Page 5 of Cove City, Volume II

I had been on the road for the past six hours.

After leaving Pierre’s, I hurried back to the hotel to collect my things.

I left the car he bought me in the parking lot.

One of the men who stayed in the hotel gave me a jump and I had been on the road since.

Pierre had been calling me nonstop since leaving him.

I wanted to talk to him, but I needed space right now.

He had gone from calling to texting to sending voice notes. I opted to listen to them, because a part of me wanted to hear his voice. I clicked on the first message my eyes landed on.

Play: *Sighs* Tuesday, baby, answer the phone.

You know a nigga not good with words.

A nigga went to the hotel, and I see you left the car.

What the fuck happens if your shit breaks down? Fuck, sorry.

Baby, come back, what you saw wasn’t what you thought.

Sasha and I were getting closure.

I wanted to be able to focus on you and only you. Tuesday, I told you I love you; that has to mean something. Fuck! Tuesday bring your ass back! Call me if you need anything. I love you the long way. *Sighs*

I exited the message and tossed my phone onto the passenger side.

He wanted me to compromise.

He wanted me to be understanding enough to meet him halfway.

To me, there was no room for compromise in a relationship.

A tear fell from my eye because I had grown to love Pierre.

However, knowing his cousin was still alive and that door wasn’t closed, I couldn’t see myself there.

I was angry that he chose her in that moment and wasn’t there to stop it from happening.

I felt disgusted.

I had never been violated like that in my life.

Was this a trauma response? I turned on the music to try to get my mind off him and what happened, but every song that came on was a sad one, and I didn’t want to hear it.

I drove for another four hours before I arrived in Florida.

When I pulled in front of my apartment, I let out a deep sigh because I was back to the life I had run from only weeks ago.

I grabbed my purse, got out of the car, and made my way to the door.

Before I could knock, my mother swung the door open. “Tuesday!”

“Ma,.

“I said dryly.

She spun the wheelchair, backing up.

When I opened the door, I saw all her things packed and ready.

She came around rolling back and then forward to be right in front of me.

“I’m ready. I talked to my doctor, and they said they could transfer all of my medical records to Toussaint. That’s the state, right? Oh, and Veronica told me there is a bingo spot—”

“Ma, please!.

“I screamed.

She was talking too much, and I couldn’t think.

I moved around her, went into my room, closed the door behind me, and flopped onto my bed.

I began to wonder if George would let me keep my job if I was still able to complete this article, because I didn’t want to think about job searching again.

My phone vibrated again, and without looking, I answered.

“Pierre leave me the fuck alone!.

“I shouted.

“Tuesday, it’s Best.”

I shot up and looked at my phone.

“Best, hi, I’m sorry I—”

“Don’t apologize. I called to see if you were okay. Pierre called me and asked if you were with me, and I told him no. What happened?”

I wanted to tell her, but I felt like she would try to talk me into coming back, and I couldn’t do that.

“Best, I’m fine. Please don’t call me back,.

“I said and hung up on her.

Trusting Best got me in the situation I was in.

The fact that nobody knew how Pierre’s cousin was started to piss me off.

I needed to wash his nasty ass hands off me.

I got up and noticed something hanging out of my purse.

I reached down and picked up the pack of envelopes.

It was the letters. I sat back down and opened the letter from Naheem to Best.

I had become so intrigued that I laid out all the letters on the bed.

There were so many of them that I began organizing them by date.

Best and Naheem really had something going on.

I started with the first letter from May of 1989, when they had first broken up, to the second one in October of 1989.

The way they wrote to each other reminded me of Pierre and me.

It was as if the letters had hidden messages within them. Did Best foresee this situation happening, and that’s why she had given them to me?

I started to open another one when there was a knock at my door.

I turned to see my mother pushing the door open and wheeling herself in.

“Tuesday, is everything alright?”

I knew she cared, and misplacing my anger toward her wasn’t warranted.

As I stared at my mother, watching how vulnerable she looked and how sickly she had become, I realized I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.

I had to finish this article and accomplish what I set out to do.

The only problem was that I had fallen for a nigga in the process, and somehow, I needed to find a way to take him out of the equation to focus on myself.

If he wanted to love me and be with me, he needed to learn how to share me with me.