TLWM: The Hate Experience

\XXVIII/ One

1992: The Year I Met My 3-Year-Young Son. That was name of the memoir I was writing. No one knew about it, not even Letty who knew everything else. I'd write in solitude from my bed mostly, sometimes in the studio after everyone left. The last time I got to the notebook was on the plane ride from L.A. to back home. Now I was thinking to get my feelings down while they were still fresh after reading that letter.

p.s. don't be mad but we might've made a baby

     Too bad I was too busy picking it apart.

     I don't think either of us liked talking about our feelings all day, Letty and I, but I had been way more open with her than she had been with me. These letters from her were gold but they always left me with this gnawing feeling in my stomach...

     Mm. Unsatisfied? I needed this side of her to come off the paper, and not just when we were between the sheets. But maybe that was just my impatience poking at me. Deep down, I knew that in the end my memoir would have an even longer title.

1992: The Year I Met My 3-Year-Young Son & He Introduced Me 2 The One

     Something like that.

     The first and last time I fell this hard and fast was with Raven. It was funny how she complained I was jumping in too fast as if she and I moved at a snail's pace in '87. We practically moved in together the night we met, made a baby a few months later and then got engaged, all before I could meet her family, a friend even. If that ain't blind love, I don't know what is. The woman I thought she was she wasn't, and yeah it's my fault. It took 5 years but I finally realized the Raven Rosario I fell in love with was a fantasy. That girl never truly existed. It still hurt honestly, but that's that. She didn't want me the way I always wanted her.

     A lesson was learned. The love I had for Letty was 20/20. I unfortunately couldn't trust the trust I had for her, so the background check ran for her Paisley Park employment was more extensive than others. And I made it a point to see her on Sundays so I could spend time with not just her, but her, her family and my son. My boy Tony knew her too and he had nothing ill to say, just a friendly warning.

     "Don't let that humble pie exterior fool you. That Northside Minnie will come out quick to cuss somebody out, whether it's someone she loves or someone fucking with someone she loves. I just know that she's protective of what's hers. She a real one, P."

     After running through the letter for the 5th or 10th time, I called her but not to have a conversation. "Don't talk. Just come back home to me."

Monday Night

     Like the night before, I met her at the garage door but this time behind camera lens. Frowning in the frame, she tried pushing the camcorder away but I was persistent, following her through the kitchen, capturing all her attitude as she and her overnight bag went up the stairs, and I recorded the evidence of how my bedroom door got scuffed. "No cameras beyond this point," she said before kicking the door in my face.

     Laughing on the other side, I walked in the room and zoomed in on the black mark on the white wood. "See. See this property damage? And see the offender?"

     Letty laughed as I turned the camera on her and demanded an apology. "Leave me alone," she said sitting on the bed.

     "Nuh-uh. Now you have to make that up to me." The height of my brows told her what I had in mind. The six wicks burning and the soft playing of Between The Sheets might've been a giveaway too. But she was still not with it.