Authors: Vacirca Vaughn
“That’s
why I can’t take you anymore. You make me sick! I tried, but if you
really loved me, you would have cared about your looks instead of embarrassing
me like this.”
“Why
couldn’t you help me like I helped you, Cedric? Why couldn’t you just
support me and hold my hand in the process just like I had to do for you?”
“That
ain’t my job, Babe,” Cedric snarled. “It ain’t my job to give you no
makeover.”
***
Phoenix cried
as the words and pictures in her mind continued to choke her.
Satan laughed,
as he touched Phoenix’s head, and continued to flood her with images of what
Cedric had said and done to break her heart. “Take another pill,
Phoenix. It’s no use,” he growled. He looked up as the room began
to become flooded with light. Groaning, Satan manipulated Phoenix’s mind with
more of the harrowing memories.
She took
another pill and drank from the Grey Goose. She hoped the
Ambien
she had been prescribed the previous year had not
expired.
If she was
going to do it, she wanted it to work.
Two angels of
Heaven stood beside Phoenix, motionless. They stood, ten feet tall,
dressed in flowing robes of white, with flames dancing in their eyes.
With swords raised, they stood poised and ready, awaiting a command from the
Lord.
***
Cedric
sighed and sat on the bed. “Look, this is getting us nowhere,
alright? I am sorry I hurt you. I tried to love you, but I got
tired of looking at you like this. Why you think I don’t go out with you as
much as you asked me to? Why do you think we had sex like once every
three weeks? I wasn’t feeling you like I should, Fe! You had the
brains but ain’t have the looks to match. I believed in you, which is why
I gave you a chance, even though you weren’t initially my type. But I
guess I was wrong!”
“So all
this is about my weight, Cedric? After all I’ve tried to do to make you
happy?” Fresh tears burned Phoenix’s cheeks, as she turned away, hunched over,
clutching her midsection.
“Look, I
can’t lie anymore. I am sick of my friends asking me why I am dating
someone who looks like you—”
Phoenix
whimpered and buried her face in her hands.
“I got
tired of making excuses. I used to tell my boys you were on medications
that caused weight gain and skin problems as side effects for God’s
sake!” Cedric snickered. “You claim not to have the money, but I
think you just didn’t want to be bothered.”
Phoenix
looked back up at him, her mouth agape, eyes unblinking.
Cedric
continued, “I was going to give it one last shot at getting back into the woman
I wanted to try to fall in love with. I know it wasn’t going to be easy,
but—”
“
Try
to
love me? You slept with me last night, Cedric,” Phoenix moaned.
“Yeah I
slept with you. Last night was more to keep you from getting
suspicious. I guess…I mean, I—
”
***
Cedric’s voice
faded away as Phoenix began to wail again.
“Instead of
cheating on me, you couldn’t sit down and talk to me? You couldn’t try to
help me?” Phoenix’s shrill yell pounded the walls around the apartment as the
voices laughed and taunted in her head.
Satan and his
minions continued to taunt her with thoughts straight from the darkest
pits.
Why would he help you? You’re an ugly, fat, loser!
Loo
-ser! Loser! As in lose her! You’re
not worth the effort, Ugly Girl! Just get it over with. You’ll
always be alone in this life. Why live it?
Satan made a
face at his former brothers. “There is nothing either of you can do,
Caliel
and
Uriel
. She is
mine now!”
Uriel
knowingly eyed his brother
Caliel
.
They continued to stand guard, tall and silent, two bronze, regal statues in
the room. They felt their power growing stronger, knowing that the Spirit
was using a soldier in Christ to fight for this young woman.
Satan, of
course, did not know this. Too wrapped up in his own agenda, he failed to
acknowledge that
Uriel
and
Caliel
would not have been sent to fight for Phoenix if someone had not requested
it. As much as he had always wanted to be like God, he could not
be
God, which meant that he could not be everywhere at once. Satan had no
idea that someone, at that very moment, was praying.
And prayer
always changes things.
Still, Satan
wasn’t born yesterday.
Caliel
and
Uriel’s
presence, alerted Satan that
something
was
happening. In a huff, Satan began to throw every ounce of his power into
Phoenix’s mind.
Phoenix cry was
snatched away in a gasp.
“You have to
take all the pills,” Satan shouted.
“I have to take
all the pills,” Phoenix slurred.
“You have to
end the pain. You won’t have to live with rejection and loneliness
anymore,” whispered Despair, one of Satan’s minions.
“I have to end
the pain. I won’t have to live with rejection and loneliness anymore,”
Phoenix repeated, in a trance.
She put the
bottle of pills to her lips and tilted her head back.
Caliel
reached out and merely placed a hand on Phoenix’s
head.
She put the
pills back down.
“I have to
finish the movie of my life first…” she slurred.
***
“I
have
been trying to help. But you’ve got to help yourself, Fe! I can’t
do it for you! I—”
“But I
can do all kinds of things for you, right? I can help you in every single
way, but you can’t help me, right?”
“Like I
said, it isn’t my job to help you be beautiful, alright?” Cedric snapped.
Phoenix
began crying. “It’s not your job to help me, but it’s okay to allow
yourself to be tempted into cheating because I am overweight? Are you
that shallow? For real? So what if I slim down to a size four, and
my skin clears up, but then I get into an accident that disfigures me?
Would you do me this way again?”
“That’s
not fair! You’re talking about things you cannot control. I would have dealt
with it. But this issue is all you. You are lazy, sloppy, and
weak. And I hate it. Sometimes I hate
you
for making me look
bad for being with you!”
Phoenix
collapsed on the bed. “You know what? You’re right. I did
stop working on myself. But I didn’t do it because I stopped
caring. I stopped because I didn’t have the money or the time! I
work full-time with the Mental Health Mobile Crisis unit, then work another
twenty at the homeless shelter to cover
your
expenses! You haven’t
found one job but I’ve been working two! I am working on my dissertation for my
doctorate. I am taking care of my mom and grandmother because my brother
doesn’t lift a finger. I help out with
your
mother, grandmother,
and aunts. I even help you take care of your son when he’s here—”
“Don’t
bring CJ into this. Don’t throw that in my face!”
“You keep
saying that, but you don’t get it. For your information, I hated how I
looked too. But I am tired… exhausted, in fact.” Phoenix paused to take a
breath. “You know what? You said you understood everything I had on
my plate, but you don’t. Someone always needs something from
me! Everyone is
always
calling on me!”
“I
never
asked you to do all that stuff and—”
“But you
were sure excited about my doing it. I did it all because I love you, not
because I didn’t think I could get love any other way! How dare you say I
wanted to buy your love when you already promised that I had it? How
could you take my generosity and spit on it like that?”
“I
didn’t say—”
“Yes
you did! You say you didn’t ask me to do all that, but you sure took me
up on it, didn’t you?”
Cedric
had a moment. His face crumbled and he put his hand on her shoulder and
squeezed.
“Don’t
touch me!” Phoenix seethed, as she snatched her shoulder away. “It makes
me feel good to help those I love, but it leaves me no time to do the things I
would like to do for myself.”
Cedric
sighed. “I know you are busy, but why didn’t you—”
“Why
didn’t I? No, the question is why did I? Why did I love you? I know
I wasn’t the sexiest woman out there, but I know I took good care of you and
everyone else. I built you up when you kept slipping back down. But
you’ve made yourself very clear. My being a good, hard-working woman, a
giving woman, wasn’t good enough because…because I am
fat?
I take
responsibility for allowing myself to become a beached whale, but you did not
have to make your point in this way. I get it! I’m fat, unstylish,
and unsexy. It’s all my fault, alright? I get why…” Phoenix’s voice
trailed off as she began sobbing again.
“What
are you saying, Fe?”
“I want
you out! I tried to
keep
it all together for you. I wanted
you to be proud of me, to love me…to marry me, to realize that I would make a
good wife to you.” Phoenix’s eyes burned as she blinked back the new set of
tears in vain. “I wasn’t trying to earn or buy your love.”
Cedric
sighed then stepped closer. “Yeah, right. You say it ain’t true,
but how else could someone like
you
get it?”
“How
could you say—”
“Forget
it. You should admit that I did try, though. I don’t like your
looks but I did still wanted to love you and make you my wife. If nothing
else, you are good for me. I need you.”
Phoenix
looked up.
“You
know what? I’m wrong. I can help you, Fe. But will you give
me another chance to be the man you need? Will you forgive me?”
Phoenix
looked away. “Are you kidding?”
Cedric
let out his breath.
“I want
you to go. Take as much as you can and go.”
“Alright,
fine. I’m gone,” Cedric sneered. “But your ugly behind will never
get another good-looking dude to even sneeze in your direction, Chick.
Beggars can’t be choosy
.”
***
Phoenix’s eyes
closed as the movie in her mind faded away. Her stomach churned as she
recalled the way Cedric had gathered his clothes, and called the girl he’d slept
with to come pick him up. Phoenix began twisting her engagement ring, the
one she had paid for, off her finger. She yanked it off and tossed it
behind her onto the floor. “I won’t need that anymore.”
She didn’t want
to turn her mind-movie back on, but the pictures in her mind forced their way
through.
***
Phoenix
advanced on Cedric as he walked around her apartment, still on the phone with
the girl, talking about her as if she wasn’t in the room. She had slapped
his face hard. “Still disrespecting me? Get off the phone
with that whore!”
Cedric
snapped the phone shut and shrugged. “Yeah, I tried to be your man, so it
ain’t my fault. I even tried to man up just now—”
“Man
up?” Phoenix gave a hollow laugh. “It’s too late to man up now! It’s
too late to hear my side of the story or help me now. I’ve already gotten
cheated on, already lost my fiancé who just told me he has to try to fall in
love with me because I am ugly. I already realize that because of how I
look, no one will ever love me. I see women out there treating men like
dirt. I watch my friend, Nic, go through dude after dude, using them for
cash and not lifting a finger to lift them up. But they allow her to do
it because she has a slim waist, because the only thing fat on her are her
butt, hips, and thighs. San treats her husband like one of the children,
bosses him around, chastises him in public, controls him. But he just
lowers his head and wags his tail because she’s pretty and he loves her for
that. I do everything in my power to treat you like a king and it’s
nothing because I don’t look good to you.”
In one
last attempt to retain his housing, Cedric grabbed her into a hug and pulled
her close. “I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to move out.
I want to stay here. I
need
to stay here…with you.”
Phoenix
froze in his arms, but his warmth started to melt the ice in her heart.
She collapsed against him like a rag doll. She needed to be held, even if
it was by the very person who had destroyed her.
For a
minute, Phoenix allowed her anger to fade as her softness curved against his
firm chest. She let her fingers trace the tattoos on his muscled
arms. She pulled back for a second to take in his handsome, brown face,
to peer into his hazel eyes, to trace his chiseled cheekbones with her
fingertips. She ran her fingers through his curly jet hair. She
sighed and wrapped her arms back around his neck. She pressed firmly
against him, squeezing her eyes shut, inhaling his cologne.
Why
did I ever think a man who looks like this could ever want me? God, I
can’t let him go. God help me. What should I do?
She did
not get an answer in her mind or heart. What she did get was the echo of
Cedric saying,
“I
need
to be here…”
He was
still
trying to use her!
Phoenix
jerked away from him with a strength that was not her own and stared as
realization burned its way up from her stomach. “Yeah, I know.
You’re sorry. You’re willing to attempt to fall in love with me but I
have to lose weight. I get it. But no thanks. I may not be
beautiful, but I still have my mind. I can’t let you destroy it. I
counsel women who go through this every day and I refuse to become one of
them. I don’t want you here because you
need
me. I want you
here because you love me.”