What About Love? The Color Purple: Love Story 💜 (Taraji & Fantasia)

Chapter 22: Two Wolves In Sheep's Clothing

Sorry for the delay, I usually update every night but I got stuck traveling lastnight and I'm still exhausted. This weekend was really bad for me also and it was hard to focus on writing, but this story has been helping me get through it. Please bare with me. 🥺🤍 I'm still here!

Taraji's POV

My head all of a sudden is starting to feel a lil foggy. I feel like I'm talking, but I'm not completely sure what I'm saying nor do I care about the consequences. Feels kinda like I'm drunk, but I haven't been drinking, so I'm not sure what this feeling is. Possibly the nerves getting to me.

I fan myself and take another small sip of my nasty water, but only because I'm nervous.
I watch Derek 3 take large gulps of his whiskey. The more he drinks, the more drunk I feel, it's the strangest thing.

My phone flashes. Derek and I both look down to see Fantasia's name pop up on my screen. He gives me an unsettling look and and I scrunch my nose.

"Is that Fantasia?" Derek intrudes.

"What? Yes! Nosey." I blurt out unintentionally. I quickly lock my phone and put away it in my bag.

He stares intently at me for a moment before he pulls out his phone to show me a screenshot.

"This is what I wanted to show you in person, I didn't wanna text it to you." He shows me picture of an image he clearly took off his phone because it's super blurry.

"I took this picture of Fantasia's lockscreen lastnight when her phone kept going off. I don't recognize the contact name or what the person is referring to." Derek slides the phone closer towards me on the table. "What do you think about it?"

I lean in and bring the phone closer. I see the name T-baby ❤️ on the texts and at first I'm confused because I didn't know that was my name in Fantasia's phone...

That is so cute!

But then my heart drops realizing the texts Derek saw were definitely from me.

I knew he had likely seen them, I was just in denial.

And for some odd reason, I didn't feel the same amount of fear or hesitation I normally would if confronted with something like this.
I actually felt like I had more...courage?

I start reading the texts messages out loud.

Text 1: Better be, or else 😉

Text 2: I understand Tasia, and I'm so sorry

Text 3: Tbh, there's never a right time to say goodbye. But it's eating at you. Sooner or later you're going to have to tell him about...

I snicker. "Yeah I was telling her she was gonna have to tell you sooner or later about us..." I shrug nonchalantly and slide the phone back in his direction.

Derek's eyes widen and he arches a single eyebrow at me.

"Excuse me? You? This is you? T-baby?" He taps the phone screen with his jaw nearly touching the ground.

"Yeeeeep. Yep. That's me. Taraji-Baby." I nod and cross my arms.

A dumbfounded Derek stumbles to find his words. "But...but..how? What did you mean when you said tell him about us?"
He snarled and chewed on his bottom lip.

"I said what I said. Fantasia been afraid to tell you that her and I are...dealing with each other now because she don't wanna hurt your feelings. But I my motto is, just rip the bandaid off! Get it over with." I parade.