"You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly." - Sam Keen
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They say fate does not always seek our consent.
Sometimes the road of life takes us on an unexpected journey. There will no preparing for where the destination will take us, we're simply expected to arrive and live with what's now presented to us. There's no say, no time for preparation, just living with the destination that fate has brought us to.
When I slid down onto the floor of my parents' bathroom, I held my knees tightly and cried as quietly as I could. For months I knew there was something wrong with my relationship, only today was it confirmed. So, was this really an unexpected journey for me...? It felt plenty expected.
Too many things had happened lately to show that things with my boyfriend of four years weren't what they used to be. Once upon a time, Tate and I had been so in love. Nowadays he paid as much attention to me as he did his old Gameboy. Considering the beat-up piece of technology was stored up high in the closet of our bedroom and barely looked at, that was saying a lot. With time, our conversations had weakened. We stopped going on dates. That was before our overall intimacy disappeared.
During this time, I tried reassuring myself that the distance between me and Tate was simply due to his stressful job as a paralegal at his father's law firm. He was overworked and underpaid. Surely that was what was going to stress any man. But as our kisses grew shorter and Tate's trips out of town grew longer than ever before, I started feeling our happily-ever-after was not as happy as I once imagined it was.
The two of us had met in college. It was a rather simple encounter; boy meets girl, both found the other attractive, and bam – we then morphed into boyfriend and girlfriend for the last four long years. Even though I felt I usually knew where Tate and I stood relationship wise, it had gotten to the point where I could no longer read him. We just weren't in sync, no longer clicking as we used to. No longer spending time as lovers much less as friends.
Four whole months had gone by where Tate stopped trying to place his leg over mine when we were in bed together. Now, we simply fell asleep at night. Tate immediately, me only after a couple hours of staring at the ceiling in silence, wondering where we went wrong.
He avoided my touch whenever he could; almost as if it repulsed him. Even when I wanted to engage in something as minor as a kiss, Tate was too tired or simply not in the mood.
I tried to control my tears so they did not transform into sobs. I was at my parents' house, in the only place I wouldn't have to deal with intrusive questions as to why I was here so late at night for a visit. But I struggled to form a deep breath, I was crying too hard. It was eleven-thirty on a weeknight. Odds were very much in the favor that my parents would be more than curious as to why I came back home instead of staying at the condo I shared with Tate in downtown Charleston, South Carolina.
Then I would have to explain the horrible news of why I drove forty-five minutes at night to see my family. I couldn't stop crying as the memory of three hours earlier suddenly washed through my mind once more. Luckily, I had just entered the bathroom a few minutes earlier; I would not have to explain herself to my family for a few more minutes at least.
Upon the pushing from my exuberant best friend Isla, I took it upon myself to fix the mend in mine and Tate's broken relationship. I bid Tate a goodbye for my own trip out of town for work, not revealing that instead of a three-day trip to New York for the wedding company I work for, I was simply going shopping to buy a few items to prepare for the revival of our relationship. Candles. Takeout from our favorite Japanese place. Lingerie...
In my mind, Tate was well worth fighting for. It didn't matter that my parents had warned me since college that nothing but trouble would come from dating the wealthy man who grew up on Martha's Vineyard. They claimed there was no way our backgrounds could combine. I grew up in a household that survived paycheck to paycheck. Tate had the opposite upbringing. Even though my family meant well in their warnings regarding Tate Mitchell, I lived with a more diverse train of thought. I didn't look at others and judge by the color of their skin or how much the money was in their wallets. I knew what it was like firsthand with personal experiences of racism. My family had often enough had others judge or even dislike us simply because of the color of our skin. Even though my family had warned me nothing but emotional harm would come my way dating Tate, I didn't see what my family saw when they looked at him. Perhaps that was why I missed the warning signs that our relationship was doomed from the get-go.
I had always figured my parents were judging on race; both mine and Tate's. I never thought that maybe they had seen something I hadn't.
Growing up, my grandmother hammered in the philosophy that one should not judge a book by its cover.
As I rocked myself in a ball against the countertop of the small bathroom, I tried and failed at halting my tears. I should have read the cover of Tate Mitchell and took it at face value. I would not feel so heartbroken if I had read the clear warning of his cover to begin with. I could hear my namesake grandmother Amelia down the hallway asking what was going on. Any minute now, I would have to leave the confines of the small bathroom and go explain that I should have listened to all of my parents' warnings. I should have listened that a successful white man from a fancy school would never truly love a small black girl from the Carolinas.
Upon coming home with my arms full of bags to help recover our relationship, I found that instead of hunched over his computer working on the latest expense report for work, Tate wasn't in his office. He wasn't in the kitchen or the bathroom. I heard his needy groans and noises he often made during intimacy coming from the living room. Tragedy struck when I found my boyfriend in a very compromising position with his pants off and a girl between his legs as she did something very inappropriate to his groin area.
Recognition was instantly made the second I dropped my bags of food and supplies in shocked horror on the hardwood floor. I accidently alerted the preoccupied couple of my presence, causing them both to stare at me in horror. Glass shattered and food toppled out of containers, but none of that mattered. The busty blonde was the paid intern at the wedding company I work for.
As I worked hard to one day become Portia Perrine's co-owner of Wedding Knots, I often had to sort through the interns that came to the company. I had offered to take Carly Stine on as my assistant intern for the summer before the twenty-two-year-old graduated college.
Out of every more qualified person who applied for the internship, Carly had won me over by being a hard-working individual with a sad back story of her mother dying when she was young. There was so much betrayal in seeing Carly hunched over my boyfriend while half naked. Meanwhile, all Carly had done was blink her big baby-blue eyes at me, seemingly startled that I had the audacity to interrupt them.
The very worst surprisingly wasn't discovering me boyfriend's infidelity. It wasn't my now broken heart. It was Tate jumping up with surprise, with his pants around his ankles. "This isn't what it looks like!"
Nothing more was said as I collected my purse and keys before quickly leaving. I couldn't stay in the same room as Tate and the blonde girl without screaming in agony. I had been in shock. Too much to say anything in the heat of the moment. The unfairness of it all caused me to start bawling the second I was in my car and in need of a destination.
I sobbed the entire drive to my parents' house. But as soon as I arrived, I painted a smile on my face that was just as fake as representees at the DMV provided. I then explained to my folks that I would talk to them after using the bathroom. I ran to lock herself inside, and that was that.
It was a full house this weekend in the Greene's five-bedroom household. My brother RJ was home from college while my fifteen-year-old sister Skye had two friends over for a sleepover. My aunt Monique was here with her baby son Trevor, visiting as well. Then, there was the full-time resident Grandma Amelia to consider. Nothing went on in the house that the old wise woman wasn't privy to. There would be no keeping Tate's scandalous betrayal a secret; my family was not only very loud but also severely honest with one another. Even if everyone in the house wasn't made aware of my personal business by tonight, they would be made aware of it by tomorrow morning. My family was simply that open.
As I dried away my tears, I inwardly kicked herself for not driving to either Isla or Daphne's house. Either of my friend's slash coworkers would have provided a safe haven for me to spend the night. Both women wouldn't have placed any judgement over Tate's betrayal compared to the rash scolding my momma was bound to give her. Even a hotel would have been a better option.
But I wanted to be home. I craved familiarity. Here I could smell the familiar scent of home-cooked baking from my Grams and the smell of pine from my momma's hand-crafted birdhouses she made in the basement.
Taking slow and shaky breaths, I climbed myself up off the floor, straightening out my grey cardigan. I investigated the bathroom mirror and suddenly wished I hadn't. My mocha-colored cheeks were heavily tear-stained and my hazel-green eyes were red and puffy. My hair was in messy tangles. Gripping it tightly while she cried left it a near rat's nest.
Even after smoothing out my wild mane of dark hair and splashing cold water on my face, I couldn't hide the fact that I had been crying. I watched herself in the mirror, taking a deep breath as I mentally tried to reassure myself revealing to my parents what had happened wouldn't be as horrible as I was imagining.
Perhaps my mother would surprise me and provide a comforting hug and maybe even ice cream as a pick me up.
***
"I KNEW IT!" Vivian Green said the next morning, a dark finger pointed in the air. "Didn't I tell you the boy was cheating, Ramon??"
As I sat at the table, I resisted the strong urge to hide my head underneath my slender arms. I wasn't sure how long my mother could exclaim the same words over and over. Although my momma had never once confided in me the belief that Tate was a cheater, here she was going on as though she knew he would betray me the entire time. Vivian had been chatting nonstop, near repeating her same words since I first broke the news the night before.
I should have known my mother's sympathetic nature towards Tate's betrayal the night before would only last a short while. Vivian never liked Tate, and for that alone I knew was in for a rousing chorus of I-told-you-so from my mother and visiting aunt. I found myself almost surprised my momma wasn't dancing around the kitchen with glee that she was able to predict that Tate was a no-good rat from the get-go.
Maybe it all stemmed from the time my family first met Tate and he asked them if African Americans ever got sun burned...
I tried not to be disrespectful by rolling my eyes as my mom continued droning that she always knew Tate was no good. Even though I knew my mother loved me dearly, Vivian believed in the philosophy that to keep her children street-savvy and intelligent, she often needed to call them out on their stupid decisions. Today unfortunately, happened to be no exception. Vivian seemed to want to drive her point across that me and Skye should listen to her when she warns us off from certain men. My aunt Monique nodded dutifully nearby, stuffing her son's bottle back into his eager mouth. "Mmm-hmm, you told her." Monique nodded severely, sparing me a sympathetic look across the large breakfast table.
Why her aunt was butting into this business was a mystery. Personally, I felt Monique should be more concerned with her own impending divorce coming up. Still, that was my family. Even though I knew they held good intentions, they often meddled.
"Honey please, lower the volume." Ramon Green gently complained. He had a phone to his ear. His wife's suddenly outraged look caused him to shrug sheepishly. "We've got the TV guy complaining our tree needs to be cut down for the dish to go up. Can you believe that? They just told me they could set it up again without it pixelating!"
I sighed quietly. My mother's complaints were only going to grow louder after that. "Well, is it my fault my baby went and moved herself in with cheating little snob of a white boy?" Vivian scolded loudly, tsking her husband as she scurried around the kitchen helping Grams finish cleaning. She seemed to realize what she said for she spared me an apologetic expression. "I'm not mad at you baby, don't get me wrong."
"Momma, color had nothing to do with it," I mumbled, barely able to touch my scrambled eggs in front of me.
"Did he cheat with a black girl?" countered Aunt Monique, raising a penciled-in eyebrow skeptically.
That left me stumped. Could I really argue with that simple seven-word counter? The woman made a point; Tate hadn't cheated with a girl of color. That was the gnawing sadness that I felt on the inside but was too embarrassed to admit. It was the silent fear I didn't want to voice aloud in case saying it vocally made me feel more ashamed and humiliated than I already felt. Would Tate have not cheated on me if I had a lighter skin tone...?
I shuddered at the thought.
I wanted to believe he still would have cheated no matter what. I didn't want to give in to the underlying feeling that it was solely due to my race for why he fooled around on me.
It was my Grams that pulled me from my silent stupor. Her head snapped towards Monique to scowl. "Honey, the boy didn't cheat because she's black. He cheated because he's a rat who obviously holds no respect for the women he dates. He cheated because he's obviously not the man our sweet Mia's meant to be with." Her dark eyes watched her grown daughters, almost silently daring either of them to contradict her.
Neither Vivian nor Monique said another word after their mother spoke. They held too much respect for the family matriarch. No one ever argued with Momma Amelia in church or at home. Her word was practically the gospel itself. Grams was the strong voice of wisdom in the house at seventy-five years of age that everyone paid attention to. I would never admit it aloud, but I followed my grandmother's advice over her own parents the vast majority of the time.
Thanks to my grandmother's defending, she and I shared small smiles before my cell started ringing violently. Being a wedding coordinator, receiving a phone call from work on the day of a wedding only meant something horrible. Since this fine spring day was the Birchwood wedding, that meant a great money loss was at stake if everything didn't run smoothly. My eyes bolted open in alarm as she answered. My friend and co-worker Daphne's voice was nearly shouting through the other end of the line as soon as I answered the phone.
"Wedding dress malfunction!" Daphne hissed through the receiver as soon as I simply answered with a hello. "We are talking about a stage-three level crisis!"
I near groaned. I could already imagine Daphne walking back and forth in place while frantically fixing her hair. It was her go-to move when stressed. A stage-three crisis was terminology used for the company when a wedding dress was ruined only hours before the ceremony was to begin. This rarely occurred but it wasn't too rare of an event. Usually, the worst thing to ever happen to a dress was it needed to be pinned due to a woman losing too much weight since the last time she tried her it on. The only thing that happened to be worse than a stage-three was a stage-four when wither the bride or groom were missing before the ceremony. "How bad?" I said professionally, suddenly standing as I hurried for my purse.
My family all exchanged looks of wonder. For a moment, they must have felt my wording meant something other than work was going on. I didn't know why they looked concerned; they should have known by now that I practically lived at my job almost all week long. I mouthed work over the line as I scavenged through my purse to find my handy-dandy contact list.
"Red wine courtesy of wine tasting and no one plastic wrapped the damn dress!" Daphne near cried. "I mean, how did they not assume the tipsy mother-in-law would spill expensive Tiganello over a Vera Wang?? How?? I could've seen that coming when the slosh kicked back a few too many when we were looking at flower arrangements!"
"Is it salvageable?" I asked while ignoring Daphne's frantic squealing. I was already flipping through pages to find out the best possible seamstress we have on contract on the Eastern Seaboard. Daphne groaned something unintelligibly.
"FOCUS Daph. Is it salvageable?" I pushed, mentally calculating who I would need to call depending on the answer.
"Only if we could find someone to work with patches and beads right below the bust line! Honestly, I don't even think Fernando could salvage this."
"Daphne, I don't want to hear negativity right now," I snapped loudly, causing my parents to chuckle. "I can get that Sylvia woman down at the Charleston beauty salon to open as late as she wants for us. She used to work as a seamstress. Is there something else that's going on??"
There had to be more to this. Even stage-three scenarios Daphne wasn't this panicky. She sounded near hyperventilating as she answered. "The family is claiming force majeure if we can't help their daughter with her dress on time!"
Now I groaned loudly. "I'm coming in now." Force majeure was a fancy term every wedding planner hated. It's exempts you from carrying out terms of your contact in case something absolutely unexplained were to occur prior to the ceremony. In the case with the Birchstock family, this would mean no ceremony due to lack of dress. What that would mean was my company would not be getting the full forty-thousand dollars we were promised to receive; only half of it. If that happened, I could kiss any chance of co-owning with Portia in a year's time goodbye.
I caught a bagel from my momma midair while barely being able to focus on anything other than the task at hand. I bid my family goodbye and hurried for the front door out of the room as soon as I could. But grams came up behind me while I was searching my purse for keys. The wise words my grandmother spoke made me stop and pause for a moment.
"Baby, don't cry because your relationship with Tate is over," said Amelia, pulling me into a deep hug. "You hold your head high smile because obviously the universe has someone better in mind for you."
I gently smiled and tried to not let my eyes water, but I didn't feel this was the truth. I couldn't help but feel the last two months of my relationship exploding was the universes own way of saying I wasn't meant to find love.
***