Page 5 of Pulse of True Soulmates

EARLIER THE SAME DAY . . .

Life had been lifing as of late, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Having a life to life was good enough for me.

A lot had changed in the past year. Some of it good, some of it bad.

After the debacle that was my relationship with Troy, it took me some time to get over it.

Part of the reason was because the drama didn’t immediately stop after that day.

Troy and Erin were fans of amateur porn that starred them.

Most of the videos were on Erin’s phone.

Somehow, Jordan accessed the videos in her cloud.

He didn’t blast her on social media or anything like that, but he did send the videos to his, her, and Troy’s parents.

Troy’s, Scott’s, and Jordan’s parents were extremely close; therefore, it affected their relationship.

Jordan beat Troy up badly to the point that he had to stay in the hospital for a few days.

I thought Troy would press charges on him, but he didn’t.

Jordan’s parents paid for the hospital bills, which I thought was crazy.

Erin, on the other hand, did press charges on Fatima.

I didn’t think Erin pressed them because she got beat up, but more so because her surgically enhanced nose was broken.

I was so upset and worried about the charges.

Fatima’s reaction and only comment about the charges was ‘ Erin is about to find out that street niggas do street things .’

I knew nothing nice would come of that. A little over a month later, Fatima’s cousins made a special trip to Charlotte and jumped the damn girl. Erin assumed that the attack was connected to Fatima. Instead of doing the cops thing again, she dropped the charges to move on with her life .

Just when I thought it was over and done with, Erin backtracked to go back to Jordan.

That shit was crazy to me. What was crazier was that he actually took her back.

You couldn’t tell me that the boy wasn’t stupid, but I should have known that something bigger was in play.

That man cheated back hard. Let’s just say, Erin’s sister and her had something in common. They both were whores.

Erin’s double back to Jordan triggered a domino effect.

All of a sudden, Troy was so apologetic and wanted to try again.

He claimed to have made a mistake that was due to him being overwhelmed.

He came up with some bullshit about him taking the time to really understand my disorder and how to better take care of me.

I promptly told him to be overwhelmed with a dick in his ass.

Yes, I had an insecurity that I may never find a man that would want to deal with my condition, but I’d rather be alone with Totino’s Pizza Rolls in my bed than be with a man that cheated and didn’t respect me.

When I heard my front door open, I picked up a coffee mug from my coffee bar and poured a fresh cup. Fatima cut the corner into the kitchen where I stood. “See, that’s why you’re my best friend. You anticipate my needs.”

“Good morning, best friend,” I said after I leaned against the counter to watch her jazz up her coffee at my bar. “What do you have on your agenda for today?”

She didn’t respond until she finished flavoring her coffee and took her first sip.

Fatima didn’t function well before coffee.

I had an addiction of sorts to coffee just like my best friend.

Last year for my thirtieth birthday, my mother, Ariel, gave me gift cards to buy the things that I needed to make a coffee bar after she called my father to ask him what I liked.

Ariel only gave me birthday gifts every five years, special accomplishments, and Christmas.

It’d been like that since I was six when she sent me to live with my father after they divorced when I was four years old.

My mother was twenty when she and my father got married.

Three years later, she realized that married life was not for her, then two years after that, she realized neither was motherhood.

She called my father and told him to come and get me, and he did.

After their divorce, my father moved from Aiken, Georgia, where they lived, to Charlotte, North Carolina.

When I was younger, my feelings were hurt by her decision, but as I got older, I realized that it was a blessing in disguise.

In hindsight, I appreciated that she was honest about her feelings toward motherhood instead of becoming resentful and mistreating me.

Ariel was always available. If I needed something, she would come through for me.

She just never initiated contact with me except on those birthdays and Christmases when she purchased me something.

My father loved me enough for my mother and him. My father was the best man that I knew.

I had great female figures in my life, including Fatima. She was a year younger than me, but her life experience had given her wisdom beyond her years. “Girl, I have meetings most of the day, but since I’m not facilitating any of them, I’ll probably be half listening.”

My best friend was an extremely successful pharmaceutical representative.

She landed the job before we graduated since it was where she did her internship for her bachelor’s degree in biology.

The company then turned around and paid for her master’s degree in public health.

My girl came into the company and lit it on fire.

Now she was the top earning rep in the company.

“You better listen to those people in those meetings. You might miss something you need,” I reprimanded with a giggle. She was so nonchalant at times.

She waved me off. “Girl, please. I record the meetings. I’ll listen to it at some point.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Now, what’s on your agenda today?”

“I have one meeting today, go check on my daddy, then some running around to do for my daddy’s birthday.

” My daddy was turning fifty-four soon. His assistant and I planned a surprise birthday party for him.

I couldn’t wait for it. My father was the fire chief of Mecklenburg County.

I was so proud of him when he was promoted.

He worked so hard to get to where he was.

Fatima’s brows met in the middle. She set her mug down on the bar and leaned on the counter next to it. Here we go. “Aeon, I’m not about to play with you. It’s hot as hell outside, and your ass is just getting over fucking COVID. You better send what you need done to Susan and let her get it done.”

Oh my God! Everyone acted like I was incapacitated. I’d been over COVID for almost two and a half weeks. “Fatima, I’m going to be fine. You know Midnite will be with me.”

She leaned off the counter, then walked toward my couch in the living room.

Midnite relaxed on the couch with his favorite cartoon on.

When I was twenty-four, my POTS seemed to worsen to the point that my doctor told me that I was unable to drive any longer.

I had a few accidents because I passed out.

In my mind, that shouldn’t have been the call because my condition wasn’t the reason for my passing out; my low iron was.

Her damn response to that was that anemia was a symptom of my condition.

I cried for days because it made me feel dependent on others around me.

“Midnite,” Fatima called out to my baby. Once he paid attention to Fatima, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Look, you know your mama does too much. Make sure you watch out for her silly ass. You know if anything happens to my best friend, I’m going to cuss your black ass out.”

Every time she talked to my baby, I couldn’t do anything but laugh. She talked to him like he was really a human. It took Midnite a minute before he climbed from the couch to go to his communication buttons. He walked through them to find the ones that he wanted. “Fatima, shut up . ”

Midnite looked at her with a side eye, climbed back on the couch, then lay back down like he was never bothered.

I bent over with laughter. An offset of my condition intensifying was that I was approved for a service dog.

When I got quotes from organizations on how much it cost to train them properly, I said absolutely not.

The programs that would train and give them to individuals were need based.

I didn’t qualify because of my income. As a data analyst for Meta, I made well over one hundred thousand dollars a year.

This was one of those situations where if you called Ariel, she would come through.

My father called her and told her how much it cost. She agreed to pay half of the twenty-thousand-dollar fee.

I cried when she and my father told me that they paid for the training.

Ariel even came here to Charlotte to present it with my father.

That meant more than she would ever know.

When I got Midnite, he was two months old.

It took about eight months to train him on the basics like socialization, obedience, potty training, teaching him to stay relaxed and calm in different environments, and things like that.

During that training, the bond between Midnite and I was built.

I took the initiative to teach him the communication buttons.

After his initial training on the basics, it took another almost two years to train him on task specific things associated with my POTS symptoms. I love my baby.

“See, people don’t believe me when I tell them that your dog is rude as fuck.

A nigga! That damn dog is a nigga in a labrador retriever’s body.

He lets that black coat get to his head.

” Fatima rolled her eyes before she walked back over to drink her coffee.

After she took a sip, her expression turned serious.

“Aeon, I’m serious. I told you if you wait until tomorrow, I can take you. ”