Pretty Fly for a White Guy: The Complete Series Collection (24 page)

I opened my car door with my remote and the beeping drew attention me. I cursed myself for not doing it manually. Then I heard my name.

“Nicole?”

I opened my car door, and I was going to get in anyway and drive off. It wasn’t too late for me to bail.

“Nikki?” Kenneth screamed again louder.

I sighed and pulled my leg from the car and closed the door. I walked over to him and the woman with him. She got prettier with each step that I took towards her and I was sure that she was a model.

“What are you doing here?” Kenneth asked.

“Oh, I was here to borrow a DVD from Maurice but I guess he’s not here.”

Kenneth’s face scrunched in confusion, but he didn’t press me any further.

“
Well it is actually good to see you anyway. You look very well. This is my girlfriend Amanda. Amanda this is Nicole,” he said introducing the both of us.

I plastered a smile onto my face, “It’s nice to meet you Amanda,” I said as I stuck my hand out to shake hers.

She gave me a genuine smile, “It’s so nice to meet you Nicole, I’ve heard so much about you.”

Her tone was genuinely sweet when she said it, and I didn’t know what to make of that. It was hard to be upset with someone that was so pretty and nice. That just increased my need to get the hell out of there.

“
I’m happy to hear that,” I responded before I looked at Kenneth, “I’m sorry to run off but I have a hair appointment at 7. Welcome back, and once again it was nice to meet you Amanda.” I turned on my heels and walked off to my car without waiting for a response

“Hey Nicole, look I need to talk to you about something and so I’ll give you a call later,” Kenneth called after me.

I gave a quick nod of my head and continued towards my car. I really just wanted to go home. My pillow and I had another appointment.

#Chapter5

“All of the signs were there, and I chose to ignore them.”

Nicole

After I finished crying, I knew that there was no way that I could go to Kenneth’s party. All of our friends were going to be there, and everyone would be looking at me to see my reaction. I was still shell shocked from it all, and it hurt that he was with a white girl. I couldn’t really explain my rationale because he was white too, but I think it was because he went out and got the complete opposite of me. How in the hell would I ever be able to compete with that? He’d clearly moved on and was over me.

I tried to keep my seething hate for Joshua down to a minimum. I felt like I had gotten caught up in his game, and I’d lost horribly. Sure, he and Kenneth had a huge fight but everyone knew that they were still going to be friends. I was the one that was left out in the cold, and they both were free to move on with their lives. It just didn’t seem fair at all. I just didn’t see why Kenneth didn’t come to me and talk to me instead of fleeing to New York.

I was upset with him, but I would have listened to him. At least I think that I would have listened to him. We had so much history between us, and I knew what a snake Joshua was. If he came to me and told me that Joshua concocted it all, I would have believed him, and we could have moved on with our lives. Instead, he chose to leave town without trusting me to do the right thing. On top of that, he thought that I’d actually slept with Desmond.

I’m a lot of things, but I’m not disloyal. I only wanted Kenneth, and he had my heart. I wasn’t willing to jeopardize that even when I was mad at him. I tried to stop rethinking the day that I put Kenneth out of my house. I had no clue that I was pushing him out of my life and into the arms of someone else. I guess I really just brought it all on myself, and that was a truth that hurt more than anything.
 

Patrice called me once I got home.

“Hey girl!” I know you’ve seen the post. So are you coming tonight?

“Yeah,  I’ve seen it,” I said unenthusiastically.

“I thought that you would be a lot happier than this,” she said.

“I don’t feel good at all,” I lied, “I have a migraine that won’t quit, and I feel so nauseous.”

“Oh no,” she said with concern, “Is there anything that I can do for you?”

“No, I just need some rest,” I said, “It’s needless to say, but I won’t be making the party tonight.”

“I understand, you have to take care of yourself.”

“That’s what I plan on doing. I think I just need some rest.”

“Well, I’m going to let you go because I know how those migraines can be. I’ll check on you later, alright?”

“Alright,” I whispered before I hung up.

I didn’t feel bad at all about lying to my friend because if I told her the truth she would have wanted to talk about it. I wasn’t ready to talk about what happened with anyone just yet. Tonight she would see what was going on and then I would have to deal with a ton of questions. At least by letting them see it for themselves, I wouldn’t have to explain what was going on.

I could still see Kenneth in my head, and he looked so damned good. He looked just the way that he did in my dream. But more than anything he looked happy, and the huge smile on his face was difficult to ignore. It was great to see it, but I wasn’t the person that had put it there.  He had Amanda now, and there wasn’t anything that I could do about it. I was a little upset with myself because he was out having the time of his life while I was moping, working myself to death, and having sex dreams about him.

I put my phone back underneath my pillow and closed my eyes. My phone began buzzing again, and I hoped that I wouldn’t have to play sick again with Jasmine. I looked at it and saw that it was Kenneth. I wasn’t ready to speak to him yet, and he didn’t have anything to say that I wanted to hear anyway. I cut my phone off so that I wouldn’t be bothered by it again. I was taking the evening off from life, and I wasn’t going to let anyone ruin it for me. I deserved to be able to wallow in my own misery uninterrupted for a night.

The following day was a huge drag, and I was doing my best to avoid all social media because the photos from Kenneth’s event were going to be plastered everywhere. I didn’t feel like seeing every one’s happy faces, because it would have felt like they were mocking me. I went to my kitchen to reheat bread-sticks that I shouldn’t have been eating. I’d gained more than a few pounds in the past few months, and that was due to the poor eating habits that I’d newly developed. I also wasn’t working out as much as I usually did because I wasn’t in the mood to go to the gym, run, or to workout with the hellish DVD’s. I tried that
Insanity
workout and gave up after 3 days. I guess I am just finding it hard to focus in life right now.

I sat at the table and shamefully dipped my bread-stick in the marinara and enjoyed the carbs and calories. I then vowed to get back on the health wagon the following day. I was going to get all of it out of my system that day and do better.  Now that I was single, it was the wrong time to gain weight. My eyes kept drifting to my tablet, and I was compelled to put it on and take a look. The sooner I logged on and saw the photos the sooner it would all be over with. There was also a good chance that things weren’t as bad as I thought they were. As bad as it sounds, I would feel a lot better if I looked at the pictures and it looked like a boring party with hardly anyone there.

I stuffed the last piece of bread-stick into my mouth, washed my hands, and walked over to my couch. I turned it on and braced myself. Just as I expected, I was inundated with photos from Kenneth’s party. Funny how Facebook can read your mind sometimes.

My eyes bugged out of my head once I saw the event tag that were on each of the photos. The event was now labeled ‘
Kenneth’s engagement party.
’ My breathing became labored as I went to his wall and saw everyone offering him congratulations. My mind refused to process the information, and that was probably for the best because I wasn’t able to handle the reality of that moment.  I shakily put my tablet on my coffee table and laid on my couch and zoned out, I felt numb.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been lying on my couch, but my door buzzing woke me up. I grumpily got up and looked outside, it was Patrice and Jasmine. I was about to get annoyed about their lack of calling until I looked at my phone and saw that they’d called me numerous times. I buzzed them in and opened the door; I sat back down on the couch without waiting on them to get my apartment door.

“Hey girly,” Jasmine said cautiously.

They had obviously stopped by to tell me the horrible news, and I wasn’t in the mood to draw the process out.

“No need for that,” I said flatly as I looked at them both, “I already know.”

“See I told you that she knew, that’s why she wasn’t answering her phone,” Patrice told Jasmine.

I rolled my eyes at Patrice for talking about me like I wasn’t in the room.

“
Sorry,” she said, “We were just worried about you after what happened last night. I swear if I knew that it was about that I would have never gone.”

“No need to apologize for something that you had no control over. None of us knew that he was going to announce that. So don’t feel guilty,” I assured her.

“So how are you doing?” Jasmine asked.

I was going to answer her with the standard ‘I’m okay,” but I took a moment to really examine how I was feeling. I couldn’t register anything because none of it had hit me yet. It was as if my body put a fortress around my heart, and I couldn’t feel a thing. I wasn’t going to fight it because I didn’t want to fall apart, I didn’t want to experience the grief that mind was protecting me from.

“I don’t really know how I feel yet,” I said honestly. “But I do wish that I moved on a lot earlier. I shouldn’t have dated Joshua, but I shouldn’t have taken Ken back either, we were doomed from the beginning. All of the signs were there, and I chose to ignore them.”

“So then you’re done?” Patrice asked.

“Do I have any other choice?” I asked in annoyance. “What was she like anyway?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Jasmine said cautiously, “She seemed really nice and they did seem like they loved each other.”

“Yeah the girl seems genuinely sweet, and I feel sorry for her,” Patrice said.

I already knew where Patrice was going with her line of thinking. She figured that Kenneth was using Amanda as a pawn in order to get to me but something told me things were different this time. I didn’t want to play games anymore, and I hoped for Amanda’s sake that he was really serious about her. It was confirmed that she was a sweet person, and so I wasn’t going to wish anything horrible on her relationship. Although I was left to wonder if he knew her previously because 3 months was a really short time to make a huge leap like that. However, it ceased to be of importance. He made his decision about what he wanted, and I just had to live with it.

I sighed, “Now I just have to move on.”

My phone started buzzing. It was a message from Kenneth asking to meet up later. This should be interesting.