The Love We Make

\3/ We should've been 4ever...

Tuesday, February 18, 1992/New York, NY

     On Tuesday night, I collapsed.

The cause all boiled down to my high stress level. My work was frustrating only because my crumbling personal life was getting in the way. When Michael called and asked how things were going, I told him, "Great!" I fucking lied.

After the blow-up with my dad, my brother called me with the same bullshit. "He ain't no real man...I don't want him around my nephew...four years later!? Why now?!"

At this point, I just wanted my son back. I wanted to go to Florida, get my baby and say fuck you to everyone.

To make matters worse, I acted out of character and told Carter everything.  Big mistake. In his own "sweet" way, he told me it was a bad idea and then nervously laughed through telling me how upset he was that I called Prince without discussing it with him first.  Needless to say, Carter saw another side of me that night. 

     Hours later, I was in the hospital with high blood pressure and an IV in my arm.

My mother and Valeria were the first ones to get to me. My release came six hours later.

When I got home, my dance sisters Tina Landon and Fatima Robinson came to see me. Talking to them made me notice the divide in my situation. I really didn't give a damn what anyone thought anymore, but I noticed the women in my life were with me. All the men were against me.

In the living area on the lower level of the house, we all got together to talk about it. Fatima and Tina sat on the floor and ate out of a box of cookies they shared between them on the coffee table. My mother sat in the fully reclined chair behind them, and I was laid out on the couch with my head sinking in a throw pillow that sat on Valeria's lap. "What time is he coming tomorrow?" she asked while massaging my scalp.

"Around noon. He called me this morning."

"Did you guys talk-talk again?" Fatima asked.

"Not really. He just said 'I'll be there around 12' and I told him I would let my doorman know. Then we hung up."

"Well," Tina said wiping crumbs from the corner of her mouth. "I'm very freaking happy you're finally doing this because it's been hard biting my tongue."  

"I'm still surprised your big mouth never told him," Fatima said.

"Almost did," Tina said. "Rave knows I wanted to."

Tina and I had been close friends since we met during rehearsals for Janet's What Have You Done for Me Lately.  And like Janet and only a small few, T knew the real dirt, all of it.  So when she was invited last year to work with Prince on choreography for his Cream video, she was freaking out. 

     She worked with Prince a few times last year, the last being for his MTV Awards performance, and I knew how hard it was for her to be around him as if his secret child didn't call him auntie. It definitely caused an argument or two. She hated how stubborn I was being about reaching out to him.  

"Rave, I wasn't going to tell you since you passed out and shit but..." Tina shifted her position on the floor. "He called me, pissed-off."

Fatima slapped T's lap. "When?"

"This morning." Tina's expression towards me turned bitchy. "Now, he's making me feel like the bad guy for not telling him. I never thought in a million years that Prince would call my phone and start cussing me out."