Excuse any mistakes. Don in the mm.
LA
"Writing can be a lifeline, especially when your existence has been denied, especially when you have been left on the margins, especially when your life and process of growth have been subjected to attempts at strangulation."
Micere Githae Mugo
—
Seated on the edge of their king sized bed, Rayne is turned away from Amir who has his head down. He'd just confessed to an affair which had Rayne conflicted with emotions.
She's angry, upset, saddened, heartbroken, broken..
This heartbreak is unexpected, as they always are—one minute you're on top of the world and cut down the next.
Rayne reaches to wipe away the tears that have fallen down her brown cheeks. "How long?" She finally asks.
"It was a year ago. I broke it off, I swear."
She scoffs. "Answer the question."
Amir runs his hands down his face and sighs. "Six months."
Rayne immediately gets up and turns to look at him with red stained eyes. "Who?"
"It don't matter. I just wanna fix this, Rayne. I can't lose you." Amir pleads, getting up from his spot on the bed and standing in front of her.
She doesn't take her eyes off of him and quite frankly, still needed her question answered. "Who?" She asks again with a demanding tone.
Amir steps back, knowing that Rayne could be unpredictable in these moments. He looks at her in the eye and clears his throat. "One of my tattoo clients."
"Is that why business is boomin'? Cause you fuckin' your clients?!" Her lips tremble as she turns her lips up at him.
"It was one, baby." He reaches out to touch her, but she quickly snatches away from him. Rayne clutches her fists in anger. "I fucked up, Ray. I'm so fuckin' sorry."
"You are sorry." Rayne yells at him. "You the sorriest man I have ever been with."
Amir looks at her in shock and somewhat angrily. "The fuck that come from?"
"You run from all of your problems, Amir." She walks around to his night stand and picks up an empty beer bottle. "And you drink yourself to death." In an instant, she throws it at him causing him to duck. The glass shatters against the cream colored wall.
"Ray—" He calls her name, but has to duck again. "Rayne, stop!" Amir yells.
"Why'd you cheat? Can you answer that or are you gonna run from that, too?" She snarls, folding her arms across her chest. "I picked you up when you was down. And this is the thanks I get?!"
"I picked myself up." Amir retorts. "You got me fucked up."
Rayne chuckles to herself and shakes her head. "Damn, I did a good job of making you believe that shit."
"Man, whateva." Amir waves her off and walks out of the room.
Rayne is hot on his tail, though, as they walk down the staircase. "Look at you, running again. People who run can't handle the truth and you know I'm right Amir Lamar."
Amir stops abruptly in front of the couch and turns around to be face to face with her. "No, you wrong."
She smirks. "No, I'm right. When you got out of prison, you were lost. Nai introduced you to me and I literally built you from the ground up. I helped you clear your record, I convinced Naomi to get you that job, it was me who made you look good to your parole officer in the span of 3 months." She pokes her finger into his chest.
"You don't have any of this without Rayne. And what do you do? Go sleep with someone else, someone basic."
"You need to be careful who you talkin' to like that." He glares at her.
"You gon hit me? Do it. Seems like you been itchin' to do it for years now." Rayne shrugs. "But, just know that I ain't never lost a fight."
The two stare at each other long and hard. The woman he knew before was partly gone. It seemed as if a piece of her vanished when he admitted his sins.
It seemed unfair that no matter how much he strived to be the man his conscience wanted him to be, it would keep taunting him with his failures.
"She didn't mean shit to me. I ended it because I love you."
Rayne moves closer to him. "If you loved me, you would have never slept with her in the first place."
Amir plops down on the couch. "It was a mistake."
"A choice." Rayne corrects him. "It was a choice you made. A horrible one."
"Rayne, babygirl, we can fix it. What you want me to do? I'll do it."
Rayne's tears were coming down like waterworks. Anger was subsiding while pain is just setting in. The man she vowed to love for an eternity betrayed her love in the worst way possible.
"Support your man, they say." Rayne slowly paces around the room. "Be strong. Stand by him. Uplift him." She looks at Amir. "Who the hell is looking out for me?!"
Amir looks up at her, but remains quiet. He wants to console her. He wants to hold her, fearing that this may be his last opportunity to do so. "Not one child, but three. I risked my life for a family, our family."
"I kno—"
"Shut up." Rayne holds up her hand. "You've had many chances to talk. To get some help. To save our marriage. Now?" She lifts up her eyebrows. "You're gonna sit there and listen to what the hell I gotta say."
Amir rubs his hands together nervously, something he rarely does. The last time he did so is when he was sitting in a court room waiting for his sentencing.
In a peculiar way, this felt the same. However, this time, in the court of love and heartbreak, he thought he was going to get the death penalty.
"You are a warrior, but even men of war take off their armour once in a while. I see glimpses of the man underneath—but then you work or drink to cover it up, hide your true self from my eyes." Rayne sighs. "To see you hide when I shared all that I am was my first heartbreak."
She goes quiet again and Amir is unsure if he should speak. Rayne takes off her blazer and throws it on the chair.
"A felon." Rayne begins to speak again. "My dad was not going for that shit. He thought I'd lost my mind. I defended you, though. Hell, you was my man. But, other than that, I saw potential. For the most part, you've reached it."
She uses both hands to lean on the back of the couch, and continues to look at him. "Answer this Amir, how would you feel if I went and slept around on you? Remember what you told me some years back? You kill all three of us, right?"
Amir flexes his jaw muscles, not wanting to imagine it the other way around. "Yeah."
"So, who would you kill first?" Rayne tilts her head to the side. "The spouse or the lover?"
"Spouse." Amir mumbles.
"Hm, we're different. I'll kill her first. I would want you to suffer, honestly." She shrugs. "Like I'm suffering right now. That bitch don't owe me loyalty, she just fucked the wrong man."
"How can I fix it?"
Rayne laughs out loud causing Amir to look at her weirdly. After a few minutes, her laughter dies down and she goes over to the bar to fix herself a drink. "Since when have you fixed anything, Amir? Do you even know how?"
"Look, ion appreciate these fuckin' insults. I kno' you mad, but you need to chill." He stands up.
Putting the brim of her wine glass up to her lips, she stares at him while taking a sip. She swallows the contents and smiles a little.
"Your dominance is what attracted me to you. I thought you were a man who would take initiative. That'd be one less burden on my part, you know?" She shakes her head. "Little did I know that I'd be carrying this family on my back emotionally."
"I ain't gotta hear this." Amir grabs his keys and starts to leave the house.
"Wow." Rayne looks at him causing him to stop. "The one time where I wrongly predicted your behavior. Instead of picking up a drink, you picked up your keys to run, again. But this time Amir, I'm no chaser. You walk out of that door, you may as well find you another place to sleep."
Amir turns around and looks at her. "I was in prison for over ten years. I was in the streets all my life, Ray. I hurt people, I killed people whether through other people or drugs. Ain't no talkin'." He shakes his head. "Even if I wanted to, Ion kno' how."
"Your past is your past, you can't change what you did. This is now. You have choices, you chose to sleep with your client. For what reason? Is it the sex? Am I not a good wife? Do I nag you?"
"No!" Amir raises his voice causing her to be quiet. "I slept with her cause I fell into the temptation of lust."
Rayne clears her throat. "Well, six months.." She nods her head. "She was good, huh? You miss it?"
"No. She wasn't better than you."
Rayne laughs lightly and shakes her head. "Ah, I don't know Amir. Six months is a long time, baby. Sista had to be doing something right." Rayne pauses momentarily before speaking again. "She was a sista, correct?"
Amir scratches the back of his neck. "White."
"Flip the motherfuckin' table." Rayne mumbles to herself and chucks her now empty wine glass at him. This time, the glass lands on his shoulder and shatters. However, Amir doesn't flinch. "Not only did you cheat on me, you cheated on me with a white woman????" She looks at him in utter disgust and disbelief.
"You couldn't cheat on me with a sista, nooo." Rayne continues. "You had to dip yo' negro ass in some white bitch."
Suddenly, the door opens and Amir Jr. walks through the threshold with a basketball tucked underneath his arm. When he closes the door, he looks at his parents and slows down his movements.
He sees the broken glass scattered on the floor and the tear stained cheeks of his mother. Jr's eyes lands on his father, man who he truly has a love and hate relationship with.
Jr kisses his teeth. "Man, why my mama cryin'?" He asks Amir.
"Jr., go to your room." Rayne instructs, but Jr doesn't move from his position in front of Amir.
"Listen to ya mom, Jr. Go upstairs." Amir points up the staircase.
"You cheated again, didn't you?" Jr. glares at him. Rayne jolts her head back, wondering what the hell he meant by again and how did he even know about this.
"Go upstairs right now before I drag you up there my damn self." Amir pushes Jr. towards the staircase.
Jr stomps up the staircase and Rayne waits until she hears his door closed to start talking again. Jr. slams the door as Rayne glances at the clock. She needed to pick up Storm and Sunshine from dance practice in an another hour.
"What he meant by again and how the hell does he know?!" Rayne raises her voice, although, she tried her best not to.
"It was only one girl. I put that on everything, Rayne." Amir says honestly. "He went through my phone and I asked him not to say nothin' cause I wanted to tell you myself. I just didn't kno' how. That's why he kinda hate me cuz I took too long."
Rayne takes a deep breath, trying to maintain her sanity
"Did you use a condom?" She asks.
"Yes."
"Everytime?" She looks at him. He hesitates answering and looks as if he's thinking about it. "Have you been tested?" She fires another question at him.
Amir mugs her. "What you gettin' at?"
"You slept with another woman while sleeping with me. You're not sure if you protected yourself every time because I'm pretty damn convinced you were probably under the influence." She says as she walk towards him. "Diseases are real. This isn't about you. Because of your inconsideration, this is about me. That's what the hell I'm getting that."
She stops in front of him and looks up at him with a glare. "That was a year ago. You been to the doctor since then." Amir responds.
"Amir, we no longer have trust. You could be telling me anything. Now answer my damn question."
"No I haven't been tested." He huffs.
"Careless and dumb." Rayne mumbles to himself. "Have I met her?" She continues.
"No."
"Has she been around my children?"
"What?" Amir bites down on his teeth. "Do you think I'm stupid?" Rayne lifts her eyebrows, answering that question with her eyes. "No, Rayne. We fucked at her apartment. Nowhere else, only time we was together."
Rayne tilts her head. "Did you vent to her?"
"Sex." Amir reiterates. "That's it."
Rayne nods and walks towards the door. "I'm not going to divorce you." She announces as she places her hand on the doorknob. "Like I said, I built you. You're my investment. I invested almost fifteen years into this, into you." Rayne looks at him.
Amir looks at her. "So what now?"
"You're gonna leave right now. Because the sight of you, right now, makes me want to throw up. You disgust me. Right now, I hate you and can't stand the fact of you spending another minute in my home." She opens the door and steps to the side.
Amir sighs heavily and begins to walk out of the house. Rayne holds out her arm to stop him just before he made it outside.
"Did I bring you down a notch?" She gets into his face. "Did I hurt your feelings? Did I not feed into your ego? I am not the one to fuck with. I thought you would have known that by now. You're gonna go to rehab and therapy because you need help. That is no longer a question, that is a demand. You want to fix our marriage? There's the answer. And if you don't, I will divorce you and take everything because you broke the contract. Good day."
Rayne brushes past him to go upstairs, leaving him to wonder who the hell did he just unlock.