sex.

Brendan’s blood began to boil as he walked to the window and slid it open and punched the screen out. Then he moved to the closet, which was already open. He could make out Trina’s muffled cries and banging on the other side of the door: “What are you doing, Brendan? What are you doing? Open the door.”

Brendan began grabbing everything on a hanger that his money had paid for and began tossing it out of the window—and inadvertently a few things that he hadn’t paid for. By the time he had finished throwing a good two thousand dollars worth of clothes out of the window, Trina had gotten a butter knife and pried open the door. She came in crying and cursing. Brendan’s face showed a picture of hate as he pulled the plug of the twenty-seven-inch Sony flat-screen television from the wall and yanked the cable wires from the back of the set. He was so hot at that point that if it had been 20 degrees colder in the room steam would have risen from his head. She read his body language loud and clear, which is why she didn’t try to keep him from hauling the television set that he had bought her a month earlier out of the bedroom and through the front door.

He loaded the television in the passenger seat of his car and walked around to the back of her building, retrieved the clothes that he had thrown out of the window, and tossed them through the open roof of his car. By that time, Trina had thrown something on but was barefoot as she ran down the walkway toward Brendan’s moving car. She was begging him, “Please don’t take all of my clothes…. What am I going to wear to work?”

Brendan rolled down his window and attempted to throw the remains of a Slurpee on Trina, but he missed and hit the Hyundai behind her. As he pulled off and left Trina standing in the middle of the parking lot, there was the deafening sound of Brendan’s Pirellis squealing as he peeled out of the complex.

Trina hadn’t realized that they had created a scene. She stood there in her cutoff jeans shorts and a Washington Mystics T-shirt that was turned inside out; her hair was a mess, and tears were still running down her cheeks. Several people took notice of her and shook their heads in disbelief. Finally, the fly-assed sister in 2C who seldom spoke had been busted. She hung her head down low, as if doing that would make her invisible to the onlookers as she walked back into the house.

That was one day and one relationship that Brendan had tried desperately to forget about. But Trina had made it hard for him. She called him continuously for three months after their breakup, trying to get back together with him. As bad as he missed caressing that cocoa brown skin of hers and seeing that curvaceous five-feet-four-inch naked frame, there was no way he’d ever give her another chance to rip his heart apart.

There was no denying that he missed her. She was the most well-rounded sister he had ever had the pleasure of being involved with intimately. They would talk about everything, from politics, to sports, to home interior decorations. All of the kinky things that she used to do in bed with him crossed his mind from time to time as well. Especially when he was enduring one of his dry spells, as he liked to call the periods when he wasn’t getting much good sex, if any sex at all.

He chalked up this disastrous relationship as one to grow on, and did his best to keep on keeping on. It was hard because, as nice a guy as Brendan was, he wasn’t the kind of guy who met a lot of women. Even in a city like Washington, D.C., where the female-to-male ratio is rumored to be as high as 8 to 1, a fairly handsome brother, with a nice personality and a decent-paying job, can find it hard to meet a nice young woman, let alone one who isn’t into playing games, like Trina.

In addition, Brendan had grown a little apprehensive about approaching women due to the little bit of weight he’d picked up over the previous few years. It was nothing that he could not have gotten under control with a few months of serious exercise and a strict diet, but his devotion to working out was weak, to say the least. Besides, he had bigger problems to worry about than being a few pounds over-weight.