Mad and Back

Way Forward

"You can't do this to us, Cain. Please come home," Cassy said with a teary face. Vanessa was as pissed off as Cain himself.

"Baby, what are you doing watching this bum trying to disrupt our fun fare?" Vanessa spoke up.

"w***e, I'm not talking to you, cos you're not that important.." said Cassy.

Vanessa's eyes went in flames. Veins lined her neck creating a lightning pattern as she prepared to make a leap at her. She was going to beat the living daylight out of her.

The quick intervention of Cain nipped the brewing combat in the bud. From his rear position, he had to hold Vanessa's arms, just a bit below the shoulders.

His hands just slid over her breasts in the process of trying to stop her now. It was a wonderful experience to him.

Cassy will have to depart presently so that he could go do stuffs with Vanessa. Her body seems irresistible. He hasn't sexed a black woman before and the opportunity is here now. No time to waste.

He manned up and screamed, "You come all the way here leaving our five point five year old child all alone at home to fend for herself?"

Looking straight into his eye lenses, she poured out her mind.

"Who I'm seeeing right now is not that man who walked to me, spoke tender words into my ears and held me softly like an egg. Where is that man? Where is he?" she broke into tears.

"Where is that man who walked me down the aisle and said to me, I do? Where is he who promised to stick with me through thick and thin? Where is he?"

"I told you I'm done Cassy! I'm done! Sign the divorce papers and let's part ways forever... that's all I've been asking. But you're just adamant."

Her soul-searching stares, her passionate poise, her perky person, all seem to be of no avail now. She must let go of him to move forward.

"For how long should we keep up this back and forth? Let's go separate ways. People do it and live fine individually after. Ours won't be different."

Cassy just had it up to here. She will not keep going in circles with him. It is time to move on.

"Okay fine, I'll sign the divorce papers."

Hardly had she completed her speech when Cain held her arms in excitement and hugged her tight, screaming, "Thank you baby, thanks. You don't know the kind of burden you're about to lift off my mind with this decision of yours..."

"But one condition..." Cassy interrupted him. He went silent.

"What's it?" he asked calmly.

"Always look back. Check on Chloe routinely. Don't let her feel the absence of a father. Call from time to time to speak with her."

"Of course I will," he clenched his fist and banged it against the table in a fit of excitement. He pasted two pecks on her left cheek.

Cassy turned around and left without saying one more word. Her eyes were ripe for a torrent to tear out of them.

"Nooo!" Cassy screamed as she returned home. She cried aloud.

Still having conniption, she threw her beeping phone at the wall.

"What have I done? Why did I tell him I'm letting go? No! No!" she rasped.

At the other scene, Vanessa could be seen holding hands with Cain as they walked like a couple down the hallway.

"Baby, what did you see in that b***h to have taken him for wife?"

"Maybe I was blind then. You know...love can be blind. But now the love is gone and boom, sight at last," he said as he grabbed Vanessa's backside.

She gave him the slow blink. He understood it clearly.

They kissed immediately.

Here they are singing love songs and kissing sweetly; there she was signing the divorce papers and hissing sourly.

Here they are having a fit of laughter; there she is grieving for her daughter who's steeply falling into a sphere of single parenthood.

"I've signed the divorce paper," she said over the phone.

"That's a good decision," Debby's voice filtered out.

The woman at the other end has promised to come over to pay her a visit. She is that friend that sticks like a snail shell.

Debby is everything she's got got now--her friend, counsellor, cheerer. Before her marriage, she warned her.

"I just see this kind of negative aura around your man--dominating and always wanting his wishes come to pass, at the detriment of others."

"I don't see him that way," Cassy had replied. "What I see is a macho man, lovely and cheerful. He's a delight to be with." She smiled as she lionised her man.

"You can't see deep Cassy. Love is like partial blindness you know."

"Who says I can't? I've been with this man for a while now. He's got all I wanted in a man."

"Hmm," Debby sounded. She's quite sure no one can convince her to think otherwise. "Maybe I am wrong though. But you've got to watch out. His best man, I've seen him with myriads of women everywhere in Los Angeles."

Jostling to get the door open, the knocker pushed it in himself. It wasn't who she was expecting.

"What are you doing in my house uninvited?"

"At the least, offer me a seat," Alexis said.

"You ruined my marriage Alexis. You did, or you wanna deny it?"

He put up an innocent face.

"You're getting it all wrong Cassy. Just hear me out."

"No, there's nothing I want to hear from you."

"Okay, you saw me with Cain out there right?"

"I've always known you're up to something. Now it's glaring."

"You don't know me Cassy," he said and smirked. "You don't really know me."

Alexis sounded calm and now Cassy wanted to hear him out.

"You don't know the stress I've been going through to persuade him to stay!" he yelled unexpectedly.

He wasn't done. To get her convinced, he must lay down his tissues of lies so well. But how gullible can she be to fall for them?

"I was there to tell him for the last time to go back to you. You see, he refused as always. Then goes my snapping fingers to say, I'm out of here!" he demonstrated with his hands. "Getting up to my feet, a woman began to approach him. I left without seeing what happens next."

For her, the story just took a new dimension. To think that a villain could exonerate himself convincingly tells the kind of person he is.

"Crap," she said. "I don't believe you."

Deep down there she was half convinced. To what end would he want to destroy her marriage in the first place? But he came close to having s*x with her the other day.

Maybe breaking her marriage is his idea from the beginning. What if he's innocent? Perhaps the fling with her that day was a temptation he couldn't resist.

Her nighties was too revealing that cold evening. She is aware of it and that's what's making it difficult to understand his intentions back then. It could have been borne out of pure yielding to temptation.

"Aswearugod, I fell for you that night. You were so hot and till now I had thought you intentionally dressed that way to entice me."

"It wasn't for you, but for him!" Cassy screamed. "Please forget and pretend as if it never happened. Thanks goodness, we didn't do it."

She was crying now, her face buried in her cupped arm. He moved close to pat her on the back.

"Sorry Cassy, you'll be fine."

He grinned behind her back. Seems she's high on emotion and it's the right time to plant soothing words in her:

"He doesn't deserve you Cassy. I mean who sees a treasure and decide to cast it off for a pig out there? You will heal up Cassy..."

The door went agape as Debby got in. She's been expecting her all the while. She came with a man.

"What's up here?" Debby said with raised brows. She smelt a rat.

"Oh, it's nothing," Alexis disentangled. "Just trying to console a broken soul. Okay, I'll leave now."

The stranger cleared his voice, perhaps to make Cassy notice him as Alexis began to walk away.

"Here's Andy, my cousin. He's an amazing guy Cassy. He'll be coming to console you from time to time."

Holding out five fingers before her, he said, "I'm Andy Murphy, Debbie's jolly cousin. Nice meeting you."

"Cassy Lereby," she replied, wiping her face. "Nice meeting you too."

Cassy came close to Debby and whispered into her ear.

"I never told you I need a man."

She replied in whispers, "He doesn't bite--just to cheer you up."

"Thanks anyway," she whispered back.

Debby did thumbs up.

Chloe just walked in. She'd been sleeping all the while. Yawning, she said, "What's everybody doing here? Where's dad?"

Andy went close to her and crouched before her with his right arm wrapped around her neck tenderly.

"You'll be fine, child. Your mum will make sure of that."

Chloe forced herself out of Andy's arms and went straight to her mother who bent over her and touched her head.

"Mum, you aren't saying anything."

"Your dad left us, but we'll be fine together," she said as a drop of tears ran down her cheek and dropped on her daughter's well plaited hair.

"No mum, dad can't be gone just like that!"