Bated Breath

C h a p t e r : 24

Anthony

Thursday March 24th, cont'd

As I pulled into my drive way, I noticed someone sitting by my gate. Why God? Why me! I shook my head and ignored her, continuing up the path to my house.

"You do know you passed someone by your-"

"Yes I know." I said taking Xi from Yasmine as I slammed my door shut. "The hell are you doing here Shay'a? Get the fu-" No cursing around Xi Toni, "Get out!" She looked at Xi and I could see the hurt in her eyes but I really don't give a shit.

"Is that your baby?" Her voice was shaking, you could tell she was about to pass out from the way her face went pale. She looked over to Yasmine with a grimace on her face. "So you gave yourself to her and not me? Whats so special about her? Huh?"

"You need to leave. Now!" I looked over to Yasmine and sighed. "Let's go inside baby." She looked a little taken aback but nodded going along with it.

"Toni...p-please I'm sorry, I just really need your he-."

"Listen Shay'a!" I just lost it at this point. "I don't give a shit about what's going on with you! I don't ever want to see you again, so get the hell off my property and don't even think about coming back! Do you understand!" I spat feeling Xi jump in my arms. Great! She began to cry.

"Baby can you take her a minute please?" Yasmine took Xi and looked at me with eyes full of question.

"She could never love you the way I do Toni, remember that."

"Just go! Fuck!" She walked out the gate and I wasted no time to close and lock it.

Once I was sure she was out I stormed inside and went straight to my chill spot. She got my head all hot and heated now. I huffed and kissed my teeth, roughly rubbing my temples.

But then in came Yasmine, her voice as soft and smooth as silk calming my anger. "Toni..." She said taking a seat next to me. "How are you feeling?" I sighed as she rubbed my back.

"I just want some peace. Is that too much to ask for right now?"

"Of...of course not...I'm guessing she's your ex?"

"Sadly. To me she's just a dirty muthafu-I mean, I don't wanna sound disrespectful but after what she did to me...to my friends..."

"Your friends? Y-You mean Tey and Chris?"

"T-then she thinks she can just come back here and everything is good again? Naw! She may have had me wrapped around her fingers then but all that shit ain't gon work now."

"What did she do that involved them?" I looked at her and sighed planting my face in my hands. She opened up to me about her past and she had the decency to be honest even though it was a little late. Besides, I trust her enough to tell her and if I want things to work I need to be straight and just let her know what happened.

"Shay'a was an aspiring model...it was all she ever wanted to be growing up. At the time I wasn't really a big thing yet, but Chris was just starting to get noticed. She was my first serious girlfriend and I swore that she was the one I was going to marry so whatever she needed I helped her with it no matter how crazy it sounded. I begged Chris to ask his management to let her be one of the models in his music video...you know that song 'Yo?" She nodded her head and I shook mine and huffed.

"Behind my back she slept with the video producer just to get the main spot in the video which was the girl who was going to be Chris' main interest. But Chris was hella uncomfortable with it cause he knew she was my girl. He had some conflict with his label because he was the one that begged them for her to be on and now she was on he was refusing to work with her. He lost the video producer because he thought it was unprofessional what was going on and so he dropped Chris' work and took Shay'a to be in another video. All this time I didn't know that she was sleeping with him behind my back. So us not knowing what was going on we was still rooting for her to work with him because we knew that it would have been her big break." I scoffed and continued.

"Anyway, some time passed and New York fashion week came around. Because of other videos she was in she was noticed and started to get some jobs here and there. Then came Fabian who was a designer from Paris. Shay'a had to attend a 'go see' with him and she slept with him too to get the spot in fashion week. Still, I was unaware of everything that was going on. Behind my back he was filling her head with a bunch of shit about going to Paris and becoming a super model. He promised her something I couldn't give her at the time. So she came to me and she said that he was offering for her to go to Paris and work with some of the biggest models in the industry. I was rooting for her all the way so of course I told her to go."

"Everything was going fine and we kept in contact, until eventually all contact stopped. I started to get worried that something had happened and so Chris paid for me to fly to Paris to see what was up. I went to the address she was staying at and she wasn't there, in fact the entire apartment was empty. I didn't know what to do. I called her number to get no answer. I left her millions of texts that went to green. I even went looking for this Fabian guy and they said he was in Greece setting up a store. I went back home with no luck. I wasn't eating, I wasn't sleeping...Tey and Chris fought with me to put me in better spirits but I couldn't do anything knowing that there's a possibility that something was wrong with her and there was no way I could help."

"About a month later, I got a call from a strange number. I answered and it was her. She fed me some bullshit lie about Fabian using her. She said he asked her to do something for him but it was a set up and that she got in trouble with the police. She cried and begged me to wire money to her account to bail her out, money that I couldn't even smell. So I'm sure you know what I did next. I begged Chris like a dog for that money. He was mad suspect about the whole thing and he told me over and over that something didn't feel right about it, saying that she should have been able to call sooner if that's the case."

"It didn't even matter to me. That was the love of my life and she needed my help and it felt like it was my duty to make sure that she gets out of this ok. Yasmine I even hit up a lawyer just in case shit got outta hand with this thing. But anyway, Chris wired the money for me then after that I didn't hear from her again for like another month. That's when Chris was contacted by the FBI saying some shit bout he was involved in some drug trafficking shit, they picked him up and everything. It was all over the news Yas, Chris would have lost his reputation if it weren't for that same lawyer I had hired. After they investigated they found out that Fabian was some drug lord who they had been tracking for ten years. The money that Chris had wired to Shay'a was used to as part of a transaction between him and someone here in this city, but he couldn't send it or else they would have found him."

"They thought that Chris was the man that had bought the drugs from him and was paying him for it. It was a whole big set up but God saved our asses. I almost lost my friendship with Chris but Tey was the one who helped us stick together." I rubbed my forehead and huffed. "I never heard from her again after that."

"Oh my god..." Yasmine said in complete shock, shedding some tears.

"She almost ruined my and Chris' life. There's no coming back from that shit."

"I had no idea..."

"You couldn't have. But now you see why I have major trust issues. That's why I reacted the way I did with you because I already knew I was falling for you too fast but I didn't care. I wanted to and I trusted you. So when I realized that there was a possibility that I could lose you I lost it. I felt kinda betrayed I guess...but I shouldn't have went off on you like that. We all humans and shit like that happens from time to time."

"It does, but Toni, you're the one I want to be with. It doesn't matter if he changes or not, you gave me more than he ever could, you cared more than he ever could...we connected in a way that him and I never did and that's why I could never go back there even if he changed his ways because you already have my soul." She caressed my cheeks with her thumb and smiled pulling me into a hug. "Ever since we met you've had my back...and I'll always have yours. I'm not going anywhere."