Chapter Thirty
Gracie tried to begin her New Year as smoothly as possible. She promoted a few of her instructors to take over her workload while she spent more time running the business. She wasn’t ready to face Kendra. However, Gracie’s smooth life didn’t last for long.
Two weeks into the New Year, she received a call from Kendra. They needed to meet and get their business in order. Gracie knew that the only way she could see Kendra was if Marcus went with her. She set up a meeting with all three of them.
God knew that Gracie needed to confront Kendra alone. The morning of the meeting, Marcus had to back out because of a last minute scouting run. Gracie paced and fought the urge to cancel the meeting.
As Gracie stepped through the front doors of her gym, she was instantly calmed. She couldn’t believe that she had actually contemplated tearing the whole building down to make sure she would never be in the room that Kendra and Dillian had their affair. She fought the foolish spirit that wanted her to lose everything by facing it head on. Prayer indeed changed things for Gracie.
At the entrance to the office, Gracie sent a quick prayer into the air. Half of the office was bare. Kendra had packed up all her things and they were sitting beside the door. Across the office, Kendra sat quietly behind her desk. Gracie’s anger changed into concern when she saw Kendra’s face. Her face was colored black, blue, and red. The right side of her face was swollen from eye to chin.
“What in the world?” Gracie yelled before racing over to Kendra. “What happened to you, Kendra?”
Kendra raised her hands to ward Gracie off.
“Don’t,” she said, looking away.
“Who did this?” Gracie asked. She gently cupped Kendra’s chin and turned her face back around. “Are you all right?”
Kendra sat back in her chair, trying to put space between herself and Gracie.
“I’ll be all right,” she said. “Sean.”
“What?”
“You asked me who did it. Sean did it.”
“Sean? Kendra, why?”
Gracie saw Kendra wince as tears leaked from her swollen eyes and tracked her bruised cheeks. She raced to her desk and grabbed a few tissues.
Kendra dabbed lightly at her tears. “Well, I waited until I thought it was okay to talk to him, and when I did, I had no choice but to tell him that I was positive so that he could get tested.”
With a hung head, Gracie just reached across the desk and waited patiently for Kendra to reach back. As soon as their hands connected, Kendra told Gracie the entire story.
She told Gracie how she waited for Sean to arrive at her apartment during lunch to pick up the remainder of his things. That was when she presented him with her results. Sean read the results silently. When Kendra tried to apologize, he lashed out at her. With every word that came out of his mouth, he slapped, pushed, and eventually kicked her. He told her he was getting back at her for the virus he was sure that he had. He went to the closet and pulled out his 380 and held it to her temple. The only thing that halted his trigger finger were the knocks on the door.
“Everybody deals with it differently,” Kendra concluded in a hushed voice. She shrugged and nodded her head as if she believed she deserved it.
“By almost killing someone?” Gracie shouted. “Kendra, he could have killed you. Did you go to the police?”
Mocking a laugh, Kendra continued. “I didn’t have to. They came to us. I guess the neighbors called them. That’s who was at the door. It seemed as if they were on his side.” Kendra sighed and leaned her head back to the chair. Her voice was monotone, void of any emotion. “After he told them about me being HIV positive and that he felt he had it, they gave him information on where to get tested, and one of them even told him to press charges.”
“What? What did he say?”
“We have a court date at the end of February.”
Gracie felt sympathy beyond words. She wished she could be there for Kendra more on a deeper level, but her pain wouldn’t let her. Gracie asked Kendra if she wanted to reschedule but Kendra insisted they go forward with their meeting.
“Well, these are the figures I’ve come up with.” Gracie stretched the paper across the table to Kendra, who barely glanced at them.
“That’s fine.” Kendra didn’t put up a fight, and they came to a conclusion about the gym and their co-ownership. She already knew things wouldn’t work out as they used to. A lot had changed. That was why she had suggested that Gracie buy her out.
Kendra stood and got ready to leave. Gracie walked around the table to a disheveled Kendra.
“Kendra ... I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I wasn’t a friend to you. I had no idea the things that you had gone through. You never told me that your uncle did those things to you—you never opened up about your mom, I just assumed. There are no excuses, but I should have been a better friend.”
With no response, Kendra headed at the door.
“Kendra, take care.”
“Yeah. You do the same, Gracie.”
They embraced in a painful hug. Gracie released Kendra, moved to the side, and let her walk through the door.
After Kendra left the office, Gracie decided to take a few laps around the gym’s inside track. After the workout, Gracie went back into her, now very spacious office, to take a quick shower. The office phone rang right before she walked out the door. Just before the last ring, Gracie picked up the receiver, and the other end let out a loud breath and hung up. She assumed that the call must have been misdirected. Gracie hung up and went to the shower.
After she left the gym, Gracie went to the U.S. Post Office and the grocery store to pick out dinner for the night. She received three additional calls on her cell phone with nothing on the other end besides breathing. Figuring that the calls would subside, Gracie didn’t mention them to Marcus when he called and confirmed dinner.
“What’s cooking, good looking?”
“Aww, aren’t you sweet. Flatter me even when you can’t see me.” Gracie smiled.
Marcus dove in for a fun game. “Now you know I have my spies watching you at all times, Gracie. I can’t chance you getting away from me.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes, really! They called me on my way back and let me know that you did something different to your hair. They sent me a picture and I likes ... I likes!”
Gracie was stunned that he knew that she had taken down her braids and returned her relaxed hair to its now lengthy bob. She was lost for words.
“Girl! Look to your right.” He drove his truck next to Gracie’s car. Marcus couldn’t stop laughing as he saw the look on Gracie’s face. “I’m sorry, honey. I couldn’t help it!”
“Marcus! Ugh.” Gracie hung up on her beau and pulled off of the busy highway extension into a gas station’s parking lot. The couple got out of their vehicles and embraced.
“I miss you,” Marcus sincerely told his girlfriend.
“I miss you more,” she kissed back. “I have dinner all picked out. You want to follow me home? I take it that’s where you were heading anyhow.”
“You’re so right. Hey, how did the meeting go?” Marcus asked as he unzipped his nylon jogging suit. He placed the jacket through his window and onto the passenger’s seat. Then he got the gas station’s window-washing bucket and started on Gracie’s car windows.
“It went,” Gracie answered as she sat back in her driver’s seat. “I’ll tell you all about it over dinner.”
“I guess it did go all right, since the men in blue didn’t contact me,” he said, cracking a joke.
“Get out of my way before the men in blue come get me for running over you. See you at the house.”
“Right behind you,” he said as he returned the brush to its home.