Before I Let Go (8 page)

“Yeah, I saw it when I was home in August. I don’t know why he bought that, anyway. He only got it to impress Trina, and they aren’t even together now.”

Nate added, “Oh, I don’t even want to talk about their ill relationship.”

“Don’t tell me he’s still fooling with her,” I asked.

“Man, he says he not, but Shue told me that he thinks Brendan’s still got the jones for the chick. I can’t figure it out.”

“When did you talk to Shue? He’s speaking to you again since the incident at Houston’s?” I laughed. Shue had been pissed off because Nate saw his ex-girlfriend waiting in the lobby for a table, and then invited her and her girlfriend to share their table one night, just so he could meet her girlfriend. She didn’t know that Shue was now into boys, and she kept grabbing his crotch underneath the table.

“Oh, he’s been over that. But check it out. Brendan and me were hanging out with Shue at this party last night. The party was off the hook. The dude who had the party was some rich fag who lives up in a big-ass house on Sixteenth Street not too far from the zoo. I think he owns a few stores in Georgetown. We had a crazy wild time up in there. But I think Brendan is a little mad at me right now.”

I asked him why. He told me the whole story about him punching the chick out. I was almost on the floor in laughter. I had him call Brendan on a three-way, so that I could mess with him about what had happened.

Nate told me to hold on while he clicked over to dial Brendan’s number.

“Don’t say anything. I’m not going to say you’re on the line yet,” I commanded Nate.

“Alright, I’m going to hit the mute,” Nate responded.

“Hello,” Brendan answered.

“Good morning, my brother.”

“Cory?” He asked.

“You know it. What’s happening?”

“Ah, man not too much. No, I take that back. I’ve had more drama than
The Young and the Restless
lately.”

“For real. Well, shit, I’ve had some, too. What’s up with Nate? You talked to him?” I almost broke out in laughter as I set him up.

“Oh man, don’t get me started on that crazy nigga. Man, we went to this party last night, and this fool ended up turning the party out. You won’t believe what this fool did, Cory. You are not going to believe it.”

“What’d he do?” I asked.

“Yo, Cory, I had the finest honey in the party on her knees in the laundry room. It was a house party, right. But listen up. I’m getting my shit sucked. She’s hitting me off like Heather Hunter or somebody, a real pro.”

“You lying,” I said, acting as if I didn’t know what he was going to say about what happened next.

“If I’m lying, I’m flying, bro. You know this kind of thing never ever happens to me, but it was happening last night. Then, all of a sudden this fool bust through the door, flips on the lights, and then comes over and hits the girl with a right cross and knocks her slam out!” He paused, then said, “Do you believe that shit?”

I started cracking up laughing, and Nate took the mute off his phone and was laughing on the line as loudly as I was.

“Is that sucka on the line?” Brendan asked.

“Yeah, it’s me, and you didn’t even tell the whole story. It’s a good thing I already told him the story behind the story. You know it was an honest mistake, B. You know I was only trying to look out for you”

“Whatever, man.”

“Cory, see how this little chump be acting? That’s why I’m glad you’re movin’ back up here,” Nate said.

“What?” Brendan said. “You moving back, homeboy? Is everything alright with your moms?” Brendan asked, concerned.

“Yeah. I just got a sweet little job offer up in Rockville. Thanks, Nate, for telling my news. Between you and my mother I may as well put it on the Internet.”

“Telephone, telegram, or tell Big Mouth Nate,” Brendan added.

“That’s Mr. Big Mouth to you, chump,” Nate shot back.

“Hey, don’t neither one of y’all go around telling everybody I’m moving home. I’d like to surprise a few folks when I get back.”

“Cool,” they said in unison.

We went on
talking and joking. Brendan told us that he had gone over to Trina’s after he left the party the previous night, and it had turned out to be a disaster. He said she confronted him about his moving in with Renee. She accused the two them of being romantically involved.

Everyone who knows Brendan and Renee always believed she would’ve been the best choice in the world for Brendan, but they’d always been platonic.

When Nate asked him if he at least had gotten some tail for all of his frustration, Brendan let out a disparaging sigh, and then told us the details behind that. After Trina argued with him for about an hour, he told us, she walked into the bedroom and came out in nothing but a T-shirt and panties. Brendan said he was beginning to think that it was all going to be worth it.

A man can endure just about any hardship at any time, just so long as at the end of it he ends up getting the sex. Brendan told us how she got him all worked up by kissing all over him and rubbing his dick through his pants. Then, when they both finally had stripped down to nothing but the drawers, and the time had come to lose those, she told him she couldn’t do it because she was on her period.

We laughed, and Brendan told us how she had said he should just be happy to lay there and hold her.

Nate commented, “Well, did you at least get some head, baby boy?”

“Nah. She said that since I wasn’t her man anymore, she couldn’t be doing that. Then she was like, ‘if you want me to do that, then you’ve got to come correct.’”

“I hope you didn’t fall for that and tell her you’d give her another chance,” Nate asked, condescendingly.

“Did you, Brendan?” I asked.

“Hell, no,” Brendan lied…sort of. To get her to suck it, he’d told her that he would seriously think about giving their relationship another try. She was so happy she’d gone at it like never before. After she’d finished Brendan had realized that all he’d missed was the sex. And while that was a valid reason to maintain a relationship in his eyes, he knew that it would never work between the two of them. She liked to argue too much. She wasn’t trustworthy, and Brendan knew that even if she tried to be faithful to him it would be a challenge for her. Trina was a real freak in bed. Brendan reasoned that of all the men Trina had ever slept with, at least half would occasionally get the urge to come back for a piece. Brendan knew he had to face it. The thought of it would always have him wondering what she was doing when they weren’t together. No matter how much she said she loved him, or that he was the only man she wanted, Brendan knew that women like Trina never changed.

As halftime approached
for the first game, I realized that we had been on the phone for almost two hours. My hunger alarm had been going off for the last hour, so I mentioned that it was time for us to end our long-distance male-bonding session.

We informed each other of our plans for the remainder of the day. Nate said he was going to run a few errands for his grandmother and then shampoo her carpets. He would have preferred to just pay his buddy Chauncey at Carpet Masters to come in and do it professionally, but she said she preferred him. She said that a personal touch is always best. Nate was never one to argue with his grandmother. What she said always went. No questions asked.

He had more love for his grandmother than for anyone else in the world. She had raised him from the time he was eight years old, and she appeared to be the only female he could muster any real love or functional respect for.

Brendan was going to work at five to close the store. He said that since he was up for a raise, Jaqueline, the head honcho at Nordstrom’s, was watching him closely.

We said our good-byes, and I told my partners I’d call them later on in the week with the details of my move. I hung up and called Mick’s to place my order.

I washed my face, brushed my teeth, threw on some sweats, and was out.

B
rendan had just come in from closing the store when he realized that he’d left his cell in the car. He considered leaving it there overnight but knew the battery would run down in the chilly November night air. Just as he was about to go back out to the car to retrieve it, he heard his phone ringing upstairs. Brendan threw his keys and jacket on the couch and headed upstairs toward his bedroom. On the third ring he reached the cordless and picked it up.

“Hello,” Brendan answered.

“Hey, baby.” Trina’s voice bubbled through the line.

“What’s up?” Brendan returned. His tone didn’t hide his lack of enthusiasm.

“Hold up, nigga. Why are you coming off like that? It wasn’t like that last night.”

“Look, Trina. I just got in from work. I’m really tired, and I don’t really feel like talking. How about if I call you back in a couple of hours, after I eat? I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow. I’m filling in for a manager at another store, so I’ve got to leave out extra early. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll give you a call back, okay?”

Trina sucked her teeth and began to ramble. “I really would like to see you today, Brendan. I cooked your favorite dinner for you, shrimp Alfredo, and I even made some of that garlic cheese bread that you like so much. You know, like the kind you get at Red Lobster. I really went through a lot of trouble, so could you come over for just a little while and eat, or you could pick up a plate and take it with you.” Her pitiful homemaker routine was a bit of a laugh to Brendan. When did she start cooking for him? It was really a case of too little, too late.

“Trina, you obviously didn’t hear what I said. It’s nearly eight o’clock now. I have to get up at six in the morning to be out to Mon…” He cut himself off when he realized that he had almost slipped up and told her that he’d be working at Montgomery Mall tomorrow. She worked at the National Institutes of Health, which was only ten minutes away from the mall. The last thing he wanted was for her to come out to his job on her lunch hour to try to talk him to death about the sad state of things between them. He ended with, “I’ll call you back once I get myself prepared for tomorrow.”

“So you ain’t coming over?” She asked angrily.

“No,” he responded.

“Son of a bitch. I bet if you thought that you was getting some ass or your dick sucked again, you’d be on your way,” she yelled. “I cooked all of this damn food. What am I supposed to do with it?”

“I don’t know. Give it to that nigga from the car dealer, or that personal trainer your ass is always going to see. I don’t really give a damn, Trina.” Brendan had let her exhaust his patience and was now arguing loudly. As they began to trade hurtful remarks about their sordid history, he looked over to see Renee standing in the doorway with a pained look on her face.

“Brendan, that’s all you do. Just bring up shit from the past. You really need to grow up. You need to be a little more mature. You act just like a little boy sometimes,” Trina said. Her voice seemed to be calming, almost as if she was satisfied to have pissed him off.

Renee was still in the doorway, and as she turned to walk back into her room, she made a comment to Brendan that was something of the nature of his being silly even to let Trina get to him. Brendan agreed and caught himself.

“Yeah, Trina, you’re right. This whole conversation is pointless,” Brendan said.

“I’m glad you realize how childish all this arguing is. We could really have something wonderful again if you would just let bygones be bygones.”

It dawned on Brendan at that moment that it was time for him to enact the hard-line stance with Trina that he should have taken weeks before. He had been reading a book that Renee had left on the kitchen table called
Acts of Faith
by Iyanla Vanzant. He actually hadn’t been reading it, more skimming through the pages. He was reading the catchy quotes at the top of each page; there were quotes for every day of the year. The quotes were spiritual affirmations to be meditated on by the reader. Brendan had found his eyes glued to the pages. One page, however, had particularly captured his attention.

The quote was for August 28, and stated, “Anything dead coming back hurts.” It was a quote taken from Toni Morrison’s novel
Beloved
. The quote didn’t mean much to Brendan because he had never read
Beloved
. In fact, he didn’t know much about Toni Morrison other than seeing her on
Oprah
from time to time and remembering that her books rested on the shelves at his mother’s house.

The explanation of the quote given by Vanzant was what had reached out and grabbed him. It was as if the words were written for him and his apparent inability to cut off his ties with Trina.

As Brendan sat back onto the bed he wondered if Trina would ever get the point: She’d ruined their relationship. She had demolished any hint of faith in her that Brendan had ever held; all hope of trusting her had faded long ago. He paused as he looked at the nightstand and reached for the purple paperback that had been resting next to his alarm clock for two weeks. He was still annoyed at Trina’s pushiness, and her nerve, for insinuating that he was the one who somehow needed to straighten up. Then he began speaking to Trina in a calmer voice. “Trina, sometimes I don’t think you understand what kind of pain you’ve put me through. I mean, it seems sometimes that you don’t realize how bad you hurt me.”

Trina interrupted him. She hated to discuss what she had done wrong. “Brendan, how about all the things you’ve done to me? The lies, giving rides home to women from your job, and look at you now, living with another woman.”

“Trina, there you go again. This isn’t a trade-off about who’s done what. If it were, though, it would be quite apparent who had been guilty of throwing the most shit in the game. That is not the point. I just want you to understand where I’m coming from now.”

“Brendan, all you’re trying to do is pay me back for what I did last summer. You have barely spoke to me for the past three months. We have finally started to put it behind us, but you seem bent on getting me back. You avoid me, and you only halfway return my phone calls.”

Brendan still was holding the book in his hands, wondering if he should read the passage to Trina. “Look, Trina, I’m not trying to pay you back. I will admit, though, that I have not fully forgiven you. But I have forgiven you enough to be friends with you. That doesn’t seem to be enough for you, though. I know now from last night’s experience that I can’t expect to just be able to sleep with you and not have you think that everything is fine between us. I apologize for coming over there with those selfish intentions.”

“Brendan.” She tried to break into his conversation, but he kept talking.

“No, it was wrong. If we keep it up, we’re going to wind up right back in the relationship without ever having worked out our issues.”

“I don’t have any issues. You are the one with issues. Those things are in the past as far as I’m concerned,” Trina said.

“No, that’s where you’re wrong. If we’re together, and one of us has issues, then we both have them. You probably can’t comprehend that right now. Furthermore, you don’t seem to understand that I don’t trust you anymore. And without trust we’re standing on shaky ground. On top of that, sometimes I think about what you did, and I get so angry with you that I almost feel like I hate you. I don’t want to feel like that about anyone. It would be better for me to just walk away from you totally. And that’s what I have decided to do.”

Trina’s voice suddenly became shaky. “So this is it? It’s over, just like that? You haven’t even thought about this. You didn’t even talk it over with me, I mean…”

Brendan cut her off before she started rambling again. “I have thought it over. It’s not about you anymore, Trina. I do still care for you, but you hurt me, and that was your doing and your choice. You didn’t have to fuck around on me, but you did what you wanted. You did what made you feel good for the moment. Now I’ve got to do what’s going to make me feel good for a lifetime.”

“Brendan, I have changed. I know that was wrong, but how long are you going to torture me and hold it over my head? Please, just give it one more chance.”

“Trina, listen to something. It may help you understand why this is the right thing for me to do.” He flipped to his page of divine inspiration. “Check this out.” He began reading into the phone, “ ‘Anything dead coming back hurts.’ That’s a quote from Toni Morrison. I know you know who she is, as much as you watch
Oprah
. Anyway, I read that in this book, and it has deep meaning. You see, our relationship is dead, Trina. When our trust died, when my faith in you died, our relationship died.” Trina tried to start talking, but Brendan kept reading. “Listen, there’s more. It says: ‘If you keep going in and out of the same relationship, chances are you are going to get hurt. People come together in a relationship to learn. Once you learn your lesson it is time to move on. Take your lesson from the last time and move on to something new. If you insist on drinking from the same used cup, you will eventually get sick. You can do the same old things in just so many ways until you lose track of what you are doing. How many ways can you cry? How many ways can you hurt? How many ways can you convince yourself that you can make this work? When a relationship is over, you must learn to let go. No matter how much you love the other person, or how afraid you are that you will never love again, you cannot squeeze juice from a piece of dried fruit, so don’t bother to try.’” Brendan paused. Trina was quiet on the other end of the line. Then he asked, “So do you understand why I have to let this go?”

Brendan asked again, “Trina, I know you understand, right?

After more uncomfortable silence, Brendan could hear breathing coming through the line. Trina sounded as though she were about to burst into tears. She was hurt, but she knew that everything he had said and read was true. She knew it was her fault that Brendan didn’t want her anymore. She’d played one too many games. She knew that when Brendan had caught her messing around on him that she was lucky he hadn’t caught her sooner. Now that the time had come for her to face the music, she wasn’t ready. Brendan was the best man she had ever had. He had respected her even when she hadn’t respected herself, and now he was truly leaving her. He didn’t have a lot of money, but he was generous with what he had. He was kind and caring. He was handsome and a good dresser. He was everything that Trina could have asked for. Why hadn’t she learned sooner? Why had it taken losing him before she realized how much he meant to her?

She wanted to beg him to change his mind, and ask him to forgive her over and over again. As soon as she opened her mouth to try to speak, she felt the tears that she could no longer hold back welling up in her eyes. She could only force out, “Alright then, Brendan. If that’s how you want it then, okay. Good-bye. But I know…you’ll be back.” She spoke out before she hung up the phone, and buried her crying face into her pillow.

Brendan couldn’t believe that she had hung up the phone like that. He chalked it up as typical Trina behavior. He wasn’t about to let her undignified reaction ruin the afterglow of what he had just done. Breaking off a relationship is hard to do. And when you love someone the way Brendan had loved Trina, it was nearly impossible to be the one to shut the door, even if the relationship had gone sour. But now that he had provided that closure to the great romance of his life, it was time for him to bask in the glory that comes with taking a stand for oneself. Brendan felt a sense of relief at having stood his ground. The puffed-up feeling in his chest made it hard to hide the fact that he was proud of himself. He felt like calling someone to tell them about it, but there was no one to call. He had already lied to Cory and Nate about the state of things. They were under the impression that he’d laid things on the line to Trina the night before. He knew Renee was tired of hearing about Trina. She had told him to curse her out and be done a long time ago. Renee had little patience for stupidity, and dragging out a breakup over three and a half months was beyond stupid in her book. Brendan decided to take a shower and get into bed. He felt as though it would be a short night’s rest before getting ready to enjoy the start of his new life. He was young, black, and Trina-free.

As Brendan pulled the down-filled comforter up to his shoulders, he thought about the eventful weekend that he had endured. He lay there listening to
Love Talk and Slow Jams
on WPGC, trying to get his feet to warm up. His body made full use of the bed. He was stretched out because there was no one there to block his usage of both sides. There had been no one else other than him in the bed since he’d purchased it and brought it into Renee’s townhouse a month earlier. He wondered for a moment when he would get a chance to break it in. When the time came, or the opportunity finally presented itself, Brendan wondered how he would feel screwing some chick thirty feet from where Renee was sleeping. They’d discussed his having company, and she had assured him that she had no problem with his entertaining in any fashion that he chose. But for the life of him, Brendan couldn’t figure out why he had the inkling that it would be awkward for him to get his groove on with her so close by. He didn’t bother to give it much thought because he knew it was something that he was going to get over eventually. He wasn’t about to go wasting money that he didn’t have on hotel rooms. And he figured that it would be at least a year before he had saved up enough money for the down payment on a condo or townhouse of his own. On his salary, if he didn’t cut back on his shopping, he wasn’t going to have enough money to pay his credit card bills, let alone a down payment.

An Angie Stone cut played all the way through, and Earth, Wind & Fire got halfway through “That’s the Way of the World”, before Brendan was sound asleep.