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Yeah, I’m such a charismatic dude.
“Um, well.” She started laughing holding her stomach. “Why would I want to be a family with you? You must really want me to hate you more than I already do.”
Well, shit.
“Damn, Crys.” My damn feelings were mauled and hurt. “You really hate me?” My voice exposed my raw truth.
I was genuinely hurt.
Feelings fucking crushed.
“Yes, Ezekiel. For a long time, I did hate you.” She took a deep breath all the while looking down at her large belly. “The early months of my pregnancy are a sore subject for me. You wanted this baby, Ezekiel, not me. I had no problems going to the clinic. Had you not walked into my dressing room that day and saw the pregnancy tests, my respect for you wouldn’t have wavered. You abandoned me, Ezekiel.” Her bottom lip trembled and eyes watered. “Treated me like shit. Had me stressing when everyone knows the first three months are the scariest because the possibility of having a miscarriage is high. I had Hyperemesis Gravidarum until a month ago. In and out of the hospital. Losing weight. High risk and you wouldn’t so much as answer my calls or respond to my texts. Not once did you check on me. I’m in and out of the hospital from preterm labor, and where the hell were you?”
Grieving.
Burying my mother.
Trying not to self-harm myself.
Falling in love with Sunnie.
“I was so scared. Scared of dying and not having anyone to call on to take care of my baby because the child’s father decided to abandon me.” She snorted with a hard roll of her eyes. “For a long time, I didn’t want to forgive you. Damn sure didn’t want to talk to you again. One thing I can say that I thank you for is abandoning me because it taught me how to never depend on anyone but God. I could’ve lost everything trying to take care of myself. Hospital bills ain’t cheap. Prenatal care ain’t cheap. Taking care of me alone ain’t cheap, but God did it. He took care of me in ways that I’m still in shock.” Her legs were bouncing and the frequency of her hands rubbing her belly increased.
“He gave me a small tribe of people that genuinely want to be in life. So, to answer your question about why I haven’t gone the route of asking you to be a family is quite simple. You’re unreliable and fickle as hell and I don’t need that in my life. I need stability. Our child deserves stability. This is a whole human being that will be here before we know it. My hate turned into disgust and a lack of respect when you brought Sunnie to my house. I could’ve been a complete bitch but I wasn’t. Not at all jealous of her, but pissed at you.” I knew I messed up bringing Sunnie with me, especially with that being my first time seeing Crystal since we took the DNA test.
I roped Sunnie into this with motives that were anything but straightforward.
The whole idea was to flex my responsibility muscles—to show her that I’m solid in this aspect too. I’ve got what it takes to be a top-tier dad for our future kids, handling my business with my firstborn and still holding us down. I was gunning for her to see me, and her eyes to light up even more with love, her heart exploding with respect for the man I’m stepping up to be.
I wanted to give her another reason to love me.
But it all blew up in my face.
Crystal clearly saw through my bullshit.
Anger pushed her tears aside and eyes of pure rage glared at me. “Have your love life, Ezekiel, but also have some wisdom to know how to delegate. I’m over here fighting for life while you boo’d up. Nigga, the fuck. Then you want me to welcome you in with open arms, again, boy, fuck you. I understand you were mourning your mom. My heart does have empathy for you in that regard, but everything else, fuck you, disrespectfully. I could’ve left town and changed my name so you wouldn’t ever find me again. I could put your ass on child support and have the judge rule in my favor so you wouldn’t ever see your child, but I refuse to fight battles that I know God will handle. Karma is gonna beat your ass and when that day comes I will be there with an ice pack in hand saying that’s what your Black ass gets for fucking me over.”
Jay’z never lied when he said his baby mama is harder than a lot of you niggas cause Crystal Rose Pierce was a straight savage.
A lot of men say that a woman scorned was the worse but I’m starting to think a woman who doesn’t care about you is worse.
“You’re a savage, and I really think co-parenting counseling might work in our favor.” I wasn’t joking. Bishop was going to get a call from me tonight because I couldn’t go against this woman alone. We couldn’t raise our child healthy with this type of animosity between us.
“If you think that’s going to help you become a better communicator, then pay for it and give me the date and time.” Her nonchalant shrug and unbothered eating spoke of the dismissal I had in her life. “Our relationship is like this because of you. Six months may not seem long, but it is when I didn’t know if I was going to be placed in a position to choose life or death alone. You act like I asked you to give me the world. All I ever asked of you was to stand ten toes down with me as we navigate this new chapter. Never asked for money. Damn sure ain’t ask to be your woman, ain’t ask for dick. I didn’t ask for anything, Ezekiel.”
It’s crazy because before this Crystal and I were tight as hell. Real friends that fucked around a lot. Had some deep life talks, actually got to know each other, and genuinely liked one another. She outranked Candice any day. Where Candice wanted to be up under me after filming, Crystal didn’t. She and I had clear communication to know that we worked in black-and-white spaces with no gray areas of confusion. Outside of Sunnie, she’s probably the closest lover I had in my life and probably the reason I felt comfortable enough to ask her to keep the baby and we could raise it together.
She hated confrontation so I knew I wouldn’t have that issue. Yeah, she did porn but outside of that she was low key and stayed to herself. Sunnie was too much of a risk to ask something like that. I valued her presence in my life more than to mess it up with my mistakes if I turned out to be a shitty father. With Crystal, I didn’t have that pressure because I didn’t owe her anything, whereas I felt like I owed Sunnie everything because she owned my heart. She saw me flawed and still stuck around. She wanted a future with my dysfunction.
I can’t take back what I did.
I can’t take back the promises and hopes I fed Crystal for her to feel secure enough to have my child.
I felt like I was growing in every area of my life, but this, I’m failing. I don’t know how to fix this. Sometimes I don’t want to because the weight of my responsibility hasn’t been born yet. Regardless of how much I fuckin cried like a baby hearing the heartbeat. Regardless of feeling my child kick against my hand at the sound of my voice. I’m having a hard time accepting responsibility and my actions mirroring my words of accountability.
“Regardless of what I do to make my money or in my personal life, I will never allow a man or woman to disrespect me. One time, okay, life fucking happens. Second time, shame on you. Third time, that’s a big shame on me and an even bigger fuck you too. You will never treat me that way again because I won’t give you that access to me to do so. You always know the real version of someone when you go through adversity, and you sir, showed me your true stripes. I’m good on you. So good. I have three months until I deliver this baby. You will not stress me out. I’m done talking.”
What the hell was I supposed to say after all that?
