The Chronicles of the Black Pack – Pt. 4

For everybody who’s been following, it’s been a great ride but the drama with the Black Pack starts here in part 4….

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

———————————

Maria and I have been together for some 7 months now.  Met her in a Starbucks and I’m not even a coffee drinker.  I was just going in to get my mom a latte, and there she was.  I FOUND a reason to talk to her; she was just a bad chick.  You know the type who looks amazing even when she’s in sweats and just finished exercising or something.  Her short haircut was going for her, and I was smitten, yeah I said it!  She made my mouth drop, and I think I asked her about her hair or something.  Like I said, I just wanted a reason to converse.  I think it went to the news, the crazy Atlanta weather (tornados in the South), and by the time I brought my mom stone cold coffee, I didn’t really care.  Maria was in my system and I liked it like that.  Mom didn’t like the cold coffee though.

I pulled up to her downtown loft and parked.  The city was buzzing, I’m not sure why.  Seemed like everybody was out today, loving the great weather and the multitude of things to do.  The cars all bumped different sounds amid their blaring engines.  Young Jeezy, Lil Wayne and Soulja Boy created a cacophony of rap noise.  Love was in my mind, so I hummed some Musiq Soulchild as I got buzzed in.

“Hey Matt, come in.”  Her voice wasn’t so down normally, but I suspected allergies or something.  She hung her head a little low, letting her shoulder-length hair settle at the base of her neck.  That aside, she still looked like a knockout.  I always got the same feeling from seeing her that I did the first time.  But her voice, her posture, everything about her seemed like gravity had taken an extra special hold on her.  Her normally bright brown eyes had a lifelessness to them.  I did what I always did when she seems down – I gave her a tight hug and kiss on her cheek.  Her physical response told me more than any verbal response to my question of “What’s wrong?”  There was no hug back.  With only centimeters of space between us, she appeared to be miles away.  After an awkward silence, we shared an awkward stare.  She broke the silence with those now-inevitable, dreaded words: “We need to talk.”  Everybody knows what this means, and I now had to plan my moves carefully.  I could interrupt her and try to convince her that we should stay together, I could let her talk and then try to refute everything she said, but I figured it’d be better to have no assumptions.  She might have bad news or something.  She motioned for me to come take a seat on the couch, and we sat opposite of one another.  She was in the love seat across the coffee table, and she turned the TV down.  I felt like she was about to tell me something that was going to crush me.  She opened her mouth and started saying under her breath, “I can’t do this…I can’t do this.”  She hopped out of the chair and started pacing.  I’d seen her act like this only when she’s terribly nervous and unsure of what she’s about to do.  She’s still making a decision.  “I can plead my case right now, but my record should speak for itself,” I thought.  Why in the hell do I need to plead my case?  I’ve been a great man to her and for her.  And more importantly, I know she knows that.  I stood up as she continued pacing across from me and spoke the only thing on my mind.  “Spit it out, Maria.  Don’t do this suspenseful stuff, talk.  What’s up?”  She kept her back to me, and the faceless voice came.  “I’ve really liked the past few months.  But I just don’t think we’ll be able to make it.  I think we need to take some time…apart.”

You have got to be kidding me.  Like most people when they are broken up with, they go from shock to anger – my transition was just quicker than most.  I had no idea that things were going wrong, she’d never given me any indicators or told me anything.  Next thing I know, it’s time to see other people.  What in the hell.  She enjoyed me like a toy, then tossed me when she grew tired of me.  Part of me wanted to ask her why, part of me wanted to go, “What the fuck,” and another part of me wanted to just walk out of the apartment.  With my hands across my chest and having fixed my face from a look of shock to a look of…I don’t even know, I just know my mouth wasn’t hanging open, I went with, “Well how did you figure that?”  I really did want to hear the answer to this question – I wasn’t loving enough, I was too loving, I didn’t provide her with enough security, I was becoming too much for her, my dick wasn’t big enough or it was too big, what kind of excuse could she even have?

She walked over to her kitchen and got a glass of water.  She chugged it down and wiped her mouth, saying, “We’ve been getting so close…I’m just not ready for all of this heavy relationship stuff.  When you told me you loved me the other day, it hit me – I don’t know if I love you or not.  I don’t know where I want this to go…I’m sorry, baby.  I just need some time to figure this all out.”

Oh hell no.  My jaw dropped again.  She just broke up with me because after some 7 months, I tell the woman I love her and she can’t handle it.  Maria just broke up with me for no damn reason at all.  All that nice crap I said about her?  I lied; she’s a bitch for this one.

Since my afternoon was shot, I just ambled back to my car and sat in it for awhile.  After about 15 minutes or so, I gave Andre a call.  “Nigga, I need a drink.  You tryin’ to hit up M Bar?”  “Yeah, let’s do that around 7:00, I’m in the middle of a meeting.  I’ll meet you there.”  He hung up, and so I had a few hours to kill.  On my way home, I made sure to join the cacophony of rap noise though.

Someone once told me that a man only loves hard once.  He’ll still love after that, but it’ll never be that hard.  I always thought that was a load of crap some hurt guy was telling me when I was younger.  But every time I think about what older men told me growing up, it was to love single life for as long as possible, because getting serious makes a man think twice.  I can understand this a little bit better now, I don’t think I’d ever gone so long with one woman before and really fell for her.  Only thing more painful for a man might be getting his balls chopped off.

—————————

You think the drama ended?  It’s only just begun, trust.