1224 Confessions

Continued from Locked In, Wanting out

I hid out at the hotel with Laryssa and Kya all day the next day and night. That Monday morning after dropping them off at the airport I raced to put in motion the steps we’d gone over for the last 32 hours. First, I called BD’s school and made sure he was at work, then I went back to the apartment and packed a couple of suitcases for me and the baby, picked up his stroller, made some bottles and grabbed some personal papers. Then, I hit the bank and withdrew some money for our trip and on the way to the airport, I called my job to explain why I wouldn’t be coming in that day or the rest of the week. I was vague, but it was a humbling phone call. I absolutely hate drama and respect that other people don’t necessarily have a sincere interest in mine, especially if it means you can’t come to work. But my boss was understanding and chalked it up to vacation time.

No sooner than I’d hung up with my employer was BD calling me. He’d already called the daycare and our son had not yet been dropped off.

“Where’s my son?” He demanded without greeting.

“He’s with me,” I said.

I was caught off guard. I shouldn’t have been. Of course he would be calling. He knew my sister had checked out this morning.

“Where is my son?” He demanded again.

My mind was a million places and I couldn’t even get it together enough to lie. So I didn’t.

“I’m going home,” I said. And as he immediately interjected enraged, I added “It’s only for a week. I need to get away. I can’t keep doing this with you BD.”

“When are you coming back?”

“I’ll be back in a week,” I said.

“You can’t take my son,” he said yelling again. “I’ll report you for kidnapping! You’ll be arrested.” And he hung up the phone.

I was entering the airport and hadn’t been paying attention to the signs. I missed the exit for long-term parking and headed into short-term. It would cost a mint, but I had no doubt that BD was on the phone with the police at that very moment. I had to get out of there.

Anything that could have gone wrong did. The baby awoke squealing and flailing his arms in the back seat. He was hungry. There were no parking spaces anywhere. I felt like I was driving in circles, in a maze. It was cold, the suitcases were heavy, the baby in his car seat was heavy, the stroller was odd shaped and difficult to carry and shyt, did I put the money in my purse? Where is my purse. I leaned back in the care to rummage through the back seat and found my bag under the passenger seat, buzzing as my phone rang inside it. BD.

“The police are coming for you,” he screamed into the phone as soon as I picked up. “You won’t get on the plane. You are breaking the law and you can’t leave the state with my son â€"“

I hung up, shaken, but undeterred.

Running my hand through my purse, I found the wad of hundreds stuffed into the side pocket. I’d been on auto-pilot. I had no recollection of even putting the cash there.

Nor can I tell you how me, the baby in his car seat, the stroller, two suitcases (one on wheels, and my purse walked that half mile trek to the airport entrance.

A security car drove by as we were struggling through the parking lot and slowed just a few feet past us in front of my Camry. My heart quickened as I imagined he was matching my plates up with some Amber alert or something. And my feet moved faster below me.

I’d called the night before to check flight times and arrived with two hours to spare, but I was wishing I’d waited. Once I checked in, two hours would be plenty of time for my name and social security number to pass through the powers that be before an officer dispatched to find a 5’4 black woman, shoulder length hair and her infant son at such-and-such gate would appear standing over me, summoning me to come with him. I was petrified with a fear that under any other circumstances would have rendered me immobile. I am convinced I was moving through a power outside of me.

The line at the ticket counter was long and winding. I waited, tapped my feet and moved slowly through it as each person before me was waited on before jetting off to their respective destinations. I didn’t even have a ticket. I did not know if there would be room on the flight. I did not know how long it would be before the next flight if there were not room. I was not unconvinced that BD would show up within an hour’s time to retrieve me himself.

I shelled out a little over $500 for a seat on that flight, fumbling with my wallet as the lady behind the counter held my ID for what I thought to be an unusually long amount of time, wrinkling her face and typing into her computer with one finger. She put the ID down and as I reached clumsily for it, she picked it up again.

“What’s the baby’s name?” She asked.

I am a horrible liar on my feet. I just can’t do it. I told her the truth.

“And his last name?” And again.

She put my ID down on the counter again and went to pecking at her keypad. I imagined there was a little red button under the counter that silently summons security, like bank tellers have in case of a robbery.

“How many bags?”

I checked my bags and stroller, grabbed the handle of my baby’s car seat and set off for security.

We were "special selected" for a more extensive search. A man pulled us out of line and took us to the side where my baby was wanded and I was patted down, both barefoot. My son had taken his father's Muslim last name and for all BD's crazy paranoia, security checks at the airport is one thing he did not lie about. We get "special selected" every flight, never fails. I've flown with my baby many times since this and when I say every time, I mean without exception.

This time though, my heart was pounding out of my chest. It was hard for me to believe I was the only one who could hear it. My palms were sweaty and the more I tried to act normal, the more I was convinced these people were gonna think I had a bomb. It seemed like hours before I was finally released to gather up my things again, put the baby's coat and shoes back on, strap him back into his seat, slide into my sneakers and take off for our gate.

I approached the gate slowly, ducking behind a large display case and scanning the seating area for anybody who might look like they were looking for me.

A lone stewardess stood at the door, right there where you give up your ticket to enter the ramp leading to the plane. I don’t know what made me approach her, but I came out from behind the display case and went right for her.

“Are you on the flight to Michigan?” she asked when I came within a few feet of her.

“Yes,” I said, out of breath. “The 2:45 flight.”

“Lemme see your ticket.”

I handed it to her.

“Dyou wanna go early? The 12:15 is leaving right now.”

Divine intervention. I wanted to cry.

And when we landed, I did. Buckets. It was so good to be home. It was so good to be safe. It was soooo good to be sane. (It is possible to say something to other people so many times that you begin to believe it yourself. It’s not a clinical definition, but I believe this is the beginning of insanity).

I was feeling like myself again, like I had it all together. I called BD to face the inevitable and told him that I would be back in a week, as promised. But I would only return if he moved out of the apartment. I was not coming back to him. He was eerily calm. That should have been a red flag.

My family, my friends, even a lawyer tried to convince me to stay home.

“If you are going to move back (home), now is the time. File a restraining order and don’t go back to New Jersey,” the attorney had said. Free advice. He was a friend of the fam.

I wasn’t hearing it. I’d snagged a dream job a few months prior writing for a music magazine and I didn’t want to give it up. And with BD gone, I just wanted to live my life, raise my son and share him with his dad like more than half the parents in this country. I’d finally given up on the whole “I must be with my child’s father at all costs” madness and now I just wanted to live. But my false confidence, just that quickly, caused me to forget the lunacy that I’d left. I was underestimating the enemy already.

I’d been on an emotional high. Being home, having my family with me, finally being able to be honest (or at least more honest with them) and leaving BD at long last made me feel stronger than I’d felt in a long time. I had no idea how quickly I’d be deflated.

Check back tomorrow as Melyssa does the second stupidest thing she has thus far â€" Gets on a plane and goes back.

Got a story to share? Holla at Melyssa via video.

Get more Melyssa at GetYoShyt.blogspot.com and hit her up on Myspace.com/MelyssaGanache.

*All names have been changed to protect the guilty & the innocent.

Posted by Melyssa Ganache at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Continued from Hiding the Truth

Looking back, some of the biggest arguments with BD were around my family. He’d always said he found my mother to be nosy, my older sister to be too protective and my younger sister too needy. I talked on the phone with the little one at least twice a day, sometimes several.

I know now though, that what really worried him was being found out. And that after finding out the person he really was, he knew my support system would swiftly whisk me away. His fear wasn’t far-fetched. My mother had read him the first day she met him and he knew it. My older sister Ayana's opinion was formed shortly afterwards after and Laryssa, my younger sister, even before she’d seen elements of BD’s obsessive need for control with her own eyes, told my mother, “somethings not right about him.” She wouldn’t share this thought with me though, until the night I’d finally leave.

That night, Laryssa had come to town with her college roommate Kya. Seniors at a state school, the two had planned to split their four day weekend between partying in New York City and down time with me and the baby.

I was not going to have a repeat of last time’s events -- as if an out of control person can be controlled. This time, I put them up in a hotel from the first night.

On Saturday, we were going to spend the day in the city. It was a little chilly to have the baby out for that amount of time, so BD came by the hotel to pick him up. He pulled up in front. As I was strapping the little man into his car seat, he offered to drop us off at the train station.

“It’s right around the corner, why don’t I just drive you to the PATH?” He said.

Sounded good.

I slid in the backseat and called Laryssa’s cell telling them to come down and to bring my purse.

She and Kya walked out of the front entrance a few minutes later when I noticed Kya approaching the car with a bottle in her hand. She stopped and placed it on the curb before getting in the back seat. I shot her a silent look of alarm and she shrugged her shoulders as if to say she didn’t know what I was talking about. I just hoped BD didn’t see it. Maybe he wouldn’t recognize it as beer anyway. It’s not like he’s ever around the stuff. I knew the green bottle was a Rolling Rock as soon as I saw it but it could have been a soda or an energy drink - right?

We pulled up at the train station. Everybody thanked BD for the ride. I kissed the baby and we got out.

“We’ll probably be out until evening I said. Maybe 8ish,” I told BD through the window before taking off.

We spent the day browsing through knock-off bags, looking up like tourists as we walked down the bustling streets (New Yorkers never look up), and taking impromptu prison pose pictures in front of anything even loosely deemed to be a marker of our local. The Empire State Building, a street sign, anything.

We were tired and hungry when we finally got back to the hotel. It was Saturday night, so this would really be our last time together. Sunday night I’d put the baby to bed on time and turn in myself, getting ready for work Monday morning. The girls also flew out Monday morning, so this was it. Larissa had asked me earlier to stay the night and I told her I would. We’d order pizza and watch cable and play with the baby in the room all night.

I called BD and asked him to pick me up from the hotel. I wanted to get an overnight bag for the baby and I to stay the night at the hotel. He flat out refused and I knew why.

“I don’t want my son around evil spirits,” he said.

Oh my God. “BD, are you serious? She had one beer, way earlier this afternoon. Nobody’s drinking over here. Nobody’s drunk over here, there’s not even any alcohol in the room,” I said.

“What kind of person drinks beer in the middle of the afternoon anyway? I don’t want my son around people like that,” he said.

“It’s Saturday, first of all, they’re on vacation and they’re college kids. So what? I’m here. I’m not gonna let anything happen to our baby.”

“It doesn’t matter if no one is drinking right now or how long ago it was. It’s a spiritual thing. It’s about the evil spirits that alcohol brings. I don’t want my son in that environment.”

For close to an hour on the phone while holed up in the second bedroom of a hotel room, I tried to argue logic against insanity - an insane prospect in itself.

I did not want my sister or her friend to hear the ridiculousness of the issue at hand.

When I finally came out of the room, off the phone, they could read it on my face. Not to mention the walls were thin.

“Melyssa, is it all my fault? I’m so sorry. I knew I should’ve left that beer in the room,” Kya began.

“Whatever,” Laryssa interjected insolently. “You are a grown woman and if you wanna have a fucking beer on the sidewalk it ought not be his concern. Ugh!”

She looked at me now.

“What’re you gonna do?”

What was I gonna do?

Laryssa and I had been so close. She was so disappointed with me, not when I announced my pregnancy at Thanksgiving, but when I told the family BD and I were moving in together and trying to make a go of things.

She told me then it was a stupid idea destined for failure. She was angry with me because I tried to feed her the same spiel I’d given my mother about being in love and getting married and yadda yadda. It was bullshit and she knew it from the first time I said it. She was insulted because I’d lied to her.

Telling my mother what I think I need to tell her is one thing, but Laryssa and I, though a few years apart were pretty much peers. What she hadn’t understood is that I had to lie to her. I was lying to myself. She’d stopped speaking to me for a while after that. We never really had a falling out over it, she just stopped calling. So it was a big deal to me that she reached out and wanted to come visit. And I wanted us to have some more time together. I wanted her to bond with her nephew and I wanted us to wake up together. It was just one night.

“I’m gonna go get him,” I said.

“How’re you gonna do that,” Laryssa questioned expressionless. I told you she knows bullshyt.

“I’m just gonna go get him. I’ll be back.”

I got in a cab outside the hotel room and rode the short 20 blocks up the street to the apartment. It was literally right up the street. Straight shot. I could not understand what BD’s problem was. I also did not understand what I was about to get myself into.

My stomach was in knots. I was nervous and I was worried and I was having second thoughts about going up against BD tonight. As the cab pulled up across the street, I called my mother.

“Hey, Ma,” I said. Before she could even answer I just spewed out everything. I never complained to my mother about my relationship with BD. I knew how she felt about him and I didn’t want to feed it. I had not been ready to leave and I did not want to hear it. So I quickly brought her up to speed in one breathless sentence ending in â€"

“I’m right outside in a cab/ I’m about to go up now/ There’s no way he’s gonna let me just take the baby/ I don’t know what’s gonna happen/ I don’t know what I’m walking into/ I just want you to know.”

My mother was a master organizer. She could put a group together, draw up a plan, delegate duties and have that shyt executed in under five. She spoke competently and quickly.

“Melyssa, that is your child. You bore that child. You go get your son. Be careful and be brief. I’ll call you in 15 minutes. Answer the phone. If you don’t answer the phone, I’ll call you again. I don’t care what happens, you answer your phone or I’m calling the police.”

She said a short prayer for my protection. I paid the driver and got out of the car.

When I got to the door my key wouldn’t work. BD had put the bolt on. I knocked.

He answered the door in the dark, cradling our sleeping baby still outfitted in his snow suit. They’d just gotten in a few minutes ago. I had no idea how this was gonna work.

We began in the living room, sitting on the sofa talking about our different positions. I’d taken off my jacket and put my bag down.

“You’re being ridiculous,” I said. “Why don’t you call Allen and ask him? Call your mother, call somebody reasonable and get a second opinion.”

BD has this unchangeable tunnel vision. When he locks onto something it’s as if he is unable to change his mind. He cannot be enlightened. Sometimes, when he’d get like this, we’d call up his mother and she could talk some sense into him. Or his normal friend Allen who I respected, or his cousin. This time, BD said no.

The argument escalated and we, for some reason, moved into the bedroom. I don’t remember why.

The baby was lying on the bed now, still in his snow suit. At some point, I picked him up and made a quick reach for my car keys sitting on the shelf in BD’s open closet.

He quickly cut me off with his arm, but I was able to snatch the keys before he knocked me backwards, back onto the bed. I immediately got up and moved toward the bedroom door that BD positioned himself in front of.

I laid the baby, still asleep thank God, back on the bed and took position at the door. I was so tired of being controlled.

My phone began ringing off the hook form the living room as we struggled at the door. My mother’s ringer, then my sister’s ringer, then my mother’s again.

I kneed him, I scratched him, I bit him, I clawed at his eyes, but for a skinny dude â€" about 180 soaking wet â€" BD was pretty strong. He held his stance and I could not wrestle him away from the door. Then his phone began ringing now, over and over again. It was my family calling him. Who knows what they were thinking was going on. They were scared. I was scared. But I was also determined.

I fought hard. I exhausted myself. I knocked over a nightstand, a glider, broke a lamp … he knocked me down each time and I came back each time. He’d never seen this from me and it had been a long time since I had. He wrapped one hand around my throat and pulled his fist back with the other and I flinched instinctively, cowering with my hands covering my face. A twisted smile spread across his and he said, “See, you’re not that tough,” before releasing me.

I picked the baby up off the bed and went for the door again. He wrapped his arms around the baby’s waist and tried to take him from me, squeezing. He woke up wrinkling his face and I let go.

BD took him, cradled him, whispered to him, comforted him and rocked him as he walked away from the bedroom door, freeing me.

“You can do what you want, but you won’t take my son,” he said.

I rushed out of the bedroom, grabbed my phone and began calling the police. BD did the same on his phone and he got the 911 operator first. He told the 911 operator I was trying to kidnap our son. This would not be his last allegation of kidnapping.

Simultaneously, both standing in the living room, I was reporting domestic abuse. I was not leaving my son.

Seconds later, in a blur of red and blue lights, 12 officers arrived at the door. I told them I just wanted to go. I didn’t want to press charges. I didn’t want anyone arrested, I just wanted the opportunity to gather my things and get out of the house with my son.

BD protested, telling the group of officers that he was this child’s father and “Don’t I have any rights!?”

“Take it up with family court,” one cop told him. “If I have to make the decision tonight, I’m letting the child go with the mother.”

“Why? How can you just make that judgment?”

“Look we got about four calls to us tonight (me, BD, my mother and my sister) we’re here now, and it’s my job to settle the situation. That’s my decision. A judge might tell you different, but tonight, I feel the child will be best served with his mother.”

It was pouring outside. I picked Laryssa up about 10 blocks away from the apartment. She’d put on her boots and her coat and started hiking to me in the down pour with her roommate in tow. I was so glad she hadn’t made it. My sister is kinda gangster. They got in the car soaking wet and we went back to the hotel.

I would never share a roof with BD another day in my life. But it was not the end. Actually, our fight was only just beginning.

Check back Monday as BD finds out Melyssa may be gone for good.

Got a story to share? Holla at Melyssa via video.

Get more Melyssa at GetYoShyt.blogspot.com and hit her up on Myspace.com/MelyssaGanache.

*All names have been changed to protect the guilty & the innocent.

Next ep: He Calls the Cops, I Catch a Flight

Posted by Melyssa Ganache at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)

Continued from The First Time: 'But He Didn't Hit Me'

I stopped by the mirror in the bathroom on the way out to let Shay and Mike up. Not so bad. It wasn’t that obvious, I thought after a quick scan for damage. It was dark in our apartment, though. All the lights were out. I stepped out into the hallway and my eyes took a couple of seconds to adjust. I practiced covering my mouth with my hand as I walked down the stairs, in a yawn. No that would only draw attention. I got downstairs and walked to the door as naturally as I could without looking head on, positioning myself so that my profile would hide the busted lip on the left side of my face.

I could see Shay and Mike standing at the glass doors. I opened them and before they even stepped in, I saw the look on Shay’s face. Mike’s mouth dropped.

“What happened?” She said.

“We got into it,” I admitted, adding nervously, “he didn’t hit me.”

“He didn’t hit you?” My sister looked at me incredulously. “You sure about that?” She fingered the swell on my lip.

“Shay,” I locked eyes with her convincingly, “You think I’m bout to let a man hit on me?” The irony.

“I tried to push him and hit one of those big closets up there,” I continued. There had been pushing and shoving.

“It’s over now, everybody’s calmed down, but … I hate to ask this, it’s just … been so crazy with us lately.” I stammered nervously.

“What?” Shay hurried me along.

“Can you guys stay at a hotel tonight? I’m so sorry to even ask. I just really think it’ll be more comfortable for everybody.”

“Yeah, if you come with us,” Shay retorted.

“No, I can’t do that,” I began.

“It wouldn’t be any trouble. Bring the baby,” Mike added.

“No, that would just make things worse. I need to stay here tonight,” I said. “He’d never let me take the baby with me, anyway. Not now.”

“I don’t feel good about this, Mel. I know he’s not gonna try shyt with Mike here. Just let us stay tonight and we’ll get you out of here in the morning when he goes to work,” Shay said.

All of the sudden we were hatching plans of escape. The hallway was bare with a high ceiling. It resounded unforgiving echoes.

“Shay, really, it’s not that bad. It was an accident and it’s over now. We gotta get out of this hallway, my neighbors can here everything.”

I’d left the door to the apartment cracked. We walked in and I did not turn the lights on. I stood in the living room with Mike as Shay went to the bedroom to gather her things.

She later told me she and BD had this exchange:

“Hey, BD. Can I turn the light on?” she’d asked entering the bedroom. The door had not been closed.

BD was rocking the baby in the glider, facing the open doorway leading to the living room.

“I’d rather you not,” he said flatly.

“Well it’s dark and I can’t really see,” Shay said reaching for the switch. The room brightened.

She took a few minutes getting her things together quickly from my closet on the wall right next to BD.

And with her bag in hand looked at him and said, “Well good night. We’re going to a hotel.”

He hadn’t said a word, short of asking her not to turn the lights on.
---
Shay rushed out into the living room with a twisted face.

“He is weird,” she mouthed exaggeratedly in a whisper. What is wrong with him? Why is he acting like that?”

The front door was already open. I put my hand on her back and softly pushed her over the threshold. Mike went after.

“Mel,” she said one last time. She was asking me again to go with them.

“It’s okay,” I said, this time forcing a half smile that I’d hoped would make her comfortable enough to just go.

That night, I lay in bed with the baby spread eagle lying asleep in between me and BD. We'd taken to sleeping like this. The baby between us kept me from having to brush up against him at night and it kept him from brushing up against me. The thought of him touching me made me cringe. We hadn't been romantic since near the time I found out I was pregnant and the baby was almost eight months old now. That's a long time. His advances had become less frequent but I was no less disgusted at the thought.

Sometimes, I'd sleep on the futon in the living room just to get away. He forbade me from taking the baby with me, though. I don't think he was really scared I'd actually tiptoe off in the night. I think he just wanted to make his position very clear about the difference between my leaving and my leaving with my son. Though one may have been inevitable, the other was an impossibility.

That night though, as I lay awake thinking about how quickly this weekend had deteriorated, I still hadn't made up my mind to go. The inevitable, though, was fast approaching.

For all my attempts to rush Mike and Shay upstairs into the darkness, I had no idea how thankful I’d be for those couple of minutes when not one, but two people had seen me, disheveled and bruised just moments after one of BD’s black-outs. That night, under the harsh florescent light in our buildings foyer would be the only evidence, ever, to back the claims I’d later officially make of emotional and physical abuse. I wouldn’t know the importance of that day until almost a year later. As it appeared that things were falling apart, they were really lining up into place.

Check back tomorrow as Melyssa does something she should’ve done a long time ago.

Got a story to share? Holla at Melyssa via video.

Get more Melyssa at GetYoShyt.blogspot.com and hit her up on Myspace.com/MelyssaGanache.

*All names have been changed to protect the guilty & the innocent.

Next episode: Locked In, Wanting out

Posted by Melyssa Ganache at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

Continued from Anywhere's Better Than Here

I hate arguing in front of company. It’s so rude and inappropriate, right? It makes everybody uncomfortable, especially the guests. What’s almost just as bad though is silently feuding in front of people. You know how everybody can feel the tension, but nobody’s talking about it?

So my older sister came to visit me and the baby. She lives down south and had only seen him once since he was born so I was really excited about her coming up. Her scheduled arrival just happened to be in the middle of World War III at the house. In all honesty, I don’t even remember what we were arguing about -- Could have been one or a few of so many things â€" but I remember the fall out like it was yesterday.

It was early evening when Shay and her fiancé Mike (surprise!) got in. We sat around the apartment and caught up for a couple of hours before deciding to go out to dinner. BD had the car seat in the car so I called him and asked him to drop off the carrier. He was still angry from before and basically refused.

“BD are you serious? My sister and her fiancé are here and I can’t leave without the car seat. We’re trying to go to the Olive Garden.”

“My son’s not going to the Olive Garden!” He snapped before hanging up the phone. Madness.

Quick ironic sidebar here: I actually met him at the Olive Garden. Serita and I doubled; it was my first date with Digital and her first date with BD. Thinking back though, he didn’t eat anything. Just sat and drank lemonade and chatted. I guess over the years he’d become more staunch in his beliefs and not only would he now not eat in a restaurant that served pork, but he wouldn’t sit in one either.

I’d exited the living room with the fam and closed the bedroom to call BD. Shay poked her head in after a few minutes. It was apparent there was a problem.

“Don’t tell me he’s not bringing the car seat back,” She said knowingly. “In your car. Please don’t tell me that.”

“I dunno, he’s being a real jackass right now. He’s talking about he can’t get away,” I lied.

BD sometimes worked little stage hand jobs on the weekends. It’s as close as he’d come in recent years to his dreams of a career in the entertainment industry. Actually, I don’t even think he was working that night.

They sat around with me and the baby, seeming to be entertained for a couple more hours before finally giving up on BD’s return and heading out for food themselves.

“We’ll bring you something back, sis,” Shay said apologetically on their way out. She was trying to make the best, but it was already palpably awkward and it was going to be a long weekend.

BD didn’t come home that night. A first. I had no idea where he was or who he was with or what he was doing or why he hadn’t come back or at least brought my car back. He’d turned his phone off.

The next morning, he called my phone back to back, demanding that I open the door so he could shower, change and go to work. I was outdone. He insisted he’d slept in the car right out front last night, not wanting to come in because my sister and fiancé were there. I was incensed. Here I was covering for his asinine behavior all night, assuring my company every hour on the hour, “Oh he’ll be back. He doesn’t not come home …” in an attempt to make our crazy situation look half way normal and he goes and actually doesn’t show up. All night. And now what am I supposed to say when I open the door and he strolls in to get his shyt together and rolls out again? So I didn’t. The door was locked and latched and he wasn’t getting in.

Fast forward to that evening …

Déjà vu. Shay, her fiancé and I are again deciding upon a restaurant to have dinner. This time I won’t ask, I’ll just go. And I’ve decided, if BD doesn’t want the baby to go, he can stay home with him.

That’s not exactly the way things played out. This time, as it got later, I just asked Shay and Mike to leave.

“You guys go ahead,” I insisted, though they wanted to just order in. BD and I were gonna need some privacy to hash this out and I was really at the end of my rope. I wanted him to know it.

They left and when BD arrived, I layed into him.

“Who the f*ck do you think you are to embarrass me in front of my family!? I am so sick of your shyt!” Yes, all that. I was feeling pretty froggy.

I raged about his crazy need for power and lamented about my suffocated spirit.

He stood, seemingly unfazed, steely eyed and silent.

I threatened to leave him. I threatened to take our son.

With those words, it was as if a switch had been flipped and he pounced without warning,
Reaching me from across the room in one leap, grabbing my hair behind my head and ramming my face into the edge of a large stand-alone closet. It happened so quickly. I had no time to react, no time to even cower or cover my face.

The baby was sleeping soundly on the bed and I immediately went to him, when BD snatched him from under the sheet and held him to his chest. He had made it resoundingly clear, I would never leave him and if I did, it would be without my son.

My Treo chimed from the dresser. I’d told Shay to text me from downstairs when they got back. The buzzer was broken and I’d have to go down and open the door for them.

I touched my mouth, feeling for damage and looked at the blood on my fingers.

"I didn't hit you," BD said defensively.

He was scared I'd run and tell my sister what he'd done. Expose him. But I didn't want anyone to know any more than he did.

Check back tomorrow as more drama ensues.

Got a story to share? Holla at Melyssa via video.

Get more Melyssa at GetYoShyt.blogspot.com and hit her up on Myspace.com/MelyssaGanache.

*All names have been changed to protect the guilty & the innocent.

Next installment: Hiding the Truth

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Continued from What's In a Name? What's In the Box?

I left Digital’s wedding announcement on the table for BD to see when he got home. I remembered that day, the last time I’d seen him.

He said, “ The next time you hear from me, it’ll probably be getting a wedding invitation in the mail.”

“Invitation?” I’d asked, reminding him that an invite was different from an announcement.

“Well, yeah you’re right. An announcement then,” he said. Indeed.

But I couldn’t dwell. I had my own problems.

If I’d felt trapped before, my feelings of imprisonment were only intensified after the birth of our son. I had no idea how women did this every day. Get up, get yourself ready, get the baby ready, prepare bottles, pack bags, load the baby and the bags into the car (this is a feat from a three-story walk-up, in snow), drop the baby off, go to work, work, pick the baby up, come home feed the baby, cook, eat, put the baby to sleep, go to sleep and do it again the next morning. I was exhausted. How grocery shopping, laundry, bank runs or anything else got done in between time with only one person on the parenting clock was beyond me. I needed BD. But the price of having him around was ever increasing. Our son added a whole new element of control to our relationship.

I’d thought having the baby around would mellow him out. You can’t be so rigid and calculated when you may be pooped on any minute. You have to smile when this tiny little person makes animal sounds in his sleep, and be moved as he falls asleep in your arms.

The entrance of our son had the opposite affect on BD, with his behavior only becoming more erratic. He would sit in front of the television each night, attempting to indoctrinate our child with rhetoric, listening to an old Anthony Hilder vs. Khalid Muhammad debate on DVD (Youtube it) over and over again. It hurt my heart to the core.

After taking maternity leave and returning back to work, I asked him to bring the baby to my job so my coworkers could see him. They’d been really good to us at a baby shower my department threw before I left, so I thought it only appropriate. I really should have rethought it.

BD brought our little man in and the crowd quickly gathered, oohing and ahhing the way people do around babies. But when the VP of the company, the man who’d hired me reached out his hand to touch the baby’s foot, BD recoiled like a snake, snatching the baby away.

“Please don’t touch him,” he said.

It was not softened with a nervous laugh, or even a half smile. He was unapologetic in his tone and even in his gaze. It really broke the mood and I was mortified. I’ve heard of overprotective parents not wanting their children touched. I get it about germs and all that. But the baby was wearing footies. The man had reached out to wiggle his little toes. People tend to do that to babies.

It was the end of the day, so I bid my coworkers good bye, grabbed my bag and boarded the elevator with BD, where no sooner did the doors close --

“Why did you do that?” I snapped in a heated whisper.

“I don’t want that white man touching my child.”

That was the first incident. Here’s another:

We’re on the bus, I’m sitting with the baby on my lap and BD is sitting next to me. A white lady directly across from me starts making faces with the baby, talking to him in exaggerated baby tones. Babies tend to have this affect on strangers in public places, so I picked up his little hand and waved at the lady across the aisle from us. BD immediately got out of his seat and kneeled in the walkway blocking the view between the baby and the lady, grabbing his little hand to hold his attention and whispering, “No son, that’s the devil.” Yes, for real. This really happened. I wanted to cry … from embarrassment, from anger, from sadness for my child and a deep sense of helplessness for him as well.

And these are just a couple of many. It got really crazy around that house for a while. And what added to the insanity was BD’s absolute resolve.

He was a teacher. He looked good, tall, handsome, well groomed always in a shirt and tie -- Every day with the shirt and tie -- Well educated, well spoken and even capable of charm when necessary. It would be difficult for anyone to believe he was certified. And I would have no more difficult time convincing a person than months later when we’d both find ourselves in a psychologist’s office, each fighting for our own parental fitness over the other.

Before then though, our tenure as cohabitants would culminate with flashing lights and sirens.

Check back tomorrow as Melyssa plans, plots and strategizes.

Get more Melyssa at GetYoShyt.blogspot.com and hit her up on Myspace.com/MelyssaGanache.

*All names have been changed to protect the guilty & the innocent.

Next installment: The First Time: 'But He Didn't hit Me'

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Continued from Wishful Thinking: I Gotta Snap Out of it

For all the complications surrounding our situation, our son’s entrance into the world that summer was smooth and without incident.

The baby we’d been preparing for, however futile, who’s health we’d prayed for and for whom was the only reason either one of us was still around at this point, was finally here. And he was perfect. Alert, happy and absolutely awe inspiring, I’d thought this little life would be able to change everything. But sitting eight days post partum in the middle of a heat wave, wedged between BD and his parents on one side of me, my mother and sisters on the other, it was apparent this was a family that would never mesh.

BD had wanted a naming ceremony since we’d first learned about my pregnancy. He’d insisted, we wouldn’t decide on a name for the baby until he was born and we’d had an opportunity to meet him. Then, on the eighth day, we’d announce the baby’s name to family and friends after first whispering it into the child’s ear because you should be the first to know who you are. It’s a beautiful custom. I was kinda taken by the naming ceremony scene in Roots anyway (remember that?) When he took his brand new baby out into the woods, lifted him into the air and announced to his son, “Behold, the only thing greater than yourself,” as he introduced him to God. So I was on board with the whole waiting eight days thing. I thought it would be nice.

Of course, now, as we sit scrunched together in our living room with our families, laboring to breathe in the heavy humidity, it is absolutely not nice. And the week leading up to this date hadn’t been so agreeable either.

I’d wanted to name our baby after my father, who though black, happens to, like most of us, have a European name. BD hit the roof at the first mention of this a few months before. I told him we could still have the ceremony, it would just be understood that one of his names would be my dad’s. I didn’t even care if it was buried at the bottom right before the last name, which would also be BD’s. The idea of his son having what he perceived as a white man’s name had enraged him. He threw over a small table in his tantrum. Shaken, I dropped the subject, but I did go about rubbing my belly and speaking softly to my baby, calling him by name. More anger. I was being directed how to speak to my unborn child.

For a full 48 hours before the naming ceremony, we’d completely stopped talking, unable to agree upon a name. We’d both chosen a few, then chosen from that pool, then attempted to whittle that down. The stalemate for me was when after getting down to eight names, BD refused to skim any more.

“These are our son’s names. There’s nothing more important than that. A name is supposed to speak for your past and your destiny. The wrong name can curse you … “

I’d heard the rhetoric for the past nine months and I was so over it. There’s no way I was sending my kid to kindergarten with eight names. Fortunately, with our families lingering in every corner of the apartment (they had to spread out over a few rooms or sit nose-to-nose in one) this argument couldn’t escalate the way it might have less their presence. I was grateful. We slept in separate beds that night and the last, and had still not reached an agreement we were both happy with when it was time for BD to make the announcement.

My anger boiled in my stomach as he read off each of eight names he’d scrawled on a little sheet of paper. My family looked at me mouths agape, trying to be supportive but unprepared to hide their surprise.

“That’s quite a name,” my mother had said. What else could she say? Madness is what it was.

We said a prayer, completed the ceremony and I was just thankful when he finally loaded his people up in the car to drive them back to New York.

“I’m tryin to order a pizza, pepperoni and sausage,” I said aloud, reaching for the phone book.

“Hey Mel, there’s a package out here,” BD said sticking his head back in the door from the hallway. Damn. Thought he was gone.

He kicked the medium size box in and left.

I put the baby to sleep and I did get my pizza and it was good. The fam got a good laugh at my expense, though.

“Sneakin food like you got a damn eating disorder. What kinda shyt is that?” The little one had said, half in jest, half with disdain.

My mother had been more empathetic, but her tone was urgent.

“Mel, if you’re not happy here, you shouldn’t stay here. And the longer you stay, the harder it will be to leave and the angrier BD will be when you finally do leave.”

“Whadyou mean, when I finally do leave? He’s my son’s father?” I responded.

“Melyssa,” she said flatly, looking around and picking up and dropping the pizza box on the table to illustrate her point. “I Know you don’t plan on living like this forever. The longer you wait, the worse off you’ll be.”

Sidebar: Kids, listen to your mom.

BD stayed the night with his parents that night, thankfully but I didn’t get any sleep anyway.

I was staring up at the ceiling for most of the night, when my eyes dropped and fell on the package in the corner. Swine on my mind earlier, I'd forgotten about it. I lept out of bed and crossed the room with a pair of scissors off the dresser. No return address? I pulled the box open and foam popcorn spilled all over the floor. Baby gifts. Really, nice, thoughtful baby gifts.

A cute little inflatable ducky tub that really quacks. Adorable. A little fold-out director’s chair with our chld’s last name printed on the back. BD would love that. And the tiniest little onesie with massage points illustrated on it. So cute.

I had an inkling of who they might be from, but searched through the box again before allowing myself to think his name. I’d been keeping myself from thinking his name for months.

There it was, near the bottom of the box, covered by foam. The beautifully engraved white envelope didn't look like a baby card. I pulled out another linen envelope from inside the first. it was a wedding announcement.

Check back tomorrow as Melyssa officially checks out of dreamland and into her new, full fledged reality.

Get more Melyssa at GetYoShyt.blogspot.com and hit her up on Myspace.com/MelyssaGanache.

*All names have been changed to protect the guilty & the innocent.

Next installment: Anywhere's Better Than Here

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Continued from You Made Your Bed, Now Lie In It

I know I said today’s installment would be the fateful day I got the hell outta that apartment, and I will get there, but I was skipping a diary of entries and I wanna slow down a bit. There was a lot of back and forth in our nothing less than manic relationship and I was jumping the gun in leaving.

As foreign as this new life I’d found myself in felt, and though it was at my suggestion, really almost begging from the beginning, it was BD who was becoming comfortable with the idea of us being together. We’d lie in bed at night and he’d tell me how badly he’d always wanted a family and how he never thought he’d have one. How everyone always leaves him. He’d rub my belly and imagine with me what kind of person our baby would be. He’d even softened his feelings for me, actually seeming to be looking forward to a life together.

It’s easier for him to see a future now, since I’ve taken so well to his lifestyle rules, adapting without much protest. He smiles more, spends money around the house, fixing things and adding things and talks in “we” and “us.”

We’d mentioned Digital’s name sparingly in the past few months. I told BD very little of my conversation with him and BD had been equally vague about his face-to-face with his friend. He had come home that night with a busted lip and he didn’t answer me when I asked what happened. Aware of where he’d been though, I didn’t persist. And that was it.

Objectively, we were settling into a life. I terribly unhappily, but determined just the same. And he reluctantly at first and now purposefully. We were going to make this work for our child.

And then, the most awkward day of my life to date …

It was bound to happen. The not quite New York, but close enough New Jersey town where we lived is not a large place. It only has one Target, after all ...

So BD and I were doing a little shopping. He's so indecisive and I hate shopping with him. He palmed the different toilet paper packages for about 10 minutes, comparing the prices per roll and talking aloud about whether it made sense to spend the extra money on 24 rolls as opposed to 12 ... I get sooo frustrated shopping with him. And we'd just left the freezer section where of course, i couldn’t buy anything I wanted, ie frozen pizzas, Stouffers meals, Doritos, lemonade and the like. It’s all riddled with preservatives and artificial colors ... I miss eating the food I used to eat.

I am schlepping up and down the isles wearing a scowl as big as my face. I didn’t even wanna make this trip to the store. I wanted to go straight home form work, eat and go to bed, but BD insisted. And then we'd sat in the parking lot for 10 minutes while he took a call on his cell phone. One of his old guy friends, talking about this and that and how they have to get together soon ... yadda yadda yadda. So I am clearly unhappy and I have my back to him smelling some perfumes, when I hear --

"I must've been meant to come to Target tonight, what's up man?"
I am soooo not in the mood to smile and meet one of BD's friends, (probably the guy he just got off the phone with), so I stay rudely, back turned, facing the perpendicular aisle of cosmetics. Maybe I can casually slip away and avoid the whole presentation. I hate having to smile and chat when I'm feeling this way.

And then ....

"Hey Melyssa, how are you?"

Wow.

Now I recognize the voice, though I'm looking up now at the same time, so I'm not sure if it's the voice I recognize first or those eyes. I felt frozen, but I spoke smoothly.

"I'm well Digital, how are you?"

"Cool, cool ... "

"Yeah you see our little one?" BD interjects, gesturing toward my seven months pregnant belly, shamelessly pronounced in my baby tee. Any other day I'd be in a big empire cut cascading mumu.

I look down and up again to meet BD’s eyes. I know this look. I know what he was saying with that look.

"You know you fucked up, right? You look MISERABLE. You know that right?"

I know what he was thinking... and it was all over my face. I didn't even try to put on a glow for him. Maybe I wanted him to see my underlying unhappiness. I think I wanted him to want to save me. How nuts is that!?

"It's real, now." BD continues, happily.

"Yeah, it was real before. It was real when she first said it." BD responds. But he's looking at me. Why are you talking to Digital and looking at me? I break his gaze.

"So are you guys excited? Doing a little family shopping?" He continues casually and politely. Family shopping?

"Yeah, I'm excited," BD says beaming. It had only occurred to me before that perhaps I had been a pawn. It was now evident.

I just half smile, quiet.

"Do you know if it's a boy or a girl yet?"

"No, not yet," BD says.

The rest of the conversation is a bore and a blur as they yap for about 60 seconds of the Knicks game Digital is on his way to and other meaningless subjects. I'm just grateful their eyes aren't on my belly anymore.

"Alright man, I'll see you later."

They clasp hands.

Digital moves over to me and half leans in for a one-handed hug. I have my arms full of stuff, toilet paper, papertowels, but I move my face to the side, toward his, rather than into the armpit of his coat. Our faces touch and I'm thinking, I hope he doesn't think I did that on purpose.

And that's it.

So awkward, for me anyway. BD and Digital handled the chance run in like bonafide adults. And Digital had texted him a few days before, which made things smoother for them.

But I felt like CRAP. C-R-A-P.

If I ever had second thoughts about BD and making this family thing work up to this point, it was right then. I wanted to run after Digital... to plead with him ... to .. something. This thing that I've done, at that moment, it was unapologetically real. I mean just in my face, LOOK WHAT YOU DID, real.

The next morning, we're lying in bed and BD asks me, "Did you want to leave me for Digital yesterday?" He has these big puppy dog eyes.

He and Digital have had a healthy competition I think as long as they've known each other. Both tall, handsome, both having dreams of making it in the entertainment world, same taste in women (and they’ve been around and around about that before)... Only, Digital’s realized his dreams. I think that eats at BD.

I just look at him, stomach sunken by the irony, but I try not to let on.

"Why would you ask me that?" I say.

Why couldn't I just lie and answer the question?

"He has money and he has a Benz and he goes to Nick's games."

"I don't care about that, BD." It wasn’t a complete lie. I was in love with Digital before all that. I hug him. I do want to reassure him. I mean, if I'm gonna be in this, there's no sense in him feeling insecure about it. What am I gonna do, really be with Digital? Probably not. This thought makes my stomach sink even lower. I'm mourning him.

I gotta snap out of it. This is my life now.

Check 1224 Confessions Monday as Melyssa shares her misgivings with BD.

Get more Melyssa at GetYoShyt.blogspot.com and hit her up on Myspace.com/MelyssaGanache.

*All names have been changed to protect the guilty & the innocent.

Next installment: What's In a Name? What's In the box?

Posted by Melyssa Ganache at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)

Continued from All Things Done in the Dark …

The morning after my face-to-face with Digital, I woke up to text message alert from him on my Treo.

“Talkd 2 Serita last nite. U mite wanna reach out. Peace.”

“What the f*ck? You called her!?” I asked aloud, sitting straight up in bed.

Now, I’m really sick. I know they talked me into the ground. I was dreading having the conversation with her though just as much as I was hating to have to talk to Digital, so I used his breaking the news as an excuse to put off calling Serita immediately. I decided I’d do it next week. Of course that week became another, and it would be almost a year before she’d finally hear an admission and apology from me.

Meanwhile, I’d gotten really good at compounding problems. What in the world put it in my mind that passivity is peace, I have no idea. But that’s where I was at the time. And after months of living together with BD and watching my belly become increasingly bigger, the new lifestyle became almost routine. I’d come to regard my misery as penance, necessary sacrifices to insure that my child was born into a two-parent home, however unhappy.

I didn’t chat with Ayana so much in the late evenings anymore, when BD was home. He hated gossip. Instead, we IMd all day at work.

BD also had his opinions about my younger sister. She called too much, she complained too much and she was wild. He didn’t want her babysitting.

My mother knew too much.

“You tell her everything. Why is she always calling here?” (By here, he meant my cell phone, mind you).

And then I had a flashback of a few years prior, right around the time when my girl Serita, (BD’s ex-girl, you remember) finally left him alone. She’d called me complaining about how he’d slowly tried to change everything about her, but lately he’d made some unacceptable requests.
“That nigga told me he wanted me to stop perming my hair and wearing make up. Is that fool crazy?” She’d told me.

We laughed about it hard and their relationship was over not two months later. I’d never heard of anything like that. I mean, are you serious? Stop wearing make up? And I don’t perm my hair, but if anybody asked me to stop using a flat iron we might have a problem.

I was really, really missing Serita right now. Sometimes BD would say things or do things that sounded exactly like the little dumb shyt she used to complain about and I used to laugh about.

I’d really given little thought to Serita’s plight at the time and just assumed she’d been exaggerating. Fast forward a few years. She hadn’t.

Here I was, scaling back on myself and falling off on my family.

My ballooning belly was more often used as a reason for me to stay in, or to only go out accompanied by BD. Driving was out of the question. And so it had begun, so slowly and seemingly innocently, that I didn’t even see that I was sinking until I was nearly out of air and I could not move. (Rather all my moves were tracked by BD).

The meals were all vegetarian now, he’d thrown away anything made with anything of any sort of animal derivative (and if you guys read labels, that’s damned near everything). And who knew there’s pork in jello, pudding, cheese -- unless it specifically says “plant” rennet. Just rennet is a pork product â€" body wash, cosmetics, and every f*cking thing else. I was beginning to lose my mind.

I felt absolutely trapped. On the one hand, this is the bed I made, right? And it’s nobody’s responsibility to lie in it but my own. On the other, life is long when you’re not happy. Don’t believe people who tell you it’s short. If you’re in a miserable situation, 10 months can seem like 10 years.

I served my time for a little less than two.

Check 1224 Confessions tomorrow as Melyssa runs for her life, and tries to ensure a better one for her son.

Get more Melyssa at GetYoShyt.blogspot.com and hit her up on Myspace.com/MelyssaGanache.

*All names have been changed to protect the guilty & the innocent.

Next ep: Wishful Thinking: I Gotta Snap Out Of It

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Continued from Making Believe and Losing Myself

What do the old folks say? They will come to light. And damnit if that shyt isn’t the truth.

The day I had to face Digital, apologize and smell the new car scent in his brand new, paid-in-cash Benz was one of the most emotional days in my life, to date, I think. Can you kick yourself from a seated position? Because I had my proverbial foot firmly lodged in my ass as I sat uncomfortably on his butter soft, heated leather passenger seat. The sound system was crazy, like being front row center. He played his artist’s new album. It wasn’t out yet so I hadn’t heard any of the tracks before. The shyt was bangin, tho. Definitely gonna cop that. Wish I could tell you guys who the dude is. I’ll say this, he’s a young, fairly new (sophomore album) R&B guy in the lane of R Kelly.

Anyway, before I got a whiff of his whip, we met at a sushi bar. He brought flowers. (And he’s so not the flowers kind of guy). I probably should not have broken the news in public. It didn’t give him the opportunity to release and react the way I’m sure he wanted to and that was at best, thoughtless. The least I could have done was given him the privacy to curse in a raised voice. And he wasn’t about to make a scene here, the Asian waiters new his name. Apparently this was his little neighborhood watering hole. Nice.

“So, whadyou wanna tell me, Mel?” He asked no sooner than we were seated.

The waiter came around just then.

“We’re not ready yet, but can we get some saki?”

“Uh, no saki for me. Water with lemon please,” I said, addressing the waiter rather than Digital.

“Have a drink with me,” He insisted. “It’s a celebration bitches.” Not funny. We were not about to celebrate. We were probably about to speak the last words we would ever say to each other in life.

I smiled a nervous half smile.

“Whatre you pregnant? I know you aint pregnant cause I been outta town for two months,” he said jokingly, digging through the edemame. “Don’t make me have to get Mrs. Ganache on the phone.”

My mother loved him. The whole family loved him. He’d flown down and spent a week with us once and visited a few other times when I was at my mother’s house. He was like a big brother to my little sister. Digital had even charmed my irritable17-year-old cat who absolutely does not tolerate company.

I raised one eyebrow as if to say, “well …” and Digital’s mouth immediately dropped.

He leaned in and spoke in a dramatic whisper.

“Get the fuck outta here! Mel, you pregnant?” He sat back abruptly and began counting aloud on his fingers. Its it â€" mine?” He asked leaning back in on the last word.

This isn’t the way I wanted to begin. I wanted to start off by telling him that I’d been seeing BD, that we’d been spending some time together in his absence and that one thing had led to another. I wanted to follow that confession up with my pregnancy. Now I’d have to give him everything at once. Ugly.

“No. You haven’t been around, Digital,” I finally said.

He slouched down in his seat, “Man, get the f*ck outta here with that bullshyt. Please don’t start that bullshyt in here, Mel. You know what I’m doin out here? I’m fuckin workin. Don’t make this some argument about my schedule and how I don’t have time for you and this and that. If you brought me here to tell me you’re havin some other man’s kid, you coulda said that shyt at the house. But don’t try to turn it around now.”

“I’m not tryin to turn it around, I’m saying the reason we haven’t committed,” for the record, “is because you’re always jettin off. I never see you.”

“Are you serious right now? You’re fuckin knocked up by another dude, Mel. You think I don’t know you get it in? I know you get it in. Cool. You do your thing, I got business, too. Let’s just be real. But what kinda fuckin shyt is this? You with this dude?”

I wasn’t looking at him anymore, but past him.

“This dude know about me? Are you having the baby?” No answer. I couldn’t answer him right this second or my voice would crack and the tears would pour. It’s so hard to get yourself back together after that point. I was trying to hold it in. I needed a few seconds.

“Come on,” he said jumping up out of his chair and picking up his Blackberry off the table. “Let’s go.”

We walked briskly around the waterfront and back to his apartment. The view was beautiful and wasted.

“Shyt, I forgot my car,” he said pulling out his keys and switching directions. I just followed. He’d driven all the half a mile to the sushi place because he was so excited about his new car. He’d wanted me to see it. He took 10 minutes showing me all it’s luxurious features and what this button does and that button does. Like a kid. He’d worked extremely hard and this was the first big thing he had to show for it. (He was also house shopping in Atlanta). I was so proud of him. It had only been about three years since he was sleeping on BD’s floor and working at some sneaker store in Manhattan in between pounding the pavement for a deal for this new kid he’d discovered. It was a really rough time. I’d sent him some money once, $200 to help out. I loved him and wanted to be supportive but I could not do the long distance thing, nor could he, and I couldn’t take his constant working. It was more like a preoccupation than an occupation. It consumed him.

But it was about to be all over anyway. I wasn’t done confessing.

We valeted at the door of his building and went in. As soon as the elevator doors closed Digital broke his silence asking me the same questions again.

“So you with this dude, Mel? Are you havin the baby?” I was trying to wait until we got into the apartment.

“We’re not really together but we’re trying to do the right thing,” I said solemnly.
We walked in, Digital flipped the lights on and immediately took a right to the kitchen where he poured himself some dark liquor.

“You know what this is some funny shyt,” he said after he’d put the glass down. “I was just talking to my boy the other day, about how all the shyt I’ve been working toward all this time, I’m really there. I got the checks comin in. I got myself established at the label, I got these music connects now and on the business side, I’m good. Now I just need to find a wife and settle down.”

His boy’s a producer who’s done some of the tracks for his artist and has been through some of the same relationship ails. Goes with the territory I suppose.

He laughed again and took another swig.

“He was like, ‘yeah, once you get that house you need to go ahead and join the club.’” Digital said. (His boy is married). “I just need a wife and a little girl.” He has two boys.

He plopped down on the sofa, leaving me standing.
“I guess this is God’s way of telling me you’re not the one.”

My stomach sunk. Way to rub salt in the wound. And I wasn’t even done yet.

“There’s something else,” I began. “I don’t want you to hate me Digital. I don’t know what I’d do if I thought you hated me.”

“I don’t hate you, Mel. I’m disappointed in you. How the f*ck did you let this happen? I mean, I know it may not be like that right now, but you knew what it was …”

He’s not hearing me.

“I need to tell you something else, Digital.” I would not take a breath until I got it all out. “Remember that time I told you I saw BD in the city? Well we went out again after that.”

And I took a breath.

“I’m so sorry. I wish I could take that night back …” This was a really piss poor confession, I know. But I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You f*cked BD? My boy?” He asked in disbelief.

It was a horrible, emotional display. One like I’d never seen from Digital. He was always so aloof. (What is it women like about the emotionally detached, unavailable man?) That night he got in touch with his feelings quickly, breaking a glass against the wall and telling me I should be grateful he doesn’t hit women. I think I might have been.

He called BD several times but couldn’t get an answer. I was glad about that. When Digital did finally drag the story of our illicit affair out piecemeal, question by question, I was sure it would sound a lot different hearing it from BD. I didn’t lie, but I did try to stick to the larger truths â€" I’m pregnant and it’s BD’s.

He insisted BD had done this on purpose. That all he ever did was run up behind him trying to get with chicks he had been with. That BD was still mad because his little sister had come onto him when they were in college. Sitting seductively on Digital’s sofa, she’d pulled the sari that covered her head off, letting her long hair cascade over her shoulders and told Digital her big brother doesn’t need to know everything. There are discrepancies as to what happened next, but Digital says he made the girl go back to her dorm. However It went down, he was right about BD still being salty over it. He’d mentioned it to me several times and I didn’t even know either of them when this went down.

So there was some underlying tension already between the two of them.

Not to mention the fact that they’d both set off with aspirations in the same field, both achieving levels of success straight out of college, but Digital’s career had taken off and BD’s stalled. I know BD was jealous about that. He wanted it to be him.

It was becoming clearer to me that I’d stepped into something that began way before me and had nothing to do with me. It occurred to me that perhaps, as Digital suggested, I had been used.

Not that circumstance mattered at all at this point. I’d known enough. I was an equally responsible player.

After he’d calmed down Digital told me he’d never speak to me again. He’d always love me but I could no longer be a part of his life.

“Take care of that baby and BD,” he said, closing the door to his apartment behind me.

Downstairs, I stood in the doorway while the doorman hailed me a cab in the rain.

Now, I just needed to talk to Serita. Though, unbeknownst to me, Digital would have her on the phone before I was even out of the building.

Now that everybody knows, it’s official. Check 1224 Confessions tomorrow as Melyssa settles into her miserable new life.

Get more Melyssa at GetYoShyt.blogspot.com and hit her up on Myspace.com/MelyssaGanache.

*All names have been changed to protect the guilty & the innocent.

Next ep: You Made Your Bed, Now Lie In It

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Continued from Nobody Ever Says, “I Wanna Be a Baby’s Mama When I Grow Up”

A couple weeks later, we’d come to an agreement. BD would let go of his apartment and move in with me. He’d already begun spending most of his time there. For all his over zealousness and what I’d come to know as an obsessive-compulsive disorder, it really does cut both ways. As absolutely erratic and inconsolable as he can be when he doesn’t get his way, raving until the opposing party concedes, he is equally tenacious about committing himself to a task. He was baby proofing the house, comparing safety ratings of strollers and car seats and planning a nursery theme before I was even showing. (Red, black and green. Yes, really).

Lemme just sidebar this: When I told him those were inappropriate colors for a baby’s room he insisted that I was brainwashed and had believed the lie the white man had told me, that black is ugly and drab and evil. This convo kicked off when he brought home a black hamper for the baby’s room and I reacted in disgust.

And though we’d skirted around and finally tabled the whole marriage issue, we did decide to introduce our union to his parents as if we were engaged. They were very strict and very religious and BD feared banishment for procreating outside of wedlock. The least we could do was be “planning” a ceremony.

I had to face the judgement of my family, too which was also no easy task, but required a lot less preparation. I blurted it out over Thanksgiving dinner, sending my mother screaming from the table, my younger sister erupting in a fit of laughter --“Get the eff outta here! That nigga got you pregnant? Hahahahah!” (In her defense it was in part nervous laughter. The rest, just erily evil. â€" And the others of the clan, my older sister, aunt, uncle, all stunned, forks still and mouths dropped. I’d ruined dinner.

But that wasn’t the most dramatic display. The acting award belonged to BD and myself as we sat on his parents’ couch, explaining to them that though we had “strayed” and done things the wrong way, we were in love and determined to make it work. We would be married in one year. (and this is the first time I’m meeting these people). But BD had made sure I was ready.

“Can you take your contacts off before we go to my parents?” he’d asked. I’d looked at him in disbelief, but he was serious. I could see it meant a lot to him, so I agreed. I changed tops, too. The one I was wearing apparently was a little snug. It would be the first of many such requests-turned-requirements.

The entire thing was a dramatic enactment from the beginning. Noble, but not real. As long as the two main characters understood that, I saw no harm. And moreover our living together would allow for our baby, at least in the beginning, to have the benefit of both of us. For me, that outweighed any of the cons my family and friends kept bringing up.

“Having a baby is no reason to move that man into your house,” my older sister had warned. “You didn’t get pregnant on purpose but you’re gonna purposely compound the problem?"

Her child’s father is not the easiest person to deal with and she was going through it with him and his lawyers. Her opinion was skewed. I would never be in a situation like that. I would have a family.

“You’re not the same. I feel like you’re changing … he’s changing you,” Ayana said out of the blue one day on the phone. Why? Because rather than complaining about his crazy antics, I'm defending him? He's my baby's father. Does no one seem to understand this? What the hell is she talking about? I am changing. My hormones are going crazy. I’m growing a person.

And when my mother came to visit and couldn’t find any suitable breakfast meat in the fridge that morning â€" no bacon, no sausage, nothin. LOL â€" she knew something was wrong. I’m a Midwestern girl but the fam is from the south. Breakfast is a big deal.

“Mel, what dyou eat for breakfast?” she asked. As if there was no such thing as cold cereal. (LOL. I laugh now because I had sausage, eggs and grits for breakfast this morning, as did baby boy :) and I can hardly even wrap my mind around how this dude had me eating cold cereal. Nuts).

In a heart-to-heart later she told me, amongst other things, “I feel like you’re losing yourself. Do you feel like you’re losing yourself?”

What the hell is that? Losing myself. Why couldn’t anybody see, this was me being responsible, doing the right thing, sacrificing what I might want for the needs of my child. I’m becoming a mother. Doesn’t that transition inherently call for a certain degree of setting aside self? Besides, pork isn’t good for anybody anyway.

It would be months, I think before I’d recognize the sacrifices I was making in my futile attempt to make us work. Even longer before the resentment would become palpable and my protest evident. But we’re not there yet.

First, we’d have to make the announcement to our two effed over friends, Digital and Serita. Karma is a bitch.

Check 1224 Confessions tomorrow as Melyssa pleads with Serita and meets face to face with Digital.

Also, check out more Melyssa at GetYoShyt.blogspot.com and hit her up on Myspace.com/MelyssaGanache.

*All names have been changed to protect the guilty & the innocent.

Next Episode: All Things Done in the Dark ...

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