Dahlia

Flashbacks

Cortez and Dahlia went to dinner at The Olive Garden in Times Square after he finished speaking to Anita. He was stressed out and confused but time with Dahlia always seemed to calm him down. As they sat down, everything just felt right. Cortez took Dahlia’s hands and looked into her almond shaped milk chocolate colored eyes. “You’re so beautiful Dahlia” he said softly. He took in the sight of her. The early May weather was warm during the day but cooled off at night so Dahlia chose to wear a pair of light blue distressed jeans and a black see through shirt with roses on it. She wore a solid black camisole underneath the shirt. Her hair was bone straight with no curl today. She wore a pair of black Ugg moccasins. Cortez stared at her as if it was the first time he had seen her.  She smiled at him. “Thank you baby, you’re going to make me blush.” Not letting go of her hands Cortez took a deep breath. 

“Listen,” Cortez started. “I know this has been hard on you.” “I just want to thank you for sticking by my side.” “I feel like s**t because I told you everything was going to be fine with my family and it turned out to be…” He looked down at the table. “Cortez listen” she started. “I don’t fault you for this.” “You were just as surprised as I was to hear about Demetrius.” “It took me a little while to get used to the idea but now I’m proud that you are going to do this.” “It takes a real man to step up and do what you’re going to do.” “Really baby?” he asked. “Yes, really.” “At least you want to take the time to see if what she is saying is true.” “And if he is your son you want to take care of him.” “That means a lot to me because I know what it feels like to grow up without a dad.” “No child deserves that.” “I’m even more proud to call you my man now.” She leaned over and kissed his lips. “But there is one thing.” “What’s up?” Cortez said. “I just want to know what happened between you two.” Cortez thought for a minute. “Well,” He said. “You did tell me about all of your skeletons, so I guess it's time to tell you about the only one I ever had.”

 Cortez thought back to his first day as a sophomore at Roosevelt High School. The lunch room was so crowded and he couldn’t spot any of his friends or his football teammates. Over his shoulder he heard “Yo Cortez, we ova here!” He turned to see his best friend Johnny and Johnny’s cousin Manuel. He walked over to the table where they were sitting. There were two new faces that he had never seen before. Johnny introduced him to the two boys. “Cortez, this is Dez and his cousin Leonard.” The boys all laughed when Johnny said Leonard’s name. Leonard didn’t look too amused and Cortez felt a bit bad for him. “Just call me LeLe.” He said softly. Johnny Lima and Cortez had known each other since Johnny’s family moved in the apartment above Cortez when he was nine years old. They had been best friends since then. Johnny taught Cortez and Buckey English and he was a handball expert. He taught Cortez how to play and together the two hustled people out of money in their early teenage years. Johnny was a constant in Cortez’s life and a good friend. He was glad they were able to go to the same high school because right before freshman year the Flores’ moved into another part of the Bronx into a bigger house. 

As the boys sat at the table laughing and joking they noticed a group of girls coming toward them. “Fresh meat females at 12:00.” Johnny said. One of the girls caught Cortez’s eye. She was gorgeous. “Yo Cortez,” Dez said. “I think shorty right there is feeling you.” He pointed to the girl that Cortez was eyeing. “You should go and holla at her.” “I think I will.” Cortez said. He got up and went over to the girl and her friends. “Good afternoon ladies.” He said politely.   “How are you doing miss?” He asked, looking right at the pretty girl he saw from across the cafeteria.“Can I get your name?” She smiled at him. “My name is Anita Vega.” Anita was a pretty girl. She had beautiful light brown eyes, long curly hair, and a caramel skin complexion. She was about 5’6, a little less than a foot shorter than Cortez. Even at 14 she had the body of a goddess. She had hips, curves and booty. Add a beautiful smile and city style to that and Cotez was hooked. The two of them started to carry on a conversation and then exchanged numbers. Anita learned that Cortez was the backup quarterback for the football team. She liked football players and over the next month the two talked on the phone almost every day. About a month and a half into school Anita and Cortez started dating. The night that they started dating the starting quarterback for the team broke his hand and Cortez made his debut as a high school quarterback. Anita was in the stands cheering for her boyfriend and the other girls envied her. She loved all of the attention that she got because she was dating Cortez and she loved the fact that other girls were jealous of her even more. After the game she, some of her girlfriends and Cortez and his boys all went out to the diner. The two seemed like the perfect couple. When Cortez was 17 and Anita was 16 they decided to take their relationship to a new level. On their two year anniversary they gave themselves to each other, or so Cortez thought. Throughout high school Anita and Cortez were together with no breaks. 

As his senior year approached, Cortez was looking for colleges and Anita was just being a typical junior. Her grades were never quite as good as Cortez’s were and she didn’t feel as if she was college material. One night in December the two had a huge argument. “Cortez you don’t care about me!” She screamed. “All you care about is going to school and leaving me behind!” Cortez was accepted to a school in South Carolina for football. “Baby I love you and you know that.” He said to her. “But I want to go to school and this place is offering me money.” “I am really not in the position to afford school so I need to take what I can get.” “You know I would never leave you on purpose.” He tried to run his hands through her hair but she jerked away. “I can’t believe you Cortez Flores!” She screamed at the top of her lungs. “You’re going to leave me here all alone.” “You didn’t even offer to take me with you.” “How could you do this?” The two argued fiercely for about an hour until Cortez’s mother came into his room to shush them. Anita was so furious with him. She stormed out of his house. He called her for hours and hours with no answer which had him worried sick. He sat on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands. Buckey came in and sat beside him. “Any word bruh?” He asked. “No, and I’m fuckin’ worried.” “I’ve been callin’ her for hours.” Buckey sighed. “I will check in with the boys and see if any of them have heard anything.” “Thanks Buck.”  Cortez had his SAT exam the next day but he stayed up until 3:30 in the morning to make sure that she was safe. When she finally answered her phone and he started to question her she caught an attitude. “I don’t have to tell you nothing!” She screamed into the phone before she hung up. Cortez barely slept and had to wake up at 8:00 to make it to his SAT at 9:00 am. After his SAT test he went to Anita’s house looking for her. When he got there he found that Anita’s mother was out of town and she took Regina with her. Josephina moved out to go live with her husband months before. Cortez really felt bad about leaving Anita behind and Anita was also a master manipulator; she convinced him that she desperately needed him so he decided to wait until she graduated to go away to college. He turned down the scholarship from school and he gave up playing football. He took a full time position at the company he had been working with since he was 15 and started saving. H ended up going to community college for the first year after high school. The plan was for him to marry Anita. When she graduated high school he was going to propose to her. He knew that she didn’t plan on going to college, so he was saving up so they could move down south together. He would live off campus and go to school which would cut down the cost and she could get a job doing what she always dreamed, opening her own clothing store the way her mother had done. 

Throughout Anita’s senior year in high school she got really comfortable in the relationship. She thought that she had Cortez wrapped around her finger because she got him to give up his scholarship so she began to just do what she wanted. She started treating Cortez differently. One day when he went to pick her up after school he caught her flirting with Danillo Cruz. Anita was smiling, laughing and flipping her hair the same way she did when she and Cortez first met. “Danillo, you so stupid.” She said playfully giggling. He reached his hand out to tickle her stomach. “Nah girl, you know I’m right.” Cortez sat in his car for about five minutes watching his girlfriend with this other person. Cortez knew Danillo from the football team. He was a second string receiver Cortez’s last year in high school.. Finally Cortez beeped the horn and when Anita saw him she waved and turned back to Danillo. “I can’t believe she just disrespected me like that in front of this dude.” He thought to himself. A minute or two later she came flouncing over to Cortez’s truck. She hopped in and leaned over to give him a kiss. He leaned away from her. She smiled. “Baby, why don’t you kiss me?” She asked sweetly. He looked straight ahead. “It looked like you was getting enough sugar over there with that guy.” “Oh Cortez please!” She scoffed. “Your’re imagining things.” “Why are you being so insecure?” Cortez was fuming at her asking about being insecure but he didn’t say anything. As the year went on Cortez suspected that there was more to Danillo and Anita’s relationship. In June, Cortez and Anita’s mother planned a huge party for Anita to celebrate her graduation and her birthday. Cortez spent a few thousand dollars turning Anita’s back yard into an oasis. The whole time during the party Danillo was hovering around Anita and she flirted with him shamelessly. Cortez was sure something was going on between the two of them. 

One night, shortly after her party, all of his suspicions were confirmed. He was in Anita’s bedroom waiting for her to get out of the shower and her phone rang. He had always answered her phone before so he reached over to pick it up. “Hello?” He said. “Yo, who the hell is this?” The voice on the other end of the phone said. Cortez held the phone back from his ear. “Hold up, you called MY girl phone.” “Who is this?” The voice on the other end scoffed. “You mean it USED to be yo girl.” “I been wit her every night while you been at work dawg.” “She ain’t yo girl no more, she MY girl now.” Cortez recognized the other voice on the phone as Danillo’s. The two of them argued back and forth for a little while. Hearing all the commotion, Anita came out of the shower. “Cortez who are you…” She started. She saw that he had the phone in his hand and she went ballistic. “What are you doing answering my phone?” “You don’t just answer other people’s phones!” The two of them argued for hours and Cortez decided to end it that night. As he was leaving, Anita threw herself in front of the door with nothing but a towel on. She was sure she could get him to stay this way. Cortez, being a man, couldn’t resist the temptation that night and ended up staying. But the next day he told Anita it was over and he vowed that he would never get back with her. Anita didn’t take no for an answer and tried for two years to get back with Cortez. She would call his job and start trouble, pop up in the same location that he would have dates to ruin them and generally make his life miserable. The whole time this was happening Anita was still in touch with Mrs. Flores begging her to help get the two of them back together. When Cortez finally decided to go back to college full time and step down from full time to part time in the security company he worked at he moved to Queens to be closer to school. During the years between high school and when he started college full time he saved enough money to work part time to sustain himself. The night before Cortez moved to Queens, Anita showed up at the Flores’ house. “What do you want Anita?” He asked. “Well, I know you are going to miss me papi.” She said. “I thought we could...be together one more time for old time sake.” “Goodbye Anita.” Cortez said closing the door. She stuck her foot in the door and unzipped her hoodie. “But, I wore your favorite.” She said seductively revealing a teal colored lacy bra. It had been a while since Cortez had gotten some and temptation got the best of him. Against his better judgement he pulled Anita into the house for their last night together.

 “That’s the day that he could have been conceived.” Cortez said. “I found out so much over time though.” “Back in high school she was absolutely cheating on me.” “She had him over there almost every night.” “And I found out that on the night she was out and didn’t answer her phone back in the night before my SAT she was out with someone else.” “Hell, she had cheated on me before we had ever done anything.” “I found out after we broke up that she had been with two dudes before me.” “She told me she was a virgin and because I was a virgin, I didn’t know I was supposed to break skin.” “I cut all ties with her after that.” “Johnny and Manuel tried their hardest to hook us back up and so did my mother.” “She loved Anita for some reason.” Dahlia ate her pasta as she listened to Cortez’s story. “Damn baby,” She said softly. “That sounds rough.” “I don’t know what I would do if that had happened to me.” “So naturally when you saw her out with Demetrius you never thought he could belong to you.” “Yeah,” Cortez said. “When it happened, I wanted to kill Danillo.” “I was pissed when I found out about it of course, but now I thank him.” Dahlia was puzzled. “Why in the world would you want to thank him for ruining your relationship baby?” She asked. Cortez ran his hands through her hair. “Because he opened the door so that I could meet you.” He smiled at her and leaned over to kiss her tenderly.