A Taste of Honey (19 page)

W
hen I picked up the letter I almost had a heart attack. I had driven home to support Khalil. Now here I was sitting on the floor of the foyer on my knees, crying as I read the words over and over again.

Next to the letter, his cell phone was shattered in thirty pieces. I read his words once more, emotion took control of me, and I began screaming “no, no” at the top of my lungs. As I cried on the floor it was a battle for me not to hyperventilate. My head was spinning as the temperature in the room felt like it went up to one hundred and ten degrees. Without warning I leaned forward and began to vomit. My world had unraveled just when I believed that I had put it all together so tightly that I’d never have a care. When I believed that I’d never be alone.

I barely made it up the steps to the bed as I clutched the letter in one hand. I called his phone to leave a message but I got nothing. He’d turned off his answering ser vice.

I lost track of how many times I called his phone as the thought of sleeping never even crossed my mind. When the sunlight began to burst through the windows of the bedroom I realized that I was close to losing my mind.

I don’t know when it happened but eventually I passed out from the exhaustion. When I woke up it was late in the afternoon. I tried every number that I had for Khalil’s friends. It was a short list. As I expected, no one had seen or heard from him. He had called Frannie and told her that when I called to let me know that I was not to call the police or his friends looking for him. He also sent word to please respect his wishes and not to be home when he came to get his things.

Frannie was extremely short with me. As if she was a mother protecting her child.

I sat in the kitchen all day and waited for him to change his mind. By the time the sun set, I’d driven past his house only to see the tenants coming out of the door. Another sleepless night was waiting for me as my pain began to give way to the rage and confusion. Priest had gone too far. No one else would have done it.

He would pay with everything he had. This was the last time that anyone would screw me over.

F
or three nights straight I tossed and turned as I teetered on the brink of a breakdown every time I breathed.
“Khalil please come home to me. Please,”
I begged him in my dreams. He cursed me out and called me out of name, but at least he was there. Waking up and finding out that I was alone was the real nightmare.

At seven
A.M
. I walked into my closet and grabbed my safe from underneath the carpet. I pulled out the portable hard-drive storage key and uploaded the contents into my computer.

Then I logged on to the computer and got the numbers to the
Enquirer
and the
Star
. What I did next, I did for free. I outed Priest Alexander and e-mailed the photos to Wendy Williams. After that I called the Miami Police Department and gave them an anonymous tip regarding information on both of the Bobbsey Twins and shared the theory of possible foul play on Priest’s part.

By noon I’d set the wheels in motion to destroy his life just as he’d destroyed mine. I didn’t leave the house, I didn’t make another phone call, nor did I bother to shower. I sat on the sofa until the sun set again, waiting for my nightmare to end. I imagined how Priest was feeling now that I’d struck back. But even
the revenge didn’t do much to abate the pain that I felt without Khalil.

I had to find him. I had to make him understand why I’d done the things I had. He had to know how much I loved him.

At around eleven I climbed off of the couch, forced to the refrigerator by the hunger pains. I thought about the baby growing inside of me and how Khalil requested that I abort. There was no way I would do that. If nothing else I believed that his child might be the only way I’d keep him in my life. I had to eat to take care of the baby.

I turned on the television as I prepared an egg sandwich and out of curiosity I flipped on ESPN. I nearly dropped the frying pan as the headline story was about Priest. “Scandal Rocks the League as Priest Alexander Is Wanted in Miami for Questioning in Connection with the Deaths of Two Women” was the opening headline.

I watched as the sportscaster burst in with “Not since Kobe’s rape charge have we seen such a wildfire brewing in professional basketball. Anonymous tips to the police, mysterious photos allegedly depicting Priest Alexander in a compromising position with a longtime friend and bodyguard surfacing on the Internet…We’re all wondering right now how all of this ties in together. But at the moment, things look awfully dim for the two-time All-Star. Awfully dim. So far Mr. Alexander has not issued a statement. We’re still waiting.”

As I watched more, I remembered Priest’s words:
“Your man? Bitch, you’re a fucking whore. A high-class one, but still a whore nonetheless. Any man who’s claiming you has got to be some pussy-whipped idiot.”

I felt no remorse.

I
hadn’t answered the phone in my hotel room all day, so when Cameron knocked on the door I wasn’t surprised. I’d been holed up in the Greenbelt Marriott for three days straight. She banged incessantly and I knew that she wasn’t going to give up.

I climbed out of the bed and opened the door to see her standing there looking the part of a concerned ally. “I brought you some Boston Market. Let me by.”

“I’m not hungry. I told you that and I also told you that I don’t want company.”

“Khalil, you can’t just stay up in here and shut the world off. You have to keep on moving. She’s not worth this. Nobody is.”

Hearing her speak negatively about Honey angered me. Even with all that I’d learned, I still loved her, though I wouldn’t admit it to anyone. Cameron insisted that I eat and I had to admit for the first time in days that the thought of shoving a meal down my throat didn’t make me want to throw up.

Before I knew it a couple of hours had passed and Cameron
and I were talking the way we used to in her office. She was off the record and insisted that I respond the same way. It was like a free session. We talked about the pain of my discovery in regards to my parents and about my desire to kill Kevin, which I was glad to learn was normal.

“This was a really bad time for you to find out about Honey, I know. Just dealing with your other issues has to be incredibly tough, but you
were
about to marry her. So in essence, this may have been the best time.”

I digested her words and accepted that she may have been right. “So what do I do?”

“What do you want to do?” she asked in response. “I mean if you love her and you think you can get past it maybe you should call her.”

“I could never forgive her. Our whole relationship was built on lies.”

“Perhaps, but let me ask you this. Do you feel like you know why she didn’t tell you the truth from the beginning?”

I thought about it and the answer was so easy that I imagined that Cameron was trying to set me up. “She lied so that I wouldn’t know that she was a call girl.”

She smiled. “No, she lied so that you wouldn’t judge her for her past. You see as humans we all have secrets, things we do that we wouldn’t want to share with anyone else in the world. As time goes on, we find acceptance from ourselves and that is often so incredibly difficult. Sometimes we beat ourselves up daily over these things. Naturally we reason that if we have so much trouble accepting ourselves that there’s no way in the world someone else will accept us for who we really are or in certain cases who we were.”

“So are you saying that I should forgive her?”

“I’m not telling you anything except for what I’m telling you.”

“Which is?”

“Do you have ears?” She laughed. She stood up and said, “Khalil, I have to go. It’s getting late. I’m in a hotel room with a man who I’m slightly attracted to and who I know deep down inside is somewhat attracted to me. The thing is I know that that man is in love with someone else. Someone who has secrets just like everyone else in the world.”

“Even you?”

“Especially me.” She headed for the door and before she turned the handle she said, “Khalil, call me if you need me. Don’t sit in this room too much longer, it won’t help the pain, and most of all be true to yourself.” I was listening attentively. “Always remember, you can’t choose who you love. When you find that the person is bad for you, usually it’s gonna hurt. As a matter of fact, it always hurts.”

With that she walked out of the room.

H
ours after Cameron left I stood in the shower, replaying the entire scene in my mind. The car pulling up, the window going down.
“I know we haven’t met formally, but I feel like I already know you. Khalil, there are some things that you need to know about Honey. After you hear them, trust me, brother, marriage will be the last thing you want to do with her.”

Cheron had gone on: “I told Honey that she couldn’t build a future on a lie, and that you deserved to know the truth. As much as I don’t want to admit it, Honey is evil and I know you’ve been through so much already that you don’t need to be
with someone else who would deceive you about something so important.”

I hated to admit that I had become all ears as Cheron poured out hateful gossip that was more lethal than acid. Each word destroying a piece of the love and trust that I felt for Honey.

I questioned her motives at first but she never made an advance. It was like she was playing the role of my guardian angel.

“I thought you were her friend. Her best friend,” was the only thing I had responded with.

“I was. But right is right and wrong is wrong.”

I
climbed out of the shower and got dressed. My heart ached and felt as though it might stop beating at any second. I needed to see Honey. I picked up the phone to let her know that I was coming home. I got halfway through dialing the number when I heard a knock at the door.

I hung it up and walked to the door. “Who is it?”

“Cheron.”

When I opened it up she walked in. “What are you doing?” I asked, shocked with her boldness.

“I came to check on you.” I’d made the mistake of calling her from the hotel the next day for more details. She’d seemed to take pleasure in delivering as much detail as I was willing to listen to.

“I’m okay.”

“Really? I brought you something to help you out.” She lifted a bag of liquor and put it on the dresser. “I thought you could probably use a drink.”

“I don’t think…” She was already popping the top and pouring the XO into a cup.

“Plus there are some things I wanted to talk to you about.” She was talking really fast. “First I need to use the bathroom.”

As she headed into the bathroom I realized that I wasn’t wearing anything but a towel and I needed a pair of underwear. I began digging through my bag, searching to no avail, when the door swung open. I looked at the door and she was standing there in nothing but her bra and panties.

Cheron had to be at least five or six years older than me but her body took my breath away. She looked like one of the girls you see in
King
or
Smooth
magazine. I knew what time it was as I scanned the black-and-pink bra-and-panties set. “Cheron, what are you doing?”

“You know exactly what I’m doing.”

“So is this why you told me about Honey? So you could steal me from her?”

“No, that’s not it at all,” she said as she moved toward me, hands-out. She touched my shoulders and as the sensations trickled through my body I lost my temper.

I yelled at the top of my lungs: “Cheron, get the fuck out of my room before I kill you.” I was so angry. She had ruined my life. In that instant I wished that she’d never told me anything about Honey. For the first time I realized that staying in the dark about Honey’s secrets wouldn’t have been so bad. She’d taken an HIV test at the prenatal appointment, which came out negative, so it was a case where what I didn’t know wouldn’t have hurt me. My anger persisted. I shoved Cheron into the wall and told her for the second time to leave.

She yelled back but sounded fearful: “I’m trying to help you out. All I did was try to look out for you. Nigga, you crazy.”

“Nah, your ass is crazy.” Like Martin Lawrence sending Cole,
Pam, or Tommy out of his crib I yelled, “Now get to stepping.” I grabbed her clothes and opened the door. I tossed them into the hall along with the liquor bottle. “Your ass ain’t a friend to anyone. You’re a snake.”

She scrambled out into the hall and grabbed her clothes. Ten minutes later I was on my way to Honey.

T
he sound of footsteps startled me but didn’t wake me. I wasn’t asleep. I sat up in the bed as soon as I heard the sound of feet moving through the house. I reached for the light on the nightstand. I knew he’d come. I hadn’t turned the alarm on all week, anticipating seeing him again.

When the light hit the room I saw the surprised look on his face. If it weren’t for the baby inside of me things might have gone differently. I might not have held out the hope of survival. Maybe I wouldn’t have prepared myself to go to these lengths.

Once he saw me he began to cry. “How could you do this to me? You took everything from me. My life is over. I kept my end of the deal. I left you alone,” Priest said.

“You told my fiancé everything. You told him what I did and he left me.”

“What are you talking about? I did not,” he said, almost whining.

“Why lie about it Priest? You’ve done enough lying to last a lifetime I’d think.”

“I’m not lying. If I was going to tell I would have done it the day I saw you downtown. I’ve been overseas since the day after that. I was in town to take pictures at the Capitol with the other players who were on the U.S. National Team. We left the next day. I just came home this morning. I couldn’t have done it.”

I was puzzled at what he was saying. I did remember the sportscaster saying that he was unavailable for comment. He went on, “I was playing in a tournament when the story broke. Then I come home to this.” His voice was trailing off. “I come home to you ruining my life, my marriage, my career.”

My body began to get cold. I believed him. I had always been good at reading someone’s body language and Priest was being straightforward. I sucked in air and tried to stay calm. He was sweating as he began to ramble on and on about his family and his career.

Speaking just below a yell he said, “What am I supposed to do now? You tell me that.” He began to ramble. This made me nervous in light of the fact that he’d come to kill me. The gun he held in his hand and the black gloves he wore were a dead giveaway of his intentions.

“Stay calm and don’t lift that,” I said. “I swear I will use this.” The Smith & Wesson that I had been aiming at his face since the second he walked into my bedroom had kept him steady up to that point. I’d purchased the gun years back and I knew how to use it. I’d learned a long time ago that there were some situations where pepper spray just wouldn’t get the job done.

“So you gonna kill me?” he chuckled in a tone of disbelief. I don’t think he doubted for a second that I would pull the trigger. I did think that he was having a hard time accepting that his revenge would not come to pass.

“I don’t want to but…” I stopped when we both heard the front door shut. “Who’s with you? Is your boyfriend with you?”

“I’m alone,” he said in a panicked tone. When I heard the voice my heart began to beat again.

I heard the familiar pattern of Khalil’s feet moving quickly up the stairs. I couldn’t believe that he had come home. He turned the corner and saw Priest standing there with the gun in his hand.

I wanted to scream out that I had it under control but Khalil’s eyes lit up with anger and he rushed toward Priest. He didn’t move quickly enough and I watched as Priest lifted the weapon and fired three shots. They all hit Khalil.

I wanted to scream; instead I aimed for Priest, who looked surprised at what he’d done. By the time he faced me I was squeezing the trigger. I lost track of how many times I fired, but I didn’t stop until he slid down the wall as the crimson blood began to pour from the holes I’d put in him.

“Oh God no,” I yelled out. I ran and stepped over Priest to Khalil. “Baby, please. Don’t die. Don’t die,” I kept repeating.

I was a flash as I ran for the phone to call 911. As I ran down to unlock the door and the gate, he was still breathing. When I got back to him, he wasn’t.