Prologue – Pril Jasmine Blinds
It’s a Boy and a Girlfriend . . .
“How are you feeling? Did you have to cancel your appointments today?”Derrick asked Pril. He was out of town for work, but he checked in often.
Pril was comforted by Derrick’s check-ins, but she wouldn’t lie by saying that she didn’t wish he was there instead. Derrick’s job required him to go out of town routinely. It always interested Pril that when she felt she needed him the most, he had to be out of town. His obsessive check-ins were his form of overcompensation, because he knew that he should be there. He simply preferred not to be.
Pril laid perfectly still on her sleeper couch with heat from her heating pads radiating on her back and stomach. Her weighted blanket held her in place. She dared not move since she found the perfect spot that offered no pain. She was scared to respond to her fiancé from fear that the motion of her vocal cords would awaken her pain. With a small voice, she responded.“I made it through all of my appointments today. I canceled the rest for the week though.”
She hated that she had to do that, but she thanked God that she had an understanding clientele. She didn’t have to cancelappointments often because normally her period didn’t sneak up on her. It was on the calendar. This month, Lil Bitch, as Pril named the thing that she hated the most, decided to do her own thing. Lil Bitch didn’t give a damn about what Pril had going on.
Pril made sure to not take appointments during the week of Lil Bitch’s stay. She prayed that the one week was enough, but on rare occasions it wasn’t. Between the pain and serial killer blood rendering flow, she was practically immobile. What would help was if Derrick would stick around longer than a day when Lil Bitch was there.
There was movement on the other end of the line. Derrick shifted in his seat in his hotel room. He traded assignments with a coworker so he could be out of town that week. When he woke up before Pril the other morning and saw the red tint on the sheets, he knew it was time for an out-of-town trip. He didn’t have the fucking patience to deal with Lil Bitch. His patience ran out years ago.
“Well, that’s good. Make sure you take your pain meds. There should be enough bed pads, adult diapers, and everything that you need. Try to stay on the couch. We just got that new mattress,”he said more callously than he meant to.
Pril’s head slowly turned to look at her phone that laid next to her on the couch.We just got that new mattress.He said that like he helped buy it.
Derrick and Pril had been in a relationship for eight years and engaged for three. Pril felt like at this point she would be a forever fiancée. When she brought up wedding dates, Derrick always found a way to divert the conversation elsewhere. There were days that she wanted to ask why he proposed if he wasn’t ready to get married. They weren’t getting any younger, and at thirty-three years old, she was ready to get married.
Derrick loved Pril, but being her man was hard. A part of him felt stuck because when he had the chance to get out of the relationship, he told himself that he could make it work. Pril herself wasn’t the problem. It was her reproductive health.
When they first started dating, she was aloof about certain things in her life. Her moods, her tiredness, and her isolation made Derrick think that she was either crazy or a ho. When he confronted her about it because he was ready to end the relationship, she came clean about what was up with her.
The thing was that when she came clean with Derrick, Pril didn’t really have a name for what it was yet. She told him what she had been told since she began menstruating.I have really bad cramps and overly heavy periods.That was what she was told. Derrick brushed it off like the doctors did when she complained about how much of an interruption it was for her life.
Once the secret was out, their relationship became more intimate and personal. That was a great thing, or so he thought. Now that he knew, Pril didn’t see the reason to hide the bad days. He said he could handle it. It didn’t take long for Derrick to admit that he may have bitten off more than he wanted to chew. It wasn’t that he couldn’t chew it, he just didn’t want to. There was a big difference.
“I’ll make sure I do not sleep in my own comfortable bed to reduce the risk of leaking. It doesn’t matter that the bed may be the most comfortable place for me to be. I wouldn’t want you to have to clean up my mess. Wait, I have a housekeeper for that.”Her tone was flat.
The huff that Derrick released let Pril know that the conversation was near its end. That was fine with her. She nor Derrick felt like the back and forth at the moment. He had an important training to lead in the morning. He worked as an ITconsultant and trainer for a private firm. The firm was hired by companies to build their systems and train others to use them. He needed to focus on the training, not her attitude.
“Pril, I need to go prepare for my training in the morning. I’ll be back at the end of the week. You do what you need to do to feel better. I love you.”Derrick didn’t wait for her response before he disconnected the call.
The abrupt end of the call didn’t bother Pril one bit. She was ready to get off the phone when she heard his ringtone. A pain that hit her side caused her hand to press against it. A tear slipped down the side of her face. She just wanted a painless night of sleep.
Ding dong! Ding dong! Ding dong!
Pril didn’t realize that she fell asleep when the sound of her doorbell camera woke her. She didn’t want to open her eyes just yet. “Ziggy, what time is it?”
“It’s 10:59 p.m. Wow, that’s later than someone should be ringing your doorbell. Pril, do you have secrets that you need to reveal to me?”Ever since she set her smart speaker on the sassy personality, it had been just that . . . sassy!
Her eyes finally opened. She looked in the direction of said smart speaker. “Ziggy, watch your mouth.”
“Well, technically I’m a speaker, so I don’t have a mouth. Even if I did, I would imagine that it would be hard to watch my own mouth considering where eyes are located in proximity to the mouth on the face. I guess you could look in a mirror.”That was the smart shit that made Pril want to unplug her smart speaker, but she had to admit that she loved their banter too much.
When the doorbell rang again, she reached her arm out to grab her phone to see who the hell was at her house unannounced at this time of night. Just the small movement of her arm woke up her pain. That immediately annoyed her. She pulled up the front door camera feed.Who the hell is that?
Her walk to the front door was slow and unenthused. She opened the door with knitted brows. “Hi, how can I help you?”
The woman stood there tired. She didn’t want to be there that night, but she was at her wit’s end. She wanted more for her life than what was being offered. “Hi. I’m so sorry to be here so late, but I didn’t really know what else to do. My name is Chasity Pool, and I wanted to have a conversation with you about Derrick.”
Pril’s head angled to the side. “Derrick as in Derrick Williams my fiancé? Is that the Derrick that you are referring to?”
Her head lowered and her feet shifted. Before she raised her head, Chasity took a deep breath. “Yes. Derrick your fiancé and my children’s father.”
Pril’s soul held its breath before it sprinted from her body. “Your . . . your what? I’m sorry I must have misheard you because there is no way that you said what I think you said.”
