Cold (13 page)

It’s the middle of the night and I can’t sleep. A part of me wants to hold Michael
, but my heart is beating fast at the fear of rejection from my own husband; especially with the way things have been between us. I decide to roll over and turn to him but as I do, his phone buzzed. He grabs it from under the pillow, takes one look at it and gets out of bed. I look at him with concern and asked, “Baby is everything alright?”

Without turning to look at me
he replies, “Yeah I just have to finish up some papers at work.”

I couldn’t believe this shit. This was the third night in a row.

“At 3 a.m. in the morning Michael?” I asked sarcastically.

He didn’t even answer my question. He just threw on his suit he wore the night before
, and left the house without so much as a kiss on the forehead. As I’m lying in bed, my head is pounding and my chest starts to burn and all of these thoughts are running full speed through my mind. In the heat of the moment, I jump up and yell, “I can’t take this shit anymore!”

I grabbed my keys and purse and ran out of the house wearing just my gown. I knew that if I was going to catch up to Michael I needed to leave now.  I’m driving like a bat out of hell and my palms are so sweaty that I can barely grip the steering wheel. I finally see Michael’s car
, so I slow down because I’m almost tailing him. All of a sudden, my phone rings. It’s Michael. ‘
Oh shit… I’m caught,’
I think to myself.

In a sleepy voice
I answered, “Hello?”

Nonchalantly
Michael says, “Hey baby, I just pulled into the office. I’m going to be here for a while.”

I couldn’t believe him. I wanted to take my car and ram his lying ass. I took a deep breath and just said
, “Ok Michael.” 

The drive felt like forever. Everything around me stopped. The sky was closing in on me and world felt like it was shattering. I couldn’t believe my husband of 7 years would do this to me. Michael then pulls into a hotel but doesn’t check in. My only thought was that the other woman was already there waiting for my man to arrive. As he gets out, I park my car and wait for him walk into the hotel room. I close my eyes to keep the tears from seeping out. I held my breath and thought to myself
‘
Just go home Tiffany.’
Then I opened my eyes, took a deep breath and said, “Hell naw.”

I got out of my car and rushed to the room. I put my index finger on the peep hole trying to hide my identity and knocked on the door. Michael answered the door shirtless. Before he could say anything, I pushed passed him and entered the hotel. With tears running down my face, I yelled in a shaky voice
, “How could you do this to me, to us?”

Before he could explain, a shadow appeared from the bathroom. I
looked up and my heart almost fell out of my chest. Michael looked at me and put is head down. All of the blood immediately rushed from my brain. It was like a scene from a horror soap opera. I couldn’t believe who was standing butt naked in front of me and who had been sleeping with my man this whole time.

“CARL!” I yelled. I was all fucked up at this point.

Carl was standing there naked with an erect dick and some holding a jar of Vaseline. I immediately felt sick and I thought I was going to vomit. I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing. I thought I was coming to confront a woman, not a man and it wasn’t just any man. It was my best friend who had a wife and two damn kids at home.

“Tiff, let me explain
,” Michael said as he sat on the edge of the bed and put his hands together as if he was about to start praying.

The tears were flowing from my eyes like a waterfall. It literally felt like someone took a knife and stuck me in the heart.
Betrayal wasn’t even the word that could describe what I was feeling. Carl walked over to the bed and sat next to Michael and looked at me as if he didn’t give a fuck about the fact that he hurt me.

“Look Tiff, I’m sorry you had to find out like this
, but it is what it is. Michael just isn’t happy with you. You had all the signs that were telling you that he was interested in you,” Carl said as he put his arm around my husband.

All of the times that Michael and I made love began to flash in my head. It all made sense. I was wondering why he was so fascinated with my ass. It wasn’t like he was just staring at it and smacking it occasionally. He was kissing it, caressing and spending way too much time trying to play with it. One day he asked me if he could stick his dick in my ass. I looked at him like he was crazy. Watching them sit on the bed made my flesh crawl. It was disgusting. Michael stood up and tried to walk over to me and I immediately snapped back.

“Get the fuck away from me you nasty son of a bitch!”

I ran out of the hotel and didn’t look back. I almost fell down the stairs trying to get away from the scene. I felt like I was in a scary movie and I was running from a beast in the woods. My hands were shaking so bad that I could barely get the key in the ignition.

“Fuck!” I yelled as I dropped my keys.

While searching for them on the floor of the car, I heard this loud
sound that scared the shit out of me. I looked up and saw it was Michael trying to get into my car. I screamed and locked all four doors before he could open it.

“Let me in damn it!” he yelled as he continued to bang on the door.

The look in his eyes was evil. He looked like he wanted to kill me for finding out his secret. He knew that I was going to divorce his ass and this would ruin his reputation. At that point, I didn’t give a damn about Michael, Carl, or his reputation. While Michael was trying to break my window, I finally found the keys and started the car. Suddenly, Michael jumped on the hood of hood of the car.

“Get the fuck off my car bitch!” I yelled as I smashed on the accelerator damn near knocking him off.

Surprisingly he stayed on. I swerved the car and reversed trying to do whatever I could to get his ass on the ground. Finally, he flew of the car and hit the concrete. I gasped and stared at him lying there as if he was dead. Michael popped his head up and looked in my direction. He tried to get up but I could tell he was too week to move. Carl came running out of the hotel naked. I wanted to run both of their asses over but instead, I sped off. I was crying so hard that I could barely see the road. My phone then rang so I reached in my pocket and pulled it out. I looked on the screen and it was unknown call. I answered and Carl’s voice was on the other end.

“Tiff, I think you’re overreacting
,” he said nonchalantly.

“Oh my God, t
his whole time it was you!”

Carl laughed and replied
, “That’s right.”

When I hung up the phone, this sickening feeling came right back to me.
This wasn’t just some random person. This was my childhood friend. He’s been the one making my life a living hell. It was crazy because he’s been listening to me and Michael’s problems and giving me marital advice. Then the day of my anniversary hit me. Michael was with Carl. I gasped to myself when I thought about the receipt that I found in our closet. I thought that Michael went out and bought himself the pair of shoes and watch for himself, but I never seen him wearing them so they must’ve been for Carl. The more, I thought about it, the blurrier my vision got. The road started to look a little funny and I could no longer see the cars in front of me. All of a sudden, everything went black.

              I woke up to a flashing light in my face. I blinked my eyes into focus and saw Darius standing over me. Was I in Heaven or was I just dreaming I wondered to myself.

“Darius
,” I said as I tried reaching for him.

He grabbed my hand and kissed it.

“That was some ditch you ran into,” he said as put a bandage over my head.

When my vision started to get clear, I saw Darius standing there wearing all white and that’s when I realized I was in the hospital. When I tried to sit up, it felt like my back was about to pop. I let out a loud moan and put my hand on my back.
Darius adjusted the bed and tried to get me to relax.

“You’re lucky you came out of the crash with just a scratch
,” he sighed.

“What happened?” I asked in raspy voice.

He looked at me and said, “Well you crashed your car into a ditch and ended up here. That’s all we know right now.”

My eyes started to get watery.

“Great, now I have some explaining to the car rental company.”

Darius shook his head and said
, “Don’t worry about it sweetheart, I’ll pay for it. The only thing you need to do is take these pain pills.”

He handed me two small white pills. I flushed it down with two gulps of water. Darius then sat next to me on the bed and put his hand on my lap.

“Tiffany, what happened?” he whispered.

I put my head down because I was too ashamed to look him in the eyes and said
, “I found Michael in the hotel with my best friend Carl. Carl is a man.”

I looked up at Darius and the look on his face was priceless. He looked just as surprised as I did when I first seen the shit.

“Wow,” is all he said.

He then wrapped his arms around me and held me. I was in physical pain
, but it was nothing compared to the pain I was feeling emotionally. While Darius was holding me, Draya came running into the room.

“Oh my goodness
Tiffany,”

Darius gave me a kiss on the
forehead and left the room so that Draya and I could talk.

“Girl what the fuck happened?” she asked as she sat on the bed next to me.

“I don’t know. One minute, I was on the road driving and the next minute, I ended up here.”

She stared at me and her eyes began to water. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

“I found Michael in a hotel room with Carl. That’s who he’s been fucking and to make things worse, Carl was the one calling my phone private.”

It made my h
eart burn just talking about it; thinking about my husband sticking his dick in a man’s ass and then coming back and sticking his dick in my pussy made me want to gag. There was times when Michael would come home late and hop in the bed and fuck with me. Sometimes he wouldn’t even shower. I even gave him head sometimes. I could’ve been possible sucking the juice from Carl’s ass off Michael’s dick. Draya hugged me and said she was sorry that I had to go through this. I was mad at myself for not paying attention to my husband’s behavior. I was so busy trying to play the good wife. He’s the reason why I quit my fucking job. I was at home cleaning his nasty ass underwear and cooking for him. I was a good woman to him and he knows that. We sat there in silence. I mean, with all the crazy shit that happened, there was really no words that could make things better or take back what has already happened.

As broken up as I was about it, I couldn’t let this keep me down. The fact that I now knew what was going on, brought me some kind of closure. I was no longer afraid to leave Michael. I wondered if Tangy knew that her husband and father of her children
were gay. I felt sorry for Tangy because she had kids with him. If I was complaining about Michael coming home late, I knew she wasn’t too pleased with Carl either. Darius came back into the room holding some papers.

“Well, it looks like you’re going to have to stay the night. You have a concussion and I want you to stay here so that you can be monitored. If you do alright, you’ll be discharged in the morning.”

I slowly nodded my head and said, “Okay.”

Draya
stood up and grabbed her purse.

“I’m going to call and check on you okay. I’ll be here to pick you up in the morning.”

She gave me a kiss on the cheek, thanked Darius and left. After his shift was over, Darius went home, changed clothes and came back up to the hospital to sit with me.

“I brought you some food. I know you don’t want to eat the hospital food.”

I smiled and said, “Thanks.”

I sat the food on the dresser next to me. I was too fucked up to eat anything. Luckily the pain pills had already kicked in.
All of a sudden, I felt a little woozy and everything went blank. When I opened my eyes, I looked around and the room was dim and Darius wasn’t in the chair. When I sat up, this pain shot through my back.

“Shit
,” I mumbled as I planted my feet on the floor.

I sat on the edge of the bed for a minute and arched my back trying to ease the pain. I finally got the courage to stand up and limp out the door. I was a little surprised to see that
the hospital was dark and empty; this creepy feeling started invade my mind. The halls looked wide and scary. I felt like I was in a Freddy Krueger movie. As I turned to walk back to my room and get my phone, I heard a voice yell, “Tiffany.”

I looked and saw someone in a wedding dress. As the image got closer, I noticed that it was Carl. He had a knife in his hand and blood around his mouth. It
looks like he might’ve had mascara dripping from his eyes. He looked like a damn monster. I then took off in the other direction.
‘Did he slaughter everybody in the hospital?’
I thought to myself as I tried to find a place to hide.

“Oh Tiffany,
I’m going to get you!” he sang out loud in a creepy perverted voice.

Every room that I tried to hide in was locked. I jiggled the doors so hard hoping that it would break the knobs but it was pointless. Carl’s voice was getting louder with each step he took. He was laughing hysterically. Crazy wasn’t even the word to describe him. I started screaming and beating on the walls hoping that someone would hear me and come rescue me.
I no longer heard Carl’s voice anymore so I stopped in my tracks. I looked around trying to see if he was gone and as I turned around, he was standing in front of me. His eyes were huge and around them were so black that he looked like a raccoon. His wedding dress had blood all over it. He grabbed the knife and put it up to his mouth and licked the blood off of it. I gasped and stepped back. He took a step forward and grabbed me by the throat almost breaking my neck.

“Michael is my man!”

With all of the force I had in my body, I put my leg under his dress and kicked him in the balls. He released me dropping me on the floor. He let out this roar and said, “Now I’m really going to kill you bitch!”

I managed to get on my feet and run down the hall. I ran until I could no longer here or see Carl. I finally made it back to my room and hid under the bed. Lord please
don’t let this man find me, I prayed. I must’ve been under that bed for hours when I heard footsteps. I covered my mouth so I wouldn’t scream. I could see Carl’s dress train slithering down the hall. He then stopped in front of my room. He stood there for a second and walked in. The tears started running down my face. I’ve never been this terrified in my life. The bed then flipped over my head and before I could crawl away, he kicked me in the face. The blood ran from my nose like a faucet. He got down on his knees and began licking my blood off the floor like a dog.

“Please don’t do this. We are
best friends.”

He laughed and put the knife up to my throat and everything went black. I opened my eyes and saw a bunch of doctors and Darius on top of me. I was screaming and kicking.

“Tiffany calm down!” Darius yelled.

I was gasping, trying to catch my breath. After five minutes of struggling with the doctors, they finally got me to calm down. My hair was soaked with nothing but sweat. Darius wrapped his arms around me and held me tight.

“It’s okay sweetheart. You were just having a nightmare.”

I felt like I couldn’t escape this feeling. Fear was going to kill me if nothing else did.