Some Day One Day

1

Standing here looking out my window...

My nights are long and my days are cold cause I don't have you...

How can I be so damn demanding?

I know you said that it's over now but I can't let go...

Everyday I wanna pick up the phone

And tell you that you're everything I need and more...

If only I could find you...

Should I leave the car? Should I go back? Yes? No? What should I do? the questions reiterated over and over like a stuck recording in my mind.

It was Sunday afternoon, and the receding sun bled throughout the suburban neighborhood. The usually white walls of the houses were glowing like golden plates in response to the sun's rays. The sidewalk, the road, and even the pond by the golf course mimicked the rays.

It gave the phrase 'street of gold' a vivid image. A street where nothing in the world ever went wrong and everything seemed so right, so pure. Thankfully for me, I'd grown up on both sides of the spectrum to know that image was just one of the many tools for trickery. In those houses were probably broken homes as opposed to the perfection painted on the outside.

The exterior, in my opinion, was worthless. I was all about what was on the inside.

I'd used a large amount of the little money that I had for gas just so that I could come here. These days, using money on gas for things such as these should've seemed irrational. They should've screamed to me lack of organization and discipline, but I'd reached a point where I didn't even care about that.

It was only when I clutched tightly on the arm handle as an uncomfortable rush raced through my veins that I realized how damp my palm was.

I glanced out my windowpane at the two story house. I then looked at the numbers inscribed on the mailbox perched on the sidewalk and looked down at the cramped up paper in my other hand. The way the paper shook as if a strong breeze had passed through startled me. I didn't know I was so nervous to the point that my hand couldn't stop convulsing.

After some strenuous squinting, I confirmed for the umpteenth time that my good friend Ojay had given me the right place. Gulping hard at the lump in my throat, I crushed the piece of paper in my hand and fisted it tightly, hoping that the shaking of my hand would seize.

With one last deep breath to calm me down, I opened up the car door, grabbed my purse along with me, and stepped out of the car.

Inhaling deeply once again when the first time hadn't seemed to work, I exhaled with slow uncertainty. I took tentative steps along the walkway until I was midway from the house and my car. The caterpillar of nervousness clambered down my spine, before cocooning into fear and opening up it to small butterflies of anxiety and panic in my gut. Telling myself that I absolutely couldn't do this, I turned around, took one step to my car, and then told myself that I was being silly. After all these got damn years I'd finally garnered enough the courage to come here. It had been so hard for me to accumulate that bravery and now that I was here I couldn't chance wasting it.

Pivoting on the heels of my tattered sneakers, I turned around and made my way to the front door. Not allowing myself to think, I knocked and waited for it to be answered.

My heart was thumping so vociferously that I wanted to just rip it out and heave it elsewhere. The harsh beating reminded me too much that I was a fucking punk who couldn't handle real-life issues.

I wasn't supposed to be here, yet here I was.

What the hell was I doing? What the hell was I thinking? This was a bad idea. I shouldn't have knocked on his door. Hell, I shouldn't have come all these miles just to see him.

I was just about to turn away when the door swung open and his sienna brown face came into view.

I froze.

He froze too.

Neither of us said a word.

His eyes were such a strikingly brown color that they were all I saw for the first few moments. Then I saw the rest of him. His hair was still the same--neatly cut low and attractively cropped. His facial features were harder than before, and I wondered if it was because he'd grown into his masculinity or because life had been hard on him the way it had been on me. There was much more facial hair, which gave him more of a virile edge than when I'd last seen him. He was dressed in a black wifebeater that clung to his sinewy chest that had obviously been worked on and a pair of matching basketball shorts that hung loosely at his hips. My arms literally ached when I felt this sudden need to throw myself at him and ask him to take me back, but I knew then that I was pushing it.

Nervously, I waited for him to at least have mercy on me and say something first. He knew how I got whenever he stared at me and said nothing. He always cast me spellbound and speechless. He used to be nice enough to ignite conversation first since he'd always known that was my weakness.

But now he said nothing.

All I could see on his face was a shock so palpable that my fingers curled when I felt the need to touch him and try to relax his tensed features. But knowing him, he wouldn't hesitate to break my hand if I merely reached out to him.

He was no longer a boy but a man who, even by first glance, evoked so much strength and authority. It was almost intimidating. So intimidating that I was tempted to turn around and run away from him.

"Shawn." My smile trembled. Only God knew where I was able to find my voice. It was shaky and breathless, fearful and uncertain.

He still stared at me...motionless, like he'd suddenly been thrown into a trance and couldn't get out. It seemed like he hadn't gotten over the initial shock of my presence and I couldn't blame him. I couldn't blame him at all. I was sure that he hated me as much as I hated myself. What I'd tone to him was irrevocable. If he'd done to me what I did to him, I'd never forgive him...ever.

When I felt the first signs of shame for a different reason other than the obvious, I damned myself. There was a question mark written all over his face, and I knew it came from my shabby appearance. In all the years that I'd known Shawn, he'd always seen me when I was at my best because I wouldn't allow him to see me otherwise. It pained me to stand in front of him like this, with second hand clothes and shoes that were wearing off, and hair that was simply held back.

But this was who I was right now.

This was who I'd become.

"How have you been?" I asked in a voice so delicate that anything at this moment could make it break.

He said nothing and continued to stare at me with an expression unchanged.

Clearing my throat, and nearly loosing my momentum from dizziness that showered me, I looked down at my wringing hands.

"I just," I smiled bashfully, looked at the sweat shorts he wore, attempted to look up but unable to do it, "I just wanted to see how you were doing."

When he said nothing, I looked up and finally saw an expression—indisputable anger.

"Who are you?" he said, rather than asked, in a tone so cold and indifferent that it felt like he'd hauled me into a freezing prison cell

His question lingered unanswered in the air, echoing a thousand times in my mind. My mouth opened, but sound was unavailable. My mind had suddenly short-circuited and everything was blank...beyond darkness. I'd become a hole of nothingness.

"I-it-it's me. Beyonce" I stammered, a cause reaction to my convulsing bottom lip. It was shaking so vigorously that it was making it hard for me to speak.

When he finally spoke again, there was a look on his face that I felt could definitely live without, but I knew I deserved it nonetheless—undisguised hate.

"I'm sorry but I don't know you." He murmured before clumping his jaw tightly shut, sending spasms of flexing muscles over it.

It felt as though his venomous words were fangs that had clumped right around my heart, making me feel a pain in the core of my chest so chastening that for a few torturing seconds, I couldn't breath.

"I'm sorry." I croaked out when I figured out that there was an ounce of breath within me.

He was shaking his head and stepping back.

I reached out to him and stepped forward, wanting to get a hold of him before he slipped away from me a second time.

"Shawn...S-Shawn wait!"

The door slammed in my face and I flinched at the crackling sound that polluted the quiet air of the neighborhood of which he lived.

I stood there alone with the quietness as it relentlessly reminded me of the shock of this situation. I bit down hard on my lip when my vision became so blurry that I thought I'd been blinded. My head slowly began to pound as the distress of what had happened overwhelmed me.

Then my lungs became desperate, searching for air that couldn't seem to pass. An asthma attack that I hadn't expected hit me with full force. Plunging my hands deep within my bag, I pulled out my inhaler to repress the attack as it took over each and every part of me. Turning away from the door, and breathing in urgently at the inhaler, I scuttled towards my car. The speed of which I moved forced tears to leak from my ill-fated eyes.

The attack was chased away with the help of my inhaler and I shakily returned it to my purse. I wished it was that easy to chase away the pain growing inside of me.

I was so engrossed in chastising myself for making such a big mistake and trying to get away from a place that I had no business being in when the loud thud of a door shutting frightened me.

"How the fuck could you come back? What the hell is wrong with you?" his angry voice—a stormy voice of thunder and lightning—forced me to turn around and face him—to face the truth.

For a few moments I didn't say anything because I was surprised by his outburst. Shawn wasn't someone who gave anyone the satisfaction of knowing what he was feeling or thinking when he was upset. Pride had built him that way. He was what I liked to call a silent killer. If you ever upset Shawn, his silence would torture you into insanity. He remained that way until you gave up and left him alone. But if by chance you didn't, then you'd sure to expect his suppressed wrath—and since he held things in for so long, when he released his anger, the full throttled anger came in torrents.

"I said I was s-sorry okay? I'm sorry Shawn. I'm sorry." I told him while backing up unsteadily and turned towards my car once again.

"Sorry for deciding to show up four years later? Or sorry for fucking up my life four years ago."

His painful words made a needle of pain prickle me and I shut my eyes tightly shut, allowing more tears to spill from my eyes.

I looked around at the suburban houses and wondered how he could possibly think I'd ruined his life. He seemed to be living well. To the right was an expensive vehicle, which I'm sure he had no trouble purchasing.

"Huh? Which is it " he demanded and by then I was searching frantically for my car keys in my bag. It was hard to do when my hands couldn't keep still.

When I saw the outline of his shadow on my car, my search became more desperate but the nerves in my hands lost more control.

Strong fingers tightened around my arm and spun me around roughly. Once I faced him he hurled me hard against the car door as if he wanted to purposely inflict pain on me. My purse fell from my hand when in my abashed state I could no longer hold it.

"You run away from me once without answers and you ain' about to do that shit to me again. That's a damn promise." His voice was something guttural as though these were angers that had been bottled up for a long time and he was finally expelling them all at once.

Wordlessly, I stared at Shawn.

"Answer me." He demanded again, hovering over me with features close to something demonic. The site made me sick to my stomach. I couldn't believe that I was the cause of all that.

"I'm sorry for both..." I said huskily, my pride at such a low level it was down on the soil, digging up its own grave.

He surveyed me for a while as if trying to decipher if I was sincere or not. What he said next told me that it didn't matter either way.

"Well sorry doesn't change a got damn thing."

"Okay." I tried to turn around but he wouldn't allow that to happen. He blocked my path by stepping up, barricading me with his large body. A shrill of an ambiguous feeling went through me when I felt his iron chest meshing my soft breasts a little too hard. His hands planted on the roof of my car on either side of me, imprisoning me like iron bars.

I glanced up at him like he had lost his mind. When I saw the writhing flames of anger in his eyes, I regretted looking at him and turned away frightfully.

"Do you know what you did?" he asked silkily, dropping his head till it was inches away from mine. He knew that he rattled my nerves whenever he got close to me. It didn't matter whether it was in a good aspect or a bad aspect. He just knew that I could never control myself whenever he was this close to me. It was what had placed us in this position in the first place.

"I know what I did and I've spent every day of my damn life regretting it." It was difficult keeping my voice composed, keeping myself from bellowing at him to try and tell him that I'd hurt just as much even if I'd caused all of this.

Shawn laughed with mirth as his arms fell away from my sides and stood up straight with a dismal shake of his head.

I'd never seen him so bitter. Shawn had never been one to allow anyone or anything to get to him. He'd torture you with silence for a long time before exploding. But I was receiving his wrath head on and I didn't know what to do.

"Bullshit," he seethed, and the disgust on his face made me feel disgusted with myself, "That's pure bullshit. But why should I be surprised? That's all you were ever about."

I wanted to scream at him, to ask him to stop being so difficult, but I couldn't. I had no right to. In fact, I could've avoided all of this by not coming to see him in the first place.

Our eyes battled each other like two adversaries in a boxing ring. All we needed was a referee to signal the match and we'd go for another round. But I didn't want to argue any longer. Arguing with Shawn was futile and we'd obviously not get anywhere.

So much had changed about him yet so little. In the physical sense, the years had obviously been kind to him. He was much more handsome as a man than he was as a boy.

Anyone with a right mind couldn't deny that, but my mind wasn't right anymore and I wanted to deny that for as long as I could live because it hurt to realize whom I'd let go. I'd had the chance but I'd blown it and I'd blown it in more ways than one.

I understood perfectly that he hated me but what I didn't understand was why it hurt so much if I'd finally accepted it. Then again if I'd finally accepted it I wouldn't have made a trip all the way to his doorstep to see him, especially not knowing what I was going to say.

I'd been away from Shawn for so long that I felt abnormal without him in my life. I came back upon impulse. I came back because I missed him beyond anything that I could ever control.

To keep it simple and to the point, I came back because I still loved him.

I know, what a stupid thing to do. But like the saying goes, There is no difference between a wise man and a fool when they fall in love.

"I don't know what to say anymore because you don't want to hear me out." I explained lamely

"There's nothing you can say."

"Damn it Shawn why can't we just take it slow and talk about it?"

"Didn't I try to talk about it before?" he asked shrewdly, furling his lips the way he always did when he was trying to contain his anger.

Yes, he had. At least I suspect he had. Through letters, he had tried to reach me when I wouldn't answer his phone calls. And Shawn wasn't one to write letters to anyone—even if his own Momma were alive I'm sure he wouldn't have done it.

But he did it for me.

Up to this day, I hadn't opened the letters because I'd been afraid that they would force me back to him.

I still kept the letters with me though. Ironically, they were like my most prized possession.

I pursed my lips in annoyance before speaking again.

"It was my fault and I'm sorry that we didn't get to talk about it..." I faltered and looked away when his scrutinizing glare became unbearable, "I was just..."

"Look, just go iight?" he said exhaustingly, "there's nothing you can say—"

"What do you want me to do? There has to be something that I can do to make this right!"

"Just go! I just want you gone! Is that so fucking much to ask for?!" he yelled at me so loudly that everyone in the neighborhood must have heard. At that moment I waited for his maiden, or hell, even his hoe to come out and ask what was going on. Reflexively, I looked to his door and waited for some sleazy whore or elegant woman to waltz out of there. But the door remained unopened.

Despite myself, a gush of relief flooded me.

He grabbed my jaws with his thumb on one side, and four fingers on the other, sharply forcing me to look at him. When he knew he had my full attention, his hand returned to block any freedom when he planted it on the hood of the car.

"You know how much loyalty means to me. But you fucked up. You were the only person I'd ever given my trust...ever...and now you wanna come back and change shit? I thought you were smarter than that ma...or do you honestly think I'd be stupid enough to let you back into my life? Are you thinking logically?"

By now I was sobbing, my hand covering my mouth and my eyes a stream of sorrow. It's not like I wanted him to take me back into his life. That was thinking unrealistically. I just wanted us to have some closure. I was tired of the sleepless nights when I'd wish to be in his arms and the stressful mornings where I'd hope to find him sleeping next to me.

"Why the fuck are you crying anyway? Don't come to my doorstep with your tears. Go cry a river somewhere else to someone who gives a fuck. Imma tell you firsthand that I don't care."

"Please Shawn-" I hiccupped a sob, "Please stop saying these things." I said whilst shaking my head, as if trying to rid his words as they sank in my mind, "It's not what it looks like."

"Apparently what we had before wasn't what it looked like either huh?"

Then something in me went undone. My hands fell rigidly against my side and balled up to fists. My head fell back and I glared at him frustratingly.

"I was young Shawn! You were young yourself! What the hell did you expect me to do?! What did you expect from me Shawn? I was just a fucking child for Christ's sake!"

He let out a barking laugh at me, one that demeaned me and made me feel infinitesimal to him and the rest of the world for that matter.

"You got a lot of nerve coming up to my spot and raising your fucking voice at me." He growled through clenched teeth, bowing his head closer to me as if to scare me.

It had worked.

I sighed and buried my face in my hands, shaking my head at the horror of this all. When I'd planned on seeing him, I'd expected things to happen differently. I'd hoped against all hope that we could be civil about this and work through our problems, or at least have the closure that we hadn't had in the past.

But with the way things were going, none of that seemed feasible.

I thought that we would've at least simmered down from the place that we'd left four years ago, but it's as if we were picking up right where we left off. But that's what happens when you leave business unfinished and at a stagnant point. You can't go back to it expecting anything different.

Gulping hard and smoothing my damp hands on my hips, I shifted from one leg to the other to try and calm myself.

"Shawn, let's just be adults about this—"

"Okay. I'm an adult. I don't know what the hell you are. But anyway. I'm asking you to get the fuck off my property. Are you that damn hard of hearing?"

"Why can't you just hear me out!" I yelped at him pleadingly, wondering what I needed to do to get through to him.

He crossed his arms and glared at me stoically, "Okay. Say what you have to say."

I hadn't expected him to say that at all. I'd expected him to keep fighting me off.

Now I clammed up. I didn't know what I'd wanted to say. My mind couldn't process what I felt deep within my heart into words. I felt foolish for not being able to do something as reputably simple as tell him what was buried deep within me.

"That what you wanted to tell me? Okay. You still tryna play games with a nigga, huh? I'm still your little amusement. I'm still your little fucking plaything?" before I could respond, he bid me a firm nod, uncrossed his arms and turned to leave, " Leave."

"Shawn." I reached out and held onto his arm. The movement of him thrashing me up against the car happened so quickly and shocked me beyond belief that I wasn't even sure it had happened for certain.

"Touch me again and you'll wish to God that you hadn't." he said in a cool voice that sent my insides into chaos. There was a look on repugnance on his face that dared me to merely breath against him. When I stepped back obediently, he started walking away.

"Why can't you just forgive me? I was young. I didn't know what to do..." I asked in a depleted, diminutive voice that showed how much he had rid me of my character and self worth. I usually wasn't one to fall to someone's feet and beg for forgiveness, but with the way my knees wobbled doubtfully, I knew I was about to.

Shawn's trek came to a stop, and he gave me a view of his wide back. I remember the days when I had the privilege to walk up to him and just wrap my arms around him.

Even at that very moment, I was tempted to walk up to him and hug him, maybe even plead with him to forgive me.

But when he turned around with the hardened features of granite, I was reminded of the one factor about Shawn Corey Carter that hadn't changed.

Give Shawn any reason to mistrust you, and it's gone. There's no second chances with Shawn. It's almost like...almost like death.

There's no coming back from death. The same way there's no retaining Shawn's trust once you abandon it.

Knowing that had haunted me for the past four years and it haunted me now.

Tears spilled from my eyes as he walked to me with the slowness of a mammal zeroing in for the kill of its prey.

He licked his lips, shoved his hands in his pockets and hefted his chin at me. Then he scoffed, a scoff that made me want to dig a hole to bury myself in.

"You're not worth forgiving. Let me remind you that first." Then he crossed his arms again upon habit, "And imma wait for that shit to sink in because I'm starting to realize like before that you're still so fucking hard headed. You're nothing but a spoiled bitch. Everything has to go your way. It's always been like that. You've always been that way. Just because you have money, you think you run shit. Well imma tell you something, I might've not had money before, but I do now...and I don't let that shit run me. I'm never going to let anything run me and you ain' about to start again. But I'm not sure that's something you can handle since you're so used to having your way with every damn thing."

I bit hard on my lip at the surge of pain that streaked through me. Defeated and unable to handle the burns his scathing words caused, I nodded. When I made to leave, but his voice stopped me.

"For real though...four years? Four fucking years? What happened Beyonce?" he asked in a soft voice that was only meant to mock. Then he tilted his head at me with raised brows—only adding insult to injury.

"Did your rich ass husband leave you? Huh? Or his pockets wasn't full enough for you? What is it? Does he beat on you? You needed someone to talk to cause he's not treating you right? Am I still your scapegoat the way I was before?"

His words made me wince for they carried with them a pain so deep—a pain that I'd never known. How could he say these things to me? Then again, I shouldn't have been surprised. I'd seen how Shawn had reacted in the past when one of his friends betrayed him. What I'd done was far much worse.

He walked up to me slowly and I literally pressed my back against the door, stupidly hoping that somehow I'd become one with it.

Unable to handle his closeness, I turned around and reached for the doorknob, muttering a hurried, 'Nevermind. I'll just leave'

Shawn, always known to have his own word, manacled my arm with unnecessary tightness and forced me to turn around.

"Lemme tell you something," I felt the reverberation of his voice against my chest since he was so close, "Don't ever mistake me for seconds...iight? I don't play that shit—"

"Fine. Okay Shawn. I get it. Let me go. This was a bad idea—"

"Why'd you come back? Huh? Tell me why you came back. You realized I was suddenly good enough?" a haughty smirk was summoned on his face and he nodded slowly as if something dawned on him, "Oh...now that I have a little bit of money I'm good enough righ? Huh?"

He bowed his head until he was way too close to me now, "Am I clean enough for you now Beyonce? Huh? You like my car? You like my house? You wanna be a part of it now? Now that I probably fit your...standards...you want me? Is that what this is?" he roved over my eyes before adding sinisterly, "Tell me something...does your family, approve of me now?"

A racked cry scratched its way up my throat and when I tried to turn around again, he bounded my other arm with his arm.

"Stop it!" I shook my head vehemently, not allowing his words to have any meaning even though there was some truth to them, "That's not what it was ever like!"

"What was it like...huh?" the increasing anger in his tone also increased the loudness of his voice, "Please refresh my memory...what was our last night like Beyonce?!"

"Stop it Shawn," I was sobbing helplessly now when recollections of the last time I saw Shawn bombarded me, "I've already apologized for being here. I'm gonna do what you want and leave you alone. Let me go! You're hurting me!"

"Apology not accepted. And no. I wont let you go."

"Then what do you want me to say? What do you want me to do Shawn?" I asked him in debilitation. Everything in me was just finished...just gone.

"Tell me why you came here." He said again and I felt like pulling my hairs out.

"You know why I came here!" I screamed frustratingly, tempted to knee him where he hurt most, but not brave enough to. Seeing Shawn the way he was now, I didn't know what he was capable of.

Huffing soundly like an enraged bull, I turned away from his eyes and focused on his neck. The neck that I used to love making love to with my tongue when we'd spend idle summers beneath the stars in that isolated parking lot that he'd introduced me to. The thought was so vivid and fresh now, the same way his scent and feeling was, that I had to look away since that was all I could do to escape. He wouldn't let me move, and anyone else who saw us would've thought differently, suggestively of the way we stood closely together. Somewhere in the heat of our argument, Shawn's thigh had integrated itself between my thighs. Whenever he made a movement, I felt his flexing muscles at the point where my thighs met. But I was too distressed to give homage to that.

We were quiet for a moment, to enraged souls contradicting the peaceful calm of the earth that surrounded us.

I heard his breaths and couldn't cease the strange warmth that tickled me deep within.

"No I don't. Tell me." He said in a softer voice than before and when I dared myself to look at him, his expression showed me that he truly wanted to know.

A staggering amount of unstoppable love flooded to my heart when I saw that look in his eyes.

There he is I thought. There's the man that I fell in love with.

I searched his face for an indeterminably long time until I was sure. Thank god. He was back. I could tell him what I felt without worrying.

"I came back cause I still love you." I croaked out, my vision becoming blurrier as a result of the waves that went through.

Lips parted, and expression soft, Shawn stared at me wordlessly.

Then without warning, he let me go with a shake of his head. Then he started to chuckle what seemed to be a disbelieving laugh. Like he seriously couldn't comprehend what had come out of my mouth.

Twisting my face in response to the hurt that raged inside of me, I bit my lip and watched as he backed up.

"Fuck you man," he said with emphasis on the blasphemous word, "You ain' nothing but a bullshitter and I don't need those in my life."

He then turned around and added as an afterthought, "Get the fuck off my property before I do you like you did me and call the cops on your ass."