Complacency (Work in Progress) by Shy Ward (best reads .TXT) 📕

She thinks she can feel her heart breaking. Literally piece by piece is splintering and spreading throughout her chest. It feels overwhelming, almost panicky. This could be an overactive imagination from feelings of insecurity, not even reality; or even a dream, a compulsive nightmare trying to swallow its victim. Aliyah pinches her skin, wanting to wake up from this nightmare, break away from this depressing, smothering feeling and breathe, feel her pulse so that her heart feels back to normal. Her skin is numb, she can’t feel its normal sensation. Pinch harder…..nothing. Panic is rising, desperate for some feeling, desperate for this to be a mind over matter emotional nightmare, she runs to the kitchen and picks up a knife. Rational thinking has gone out the window because this is a dream. It has to be a horrible dream. Almost in tears with so much pressure in her chest and wanting out she quickly decides to slice the inside of her thigh.

“Ahhhh! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!” is her reaction.

She runs to the bathroom and searches for peroxide and bandages. Sitting over the side of the bathtub, she pours the alcohol and cringes in pain and the unbelievable reality that she cut herself. “Who does this,” she thought, “Oh my God, I must be going insane.”

He left me, he really just left me. What went wrong, I don’t understand, a month ago, I was his world and he knew he was going to marry me. What happened? What am I going to do? He just left with this bullshit excuse! What really happened? What really went wrong?! Oh my God, I have changed everything for him! Okay, calm down, calm down, get cleaned up and don’t fucking cry. If I lose it, it’s going to be too hard to snap back.

Aliyah bandages her leg, shaking her head at what she just did. She just wanted to wake up from a nightmare, not scar herself and think that she’s gone crazy. A lesson learned, deal with it without taking drastic measures. There’s vodka in the cupboard, but its Wednesday and with this new job having her on probation for another three weeks, she couldn’t afford to oversleep. Opting for a Nyquil to ease her into sleep and fighting against tears, she went to bed, ignoring everything around the room that was his.

Eric Dent had a lot of time on his hands now to think about everything and everyone he did wrong. When he heard that gavel slap down and those words that seemed like they came out of the judges mouth in milliseconds, T E N Y E A R S, it was like his heart stopped. He couldn’t even think of how lucky he was to not have gotten thirty, because that’s what he had been facing. It was such an unusual case though. A man who had maintained a job and went to work every day for the last ten years on kingpin status is definitely an unusual case. With quick thinking, he skimmed the courtroom for his son and his woman, making eye contact and seeing the look of shock on her face, he mouthed, “I love you.” He wanted her to know, not to forget him and he needs her to stand by him. Not seeing his wife or his daughter, he walked out in handcuffs and all that was on his mind is how to do the time.

At intake, his nerves were eating him up. He wanted to make a phone call. He needed to talk to the one person that could ease his mind, if only for a few minutes. All the thoughts of how much of the ten years he would have to do, his children growing up without him, Leanne moving on. He needed to call Leanne badly. He was already feeling like a different man, a one woman man, you can depend on me, I’ll never leave you or hurt you ever again man.

He did her so dirty, so damn dirty, she doesn’t even know just how dirty. What will he do if she finds out how dirty? She’s the only one he trusts. All he could think of was how he left things with too much in the way to break the ice to discovery and not a damn dime in her bank account. Caught with over a million in his attic and the NYPD got every bit of it, plus the flat screens, cars, jewelry and the diamond engagement ring right off her finger. He could have made sure she had a nest egg, but controlling the money while offering luxury is the best way to keep anyone in line, especially if she has your baby.

He wouldn’t get a call until he got to his permanent cell placement. He was going to have to wait this out. In the meantime, enjoy not having a cell mate. Taking a look in the mirror, he saw the criminal he never really acknowledged over the years. There he was, pushing him to do his time like a man. “I guess it’s my time to pay,” he says to the criminal in the mirror.

Leanne:

Oh my God, oh my God, what am I going to do?! Ten years? Ten years? Ten M-F-ing years?! I just want to curl up in my bed. Who is calling my phone? Nosey people, that’s all, pretending to care and be all sympathetic because they heard the news. I could snap if I answer that phone. I wish I could throw it out the window if I had money to replace it. Oh yeah, I can’t cause my man was so damn selfish and controlling, he didn’t leave a damn dime to me and my kids to get through this if he ever got busted. My house, my car, my livelihood is on the damn line and I still love him. What is wrong with me? They even got my ring. I could have at least pawned it.

Leanne cannot feel her tears sliding down her face due to the full capacity of seemingly a thousand different emotions and thoughts electrocuting her body at that moment. She wanted someone to talk to, but she couldn’t control herself right now. She needs a few days alone, without the kids. Tomorrow she will send them with family, just a favor with no explanations and no talking. She needed to cry it all out, alone, in bed, no phone or outside interferences on his side of the bed. She needed to cry her way back to reality in order to get herself together and she didn’t want her children to see that pain, especially her daughter. She didn’t want to teach Natalie the way to be weak for men who make decisions that split up families. She didn’t even want her to date men like the ones she dated. That fast money man, greedy, lying and manipulating. He’s loving too, a great provider, sweet, jealous, emotionally unstable at times. Thinking of it all was a head ache, keeping her thoughts together seemed like a task for a corporate executive or something. She felt like she would pay someone to sort this all out for her if she could.

“I just need some time to figure this out,” she said aloud.

Terrance Andrews was chilling. He had a few days off, he was single, a few drinks with the fam, football. It was cool. Earlier that day he thought it was crazy that he was even thinking about his ex. Why she hadn’t attempted to contact him since the break-up. He knew she was devastated. She loved him, was in love and he knew it. She never failed to show how she felt. It was the many things that he had loved about her personality.

It had been almost three weeks, and nothing. He thought it would be easier for her to handle if he didn’t lead her on in any form or fashion, so texting and emailing to see if she was alright had been out of the question, but now, he wanted to. He wondered about whether she was just taking it so hard and depressed or what if she didn’t care at all. Worse, what if she already moved on, which means, there had to be someone else on the side in the first place.

Thinking that Aliyah may have been dealing with someone else hurt Terrence’s pride at the thought of it, he felt a little jealous and pissed, until he realized that he shouldn’t even be caring, and why in the hell is he hurt, jealous or pissed when he left her.

“Go Cowboys!” Yeah! Yeah! That’s what I’m talking about baby! Terry, get in here! You missing this instant replay! Beat them Skins!”

He was thinking too much about his ex that he lost focus on the game. Grabbing four beers from the fridge, he headed back to the den. Still, he hadn’t even cared to give her a thought in the past three weeks while enjoying being single and walking out on his share of the bills. She would figure it out, that’s the type of woman she was. She wasn’t the one to drown when things got down, she’d figure out how to float until she could swim the distance. Terrance loved that about her.

‘What’s up with you man, shake it off, get in the game,’ he thought to himself.

He still couldn’t help to think about the fact that she didn’t call. Then came the thought of his clothes and shoes that were still left at the house they shared together. Did she trash them, bleach them, burn them? If she didn’t, were the locked changed so he couldn’t get in to retrieve them? Why hasn’t she sent a text for him to come get his stuff like the angry woman who just got left by her man with all the bills after jumping the gun and moving 500 miles from any other support?

Terrance began to feel like crap. Thinking of all that was making him feel like less of a man and more of a coward for not at least taking into consideration that a woman who loved him flipped her whole life to accommodate him and he just bounced without paying the rent. It wouldn’t even be weighing