Ms Wilson's Replacement

2: It's not as good

"Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare."
Brené Brown

I open the house hoping that there would be no one in the house today and that they won't be until I'm out. Ade doesn't work and hasn't bothered looking for one since he lost his last job, but he gambles a lot and any money he makes from gambling, he keeps it so he can gamble away the next day.

Today is Tuesday and hopefully, he is at the betting bar, probably drunk already.

Why the hell am I wasting my time thinking about him?

I enter into the kitchen and pick the things that belong to me there— which is everything. I bring the moving bag out of the kitchen to the living room and I pick the things that are mine. We no longer have television because just like most of the important things that used to be mine in this room, I sold them and saved the money.

If I could move this apartment, I would because I paid a few months' rent on it already and I know broke Ade is never going to give me back that money.

I move back into the bedroom where I carefully scan to see everything in the room making sure that I didn't leave anything behind and then I spot a glass framed picture of me and Ade on the nightstand.

I walk over to the stand and I pick it up to properly look at my younger self as well as Ade, with our goofy smile and innocent face. This picture dates back to almost nine years ago. Before we began dating, we were friend, childhood friends and you could say we both grew up together, but that is a sad soppy story I'd rather not touch.

In this picture I have so much innocence in my eyes, Ade looked as entitled as ever in it though and it makes my blood boils that he now has my best friend trapped in his web of lies and fake promises.

I might hate her now, but Ade is the last man I would pick to be with her. But saying that to her would put me out as the jealous one who can't stand her ex-best friend's happiness.

I smash the picture to the floor and it breaks into pieces and I pick the paper photo up before tearing it into two before tossing the one Ade happens to be on back on the counter.

My eyes catch a few bills under the bed and I bend down and pick up the fifty dollar notes. I reach under the bed to see if there is any left there and to my sadness, there is nothing there, except a wooden box. I can tell that it wasn't there last week when I cleaned the room and my curiosity gets the better of me and I pull the box out.

I am beyond shocked when I see more than two dozen of fifty dollar bill scattered in the box. I close my eyes and open them, but it isn't a dream or imagination, this is real I am staring at real currency, I neatly arrange the bills and I see lottery numbers in the box.

I stare at the numbers 41, 6 and 11 and the total money the son of a bitch called Ade won according to this card is a hundred grand, on the 17th of last month and he never told me about it.

I don't really care for the money he makes because I work and I feed myself just fine, but this last month he sat and did nothing while I struggled to feed us and pay the rent and he acted like he had nothing to offer all the while keeping a hundred grand locked up and spending it on his whore Sharon.