Page 24 of Exit: Us
“Georgia? What are you doing in Georgia? What’s there for you?” she wanted to know.
“Nothing is here for me. I’m just traveling,” I said, keeping it simple.
“Traveling where? Are you alone?” she kept pressing the issue. I sighed, crossing my right leg over my left.
“No, I’m with Gianna’s brother,” I said.
Olivia knew Gianna because Gianna has come to London a few times to visit, and I’ve got the girls together on those occasions. Plus, we had been planning my wedding, and for one of the events, when I wanted to get my entire bridal party together, we’ve all hung out too. They weren’t close though. Just casual. They just shared me as a mutual friend.
“Didn’t she say that her brother was a truck driver, right? Truck drivers sleep on their trucks, don’t they? Are you traveling with him, and sleeping on the truck with him? Eww. Amina, what the hell!” Olivia screamed, as if she would be absolutely disgusted if the answer to her questions were yes. Something that stood out to me with what she said was the fact that even she knew that we were going to have to sleep on the truck, but I didn’t.
“Yeah. I actually am sleeping on the truck with him,” I wanted to hear what she was going to say, and that’s why I was so straightforward with my answer.
When I said that to her, she laughed. The laugh was sarcastic though. The one you do when you’re so caught off guard that you don’t even know what to say. The one you do when you’re trying to be careful over your next few words, so that you don’t offend someone.
“I’m trying to be mindful of my words, but at this point, it’s kind of hard. You’re telling me that you left London and you got on a truck with a truck driver, and now you are in country ass Georgia? You told me that you didn’t even know Gianna’s brother like that. How can you get on the road with someone that you don’t even know? Let alone a truck driver. You are crazy. I would have never left London. I would have never left my millionaire fiancé. Amina, I would have stayed and figured it out. Proved to him that I was the better woman,” she was screaming these things at me. If she was standing in front of me, I might have just swung on her ass. It would have been the only thing that made the most sense.
“Because of the fucked up head space that I’m in, let me go ahead, and hang up on you before I say something hurtful to you that’ll throw our entire friendship down the drain,” I was calm, even though her words pissed me off, and I really wanted to go in on her.
“I’m saying what I’m saying to you right now Amina because I care. Because I love you. You never once said that Jacob stopped loving you. You never once said that he no longer wanted to be with you. You said that he called the wedding off because?—”
“Bitch, are you crazy? Are you high on any kind of drugs right now? Jacob doesn’t love me. Jacob no longer wanted to be with me because his childhood friend was back in town. What part of that didn’t you understand when I said it to you the first time? That man stood there, looked me in my eyes, and told me that old feelings for her came back, and that he couldn’t confidentlysay ‘I do’ to me at the altar. I was supposed to stay in London, and wait for him to figure it out because he’s a millionaire? Have you forgotten that I have my own coin as well? Have you forgotten that I had money before Jacob, and I’ll continue to have money after him?” I screamed, pissed with her.
“I hate that you took it that way because that’s not how I meant it. I just know that Jacob is a good catch and?—”
“Well, you go fuck him then since he’s such a good catch!” I snapped and hung up the phone on her.
I truly didn’t have anything else to say to her. For another woman to sit on the phone with me and tell me that I should have stayed in London to endure the disrespect was so crazy to me. A woman that was supposed to be one of my close friends. A woman that knew how much this marriage meant to me, only for Jacob to strip it away from me. All at the expense of him being a millionaire and a good catch.
I mean this with every humble fiber in my body when I say that a man having money doesn’t move me. I come from money. I was born into luxury. The day my mom brought me into this world, I entered a two- parent household that was very wealthy. Both my parents were successful people. My mom has been drilling it into me since I was a little girl that my survival shouldn’t depend on a man. She used to always tell me that if my father decided that he wanted to get up, and leave one day, she wouldn’t hurt over it financially. So no, a man having money has never been enough to keep me anywhere where I didn’t want to be, or in me and Jacob’s case… anywhere where he didn’t want me to be. Not when I had my own money either.
“Amina?” the sound of Gemini’s deep voice snapped me out of the thoughts that I was having.
I stepped up, moving along to the cab area, so that I could see him. When I spotted him, I was just glad that he was wearing a damn shirt. His shirt was on, as he held a hand towel in hishands to wipe away some of the sweat that was lingering on his face and neck.
“Yeah?” I answered.
“What you doing? I’m about to start cooking,” he said.
“Is that your way of asking me to come out here and watch you?” I wanted to know.
“Yeah. Come get some pointers. I just know your ass can’t cook,” he said, always feeling the need to talk shit.
“For your information, I can cook. I feel like you have this version of me that you made up in your head. You probably think that I moved to London, and I was just sitting out there on my ass, doing nothing. What? You think I had butlers in my home? Housekeepers? Drivers, and personal chefs, right? Sleep, and spend my ex- fiancé’s money all day, huh?” I asked him, stepping off the truck.
Once I was down on the concrete with him, I only left a little distance between us. Since I wasn’t that far, I could smell him. He just did an intense workout, but he didn’t stink. In fact, I could still smell pieces of the cologne lingering against his body.
Saying all these things to Gemini, it caused him to smile.
“I don’t think those things of you. Do I think you’re bougie? Fuck yeah. It’s nothing wrong with that though. Shit, I like to see a woman enjoy herself. Especially a black woman. I want to see a black woman living a soft life and enjoy the perks of life. You supposed to get your hair and nails done. Travel, buy expensive shit like Louis Vuitton luggage and duffle bags. Eat at five-star restaurants and sleep on silk sheets. We live in a world where society feels like a black woman gotta earn her soft life. Like ya’ll gotta go through hell first to get to enjoy the perks. I don’t agree with that. I want to see ya’ll enjoy the perks without the struggle story. It’s attractive seeing a black woman enjoy the perks,” he finished, and then he walked away from me.
Gemini was trouble. I could literally feel it. I didn’t want to get all up in his business, but I knew he probably had a shit load of women that he was dealing with back at home. Probably a shit load of women that all loved him the same and wanted to be with him.
He had a way with his words. He would look you deep into your soul and pour into you. Very articulate. Very wise. It’s like he always knew what the hell to say. To me, that was dangerous. It was dangerous because as women, we loved to be poured into. I think I can speak for all women across the world and say that it was one of our many love languages. So, is he going around pouring into a lot of women? If he is, I’m sure that they couldn’t get enough of Gemini.
“What you need me to do? I can help with dinner,” I suggested.
“Nothing, love. Just sit down and watch. You’re a guest. Enjoy the perks,” he threw that back out to me with a smirk on his face.
