Essence
"Hey, are you up next?" I heard a girl to my left ask as I stood offstage.
"No, I'm after whoever's next." I told the girl without looking over at her.
I wasn't trying to be rude to her, I was just really focused on the guy who was currently performing. Feeling extremely brave, I took it upon myself to sign up to perform at Escape. It's been a few days since I went to the meeting the support group held and ever since I left that church I've been feeling this heaviness on my heart.
As soon as I got home that night I began working on a song to get things off my chest. There was a clear message in this song and I wanted every person who hears it to feel it. It was entitled "It's Not You" and the lyrics were dedicated to women all over the world. Whether they're in an abusive relationship or not, whether it's a thing of the past or something that they've never experienced, I just wanted the ladies to know that they're not the ones to blame. This was a message I still struggled to grasp for myself even though I put it in a song.
"I guess I'm up." The girl said once the guy finished his performance. As she walked out on stage, I finally got a good look at her and I recognized her instantly.
"How y'all doing tonight?" She asked the audience. "I'm Morgan Taylor. I just finished working on this song, the story it tells really hits home, so I hope y'all like it."
She began to sing and I was really blown away at her voice. I've heard her sing before, but hearing her in person was so much better. Not only was her voice stunning, but her song was as well. I could tell she really put her all into the lyrics.
"How the hell am I supposed to go after this?" I mumbled to myself. Her performance was going to be hard to top, but I just tried to remind myself that this wasn't a competition. I just wanted to do my best and make it through the song without throwing up my breakfast.
"Thank y'all for listening." She said once she finished and the audience began to clap. She exited from the other side of the stage and my stomach began to do a million flips.
I stared at the mic from offstage before I finally made my way towards it. I stopped in front of the mic and eyeballed the crowd. Escape always had a nice size crowd because people loved the vibe that the bar had.
"I umm...... this is my first time doing this, so yeah." I said, nervously. I decided to say fuck doing an intro and just jump right into singing my song because the longer I stood there, the more I began to have second thoughts. The beat I selected began to play throughout the place, it was an R&B type of beat with a slow tempo. The entire time I sang the first verse I was extremely nervous, but as I began the second verse I actually began to feel comfortable. Once I was done with the song that's when I noticed Morgan was standing in the crowd watching me perform.
"Thank y'all." I said, releasing a deep breath before walking off the stage. I stood in shock as I listened to all the hand claps. I couldn't believe that I really had the balls to get up there. Like this was actually real life, I wasn't dreaming, I really just sang in front a crowd for the first time. Maybe I should pinch myself, so I know it's real.
"You did really good to say it's your first time." Morgan said as I came down the stairs on the side of the stage. Yep, it's real.
"Yeah, I shocked myself."
"You wanna get a table?" She asked, motioning to one that was towards the back.
"Sure." I said to her, still confused on why she was here and why she would want to get a table with me.
We made our way to the table and sat down before we both put an order in. I've only been here a few times, but from those times I've learned that they had the best wings in the city.
"Okay I'm not trying to sound rude or anything, but girl what the hell are you doing here? You're Morgan Taylor. I know you know a lot of people, you have a lot of connections and your music is kind of a big deal. So, why the hell are you wasting your time singing in a bar?"
She looked down at her hands and played around with her fingers before she answered me.
"I don't really see it as a waste of time. This is more up my alley, not the sold out concerts or all the mainstream events. Music is my heart. I just wanna make music and put it out for the world to hear. I can do without all the extra stuff."
Hearing her say that was surprising to say the least, mainly because the extra stuff was all I wanted. I wanted the mainstream events, the music award shows, everybody knowing me and loving my music. That was literally everything I was working towards, so to know that she had a taste of it and kindly declined seemed pretty wild to me.
"That's different." I stated. "No lie, if I could snap my fingers and switch positions with you, I'd do it in a heartbeat."
"That's because you don't know what you're switching into, a lot of things look good when you're on the outside looking in." She said, taking a sip of the drink she ordered. "That song you sang, it was deep. I fuck with the message. It hit close to home for you?"
"It does." I kept it simple, I didn't feel like diving into my entire life story with a girl who I didn't even know like that. If she didn't already know, then she didn't need to know.
"Hmmm. Well, if being a famous singer is your goal, I think you have a really good chance. I know some people personally who've made it to the top, and just between the two of us, they don't have half of the talent that you do. So, it's definitely possible."
"Thank you. I really appreciate that." I told her. I needed all the words of encouragement I could get.
Morgan and I ended up talking for hours. We talked before our food came. Then our food came out, we ate, and then we talked some more. I really liked the genuine vibe that she gave off. Just based off who she is, someone who has been in the spotlight as much as she has, I thought she would be one of those females who was very arrogant and obnoxious. Turns out, she actually seemed very humble and down to earth.
I still couldn't get over the fact that she was at the height of her career and decided to take a step back from everything. It seemed crazy to me, but she seemed happy. It was almost four o'clock when I finally left Escape. Morgan and I made sure to share contact information before we went our separate ways and I definitely had plans on reaching out to her. I was going to head on home and just call it a day, but there was one more stop I had to make before I could do so.
"I know I don't have an appointment, but I just wanted to speak with her real quick. Is she in her office?" I asked the receptionist. Before I went home, I had to talk to Tracy. Our last session ended on such a sour note, thanks to me, so I just wanted to smooth things over.
"She's in her office, but I don't know if she wants to see anyone right now. Let me call her first and see."
"Okay."
She made the brief phone call before letting me know it was okay to make my way to her office. Once I made it down the hall, I knocked on her door and entered after I heard her say that it was okay to come in.
"Essence, hi." Tracy said as she stood up from her desk to greet me. "This is a surprise, your next session isn't until next week."
"I know. I just wanted to talk to you real quick." I said giving her a quick hug before we both sat down on her couch.
"What's on your mind?" She asked.
"Our last session. I wanted to apologize for leaving like that. Once I calmed down, I started to feel bad, that was rude."
"You don't have to apologize Essence. Your feelings are your feelings and they are valid. You're not the first client I've had walk out in the middle of a session. I'm a therapist and it comes with the territory. I'm supposed to dig deep into your mind and once I start digging it's normal for a client to get defensive."
"Yeah, I still feel bad though. I realize that I left so fast like that because I was still trying to run, but to be honest, I'm tired of running."
"Yeah?" She asked with a small smile on her face and a proud look in her eye.
"Yeah. I'm tired of his name and that relationship being a trigger for me. I wanna pretend like none of it ever happened, but it's affecting me way too much."
"Your right. What you went through in that relationship has become a huge barrier between you and your peace. In order to move on you have to knock that barrier down. Ninety percent of my job as your therapist is to listen, so I'm all ears. I'm ready to receive whatever you're willing to tell me."
And just like that, I began to unravel right in front of her. I told her everything about Jeremiah and I, from how we met to how we got together to how he began to change throughout the course of our relationship. He wasn't always a possessive, abusive asshole. He actually started out really nice and attentive, but I guess that's how they get you.
I told her about the very first time he hit me. We had been together for five months and he picked me up from campus one day and he saw me talking to a guy. I literally had no idea who this guy was, I didn't have any classes with him or anything, he was just asking me a question about how to get to some building. Jeremiah didn't give a fuck about the details though, he saw what he saw and he stole off on me as soon as I got in the car. I hate feeling afraid. Jeremiah and I were together for a year and I spent the last seven months of our relationship, afraid.
"It's exhausting, you know. Having to walk around on pins and needles, trying to make sure you don't do anything to piss him off so he doesn't lash out on you, only for him to lash out on you anyways. You know they say fear makes you do crazy things, well the day he died I was terrified."
I glanced over at Tracy in the midst of talking. I was looking away from her the whole time I was telling her all of this because I couldn't look her in the eyes. After noticing how in tune she was and how interested she seemed to be with everything I was telling her, I continued.
"It was a Wednesday and I was spending the night at his apartment. It was a chill night initially, we had ordered wings and we were just gonna watch movies. Normal couple vibes, you know. So, we were watching some movie and it was hard to focus on the movie because his phone kept going off. We had already got into it before over him entertaining other females and it got real physical real fast once I addressed his phone going off."
I paused for a second. It was hard for me to sit here and tell all of this to Tracy because that meant reliving everything.
"He would get extremely upset when I would accuse him of things he clearly did. I was feeling so many emotions and we started arguing which escalated when he knocked me into the wall. I don't know if it was because I was angry that he was cheating on me again or what, but that was the first time I fought him back. Me fighting back made him even more aggressive and I really thought that he was going to kill me. Somehow I got my hand on this trophy that was made of stone, it was on a nearby shelf and I just remember repeatedly hitting him with it and that's how he died, trauma to the head."
I finally said it. Tears ran down my face as I spoke on everything involving Jeremiah and I. Relieved was an understatement for how I felt. I still felt really bad about how everything played out. I didn't mean to take his life, but I'm glad I decided to get all of this off my chest. The hardest part of recovering from this is speaking on everything that happened and now the hardest part was behind me.