When He Cheatin' and You Still Love Him (4 page)

I call women like this,
love blind
, because in my opinion that’s precisely what we are. We allow the love that we have for the person we are with to affect the way that we react to certain things. Infidelities, verbal and physical abuse, dishonesty, and secrets are some, if not all of the things that we go through on a regular. Yeah I said
we,
because as you can see I go through the shit myself. Even when all of these things are in play, we continue to stay and remain faithful to someone who doesn’t care, or love us enough to return the favor. Now I’ve made reference to us women, but trust me when I tell you that we are not the only ones who endure the nonsense. There are men out there as well who ‘are suckers for love’. They also play dumb for their mates and let them walk all over them just like we do. So don’t think that we females are alone.

I say this because I want you to understand that no one is exempt from being made a fool out of. It doesn’t matter the sex, age, race or religion, everyone in this world is either getting cheated on at this moment or has been cheated on before. This is something that I stand firmly behind. I’ll tell you what, if you happen to run into someone and they tell you that what I just said is not true, you tell them that Shanair said that they are a goddamn lie and they ain’t fooling anybody. EVERYONE has been cheated on and lied to before, because lying and cheating have been happening since the beginning of time, and like I said no one is exempt. In fact the duo goes hand in hand.

Don’t believe me when I say this? Okay, well let me explain. Cheaters can’t cheat without making some sort of lie up. The lie is to cover their ass so they won’t get caught. So instead of walking into the house and saying, “Baby I’m late, because I was fucking Tina (or Ted) at work in the stock room,” they come in and say, “I’m sorry baby, I had to work late.” They do this because they know that it’s something that their mate could recognize to be true. You and I know that people work late every day, so it’s plausible. Another reason is because they don’t won’t their mates to come up to their place of employment and cut up, which will throw a monkey wrench in their festivities because they still have plans on fucking Tina (or Ted) a few more times, or as long as he or she allows them to.

The problem with this is, unbeknownst to the cheater, although their other half accepts the lie, they almost always have a clue of what’s really going on. They are not as dumb as their mates believe they are. Like I said before, they just turn a blind eye to it. Take me for example; I’m one hundred percent certain that Terry is out doing me wrong. He’s more than likely fucking some bitch at this moment. There’s no doubt in my mind. You see, I’ve already busted him talking on the phone, and when I found out that he was indeed talking to some hoe he attacked me like he always does. Why in the hell would he do that, unless he had something to hide? If it were nothing like he says, it wouldn’t have bothered him one bit. He would have showed me the phone and brought his ass back up to bed, but no he had to leave.

Okay, moving along, now he’s gone. If he wasn’t laid up with a bitch, he would have at least answered the phone. Now I’m not even going to tell you exactly how many times I’ve dialed this muthafucka’s number in this last three hours, because not only am I not sure myself, but I don’t need you judging me for acting like a damn stalker. So, to prevent you from doing that, I’ll just say that I’ve called him a few times. In those three hours, I’ve left two voicemails and he still hasn’t called me back once. Now I know better because I’m no fool. I also know that he’s not going to answer the phone while he’s doing wrong, because he never does. This is Terry’s MO and I’m used to it.

Instead, what he’ll do is keep doing what he’s doing. Then he’ll bring his trifling ass home, and give me some tired ass excuse about who the chick Brittany is, and of why he had to leave out of our house in the middle of the night. He’ll probably tell me that it had something to do with work. I’ll yell, curse, fuss and threaten to leave knowing damn well I ain’t going anywhere, because I probably never will. He’ll say he’s sorry and then I’ll forgive him, only to have him do the same type of shit next week. Trust me I know what I’m talking about. This has been an ongoing thing with us, and I guess you can say that this is the norm.

Does it hurt? Hell yeah it hurts. It pains my soul to know that my man fucks around with other women, and it kills me to know that I probably will never be enough for him. Even with that being said, I stick around. That, in my opinion, is the hardest pill to swallow because I know that it’s my fault for allowing him to continue to treat me like this. Hear me when I say this. A man will only do to you what you allow him to do, and over the years I’ve accepted more shit from Terry than I should have.

What I should have done was walk away the very first time I caught him being unfaithful. That would have showed him that I wasn’t to be played with. It would have let him know that I had limits and that I wasn’t going to let him cross those limits no matter how much I loved him. Yeah, that’s what I should have done. Instead I sat there crying like a damn baby while constantly asking what I did wrong to make him go out and find someone else. Just thinking back to that day makes me shake my head in amazement. What the hell was I thinking? I still don’t know. Why did I question myself, and not him? He was the one who went out and fucked some other chick, yet there I was doubting myself.

After all that hooting and hollering, all I remember is him apologizing and promising me that he would never do it again. My dumb ass forgave him and it’s been the same song and dance for the last five years. He cheats, I forgive, and that’s just what we do. I guess that’s what I get for falling in love with a man that’s six years my junior. When I found out that he was young as he was, I should have told him, “Thank you, but no thank you,” when he asked for my number. No, I took in his handsome baby face and amazing body, and ran the digits. Now look at me, sitting at home crying over him like a goddamn fool; something he promised I’ll never have to do.

Fucking liar.

I don’t know why I put up with his shit,” I say out loud before I laugh shamefully.

Who am I kidding, I know exactly why. I put up with it because I’m comfortable with Terry, and to be honest with you, I don’t think I can find anyone else. I know you’re wondering why, so I guess I’ll share with you my reasoning. Well, I’m an average looking twenty-nine year old woman, with a six-year-old son. I no longer have the youthful body that many of these women have, and I can stand to lose quite a few pounds in the stomach area. I also have low self-image issues about my dark skin tone, which has been a problem for me since I was a child. Terry knows all of this and assures me that I’m beautiful in his eyes. I’m sure another man won’t do that, because frankly from what I’ve seen, no real man wants to deal with a woman with image issues. Yeah, a few guys may try to holler at me when I’m out and about, but they are trying to get some pussy. Men are not knocking down my door for a date or even to be in a relationship.

Take my baby’s father for example. He wasn’t the perfect man, but he was mine. Yeah, he may have stepped out a few times, but he always came back to me. Well, he used to anyway. Now we have a kid and his ass ain’t even around. The muthafucka left me to go back to that high yellow ass hoe, with the “good hair” and body of a stripper. I wasn’t really surprised when he did that though. I’ve been dealing with bullshit from men my entire life. It never fails. It doesn’t matter how good I am to them, they always seem to stray and eventually end up leaving me for a light-skinned bitch. Do I like it, no, but there’s also nothing that I can do about it, because you can’t keep someone who doesn’t want to stay, no matter how hard you try, and believe me I’ve tried. For some reason the yellow hoes are winning.

I remember back in high school when I first started to date. Those boys were a mess. They would choose the lighter girls to be their girlfriends, but they want to fuck with the darker ones on the low. Even then, although it hurt my feelings by some of their actions, I chalked it up to the fact that younger guys had no clue what it was that they wanted. I had no clue that the real world would be that way as well. Now I see that age is in fact nothing but a number, because even older men like to play games. They’ll make you think you’re all they want until something better comes along, and when I say better I mean lighter.

I can honestly say that I’ve never had a man give me one hundred percent of his heart. The same applies to my very own father. As much as I adored that man, he never showed me the same type of love in return. Now don’t get me wrong, he’s always provided for me and made sure that I had everything that I needed when I was younger, but when it came time to show love he constantly pushed me away. At first I thought it was because he wasn’t the affectionate type when it came to children, because he always showed my mother love. I never once remember him giving me a hug or even telling me that he loved me. It wasn’t until his daughter; my half-sister came to live with us, that I saw that he actually had a loving side. It was then that I finally found out that I was the reason he never let me in; I wasn’t light enough.

That’s an entirely different story, which I’ll get to another time. Right now I have to get my stuff ready for work, because I have to be there in an hour and a half. I know one thing and that’s that Terry better have his ass here soon, because I need him to keep Kendrick while I’m gone since he can’t go to school today. So Brittany, or whatever other bitch he’s laid up with better finish up, because if I have to miss work behind his bullshit, there will be hell to pay. I call his phone a few more times, before taking my ass upstairs to get the peroxide. It usually works to get blood out, and I’m hoping that it does the same for my couch.

Chapter 5

Shanair

“Well good morning beautiful,” I hear Naomi say as soon as I step in the room.

“Good morning to you, too, my honey bunny.” I give her a weak smile, before I turn and finish washing my hands. “Give me a minute to get dressed. I have some shit to tell you.”

“Okay, well hurry yo’ slow ass up.” She laughs, before going back to doing her work.

I just got to my job, and even though I wish I was back at home sleeping peacefully in my bed, I had no choice but to come in, so here I am. Since I was up all night waiting on Terry’s stankin’ ass to come back home, I’m exhausted and know that it will not be a good day at all. I’ve only been here for all of five minutes, and I still have a full twelve hours to go. How the hell I’m going to be able to pull this off is beyond me. All I can do is try to keep as busy as possible and pray like hell that I don’t doze off, because that is something that I cannot afford to do.

I employed as a Sterile Processing Technician for one of the largest hospitals in the state. If you don’t know what that is, my job is to clean and disinfect all of the tools that are used during surgeries. Things like the scalpels, scissors and clamps to name a few. My job is very important, and with all of the diseases and illnesses out here, one wrong move could cost someone their life. If something like that happens, it will lead to a lawsuit for the hospital, and more than likely a few people losing their jobs. Plainly said, the health and well-being of a lot of people depend on me.

When I’m finished washing my hands, I make my way over to the large cabinet on the far end of the room and pull open two of the many doors. Inside is everything that I need to fully begin my work day. I reach inside and one by one begin to add on each piece of my uniform, until I am fully covered from head to toe with protective gear. When this is done, I close the doors and walk over to the rack of bins, where I grab one and take my spot directly next to where Naomi is standing.

“How long have you been here?” I ask filling my bin with warm water.

“About an hour,” she replies. “I came in early to talk to Sharon so she could fix my damn check.”

“I thought she was supposed to fix it last week?”

Naomi snakes her neck. “She was supposed to, but her ass apparently never got around to it. I told her this morning that I don’t work all these hours to not be paid,” she gripes.

“I know that’s right,” I agree, before I turn to look at her. “Did she handle it?”

“Hell yeah she did!” Naomi retorts, with a hint of anger in her voice. “I’ve been waiting on that heffa to get my shit right for the past month, and I wasn’t gone wait any longer.” She pauses, “Gone tell me that she’ll have it done by the end of the day. I wasn’t going for that bullshit. I told her since I was early I’ll wait while she fixed it.”

“You are so damn crazy!” I throw my head back and laugh.

“Girl please, I sat my fat ass in that chair and watched her like a hawk. Ain’t nobody got time for that dumb shit. I need my money.” She purses her lips and rolls her eyes. “Anyways, that’s enough about that bitch. What I want to know is what’s going on with you? Let me guess, it was something with Terry’s ass.”

“You’re right.” I breathed deeply and exhaled before I begin. “I woke up to use the bathroom last night and when I came out I saw that he was no longer in the bed with me. After I went downstairs I heard him on the phone with somebody.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know,” I lie, not able to bring myself to tell her the entire truth.

“Humph,” she rolls her eyes again. “Well, who do you think it was?”

“I don’t know.”

“Wait, what the hell happened to your eye?” Naomi turns off her water, and takes a long hard look at my eye. “Did that muthafucka put his hands on you?”

“No, we were wrestling, and he poked me in the eye with his fingernail.” Well, it wasn’t really a lie, because his nail really did cause the damage.

“Yeah…okay. Let me find out that bitch put his hands—”

“Do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?”

Naomi cuts her eyes at me quickly, before she responds with a simple, “I guess.”

“Well, he left soon after. I don’t know where the hell he went. I swear I called his phone back to back. You already know that his ass ain’t answer.”

“Did he ever come back home?” she inquired, turning back towards the sink.

“Yeah he did, but not until it was time for me to walk out the door for work.” I pick up a scalpel and examine it closely, before scrubbing it with a wire bristle and detergent. When I see that it’s clean, I go back to my story. “I was in the house losing my damn mind wondering if he was going to make it on time to get my baby.”

“Why did he need to get Kendrick? You kept him home from scho—” Naomi pauses, “Oh shit, never mind. I forgot he was sick. How is my handsome godson doing anyway?”

“He’s slowly getting better. Not well enough to go back to school, but not as sick as he was in the beginning.”

“That’s good. Hopefully that stupid stomach bug passes. He probably got it from one of those sick ass kids in school.” Naomi turned on the water and cleaned the suds off of a pair of scissors. When she was finished, she sat it inside the clean bin with the other instruments. “You know damn well some of these parents know their children be sick, and still send them to school. They don’t give a damn that their kids are passing their germs to everyone in the classroom, as long as they don’t have to deal with their sick asses.”

“I know, but it ain’t nothing I can do about it. He’s gotta go to school.”

“Yeah he does, but I’d be the parent kicking somebody’s ass if I found out that they knew their child was sick and sent them anyway.” I laugh because I swear this chick is a damn character.

Naomi Butler is my best friend, and has been for the past seven years. As she’s stated, she’s also Kendrick’s godmother. We met the day I started this job and from our very first introduction I could tell that she was a cool, down-to-earth person. That day I found out that she was going to be my trainer for the next few weeks. From there we just clicked, and have been as thick as thieves ever since. There is not much to say about Naomi other than the fact that she’s real. As long as I’ve known her she’s never been one to bite her tongue. If she’s feeling some kind of way about you, she’ll surely let you know, and won’t give two shits about how you feel afterwards. That is one of the things that I love most about her. The other is her confidence.

Think about the actress Monique when she was on “The Parkers”. Naomi puts you in the mind of her. The only difference is the fact that Monique is slightly taller than Naomi’s five-foot-six frame, but other than that one would think they were sisters. They have the exact same build, and even though Naomi always jokes about being fat, I think she carries her weight just fine. She’s well-proportioned and knows that she’s beautiful. Naomi is one of the flyest females that I know, and I’m not just saying that because she’s my best friend. Her hair is always done and when we’re not at work covered in ugly protective gear, she’s dressed to impress. I admire the fact that she takes a lot of pride in her appearance, and wish that I had even a small percentage of the confidence that she does.

“Anyways,” I tell her getting back to my story. “It was ten minutes before it was time for me to leave, and in walks his funky ass. Girl, he was drunk as hell. I was so mad I wanted to punch him in his fucking face.”

“And you should have,” she told me. "I would have knocked his ass upside the head for not only leaving out the house in the middle of the night, but for waiting until the last minute to bring his ass home,” she snaps, as always speaking her mind. Naomi isn’t a fan of Terry’s and she doesn’t pretend to be. “You’re better than me. Let Derrick try some shit like that, he won’t even have to worry about coming back home, because his shit would be outside waiting on him.”

“Derrick knows better than that,” I admitted, referring to her husband of nine years.

“You ain’t gotta tell me, because I already know. What was dumb ass’ excuse this time for leaving out in the middle of the night?”

“He claimed that he decided to go to the bar and have a few drinks.”

This time I give her the truth. When Terry came home this morning, he claimed that after our fight, he felt “stressed out” and needed to get out of the house. He also apologized for putting his hands on me, and promised not to do it again. I heard him, but paid his ass no mind because I had to get to work.

“With who?” Naomi asked.

“He says he was by himself.”

“I know damn well you don’t believe that shit Nair.”

“Of course I don’t,” I admit dropping my eyes.

“Well what are you going to do about it?”

I shake my head in defeat before responding, “What am I supposed to do?”

“What the fuck do you mean,
what are you supposed to do
?” The scalpel she was holding makes a splashing sound as it drops into water. With her face screwed up, Naomi looks at me as if I have clearly lost my damn mind. “You do know that you don’t need him right?” I just stare at her. “You make good money and can pay all your bills by yourself, so what do you need him for?”

“I know, but—”

“But my ass Shanair, fuck him! Send his ass over to one of those bitches he be fucking with, and let him be her problem. ”

“I don’t know for a fact that he’s cheat—”

“Come on Shanair, you can’t be serious right now. You know he’s fucking around, you just don’t want to believe it.” She takes a step back and glares at me. “I can’t stand that mutha…you know what? I ain’t even got shit else to say about it, because you gone do what the fuck you wanna do any way,” Naomi scoffs, before stepping back to the sink and going back to work.

I hate the fact that Naomi is upset, but she really has no reason to be. I’m the one who has to deal with Terry, not her. It’s easy for someone on the outside looking in to tell someone what they would do in their situation, because they are not in their situation. Just like me, I can give advice to someone all day long because their situation doesn’t apply to me. That’s the same thing with Naomi; our relationships are totally different. Derrick is nothing like Terry, and vice versa. I believe that as my friend, she is supposed to listen to me vent and not judge my decisions. At the very least she can pretend as if she understands where I be coming from. Sometimes I just need someone to talk to give me a listening ear. If not, I’m sure I’ll lose my fucking mind.