Coveted (23 page)

“You can relax,” he said with a hint of the old accent I used to love, “I didn’t come back to settle a vendetta. I forgave you a long time ago. I want to talk to you about how things will be and try to settle things outside of court. If talking to you does not work,” his voice deepened for emphasis, “you will not like the consequences that follow.”

I breathed in slowly. To give myself some time to get my thoughts together. What could it hurt to listen to what he had to say? Considering what I had made him endure the last couple of years of his life, I owed him that much. I opened the door a little wider and gestured for him to come in. While passing by he brushed me slightly and my mind immediately flashed back to our last physical encounter all those years ago.

Visibly angry Chris began to redress pulling his shirt over his head trying to get himself situated. “I cannot believe you have the audacity to say that shit to me and think that everything will be ok.” He looked at me then, with all the hurt in the world built up in his eyes. I glanced down at the floor. I had too much riding on this; Chris was nothing to me now. I had to secure my future. Love wasn’t enough. I had to let him go.

He reached down and tilted my face up so I would have to look at him. “Haven, don’t do this. I love you. Tell them the truth. Don’t ruin my life like this. I can still forgive you, if you call them off but if you let them take me knowing that it’s all based on a lie, I can never forgive you for that.” Tears started flowing down my face. I knew I was wrong, but what could I do. I had no rich parents that were going to help take care of me. I got into college on a scholarship. My main focus was me. Seeing the tears, Chris knew my mind was made up. His expression immediately turned hard and cold. He released my face, gave me one last look and walked out the door, into the waiting arms of the police.

Passing Chris to lead him to the family room, I sat in my recliner and pointed to the sofa for him to have a seat. Sitting on the edge of the sofa, leaning forward, and hands clasped he wasted no time getting directly to the point.

“I just came to claim what I think is due to me. I’m not trying to make drastic changes to your life,” he paused, “well maybe I am going to make drastic changes to your life, just like you did to mine.”

I knew what he wanted and in all actuality, I did owe him. I owed him for the last few years of his life.

“Chris, I understand that you want to come back, but you must understand our lives are in a routine now. We have a certain way we do things and how we live. If you come back now you could jeopardize everything.”

“Haven, I could care less about the way you live,” I could hear the barley contained rage in his tone; “Do you want to know how I have been living for the last six years of my life?” He got up and began pacing, “I have been behind bars for a crime I didn’t commit. A crime that I know I didn’t commit and everyday was a trial and tribulation. Every day was a countdown till the day I would be able to finally be free.” He got in my face then and looked me square in the eyes. “I loved you. Do you know how hard it is to know that the one woman you love more than your next breath put you behind bars? Can you even imagine in your mind what it’s like to spend two thousand, one hundred and ninety-one days Haven, two thousand, one hundred and ninety-one days behind bars and think of nothing else but how I was so gullible to fall prey to your little game.”

I hung my head. Chris always knew how to put me in my place and make me take responsibility for my actions.

“Haven, look at me,” With eyes beginning to water, I raised my head to look at him, “I understand what you were going through in college. I understand the hustle. What I don’t understand, is why I had to take a fall so you could shine.”

He was calling me out on everything. I owed him some form of explanation.

The tears that were only threatening before began to fall and wouldn’t stop. “Chris I am so sorry. I know that doesn’t make up for anything. But I,” I was crying so hard I began to be choked up on my words, “I was young and dumb. My whole life I have been one-step behind Naima and I think I just wanted to be seen on the same level. I knew what I was doing to you was wrong and as selfish as it sounds I was more concerned with securing my future.”

“Haven, do you honestly think I would have just left you hanging. You never asked me what my plan was for my life. I loved you. I wanted to marry you when we were done with college. But you took the choice out of my hands and decided my fate for me. I used to hate you so much for that. But the more I studied my bible the more I realized that the only way for me to be right with God was to forgive you. And I have. I have forgiven you. Now all I want is for you to do what is right by me. Haven, don’t you think that you have made me suffer enough? When will you stop comparing yourself to your friend Naima? At what point, will you take responsibility for your actions and do what’s right?”

I was in a daze. Chris said that he had wanted to marry me. No man had ever said they wanted to marry me before. Kaden had been the main one talking about I had no class.

He bent down on his knee in front of me. “Haven, I don’t know what is going on in your life but I can tell that you are tormented. I know you have it in you to do what’s right.” Taking my hands into his, “I would love for you to visit church with me sometime. Maybe we can try to sort through this mess and come to a consensus, together”

I leaned my head down more. Chris had hit it right on the money my life was tormented. I was in dire need of reformation, I had ruined Chris’ life and singed beyond belief my and Naima’s relationship. My relationship with Kaden was rapidly disintegrating and Kaven didn’t know who his dad was. His curiosity was slowly beginning to take form and I just didn’t have the energy to fight these battles anymore, I was utterly worn out.

Looking back up into his eyes, I searched for some of the old hatred and malice that was in our last encounter and saw none. Who knows maybe he had really forgiven me for what I had done to him seven years ago. Bewildered I could not comprehend how someone could forgive someone for something so deceitful and immoral. Maybe going to church wasn’t such a bad choice for me to make. My life needed to go in a new direction because whatever way I was facing at this moment was not working for me.

Shutting my eyes and swallowing audibly as the tears slipped down my face. I decided to accept Chris’ invitation. A peace I had never known swept through my body with the conclusion of my decision. Chris pulled me to my feet and embraced me in a hug. I didn’t expect it, but welcomed it with all the gratitude in the world.

“Haven, I don’t know what is going on but I want you to know that I forgive you. Have you ever been forgiven before? You don’t have to fight me. I don’t want to do anything to hurt you. I just want everything to be right and the only person that can bring that about is you.”

“I know.” I whispered. I must have seemed pathetic to Chris. The tears wouldn’t stop falling and I couldn’t understand what was going on with me. I wanted everything to be right in the world. I owed everyone that much. Chris, Kaden, Naima and Kaven, I owed all of them. Whether they knew it or not, it was time for some changes to take place.

Letting go of Chris I walked over to the glass coffee table where my ceramic tissue box was and pulled out a handful. There were many details that we needed to discuss and I knew that he would not leave without some type of answers from me. Slowly walking back over to where he was I gathered my thoughts. Taking a seat on the sofa where he had been sitting, I patted the space next to me, indicating for him to take a seat. He took a seat and glanced over at me.

Inhaling slowly I took the first step towards the long journey it would take to correct all the wrong I had done.

“Chris, I would love to go to church with you. I have no idea how my life got so out of wack.” He gave me an incredulous look, to which I promptly relented “ok, I guess the constant lying had something to do with it.” Looking him dead in his eyes, “I apologize for what I did to you. I know I already said that, but I have no idea what it is like to have your life taken away from you for something you knowingly didn’t do and words cannot express enough how badly I feel and how I will do everything within my power to right the wrong I did to you all those years ago.” Damn these tears that are insistent on being present this afternoon.

“Haven, believe me when I tell you, I never want you to apologize for that again. I have forgiven you. I make my own way. I finished school while I was in jail and the last year that I have been out, I have spent my time building my own financial empire. Despite the trip up that I suffered, I am doing ok now which is why I felt it was time to come back and face these old demons and in doing so, make you face yours as well.”

“The situation wasn’t single handedly your fault you know,” he continued, “I could have said something, anything to prevent my going to jail, but then you would have went to jail for perjury and I didn’t want you to have to experience what jail was like. You were pregnant and so close to your due date; I didn’t want you entering jail and have your baby being taken away from you. Even in the mist of my hatred for you I still loved you too much to do that to you, so I made the conscious decision to take the rap for a crime I never committed.”

“I know you did, but the thing is, you shouldn’t have had too. I should have been woman enough to take responsibility for my actions and deal with my life where it was, instead of try to grasp someone else’s reality.

Naima has always had everything; being so caught up in her fairytale I missed the opportunity to enjoy my own.”

“The opportunity is still available to you, if you are woman enough to seize it.” That jolted me out of my piteous state. What in the world, was he talking about? After doing years of jail time on my account this man was standing in my family room still offering me the opportunity to enjoy a fairytale. My hearing has to be screwed up from the waterfall of tears I had dropped.

“Come again.” I heard the words come out of me but it was as if I was in a trance like state.

He spoke very deliberately this time. “If you are the woman I believe you would like to be, I would like the opportunity to show you what your fairytale could have been like had I been given the chance to show you before.”

I could not believe my ears. I had heard him correctly the first time, unless my ears were really betraying me, which is no more than I deserved. This handsome man that I wronged was giving me the chance to prove to him that I could be the woman he needed me to be. Me, Haven Williams, the woman that has always been second where Naima was concerned had a man that wanted to belong to just me. There really was a God. If I hadn’t tried so hard to live Naima’s life I could have spent the last seven years enjoying my own and she would have been happy for me because that is just the type of woman she was. Instead, I spent those years chasing a man that was then, is now and will forever be in love with her. Reviewing it all in my head now, I feel so stupid. Chris was made for me. I always knew it. I knew it when I met him that long ago day in the university library, I just wanted to live the dream. Too bad, I chose a dream that wasn’t mine to live. God had truly worked in his life. Any man that could knowingly go to jail for a crime he didn’t commit, get sent there by the woman he was in love with, be able to forgive her and still want to have her in his life was unfathomable. Only God can make those types of things happen. It was a miracle and I was going to spend the rest of my life making it up to him if it killed me.

I finally found the words to let him know what I was feeling. “I would love the opportunity to experience my own fairytale with you. But, I have to be honest; I have so many issues with myself that I have to work through. There is no way I am ready to be with someone. Today I am just discovering that I have the ability to not be so angry with my life and everyone in it. It took you coming back and forgiving me to let me know that forgiveness is possible and the type of love you show me even after I tried to destroy your life is unheard of. I want to spend some time going to church with you and getting to know myself and getting to know you.”

“Spoken like a woman who knows where she’s heading and where she would like to end up. I’m glad you said that. The woman I plan to pursue must have a good head on her shoulders.” He said with a hint of a smile.

I remember those were the words he said to me the first time he met me. The ever-present tears began their descent once again. How could I have let this man go? I sent him to jail for such a heinous crime and here he was forgiving me and even sharing an old joke. Maybe Naima didn’t have all the luck after all. Just maybe, there was a little left over for me.

The shrill ringing of the phone brought me out of my thoughts with a quickness. It was the mother of Kaven’s teammate, saying they were pulling into the yard. Hanging up the phone and looking over at Chris, I guess there is no time like the present to start embracing reality and be the woman that only God and Chris seemed to believe I was meant to be.

“Chris, Kaven is home.” I looked down and pulled an imaginary piece of lint off my fuchsia tank top, “Would you like to be properly introduced to him?”

He looked at me in amazement. “You want to do this today, right now?” I was confused, I thought this was what he wanted now he appeared to be nervous.

“I thought you came here today for this very opportunity. Was I mistaken?”