Checkmate - THE FINAL LEVEL

Three

"I'm good ma, me and Mya will be okay."

"Don't lie Chris."

"I'm not lying, we're good."

"You know how I know that's not true?"

"How?"

"You'd be able to rest. You think I didn't hear you running up and down the stairs all night or pacing the floor? You think I don't know that you sleep better when you're with Mya? But now that's not the case. So lie to me again and tell me you're fine. Go ahead."

I was not trying to hear none of this shit, this early in the morning. "I'm sleepy." I said while getting up.

"No you're deflecting."

"I'll let you think that." I quickly walked to the house just so that the conversation could stop. When I got upstairs to the room, we were staying in, Mya was coming out the bathroom.

"Good morning baby." She said.

"Morning." I gave her a small smile.

"You've been up all this time?"

"Not that long. I had to pee and couldn't go back to sleep afterwards."

Mya just nodded. I know she knew that I was lying.

"What you doing up?" I asked."

"I've actually been up a few hours....noticed you were never in bed and it woke me up."

"Oh."

"Yeah...so, I have to go Miami in a few days."

"Why? I thought we were spending time with the kids and focusing on repairing our relationship."

"Well, I was invited to do Caresha Please."

A surprised look fell on my face. "Oh really?"

"Yes."

"I mean don't you find it weird that you're being invited after all this shit just happened with us?"

"I was actually invited way before you decided to get someone to leak that you filed for separation. I thought you and I would be still ignoring each other so that's why you're just now hearing about it."

"Who told you I had somebody leak that?"

"My lawyer reached out to Fee and asked how she received that information. She forwarded us an email from Marks office. What was the point?"

"Wasn't my idea so I couldn't tell you."

"Okay Chris."

"It's 7:58 in the morning and you wanna argue with me?"

"Nobody is arguing. I'll be in Miami for a day, maybe two then we can get right back to fixing everything. Cool?"

"Yup." I went into the bathroom, slightly slamming the door. Exhaling, I went and sat on the edge of the tub. I hated how uneasy I felt. I was jittery, antsy, restless. I wanted to relax, I wanted to be how I was before all of this madness.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw a text from Nia. I decided to have her fly out here. There's a overdue conversation that I needed to have with her and Mya. Some boundaries that need to be set. Opening her text message she was letting me know what time she'd be landing.

I'm hoping that this all goes well. I don't know if I should've waited a little bit longer to do this but I think it's best if we clear the air so that we can all move on.

I sat in the bathroom for a while, before going back out to the room. Mya sat on the end of the bed on her laptop, working I'm sure. Going up to her, I pulled it away and sat it on the bed, then got down on my knees and front of her. We just stared at each other for a while before her eyes started to water.