Page 35 of Without You
She dared to look at him and saw the earnest plea in his eyes.
“This baby is a sign,” he said. “A sign that we should be together and stop sneaking around like we’re doing something wrong. A sign that we can make our relationship work again, no matter what obstacles come our way.”
“A sign?” Charisse scoffed. “Yes, it’s a sign. A sign that we were careless. We’re not kids. We’re adults and should have known better.”
“I don’t regret it. If that’s what you want, then you can forget it.”
She glared at him. “Does anything get to you at all? Do you care about anybody else but Terrence Burrell?”
He reared back like she’d struck him. “That’s unfair.”
“No it’s not.”
“Yes, it is!” he snarled. “You think nothing gets to me?Youget to me. When I can’t see you, when I can’t hear your voice...” He shook his head. “You’re my world, but you don’t believe me. We’re happy. Don’t let this woman split us apart.”
“Do you really think my anger is about Brenda or JoJo or any of your side chicks? It’s about you, Terrence. You can’t keep your penis in your pants.”
“I’ve been faithful to you!”
“For two months!” she screamed. “You can always hang in there for a while, and then you go right back to doing the same bullshit. Four months from now or six months from now or a year from now, there’ll be another stripper or model or groupie that I have to contend with. That’s our history, and now you expect me to simply accept what you’re saying is the truth? That this time is different?”
“This timeisdifferent, but you don’t want to believe me. You don’t want to see I’ve changed. I tell you I love you all the time, and you don’t say a word. You don’t react, you don’t say shit.”
“Oh, does that hurt your feelings? You tell me you love me, like you always did, and I’m supposed to fall at your feet and thank my lucky stars thatyou love me.” She shook her head. “You lied to me, you cheated on me, you made a fool out of me.
“What do you know about love? You don’t love me. You never loved me.I loved you. With everything inside me.” Her voice cracked. “I loved you so much, I put up with your bullshit for years while you ran around on me. I loved you so much I didn’t care that people said I became pregnant to trap you after you got your record deal. I didn’t care because I loved you, and I believed you loved me, too. I used to think your jealousy meant you loved me, but it doesn’t. You want to own my body. You see me as a possession, and that’s not love. You want to keep me away from Austin and other men and to be the only one to screw me—because that’s all you’re capable of feeling. Lust. That’s it. All you care about is my body, and when that goes you won’t want me. You’ll be like any other man and trade me in for a newer model.”
She wiped the tears from her cheeks, unable to stop saying all the words she’d wanted to say in the past. She’d yelled at him before, but she’d never said these words. “You want to know how I know? You told me in those pathetic songs you wrote for me.” She laughed-cried for a minute and then sniffed. “One of your greatest hits was supposed to be a song about me, and I hated it so much.
“You hold the key to my heart
Those other girls don’t mean a thing
You hold the key to my heart, sweetheart
You the one wearing my ring.”
Before he told her he’d written the song for her, the ad-libbedsweetheartat the end of several lines signaled the song was about her. In all the years they’d been together, she’d never heard him call another soul sweetheart. That endearment was uniquely assigned to her.
“And then my other favorite, ‘Bomb Pussy.’ Oh god. When you wrote that I thought it was sexy and funny. We were still in the honeymoon stage, but later, I hoped that no one knew it was about me, but of course everyone knew.”
She picked up her purse. “I’m not saying you’re incapable of love. I know you loved Grandma Esther. I know you love our children. But you never loved me, Terrence. Maybe someday you’ll learn to love someone the way I did you. Our relationship was good for those first couple of years. Maybe you’ll experience that again one day, and the person you love will love you back and treat you the way you deserve. But it won’t be me. I did love you, more than anything and anyone, but I can’t go down that road with you. I gave youallof me, and I can’t risk doing that again.”
She placed a hand over her belly. “I want this baby, and one day we can talk about it. One day when we’re not so emotional—whenI’mnot so emotional.” She gave a little laugh.
His face remained solemn and his eyes bleak. Not once did he open his mouth to interrupt while she spoke.
“I’m sorry, Terrence. Take the kids wherever you want, but I can’t do anymore summer trips with you. I can’t sleep with you anymore, and I don’t want to look at you or hear your voice for a while. I allowed you to treat me that way, but I won’t again. We’re done.”
She walked out without a backward glance.
16
Terrence sat with his feet propped on the coffee table and a beer growing warm in the hand resting on the sofa beside him. In less than six months he went from the high of the Grammys to the depths of hell.
His grandmother passed away and reconnecting with his ex-wife turned out to be the worst decision he had ever made. He would have been better off not making love to her again. Not enjoying her scent. Not touching her, not whispering words of love and dealing with the crushing disappointment when she didn’t whisper them back.
Over the past couple of weeks, he’d thrown himself into work at the studio, his escape. He spent long days and nights writing and recording, which kept his mind off his self-inflicted misery. Yet theAnnihilationalbum was nowhere close to being finished. The songs were subpar and the lyrics rudimentary at best.
