A Bitter Love (available on AMAZON) FREE!!

JHAZLYN

I had been knowing Monique since the eighth grade, and she had always been that confident, smart girl with goals. She always had the latest shit being that she was the only child and her parents spoiled the shit out of her. One would think that since my life was the total opposite, I would envy her and not want to be around somebody like that, but being around Monique was what I needed because she was a true friend, and if I ever needed anything, she was there, no questions asked. We used to go out, act up, and do things that you do with your best-friend, but the moment she got with Lee, all that changed. Even college didn't keep us apart because I still made my way to Louisiana to visit her. It's crazy how one dude can lead you down a totally different path than what you were headed down. It really saddened me every time I thought about it, and that's exactly why I made sure to not catch feelings when it came to men. Being that my mom had put men before me and also seeing the shit that people around me were going through, it made me want to steer clear of men and that four-letter word. Love!

Yes, I had met a couple of men, but none of them were trustworthy, and they all wanted one thing. Thinking about this made the buried memories of my child hood resurface. Let's just say my childhood wasn't peaches and cream like Monique's. I shook my head at those memories because if I had to be honest, I was truly happy with my life for the most part, and I couldn't let that shit get to me. I had been doing a good job of forgetting the past, and I wanted to keep it that way.

"Girl, I'm hungry," I heard Monique say, smiling and throwing the thoughts of the past to the back of my mind. I turned and looked at Monique who was rubbing her stomach.

"What do you want to eat, bitch?" I asked her, happy that she was out of the house and hanging with me for a change.

Me and Monique had been at the mall for about two hours now, and I was just happy to see my friend out the house and having a good time. She thought I didn't know what Lee was doing to her, but truth is, I did. This wasn't anything new with Lee; he had been doing this shit for years, and Monique wasn't his first victim. I had known two chicks that dated him before Monique, and they all ran away before shit ended bad for them. Word around town was that Lee wasn't there all the way in the head, due to some shit that happened to him when he was a child. Nobody knew exactly what happened, but we did know he was a fucked-up person. I had tried to warn Monique about the crazy shit I had heard, but my friend was already deeply in love with him, and you all know how shit goes when a female is madly in love with a man.

"Bitch, let's go eat over there," Monique stated as I followed her finger to see where she was pointing at.

"You always want some damn Chinese food," I joked as we made our way over to the Chinese restaurant that was inside the mall.

Looking down at the food through the glass, my mouth got watery as I decided on what I wanted, pilling my plate up, I paid for the food and stood to the side as I waited for Monique to pay for her food.

"Let's sit over here," Monique said as she pointed at a table that was away from the crowd of nosey people. Following behind Monique as she led the way, my mind drifted off to a time when we had scheduled a date to the nail shop and she hopped out the car with some dark ass shades on, on a rainy fucking day. That had set off all kinds of alarms for me. That day I pleaded to her to leave, but let her tell it, "he loves me too much to kill me." I was concerned for my friend, and I really wanted the best for her, and Lee wasn't that. Looking at her, I could tell that this life she wanted everybody to believe was getting harder and harder to portray. I wanted to know if she was tired of his shit yet.

Once we sat down, I opened my plate and ate a couple of bites out of my food.

"Are you going to keep acting like the shit he is doing to you is ok?" I blurted out as I stuffed a piece of the Bourbon chicken in my mouth. I chewed as I watched her play in her food, never looking up at me, until she finally timidly spoke up.