Page 73 of Session 25

I stepped out of the bathroom just as Duke cut his eyes at me before asking if I was still fucking him. As embarrassing as the question was in front of our parents, I told him no. Duke nodded before he left the apartment. I fought my way to make it downstairs as they were having words.

Duke looked over as he mushed Marcel away. His son was still in the stroller, pushed off to the side, sucking on a pacifier. I ignored everything going on around me as I ran to his aid.

Roman showed up, hopping out of the car, fist balled before he landed a punch to Marcel’s jaw.

“Fuck you thought?”

Stunned, I wanted to leave the baby and go stop Roman from fucking up Marcel, but I couldn’t.

“Koi, go in the house. Now!” I didn’t bother putting up a fight. When Roman was pissed, he was a different type of man. I pushed the baby with me to my parents’ house.

“Ma, I’m sorry this is all happening on your birthday.”

“Chile, please. I hope Mr. Roman breaks his kneecaps, putting his hands on you. Is he insane? So, no, I’m not mad. Fuck him up!” She boasted before looking down at the stroller. “And him, I’m sorry he has the parents he has. I’m gonna call up Belinda to come and get him.”

“Okay.” Exhausted, I lifted up the baby to make sure he didn’t need a pamper change before he left.

A soft side came out of me while I tended to him. Last year you couldn’t get me to even think about the thought of him, but since I was experiencing my own pregnancy, I acted differently these days.

I sat down on the sofa, put my head back before letting him play on the floor when I got a slight cramp in my stomach.

“Ma, I just had a cramp.” I popped my head up. “What if something is wrong?”

“Breathe, relax, this time will be different.” She already knew the level of anxiety I had when it came to the changes in my body during pregnancy.

“I can’t, no, mommy,” I panicked.

“I’m going to get Roman. Do not panic, it will only make it worse.”

“Okay, okay.” I didn’t hear anything that woman said because I went right to panicking.

“C’mon. We are going to the hospital. You’re gonna be fine.” Everything was happening so fast; all the while, I couldn’t help but notice the blood on Roman’s fist.

“Are you okay, babe?”

“This is about you and my baby. My concern is y’all. Don’t focus on me.”

Nine months later

Ipaced outside the office building, giving myself the pep talk I prepared on paper. “She’s fine, you got this, Roman has it under control. Go in there and just speak freely and go on back home,” I whispered to myself while trying not to look like a crazy lady on the streets of Manhattan.

I stopped my stride, pulled out my phone, and called Roman for the umpteenth time.

“Koi, if you call me again, I’m going to put your ass in the spare bedroom tonight. She is okay. We are okay. Stop trippin’.”

My anxiety had been through the roof. Today was the first day I left home without Bella in tow. Although she was with her father and the nanny, I still worked myself up.

“Can I see her? Put the camera on her.” He flipped the camera, facing it towards Bella’s crib. “Touch her, I want to make sure she is breathing.”

“Woman, I am standing right here watching her little chest go up and down. She is alive, she’s healthy, and she wants her mommy to go to therapy and get some free time to herself,” he chastised. “Can you do that for me?”

“Okay. Okay, I’m sorry,” I was a nervous wreck. Bella or Bells as I called her from time to time, was born two months early. After being in the NICU for three weeks, when she was finally released, I had become so overprotective of her.

No one ever prepares you for the what ifs, and coming home without a baby yet again wasn’t as joyous as people had made it seem. All they kept saying was “she made it Koi.” She was alive, but her nursery was empty. My milk filled boobs were leaking, and the space where she should have been lying on her hoppy pillow for feeding and bonding time was empty.

I had started to slip into depression. It was so bad that some days all I did was just lay in bed. Roman was patient. He took time off work to tend to Bella and me while she was in the hospital, never missing a visit. While I, on the other end, didn’t go every day.

I would go, sit with her, sing to her, and feed her, but when visiting hours were over, I would lose my shit. Crying had become the new norm, and no one could pull me from this slump.