Page 9 of Cuffed By Your Love

He stood up with disgust in his eyes. “You know what, Jonay? You’re going to wake up one day old and bitter with no kids and realize I was trying to give you something real.”

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. I just went to the bathroom and cried into a towel like it could absorb both water and shame.

My mother squeezed my hand gently, grounding me.

“Who hurt you, baby?” she asked softly, her eyes sharper than I expected for someone barely able to breathe.

I looked at her, blinked back tears, and said the truest thing I had all year. “Somebody I thought loved me. Somebody I almost gave everything to.”

She nodded as if she understood the taste of betrayal too well.

“Ain’t no love that comes with confusion, baby girl. If it hurt more than it healed, it wasn’t meant to be.”

I lay my head gently on her shoulder, mindful of the bruises, and whispered, “Then I guess I’ve been unequally yoked with a demon in fake Dior then.”

The waiting room smelled like lemongrass and lavender, as if healing had a fragrance but no face. I didn’t belong here, not because I was too strong, but because if I started talking, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop.

I sat in the plush, blue chair with my arms crossed, my attitude louder than my voice. My knee bounced as if it had something to say before I did. I wore my “I’m not trying to talk today” outfit—an oversized hoodie, black leggings, no makeup, no earrings, no effort.

The receptionist smiled at me warmly.

“Jonay Jacobson?”

I stood slowly. My name sounded foreign when pronounced by someone who had never heard it screamed in a fight or moaned in a lie.

The therapist’s office was cozy with soft yellow walls. Books with titles likeSelf-Care for Black Womenby Oludara Adeeyo,Black Mental Health: Patients, Providers, and Systemsedited by Ezra E. H. Griffith, M.D., et al,Sisterhood Healsby Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, andThe Strong Black Womanby Marita Golden lined the shelves. A box of tissues on the table already felt like a setup.

Mrs. Rawlins was older, Black, wearing tortoise-shell glasses and a loc bun styled so tight it probably kept all her patients’ secrets inside. She didn’t look up from her clipboard at first; she just gestured to the couch as if I was supposed to make myself comfortable in a space that felt too safe.

I sat down, apprehensive, but ready to get this over with.

“You look like you’d rather be anywhere else but here,” she finally said, her calm voice rich with just enough bass to feel like home.

“I do,” I answered honestly.

She smiled. “Then that’s where we’ll start. Why did you come?”

I shifted. “My sister said I needed to talk to somebody before I black out on somebody.”

“That’s not therapy motivation. That’s probation prevention.” I cracked a tiny smile I didn’t mean to. She leaned back. “So, tell me, Ms. Jacobson. What brought you here in one piece?”

I scoffed. “Piece is generous. I feel like shattered glass with lip gloss on.”

She nodded as if she’d heard that before, but she still let me own it.

I took a breath. “My fiancé cheated on me.” Pause. “With my cousin.” Longer pause. “…While bent over.”

Her eyebrows lifted slightly. “Bent… over?”

“Yeah. There was a strap-on involved. He moaned her name like it was lyrics to a damn song.”

She blinked once, twice, then offered a solemn, professional nod, the therapist version of ‘Daaaaamn’ from the movieFriday. “And this was recent?”

“Two days ago. I caught them in my bed. My sheets. My house.”

“And how’d you respond?”

“I beat the fuck out of them. I didn’t shoot them,” I said with a half-hearted shrug. “So… progress?”