TLWM: The Hate Experience

PROLOGUE

1987
(Blue Tuesday)

     "What I'm about to tell you, you have to promise to never speak of it again. Not even to me."

     Raven Rosario nodded, eager and anxious for the man in front of her to unveil the hurt underneath his chest. Something had been bothering him, so much so that he recently turned to pills to hide away from the pain.

     "I've never talked about this out loud to anyone," Prince said to her. "I still don't think I want to." Shading in his notebook, his wrist began to lose power. "But, I think I have to. You should know who I am—who you've been loving." The pencil moved at the pace of a clock's hand. "I just hope when I'm done telling you this, you love me the same."

     Raven thought to say something, something assuring but he started talking again before she could think of anything.

     "To make a long story as short as possible..." The rest of the sentence disappeared. But Raven was patient, careful now not to interrupt his process. "Her name is Sanai."

     Prince flipped the book to a new page and brought his leg up on the bed to tuck under the other. On the blank white surface, he outlined two halves of a heart, then etched a broken line down the middle. 

     "I met her in Atlanta two years ago during the Purple Rain Tour." Prince told the story, wise with his details and words. "She was cute and caught my eye. We hit it off, had a good time so I kept in touch after I left."

     Sanai became a friend "with lovely benefits" who Prince would fly out to see him. "First time was while I was filming in France. It kinda set the expectations high you can say. She loved to be spoiled by me."

     When not abroad, Prince said he would go see her in Atlanta. "I couldn't bring her here because I always had someone." So sometime earlier in the year, Prince flew to her hometown to see her. "We did what grown-ups do for a few days and I left." He shrugged.

     "Her twin sister and a friend of mine were close, almost dating, or maybe in love, I don't know but she'd tell him things about Sanai and he'd tell me if it was worthy enough. And last March, he told me Sanai was seeing two other guys. Well, she was doing more than seeing them because he said she was pregnant."

     Prince glanced at Raven, shaking his head and he sighed when he went back to his art. "I called her, asked what was up, 'heard you're having a baby', not even caring that I was messing up what my friend had going on with her sister. But she denied it." Prince cleared his throat before clarifying. "She denied seeing someone else, said she was always mine and wanted to tell me about the pregnancy in person."

     Prince admitted to Raven that he wasn't happy to hear the news. "Not an ounce of joy. My body reacted to it as if she said something like 'it's a beautiful day outside'. It just didn't move me. I guess because I didn't believe her."

     As Sanai shared how she found out at the doctor's, Prince said his attention was spotty. "I kept thinking, if she's really pregnant with my baby—" He laughed a little. "I just couldn't see how it was possible. I know how to make a baby and I know how not to. I checked the condom before and after, every time. She'd always remind me she was on birth control because she wanted me without one but—it just wasn't like that with her." Prince almost still seemed skeptical in the moment, but Raven waited while whatever played back in his mind.

     "I asked her the next day," he continued. "I asked her again if she was seeing someone else and after going in circles, she finally admitted to messing with her ex but claimed she didn't want to tell me because she was 100% sure the baby was mine. So I finished the conversation and when we hung up, I had no intention of reaching back anytime soon." He bit at his bottom lip, shading the right broken half of his heart. "I still didn't believe her. I told myself I'd call her after the baby was born."