Love Delayed (30 page)

Covered in his hood, Stenton walked me to the door of my
dorm building. He appeared very much dejected. When I turned to him, I tried supplying a smile to buffer his anxiousness. I lifted my left hand to caress the side of his face. The prickles from his fine stubble hairs against the pads of my fingers gave some degree of soothing for me. I wished it brought him the same comfort. I studied his troubled eyes.

“Stent—” I attempted.

“Don’t go falling in love with anybody, Niña.” His strained voice pulled at something deep within. “Don’t give your heart away to another man.”

I swallowed hard, fighting back my tears. Feeling pain from the size of the cry burning the back of my throat. The smarting sensation tumbling down to the
pit of my belly, all because I fought to keep the tears within. Stenton didn’t deserve to see how much he affected me. He was breaking away from me. Disconnecting.

“
I can’t give away something that was stolen long before I recognized it was gone, or how valuable it was.” My gaze directly into his weary eyes was sharp.

“I’m sorry,
Zoey,” he whispered painfully before giving me a lingering peck on my lips. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

Stenton
turned and walked off. His shoulders, though high and wide were weighed down with something that he didn’t want to share. And no matter how self-assured a person I was at the tender age of twenty-one, no amount of hopefulness would fool me into misinterpreting what he’d just done. Stenton had just said goodbye to whatever we made in the Cayman Islands. It was over. I watched him walk away with my heart in tow.  

~
Zoey
~

When my door burst open, I jumped from my bed
and into the wall that it sat against, holding my chest. An earplug flew out and my mouth went dry.

“What in the world is your deal, girl?”

“Momma has been calling you for five minutes now!” Ruth managed with all the b-girl attitude she could spew my way. “Could your depressing ass come out of this hellish bat cave to dwell amongst the living for once?”

I ripped the remaining bud from my ear and leaped off the bed, pushing my way into my little sister’s face.

“Who on God’s earth do you think you’re taking that language with, little girl?” I issued the most threatening glare I could. I was prepared to toss Ruth around the second floor of our parents’ home.

“Well, now that someone has your attention, I’m talking to you. You’ve been in this room since we got back from South Carolina a week ago,
Zo!”

“You have two-point three seconds to get out of here or you’re going to have to
have be lifted out,” I hissed directly into her face.

I’d never been a violent person. At the most, as children, Ruth and I would shove each other around, but nothing more than that. Until this day. Today, I would make Ruth regret even being born.

“Hey! What is all this commotion going on up in here?” My mother came stomping through the halls. She arrived between the two of us. “I know you two know better than to be fighting! Elizabeth, what is going on with you?”

I’d had it. I jerked back, went into my tiny closet, pulled out the overnight bag that was last used for the Cayman Island
s. The one I’d refused to unpack before I could understand what had happened. I tossed a few things in there, packing it to capacity.

“Nothing,” I answered my mother. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be at Karen’s
helping with the baby. Then I’m off to school.” I made my way to the door, noting Ruth had disappeared.

“Now, hold on just for
one second, young lady!” My mother hooked my arm before I could breeze past her in the small doorway. “You’ve been pouting in this room for days now. This wouldn’t have anything to do with that ball player that you been gushin’ over, would it?”

Now panting
, I realized lying to my mother was pretty much futile. I had been home since returning from the Cayman Islands, because it was a far more comfortable environment that didn’t remind me so much of Stenton. I hadn’t made love to him here. I’d fallen into a dark pit, a place where I could feel every hollow place, yet had no understanding of how to survive there. I’d never known this chasm of despair.

I leveled my eyes with hers. “Momma, right now is not a good time. I haven’t been doing too well with having too much time on my hands
from taking just one class this summer. I think sitting with Karen for a few days to help her out will help me.”

For minutes long, she just stared at me. I knew she could see right through me, but I made sure not to give her the ammunition she needed to pull
the mask clear from my face.

“You be sure to call me when you’re ready to talk. I’m your momma and
ain’t nothing I don’t feel from or for you. Do you understand me, young girl?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I returned, barely covering the cry that I refused to release.

On my way over to Karen’s, driving old Bessie, my mind churned. It was my first day out of the house since Stenton dropped me off. The day my world turned black. It had been the longest period of my life that I held my breath. I thought the wait to hear back from my early application submission to Princeton was the longest period. Nope. It was waiting out this era of pain.
Because it would leave eventually, right?
I mean time healed
everything
, right?

Little did I know,
I’d be holding that breath for years to come.

I spent the first few days pra
ying for the relief. And when I say praying, I mean tarrying. I tarried for days, chanting one word: Please.
Please, God remove this pain.
Never in my life did I feel so bleak. I saw sunlight nowhere. I prayed harder than I ever had in life to remove the weights of my heart and to fill the pit of my belly that echoed its emptiness. I had absolutely no idea what to do with the pain I felt. I had no reference other than Angela who still wasn’t speaking to me. Certainly she felt this when she learned of Timmy’s infidelity. How she handled it wasn’t something I was up for, but at least she had an idea of what it felt like to have her heart ripped from her chest.

I wanted to talk with my mom. In
a perfect world I could, but then I’d have to admit to falling into something that I perceived to be
more
with Stenton. I knew that wasn’t the truth. I knew that man loved me. I knew he felt every bit of the love we made each time we did. I knew each time he prepared to enter me when we made love, he held an unvaried admiration for me. I knew the fierce grip he held me in his arms with each time he embraced me after we were done exploding on and into one another was because he wanted to be stapled in that place with me and only me. I knew the way he’d simply speak my name when he called me, that he loved the core of me. He knew me, the real Elizabeth, and not the mask I wore for everyone else. I knew him, the real Stenton Rogers that everyone regarded as a statue and not a living man.

I pulled up to the garden apartment complex, grateful to find parking. When Karen opened the door the first thing she uttered was, “My god,
Zo! You look like you met Satan head on.”

Her
mouth remained suspended and I stood there, for once, not having a comeback. Karen had beautiful brown skin. She was shorter than Angela and me with a nice set of boobs and a round apple of a booty. You’d never be able to tell she’d just had a baby a few months ago. I hadn’t seen her much outside of church. It felt good looking down at her short stature again. I gave a small but genuine half a smile. She stepped aside, inviting me to come in.

“You just missed Angela,” she offered from behind me. My heartbeat sped up at that. I hadn’t heard from Angela in months. “She left when I told her I’d be expecting you at this hour.”

I exhaled long and harshly as I grabbed the bridge of my nose.

“So, BJ is in training for his new job?” I asked
, trying to change the conversation.

“Yup, Wal-Mart is promoting him to shift manager.” Karen didn’t sound so thrilled. “Hang on. I need to check on the baby. Have a seat and make yourself at home.”

When Karen returned, she sat on the love seat next to me and went right to it. “My mom thinks you’re having some type of delayed emotional reaction to Angela and me getting pregnant and married. She said that you’re feeling abandoned and possibly even going through some identity crisis. Is that what’s going on with you, Zo?”

I closed my eyes and slowly shook my head. “What are you talking about? Why is Aunt Jenny diagnosing me?”

“You know they talk: my mom, your mom and Auntie Bridget.”

Auntie Bridget was Angela’s mother. I guess she had a point. Word d
id get around our family like lightning.

“Is it,
Zo? I really wanted you over to get into that thick skull of yours. You’ve been a little distant since my wedding. I don’t know if my mom is right, but I do know you’ve changed. I just hope I had nothing to do with it. I really miss hanging out with you.” Karen’s voice was almost as pained as my heart was at the time.

“It’s not you…or Angela.” I licked my lips, trying to garner the nerve to finally open up and share my misery. Next to Angela, Karen had be
en my closest confidante. “KK, I…ummm…sort of got involved with a guy.”

Her eyes enlarged. “Is that why you’ve been MIA? I mean, that
’s a good thing, right?”

I shrugged, feeling that cry at the back of my throat again. “No.” I swallowed hard. “Not when you fall in love with him and he up and leaves you without warning or reason.”

There were several expressions that washed over Karen’s oval shaped face: concern, confusion, relief, and then amusement.

“Well,
Zo, I know you’ve never been the type to fall head-over-heels over a guy, but it’s not like it was so serious that you have to call it heartbreak, right?”

“You do when you make love to the first man
that causes you to question your values and to want to change everything you called yourself planning for your life,” I whispered, unable to look at her.

But I heard her gasp. “
Zo!” I glanced up to meet her eyes. “You lost your virginity?”

I nodded while biting the inside of my cheeks.

“Holy mother of Joseph!” she breathed. It was a phrase we all used.

“Well, there goes Bernard’s dreams out the window,” she murmured mostly to herself. “Does Angela know the guy? I know how tight you two…were.”

My eyes slammed shut and my face wrinkled as though in pain. I nodded my head.

Karen gasped. “An ex of hers? Oh,
Zo! I know you’re not that type of girl.” She’d begun to panic and at the same time, mollify me.

“Worse,” I whispered, still unable to open my eyes.

“How much worse can it get besides Timmy?”

I did open my eyes to that one. Timmy was Angela’s fiancé. I caught Karen’s drift. It could only be as bad as Angela’s current. But that wasn’t true.

“Oh, it’s even worse than him.”

“
Zoey, you’re scaring me! Who?”

“Stenton Rogers
.” The tears I’d been swallowing all week nearly surfaced at the mention of his name.

Karen sat back in the sofa and covered her mouth, looking identical to Aunt Jenny.
Jeez!
I’d aged this girl in a matter of seconds.

“Was it his stature?
” She lolled her head in disbelief. “Ang said that he’s even better looking in person than on television. Even I didn’t think that was possible. Did you get caught up in all of that, one thing led to another and you gave him your virginity? I could understand that slipup, you know?”

I shook my head throughout much of her assess
ment, knowing where she was going with it. “It was more than that, KK. He told me he loved me.”

“Well,
Zo, you know that’s not uncommon for men when they want something. And then with him sensing you were the good girl you are, I’m sure he went even further with his persuasion.” She shook her head, suddenly angered. “So, it’s taken all this time for you to get over a fling from a year ago. I see now, Zo.”

I continued shaking my head. “No, KK. We just ended things a week ago. He dropped me off at home and just broke things off for no
—” I could go no further or else I’d cry.

I was so confused as to the cause of him ending our friendship. When I thought it was for another woman,
I learned I was wrong. Two days after he dropped me off, I went to Stenton’s Facebook profile and saw that he had set it to a picture of me in Cayman the morning after our tattoo excursion. It was taken from behind me. I was naked with just a loose sheet covering my bare breasts, but not my back. My hair was a messy display against my back and shoulders. My posterior was exposed all the way down to the top of my cheeks, revealing such intimacy between Stenton and the woman in the picture. Me.

The caption underneath read:
The moment you meet your perception of perfection is the moment you’ll never be the same
. I didn’t understand the meaning of that as it pertained to me. The picture got over four thousand likes on his personal page where he had as many friends. How he was able to keep that account from the general public, I didn’t know, especially because he didn’t go through lengths to hide his identity. His friends knew who he was. Stenton didn’t post this intimate picture of me to his fan page where he had millions of followers.

I
didn’t know he’d taken the picture, but remembered feeling so full and freshly conceptualized about my life after getting inked with him. I looked down at my ring finger covered with a plain wide metal band so that I didn’t have to explain it to my parents yet. Couldn’t deal with that
and
a broken heart. It also wasn’t something I was prepared to share with Karen. But I couldn’t help but wonder when he’d posted the picture. That led me to question when he planned on breaking up with me in relation to posting it. I didn’t know how long it had been there.

“We
ll, sometimes they can splurge on their lovers. I mean, it’s really no inconvenience; you’re staying in the same room. I mean, really. He’s just a jerk, Zo.”

Still shaking my head, I share
d, “I’ve been to two of his homes. He bought me a brand new BMW.”

“
Is it outside?” In a millisecond, she leaped to her feet and faced the door.

I shook my head.

“Did that punk take it back?”

“No. It’s parked at my school where I don’t have to worry about anyone bothering it or my parents finding out.”

“Oh! So, this
was
serious!” she mused as she took her seat.