I'd Rather Be Single 2 (20 page)

"I need you
so bad right now, Michael." I cried hard into his orange Hugo Boss shirt. He gripped my back tighter. The kind of grip that told me that he cared. I know he probably wanted to make everything okay for me."

"Baby, I'm so sorry you're going through this. I've been
calling and texting you like crazy, but you haven’t hit me back. I had to come here and check on you. Are you okay?"

"Just hold me
, Michael." he squeezed his arms across my back again and I kept crying. He stroked my hair with one hand and held me with the other. His comfort was releasing me from my emotional chains. "It's going to be okay, Tyra. I promise baby. I love you."

I let go of his grip and looked him in his eyes. "What?" I asked.

“You heard me, I love you, Tyra. Never stopped loving you.”

His phone kept
ringing in his pocket but he didn't bother to answer it. He sent whoever it was to voicemail a few times.

"
Listen to me, Tyra. I told her that I wasn't in love with her. I can no longer fight this, I can't be apart from you any longer. We need to be together."

"But-but
what about Ros—"

He
finally read one of his text messages and his small eyes enlarged. "Oh shit, she's in the hospital, her mother said it's an emergency and that I have to get to the hospital quick." He must’ve realized the sadness in my eyes. He placed the softest most comforting kiss on my lips. "We are going to finish this conversation, baby, but I gotta go right now. She may be having the baby. I’m going to call you once I find out what’s going on.”

I
faked a smile and wiped the tear that crept out of my right eye. "There is no need to call me, Michael, go be with your family. The timing isn't right, you can't leave the woman of your child for me, it isn’t right."

"But Tyra I
—"

"Just go Michael. I'll be fine."

"I'll be back, baby." he said, blowing a kiss and rushing out.

My heart was crushed.
I wished so badly that Michael and I could reunite, but with all of his new baggage, it would never work out. I walked up to my bureau and spoke to my reflection. "You've always had your own back. This is just another one of life's ways of testing your strength. You got this." The self-talk helped me devise a short-term plan. I packed up a week's worth of clothes and decided to stay in a cheap hotel near my job so that I could clear my mind and then re-enter my life with a new outlook on things.

Recovery
, for the most part, was going pretty smoothly until I returned to work. Dr. Raphael and Dr. Sherman didn't reprimand me for doing a 2-day no show to work. They understood that I was still going through the motions and they welcomed me back with open arms. All the flowers and cards from clients on Dalia's desk kept sending me on trips to the bathroom to cry. This routine continued for weeks.

I
grew insanely lonely. Time alone did nothing but make me cry. I kept hearing Dalia’s voice telling me not to be so down on myself, and that I should push on because I deserved to be happy. That’s when I decided to do something out of the ordinary. I reached out to Dr. Raphael’s brother. I just needed an escape. Maybe he would be the breath of fresh air that I needed to distract me from my problems. I had been ignoring Michael’s calls and texts, and I was proud of myself for having the courage to let go. But in the meantime I had no one to talk to and no one to be there for me.

Dr. Raphael’s brother’s name was Jermaine.
He was pressed to go out right away, so I accepted. I didn’t get glammed up for our date. I wore black slacks and a blue button up blouse. I wasn’t up to trying to impress him. I just wanted some company.

When he opened the car door for me,
I sized him up. He was a tall drink of water. Smooth brown skin, he had the Drake beard, the dirty look, but it was lined up on his face along his chin line. He was dressed to perfection and incredibly intelligent. The only thing that turned me off was his voice. He was one of those educated men that looked like he talked with swag, but when he opened his mouth, he sounded like a white boy in a black body. I figured I could work with it; this would be something different for me.

“So why is a beautiful woman like you single?” he asked. “I'm single because I ha
ven't found someone who deserves me.” I said, getting comfortable in his Acura.

I looked around inside
. He kept the car clean, but I pictured a doctor riding in something a bit more luxurious. He didn’t even have leather seats.

“Wow, I like tha
t. A woman that knows her worth is extremely attractive.”

“Thanks. W
hy are you single?” I asked him.

“Well, I work a lot
, therefore it doesn’t really leave much room for a social life. I’ve never really considered myself a social dater so when I do meet a woman, I’m partially hoping that she is on the same page as I am, so that I don’t have to keep the cycle of dating going.”

Jermaine continued to ramble.
Exercising his intelligence seemed to be what gave him a thrill. If he used one more big word that I didn’t know, I swear I was going to jump out of his car. After a while, I drowned him out. He seemed to like to listen to himself talk.

“So
, Miss Tyra, I’d like to do something special for you tonight. Do you like seafood?” he asked.

“I love seafood.” I smiled.
He finally caught my attention.

“Great, my chef
, Sharon Richards, prepared us a grandiose meal that you will never forget. She’s awesome at what she does.”

When he used the word awesome, I almost laughed out loud. He was such a white boy
at heart, but he was super sweet and I was willing to be open to him. I was totally against going to a man’s house on the first date, but since he was Dr. Raphael’s brother, he got a pass.

His condo was in Avon
, however it wasn’t in one of the luxury parts that you would imagine a doctor living in. He lived in a shabby area congested with old buildings. I wasn’t too quick to judge his condo by the outside, but once inside, he proved that he had little to no taste. Even my apartment was more luxurious than his. The cheap flat crème carpet felt like we were walking on pavement. He had one gray suede couch in the middle of his large living room, a round wood coffee table and a TV sitting on a small TV stand that looked like he found it in the dumpster outside.

“So this is
home, huh?” I asked, not impressed.

“This is home.”
he said.

He placed his keys on his kitchen counter
, which was crowded with envelopes, papers and business cards. You would think that a woman had dumped a junky purse on his counter tops, because there was so much junk, that you couldn’t even see the beauty in the marble tops. I’m not sure how the chef worked around all the junk, but she managed to create a lobster, shrimp and crab dish that visually could easily compete on top chef. The dishes were decorated so beautifully, I almost didn’t want to eat it; it looked more like art work.

We sat at his square dining room table and jumped right into our meal.

“This food is delicious.” I said, biting into the succulent lobster tail.

“Great, glad you like it.”
He took a sip of his water and smiled at me.

“So, what kind of man are you looking for?” he asked me.

“The qualities that I usually look for in a man are honesty, respect and someone who communicates well. But right now, I’m just looking for a friend.”

He wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin.
“It’s funny you mentioned communication. It’s such an intricate attribute that sustains healthy relationships. Most lack the ability to communicate or relay the simplest details that—”

I cut him off
. His rambling was becoming distasteful. He kept spitting out a collection of words that meant nothing. And his tacky apartment turned me off. “I’m sorry, where is your bathroom?”

He stood up and ran over to my chair to pull it out for me. “It’s right back
there to the right.” He pointed.

This trip to the bathroom was
crucial. I had to get myself in check so that I wouldn’t come off as rude during dinner. Maybe I was being too critical of Jermaine. I was definitely trying to be open to him, but he was a strange cat, almost on the weird side.

The trip to the bathroom confirmed his weirdness
. Written across his square bathroom mirror in marker were the words,
live every day as if it's on purpose
. In the back of the toilet hung a large pin board full of post-it notes with words like ‘discipline’ and ‘focus’ with a list of goals for today and five years from now. Now I understand people needed daily inspiration, but this man was taking it too far.

After dinner
, I asked him to turn on the TV so that we could maybe catch a show. This nigga had the nerve to tell me that he didn’t have cable because it was a distraction, and that if you had time to watch TV, then you had too much wasted time on your hands when you could be working.

“You have to
live everyday educating yourself on ways of obtaining wealth and staying wealthy.” He emphasized that the key to staying rich is to save a penny out of every dollar you make. Structure and consistency is the key. His mentor trained him to have the mindset of making more and saving more. This man was literally torturing himself just to stay rich. I’m sure that driving an Acura instead of a Benz, getting cheap furniture and not having cable was saving him money, but life was too short not to splurge on yourself sometimes. He was the cheapest nigga I've ever seen. We even ate on paper plates. I couldn’t wait for our date to end.

When he dropped me off, I thanked him for dinner
, but I already knew that I wasn’t ever going to call him again. The distraction was cool for the moment, but I decided that I would just keep my focus on recovering. And it never failed, every time I tried to focus on me, Michael popped back into my life.

I have to talk to you. I have a meeting at Fire and Ice on Berkeley St
reet, I want you to meet me there at 5:00pm. Are you going to meet me? I need you? I’m begging you Tyra, please.

Once again
, I had to think about meeting him. This pattern was beginning to drain me, because every time I met up with him, a piece of me would stay with him.

Michael, how many times are we going to do this?
I texted him.

Tyra it’s important
. I have to see you.

It
really sounded like he needed me, and I grew concerned.

Okay, I'll come.
I texted him back.

I took my ti
me going to my car. I had to watch my back, in case Rosslyn’s was somewhere lurking around.

While driving to meet Michael, 2
Chainz song “I’m Different” came on, and it had me reminiscing on good times with Dalia. I really missed her and I wished that I had her around to talk to.

I parked about five cars down from the restaurant. I
ran over to the passenger side to retrieve my purse from the passenger seat.

WHAM!

As soon as I shut the door, I was tackled to the ground.

“Ahh
hhhhh!” I hollered. I felt my knees scrape against the pavement. I screamed until my throat hurt. I could feel the blood oozing down my legs. I got the wind knocked out of me.

“Bitch, I told you to stay away from my man!”

When I heard Rosslyn’s voice and saw her on top of me, I gathered all the strength that I had inside to nail her to the ground. I punched her in her face and banged her head against the sidewalk. I was tired of this bitch!

She struggled
to get up, pulling on my hair and scratching my face. Two guys rushed across the street.

“Hey, what’s going on?” they hollered. The taller guy pulled me off of Rosslyn and the short stubby helped Rosslyn up.

“Get offfff of meeeee!!!” She screamed crazily, turning and yanking herself away from him, even landing punches on the his arms and chest.

“I’m just trying to help you
, young lady.” He was trying to assure her, but she was going wild.

“Let me gooooooooooo!!!!”
she screamed as if someone was torturing her.

“This bitch is crazy.”
he said, giving up and realizing that she was nuts.

“Are you alright
?” The large man asked me.

“I’m fine.” I said
, pushing all of my tangled hair down to one side. Some of my weave was lying on the ground.

“
I told you to stay away from Michael, bitch! You just took your own life, I’m going to kill you!” she shouted. She stumbled her way to a Blue Beamer that was parked right behind my car.

I was breathing heavily
while watching her drive away.

“
Are you sure you are going to be okay? That doesn’t seem like a girl you should be mixed up with.” The tall guy said.

“
I’ll be alright.” I told him.