Cutting Loose (17 page)

“I know that, Brett. And I do trust
you...for now.”

“For now?” Brett repeated. “What is that
supposed to mean?”

“It means I trust you until you give me
a reason not to.”

Brett waited a beat and said, “Okay.
That sounds fair enough.” He diverted his eyes back to the road and added,
“That’s good enough for me.”

“Same here.”

The evening would have been nice if it
wasn’t for the clouds that were begging to from in the sky. Sabrina didn’t
really believe in superstitions but she did hear that bad weather on a wedding
was a sign of a bad marriage. And since it wasn’t her own wedding, it didn’t
faze her one bit.

About twenty minutes or so later they
were at the country club where the wedding was taking place. A handful of
wedding guests were standing around chatting amongst each other. Some were
pointing at the clouds overhead and contemplating whether or not the wedding
was going to be a disaster. They were probably right.

Sabrina held onto Brett’s hand as they
walked inside the place and walked past the table with mounds of wedding gifts
wrapped in colorful wrappings. She started to feel bad about not buying a gift
and stopped herself. She was not about to make herself feel bad. She didn’t buy
a gift because it was just like adding insult to injury, despite it being
customary to buy gifts for the bride and groom, but in her case, she deserved a
pass at least this once.

Hell, she didn’t hate on whatever it was
Carl thought he had with his former mistress. She was just being a realist. She
had no reason to envy Jasmine for being in her former place. In actuality it
was the total opposite and Sabrina felt kind of sorry for her. Well, not
really.

They followed other guests as they
flocked to the patio outside that was decked out by white chairs covered by
white linen. It looked elegant and nice, nothing too spectacular to brag about.
Seeing that most of the seats were already filled, Sabrina and Brett sat in the
middle on the groom’s side. It took everything she had to fight the nauseating
feeling that was swelling inside her stomach as she sat down and pictured what
was to come in a few moments.

The ceremony was supposed to start in
five minutes and as other guests got settled and the wedding party was nowhere
to be found, it was obvious that things were running behind schedule.

Boredom was beginning to take over and
Sabrina was feeling like she was on the verge of losing her damn mind. Even
though the sun wasn’t out, the air was humid and musty, hot even.

Sabrina was trying to mind her own
business but she couldn’t help but to overhear a female voice coming from
behind her say her name or something close to it. So she listened harder just
to be on the safe side.

A moment later she heard someone say,
“If you ask me, Carl was a dumb ass for cheating on Sabrina with Jasmine, of
all the bitches in Miami. And it wasn’t like Sabrina was ugly, and she’s an
editor at that magazine, so you know she got mad money.”

“True that. I knew her for a while and I
knew she and Carl were bound to breakup after all the shit he kept putting her
through. Shit, he’s not all that. He looks like he was repeatedly beaten with
an ugly stick.”

Sabrina laughed and said, “I second that.”
She turned to face the chatting females and added, “I don’t know why I couldn’t
see it when I was dating his sorry ass.”

One of the females dressed in a blue
dress chuckled and said, “Oh, shit, Sabrina. What you doing here?”

“I decided to come and show off a little
bit. You know, just to let him know what he missed out on.”

“Girl, I don’t blame you.” She paused
and said, “Since you and Carl broke up, I don’t see a reason not to tell you
what I heard about why y’all finally broke up.”

“What’s that?”

She leaned closer and said, “Well, rumor
has it, after you busted Carl’s ass for tricking with Jasmine, he found out
that you were using up all his credit cards and fucking up his credit.”

“What? I cannot believe that idiot—okay,
I take that back. I know what Carl is capable of and know for a fact that he
made that lie up. And his broke ass was freeloading off of me.”

A female sitting beside the woman in
blue chimed in and said, “Oh, you know what I heard?”

“What?”

“I heard he only went to Jasmine because
he said you were never in the mood for sex and you were always complaining
about how tired you were from work and you never wanted to try anything
different. And he claim that you didn’t want kids and he did.”

Sabrina exploded with laughter. After
she composed herself she said, “Wow. Carl is a fucking scumbag and he doesn’t
deserve to be happy. What a bastard!”

The woman in red said, “Shit, if I would’ve
known you sooner I could have saved you the trouble and told you ahead of time.
I dated his sorry ass back in college and even back then he was dog.”

“Damn,” Sabrina said coolly. “What a
small world.”

“Yes, indeed. And you know Jasmine is
pregnant, right?”

“Oh, really now?” said Sabrina. “That
doesn’t surprise me not one bit.”

The one in blue said, “I know something
that will.”

 “Oh, yeah?”

She grinned and said, “Well, everybody
knows how much of a slut Jasmine Phispatrick is and we all know she can’t stay
tied down to one man. Needless to say, the bitch is pregnant with another man’s
baby!”

“Wow! That’s just disgusting. How you
know all that?”

“My cousin Tray is best friend’s with
the guy and the only reason she’s getting married to Carl is because he’s too
stupid to realize she been cheating on him.”

Sabrina was still trying to wrap her
mind around everything she was hearing. Even though she didn’t like gossip, she
loved what she was hearing about Carl and the pregnant slut he was about to
marry and be stuck with for the rest of his miserable life. At first, she did
have her suspicions as to why he Carl was trying to marry Jasmine so quick and
now she was certain why.

She turned to Brett and said, “Thank God
I’m over that fool. He got too much drama going on.”

“Yeah, I heard that.”

 “To this day, I still don’t know what
drove me to stay with him for two years, besides the fact that I thought I was
in love him and for my mother’s sake.”

Brett glanced at her. “You mean to tell
me that you were actually in love with that idiot?”

“Keyword: thought I was in love.”

Just then she felt a tap on her shoulder
and saw the woman in blue smiling at her.

She asked, “Is that your new man sitting
next to you?”

Sabrina smiled and said, “Yes, he is.”

“Damn girl, looks like you’ve joined the
Jungle Fever club. I love white men too, matter of fact, I’m married to a white
guy.”

 “Uh, good for you.” She didn’t know
what else to say without sounding stupid.

 She chuckled and asked, “So, what did
it for you?”

“Huh? Did what?”

“What made you want to date a white
guy?”

Sabrina waited a beat and said, “I don’t
know. I mean, it’s not like I went out looking for the perfect white guy or
anything, it just happened.”

“I know what you mean. I got tired of
dealing with the bailing my man from jail and bullshit. It got old and I had to
let it go.”

“I feel you. I’m not trying to put down
all the black guys, but the ones I dealt with like Carl weren’t about anything
but playing games and being afraid of commitment.”

“Well, good luck, girl. I hope he’s
treating you right.”

“Thanks, and good luck to you too.”

Sabrina turned around and stared at
Brett for a moment.

He noticed her eyes were on him and
turned to ask, “Is there something on my face?”

“No, there’s nothing on your face. Your
face is flawless.”

He beamed. “So is yours. Damn, you are
so beautiful. How did I get so lucky to meet someone like you?”

Sabrina pondered his question. She knew
exactly how that happened; she thought she was going to celebrate a two-year
anniversary with a person she once thought was the ideal man before he showed
his true colors and started cheating on her and how she finally put an end to
all the bullshit. Somehow she was able to move along and remind herself that it
wasn’t her fault that Carl was a dog and he was dogging the hell out of her. He
didn’t deserve a good woman like Sabrina and as a result of his selfish ways,
it all came to an end.

As she sat there, looking into Brett’s
handsome face, she felt a sudden urge to reach out to him to make sure this was
all real. To make sure that she was not hallucinating or having a fantasy. Then
her eyes began to burn like they always did when she was about to blow like a
river.

“I guess we both got lucky,” Sabrina
said coolly, trying not to let the tears fall.

Brett’s smile faded into a frown.
“What’s wrong, baby?”

“Um, nothing is wrong,” she said
quickly, turning away and wiping her eyes. “I just had something in my eye.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Matter of fact, I need
to go the bathroom and freshen up. This ceremony doesn’t look like it’s going
to start on time anyway, so I’ll be right back.”

She grabbed her purse and headed inside
for the bathroom.

 After sneaking inside the place and
asking around she finally found the ladies’ room. Once there, she stood in front
if the mirror and stared at her reflection. Her mascara was smudged and her
eyes were almost bloodshot like she had been crying forever. A few seconds
passed and she knew it was going to happen—she burst into tears and let it all
out like a crybaby. But it felt so damn good to cry, even though she had no
real reason to be crying to begin with.

Or did she? It could have possibly been
due to the fact that Brett was so damn perfect to her. And she didn’t want to
end up like she did with Carl, being the “other woman” on the side while he
pretended everything was fine. She didn’t deserve to be hurt again, and yet she
was so vulnerable. Was it her own fault that she ended up getting hurt by Carl?
Did she drive him to sleep with numerous women behind her back? She didn’t
think so but his actions said otherwise.

 Maybe she didn’t love him, or maybe she
didn’t show him enough love, or lack thereof? Either way, she was not the one
to blame. All her life she had been pushed and shoved this way and that way,
this guy telling her, “You’re not good enough” and that guy telling her, “Love
isn’t real, it’s just some make-believe shit that’s so overrated.”

Ever since she found out her biological
father was out of the picture and never saw a picture of him, never heard of him
except the little details her mother mentioned about him, Sabrina never
understood a father’s love. Never got daddy’s attention. Sure Sean Mead was in
the picture, but it just wasn’t the same.

 She always wondered if things would
have been different if she would have gotten to know her father and if she
wouldn’t have such bad luck with men in the past and—

She trailed away from her thoughts as
she heard a sob come from a stall a few feet away from the vanity mirror where
she was standing. She didn’t pay it any mind and reached into her purse and
pulled out her mascara and reapplied some. Once she was done she was about to
head back outside when she heard another sob, this time it was followed by a
whimper.

“Um, is everything okay in there?”
Sabrina asked a moment later.

“No, it’s not,” cried the woman in the
stall. “This is the worst day of my life.”

Even though her voice was disguised with
sobs, Sabrina seemed like she recognized the voice from somewhere. She just
didn’t know where.

That is until the stall door opened and
the woman was exposed.

Standing there in a snow-white wedding
gown, hair done up in a fancy updo, eyes bloodshot with mascara running down
her cheeks, was Jasmine-fucking-Phispatrick in the flesh looking like a hot
mess tore up from the floor up.

Sabrina suppressed a laugh when she
said, “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the man-stealing bitch, Jasmine
Phispatrick.”

Jasmine looked as if she was about to
have a heart attack and drop right on the floor. “S-Sabrina?”

“Yes, that’s my name last time I
checked.”

“What are you doing here? Did Carl
invite you?”

“Obviously he did,” snapped Sabrina.
“Why, does that surprise you?”

Jasmine waited a beat, looking over
Sabrina’s appearance as if she hadn’t seen her in years.

“Yes,” she said, “Carl told me that you
weren’t coming and that you returned the invitation because you were
heartbroken and couldn’t take it.”

Sabrina laughed harder than she
expected.

“Oh my God. That soon-to-be husband of
yours is just full of surprises, isn’t he?”

Jasmine cut her eye at Sabrina. She
walked past Sabrina and stood at the mirror with her back towards Sabrina.