I’ve Got You

Chapter 2

His voice slurred down the voice. “Come on, babe. Darling. I miss you. I’m sorry you thought I was being overprotective of you, but you have to realize, it’s only because I care about you.”

In the background, Vaneese’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. The mobile phone lay on the table with speakerphone, whilst Dijon and Vaneese sat next to each other on the sofa, part of the spectacle. One other person had joined the fiasco as well, Vaneese’s friend Kiara. Kiara had pale skin, short blonde hair, with sharp features that complimented it. She also wore an unbuttoned, palm tree patterned shirt over a plain white string vest, and jeans. Compared to Vaneese’s sleek, polished look, and Dijon’s comfortable pinstripe shirt and khaki shorts, Kiara resembled a tomboy, or, as admitted by both Vaneese and Kiara herself, a lesbian. Dijon stroked his wiry handlebar mustache, which had been subject to a torrent of jokes by all three women earlier.

“I sometimes pretend she’s my girlfriend if I’m out and getting unwanted attention,” Vaneese had confessed, the first time Aleshia found herself introduced to the pixie-faced individual. “You two should get on.”

“With a lesbian look-alike?” Aleshia knew Vaneese would be fishing for friends for her, but wasn’t sure if she liked the idea of the first choice in Miami’s vast selection of people to be someone who looked like they belonged in a gay bar.

Two hours into small talk, Aleshia had gotten the call from her ex. After one hurried conference in whether she should answer the call or not, with Aleshia vehemently saying, “No, I don’t want him to ruin my evening,” and Vaneese saying, “Let me talk to that fu*ker, I’ll rip him one,” Dijon and Kiara suggested it might be a good idea to answer since it was clearly bothering her. Dijon was the one who suggested speakerphone. Kiara suggested they all be quiet during the conversation.

All three quickly capitalized on their new plan developments. Aleshia, reluctantly goaded into it, agreed – if only so she wasn’t forced to talk to Peter alone, without any support nearby.

“If you cared about me at all, Peter,” Aleshia said, inhaling long through her nose in a futile attempt to calm herself down, “You would stop doing this. You’re trying to make me feel bad so I will go back to you.”

“I don’t understand,” the wheedling voice came back, suffused with hurt dignity. “Can’t you see how hard I’m trying? You’re the one pushing me away, you’re the one rejecting me, and all I’m doing is coming on my knees to beg you to take me back.”

Quietly, Vaneese hissed in tandem with Kiara. Dijon, who was taking a hearty drink of Glenfiddich whiskey, clamped a hand over his mouth as he resisted the urge to cough. His face went red with the effort, resembling a walrus.

Seeing the others react with amusement and righteous fury on her behalf made Aleshia bolder, more able to drag up walls between herself and Peter. “Is that so? Well, when I was with you, it was like being kept in a cage. You didn’t let me do anything in the end. You always got jealous and somehow always made it my fault. You even told me to not look pretty in case other men stared at me.”

Dijon shook his head, clearly disapproving of the other man’s actions. “Dodged a bullet,” he whispered to his wife. “Guy sounds like a psycho nut-job. Probably tortured little animals when he was younger.”

“What’s that?” Peter’s voice came back sharp. “Are you alone?”

The lie slid easily from Aleshia’s lips. “I’m in a park, Peter. People pass. And don’t change the subject. Did you or did you not act like a paranoid, jealous person?”

“I didn’t,” Peter shot back. “Everything I did was because I cared about you. So what if I didn’t want men looking at you. That’s my right as your boyfriend. I can get jealous of other people, because I know I have someone special and I don’t want to lose them.”

Kiara mimed a twisting motion with her finger, before pretending to have her throat slit. Vaneese choked on a silent giggle.

The words were familiar to Aleshia. She felt the stirring of negativity in her gut, like her intestines were slowly being sucked into a black hole. It left a lump in her throat. “You don’t care about me. You only care that I’ve gotten away from you.”

“Now, now, Aleshia. Listen to yourself. You know that’s not true. I wouldn’t have put up with what I did over the year if I never cared about you. Most other men would have run off. Yet, you tricked me with the pregnancy. Did you ever consider I might not have been ready for that?”

There was a truth there, Aleshia thought. A small, insignificant truth buried under all the murky times they had spent together.

“It’s not my fault you chose to not use condoms. I told you I had severe side effects to the pill. You thought as long as I was fresh off my periods, it would be fine. That’s not how things work, Peter.”

“You should have found another way to prevent it. It’s unfair I have to ruin my s*xual experience every time by wearing a condom when there’s far more methods available to women. I mean, why didn’t you check up to see if there was another pill available? Or got one of those implants?”

“Are you serious? It’s not just my responsibility to not get pregnant. It’s yours, too.”

“I don’t understand why you didn’t get an abortion when I asked. I told you I wasn’t ready.”

“And I told you I didn’t want an abortion, even though I wasn’t sure I was ready, either.”

Peter made a sound, as if he was gnashing his teeth together. “Look, you stupid bi*ch. You put me into an awkward situation. It took me a while to accept it, and that’s only fair, because this affects my life, you know. But I will look after the baby. But only if you’re with me. I’m not going to pay any benefits or anything to a child I don’t want. But I don’t mind if we are together. That’s just how it is. It’s your fault you didn’t want the abortion, and your fault you don’t want to stay with a guy who will protect you. I’m sorry you can’t see that.”

“You know what? Fu*k off. Don’t call me again.” Aleshia hung up. Peter, as usual, disrespected her wish and kept constantly calling her, so she turned her phone off to avoid the spam, as the other adults in the room erupted into indignant tirades.