I disappeared. No one knew where I had gone with the kids. I had not communicated with anyone in my immediate family about my whereabouts. So that no one in the family would put an APB out on us, I did talk to various people who would let my family know that we were all alive and not to worry. I could not talk to Gem. No communication with her was one of the many contengencies. I would let my contacts know they would see us all soon, but much time would have to pass before then.
I had to give this thing my all. At the end of the day, this was my family I was fighting for. I was fighting for my love and the dreams that I had. I wanted Lyulle, but I needed him to want me as well. I was determined to make this thing work, however it could work.
Again, we did not have much money. I would find a job doing whatever in the name of God I could. Lyulle would continue to hustle. In our home, we’d raise the children, both of us, together.
I moved in with Lyulle in May 2013. By June, he had gotten locked up, only for a few weeks, but that left the children and me in his place alone.
I had long heard that when you go looking for something, there is something to be found. Be careful what you ask for because you might receive it. That’s how the quote goes, and such is life. I knew this all too well, but it was high time that I began to ask questions to find out why there were so many blanks in our love story over time. I wanted to know for sure if I could trust Lyulle again. What did I have to lose, right?
Lyulle loved to take pictures. He’d photograph everything because a picture could save someone’s mental state while locked away in prison. He’d take a million and one pictures and send them to his people still behind bars. I opened his photo album on his iPad, and there she was. There they all were, but her, he liked and maybe even loved. There were photos of them in New York City, in Virginia with his family, at the Martin Luther King Monument, and in the Poconos. He’d taken her on the trip that was supposedly meant for me. She was striking but nothing to write home about, foreign but not exotic. I could not believe what I was seeing, but then again, I could. My heart ached, but I was happy for him. He looked extremely happy with her, and I really wanted to wish him well. Why hadn’t he told me he had a girlfriend? I thought to myself. Why was I back in Columbus living with him? What was I here for? Questions flooded my mind, heart, and spirit. I was overwhelmed, and all I wanted to do from then on was get as far away from him as humanly possible. In the middle of my boohooing, my phone rang. It was Lyulle.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Jericho.”
“Hey.”
“Hey, what’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“What’s wrong? Are you crying? What happened?”
“I saw your pictures. I saw them all.”
“You went through my stuff? What gives you the right to go throu—”
“I did not go through your stuff. I just looked at your pictures. You could have told me.”
Lyulle was fuming. He was furious that I had seen what he was up to, and he knew this would bring a new element to the forefront of this situation, where healing our relationship was what we should have been focused on. We now had to deal with the emotional turmoil to follow due to this new information.
The lady in the photos was the same lady whose name was on the condo, the same lady who had brought Lyulle to my house that night when he’d beat my ass and I ran outside naked. She was whom Lyulle had to do the night I wanted to go out with my team from the branch. She was the same lady he was texting at the pediatrician’s office when we’d taken Brooklyn’s little brother on his first doctor’s visit. I felt betrayed not because he was seeing someone but because he did not tell me he was seeing someone. I would have long backed away from Lyulle. He would have been fine to be with someone more suited for him. He was unhappy with me. Shit, he hated me. If he didn’t hate me, he did a damn good job of making me believe he did.
I did not sleep in the same room with Lyulle after finding out about him and her. Once he was released from jail, I had made things comfortable for him in his home. It was back to grinding and making things work for the kids. I totally withdrew from Lyulle. I did not want to offer myself to him any longer. I had a talk with Ms. Byrd once, asking her if she had known that Lyulle had a girlfriend. She said she had not but that Lyulle was her son. She would not have told me anyway if it would hurt him in anyway. I understood. It was the same for my children, but I’d let them know what a dangerous game it is to play with a woman’s heart.
I told her, “I am here trying to make things like they were before.”
She suggested that maybe I shouldn’t try to, and that seemed like it made the most sense to do.
I made my bed on the couch, and I would not touch him unless he desired to be touched. Sex became more and more routine, boring, and emotionless. I felt like Lyulle was using me for his selfish gains, so I focused my attention elsewhere. It did not matter to me where my attention was focused as long as it was not on Lyulle.
I had gotten a job in June at a local car dealership, a position in operations. There were a number of young stallions, degreed with much potential. I had already had my eyes set on one young man in particular. I focused my feminine energy in a way that would allow Lyulle to be free and allow me to be fair and friendly.
In July, I learned of a childhood friend who had been killed by her husband in a domestic violent situation where her family was unable to reach her and help her before she was killed. It scared me. My apparent situation had become real for my childhood friend. In that moment, I called Gem. I called Gem, and I kept calling Gem. It infuriated Lyulle, but I did not care.
I was also pregnant again. Brooklyn’s little brother was not even a year old. Lyulle and I were flat broke again. He had a girlfriend. Clearly, I could not trust him. I could not have three children with him. I was too unstable. We were too unstable, and it was just too much. Sometime closely approaching the second trimester, I terminated that pregnancy. Lyulle would not dare have the satisfaction of telling me to abort another child. I decided that pregnancy was over the moment I found out about it.
August came around, and we were flat broke again, or more accurately, I was flat broke. I was angry, upset, hurt, and miserable—my usual emotions. Brooklyn would notice when I was happy versus when I was sad, which, to me, meant I was sad more than I was happy.
He said to me simply, “Mommy, you’re happy today?”
What drew his attention to my enthusiasm was a burst of energy and song-writing that I happened to be in great spirits at that moment, and he was there to see it. I would have to happy more often, I promised myself.
Distance kept growing between Lyulle and I. By September, the abuse was full fledged again. The day after my birthday that year, I found myself choked out and unconscious in his bedroom on the floor with the kids in the house. While they did not see with their eyes what had happened to me, they’d heard the screams. Lyulle had punched me dead in the mouth for saying he was acting like an idiot again to one of my coworker friends through a text message. I guess it did not help that this particular coworker told me he had a crush on me at one time, but we’d resolved to just being friends. Plus I’d had my eyes set on a young stallion, the confident, cocky salesman with sex appeal. If I was gonna give it to anyone, it was gonna be him.
Lyulle had been stressed out. I was not giving him anymore of me. My energy was not directed toward him, and he felt it. I cannot honestly say that I cared too much either. We were fighting more and more every day. I was able to trade in my SUV for a new car because of my job at the dealership. It was a beautiful deep gray 2008 Chevy Impala. It was just right for us. Lyulle asked me what my next move was after purchasing the car. I expressed to him that I was gonna save up some money and get ready to get a place of my own. I expressed to him I wanted to stick around to make sure he beat the case that he’d gotten for beating me up. For some reason, this infuriated him, and he told me I could leave right then. He said that I did not need to wait until the case was finished and began to pack my shit up in the trunk of the car. I was confused, frustrated, and ready to leave. I was so defeated, and I felt bad for him because I really did not understand why he was pissed off. Still, it is a question to this day I have yet to deduce and answer. I cannot come up with a plausible explanation.
By October, I was resolved to leaving. It had been nearly six months, and we were now just tolerating each other’s presence. Lyulle knew that I was attracted to the young guy at work and decided he’d exploit my feelings regarding him. He was so jealous hearted, but I still did not understand why he did things like this. For instance, he’d ask me, “Have you had sex with him?” “Do you fantasize about him?” “What do you want to do to him?” “What do you want him to do to you?” And what I would do was absolutely tell him. I imagined the young man taking me from behind. I imagined him holding my waist while we stood, his pelvis to my backside with me bent over, legs spread far east and far west, and all he’d need to do was deep-thrust into me one time, and I’d come all over him, all for him. I wanted to have sex with that young man. He deserved someone like me to rock his young world. I told Lyulle how I imagined the young man fucking me. He tried to fuck me that way. I appreciated his efforts, but my heart was no longer open to him. I was no longer in love with him. Though I loved him so, my ability to enjoy sex with him with immense orgasmic pleasure was nonexistent. I was not happy.
Gem’s best friend was getting married at the end of October. I told Lyulle I was going to the wedding. I did not care how he felt about it. He could have been mad. I did not care. As far as I was concerned, he should go to Cincinnati while we all were gone to visit his girlfriend or whatever he wanted to do. Whatever he did, it did not matter to me. I was going to Akron for some good, clean fun.
Before I went to Akron, I posted a status that I was coming to visit and that if anyone wanted to see me to let me know. The guy who’d come to our apartment and who had gotten me slapped by Lyulle years earlier told me he wanted to link up. Gem and the family and the wedding were the primary reason I was going to Akron. I was overdue for some fun.