It was all good just a week ago/"Beautiful" Part II

I am constantly getting cursed out for playing the "to be continued" game. I am glad that I'm able to make things so suspenseful. Lol! This is not a strategic move on my part, however, I simply don't want to bore you with stories that are so long you have to take a break and then come back and read the rest later. SO I thought it'd be better to give it to you in doses. Guess I was wrong... Anyway, Part II awaits. If you've ever been in a position like the one I'm sharing with you right now, challah if you hear me!

Then, the worst happened. I didn’t hear from Terrell for two days. I figured I was getting the brush-off, but at first, I did what all women do… I started panicking, thinking that something was wrong with him. So, I called a few times. Ok… MORE than “a few times”. I called his cell, his home (his roommate got tired of hearing my voice). If I’d had his work number, I would’ve called that, too.* I just couldn’t understand the sudden change in his attitude toward me. I mean, it had been all good just a week ago… literally. And, then, we crashed and burned. My heart was hurting and my head was spinning. And, so, I called Akil, not knowing what else to do.

Akil answered on the first ring and could tell the distress in my voice.

“What’s wrong, baby girl?” he asked.

I told him that I was confused and hurt as to why Terrell hadn’t returned my calls. I asked him whether Terrell was alive and I promised that if he was, in fact, still breathing, that I would kill him.

“Listen, kid,” he said (he had a lot of nicknames for me). “You might want to just go ahead and let that go.”

I felt like he had slapped me in the face. I mean, I figured that Terrell and I had just hit a snag in our very new relationship. But, his own best friend was telling me to let it go.”

“I can’t just walk away, Akil. I care for him. I don’t want to let it go.”

He was silent for a moment and then said, “Yes, I hear that you don’t know how to give up…”

“Wow.”

That was all I could say. Wow. Obviously, word had gotten back to Akil that I’d been calling trying to track Terrell down. I don’t know who told him about my efforts to reach him. Was it Terrell? If it was, obviously he knew that I’d been calling him and was avoiding me. Was it Terrell’s roommate? Then that means that their whole crew was probably gossiping about Terrell and me and… obviously, Terrell knew that I’d been calling him and was avoiding me. And even though I already had a good idea that I’d gotten the brush off, now it was confirmed. Terrell had played me like an Xbox.

I cordially ended my conversation with Akil. Although I felt that he deserved a less than polite end to the conversation, my mother taught me to always be a lady with mine. So, I made sure to end on a positive note and told Akil that I’d hoped to see him around someday soon, but I was respectfully bowing out of this little game that his friend was playing.

I met some friends for drinks and, as I was walking into my apartment, my cell phone rang. My heart started beating fast because I was sure that this call would be Terrell FINALLY calling to clear up all this nonsense about me and him. But when I checked my phone, it was Akil. As soon as I answered I laid into him about how I thought that his friend was a fucked up, dog, fake-me-out player, bullshit artist who…

“[Brown Girl], forget about him.”

Pause.

“I can’t forget about him! If only it were so easy. I really liked him. I can’t believe he’d just drop me like this!”

“But what about me? Babe, I don’t think you even get it. I’m the one who’s in love with you. Not Terrell. Every time you mention his name I just want to scream on you because you are so blind. He doesn’t love you, I do! Just forget about him and be with me. We would be SO GOOD together.”

I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it as if it were an alien with three heads.

Timeout! What is really going on here? Is this REALLY Akil on my phone professing his love? If he REALLY telling me that HE wants to be with me? Is this really happening? At this point, it’s 2am on a Friday night/Saturday morning and I have had more than a little to drink. Maybe this is all a dream. Yes, that’s it. It’s a dream. A drunken dream and soon I am going to wake up and Terrell will call me and will say “Good morning, beautiful,” like he had every day for two months. And then we’ll make plans to see each other later in the day and he’ll cook for me and rub my back and kiss my forehead and we’ll fall asleep next to each other and Akil will still be my cousin’s significant other and everything will be back to normal.

I blinked hard and took a deep breath.

Nope, it is still 2am on a Saturday. I am still tipsy. And Akil is still talking.

I put the phone up to my ear.

“… been waiting for you to recognize that I’m the one that you should be with,” he is whining at this point and I am feeling nauseous.

This guy cannot be for real. Number one – because I am in love with his best friend and he KNOWS this. Number two – because he has been dating my cousin who happens to be one of MY best friends and he could never think that I would betray her like this. Number three – because I am not even attracted to him IN THE LEAST. Number four – because he was my buddy and I didn’t want to lose him. But it’s obvious that now I was going to have to cut him off… even on the friend tip. Oh God, this cannot be happening.

But it IS happening and I have to cut him off.

“Akil. What about Terrell? I am in love with your best friend!”

“Trust me, shorty. For him, it’s not even that serious. He would never end our friendship over some girl.”

There it is again – Akil is giving me further evidence that my “relationship” with Terrell wasn’t as it appeared. I was obviously someone he kept around for fun and not because he really cared. And, if my heart hadn’t been broken before, it cracked into a million pieces when Akil referred to me as “some girl”. Just “some girl”. Nothing special…

This was a lot to take in. And my liquor consumption earlier that evening certainly didn’t make it any easier to comprehend what was happening.

“Listen, Akil. I love my cousin and I’m not going to mess up our bond over a dude. And I don’t feel right about taking up with the best friend of the guy I’ve been dating for the last two months. It’s just not right. You’re a cool guy, really cool, and maybe – if circumstances were different – there could be something more between us. But, for now, we can only be friends. That’s it, though. Just friends.”

Akil fell silent and I felt awful! After a few moments of quiet, he mumbled an awkward goodbye and we hung up. That was the last time I heard from him. And I never heard from Terrell ever again.

And this is what I think of when Snoop raps about a girl who’s hair is “long and black and curly like [she’s] Cuban.” I love the song, but I often skip over it because I am reminded of how confusing and hurtful those two months were. I am not sure why Terrell did what he did. And there’s nothing that makes me feel worse than not having any closure. All those times that I called him, I wanted him to pick up the phone and TELL my why his feelings changed. Why didn’t he want me? What did I do? Was it someone else? Closure is an important part of being able to move on with a clear mind and a whole heart. Unfortunately, Terrell never gave me the satisfaction of knowing why things ended so randomly. Within the span of two or three days, the apple of my eye became the bain of my existence. For all intents and purposes, Terrell disappeared off the face of the earth. Why? I’ll never know. For a while I was bitter. Each time I heard a name that even sounded like Terrell, I would spit out a string of curse words and wish him great amounts of harm.

Of course, I recognize that it’s his loss. And since then, I’ve learned my lesson n trying to get closure. I’ve learned that most times you won’t get it. And so, sometimes you have to find your own closure. When it comes down to it, I try to live my life without regrets. And I don’t really regret meeting Terrell. The brief time we spent together was sweet and exciting. It was totally worth it – to me. I do recognize, however, that our time together didn’t mean the same thing to Terrell and I can’t be mad at that. Some people “do it for you” and others don’t. I guess I was just a blip in his love life while he was a pretty memorable stop on my journey to find “the one”. At any rate, I wish him nothing but the best.

And, I lied. I do have ONE regret when it comes to the Terrell drama – he ruined “Beautiful” for me.

Asshole. (sorry, flashback)




*Yes, looking back on the situation, I realize this was stalkerish, but hey, I was young, dumb, and thought I was “in love”.