All of Me

57.

Trey

I stared at the woman before me, motionless as she never broke her gaze with me.

"I just can't do her like this, I can't keep doin' it to her." I put my head in my hands.

"Why not? You've been doing it. Why stop now Trey?" She cocked her head to the side.

I shook my head and lifted my head up to look at her. "Because I love her."

"You what? Look me in my eyes and tell me that you love her. You what?"

"I love her! I love the fuck out of her! I love her with everything in me!"

She sat back in her seat and nodded her head. "Then explain to me why you would continuously hurt someone you love."

I rubbed my eyes aggravated that this therapy shit was actually getting to me.

"I- every woman-...I don't know."

"Come on, I'm here to listen to what's in here," she pointed to my heart, "not here." She pointed to my head.

"The only woman I ever loved was my mama, and that's up until she stopped loving me. Ever since then, I had women but they ain't mean nothin' to me. I would lie, cheat, the whole nine, and when I met D, I planned on doing her the same way, because I knew no other way. And once you form a habit of something, it's hard to break. I was young and dumb thinking all girls were the same, the same way they think all niggas the same." I sighed.

"Dijah was different though, she showed me different, from anybody I ever dealt with. I tried to be faithful but it didn't turn out that way, time after time and even when I went to jail that girl held me down. I got out and cheated some more. But that last time," I looked up at the lady who looked deep into my eyes listening to my story, "I knew I fucked up and I didn't think she would come back."

"Should she have?"

"What?"

"Came back?"

I thought about her question and slowly shook me head 'no'.

"The selfish side of me says yes because I don't want her with anybody else. But the real answer is no, she shouldn't have came back." I clenched my jaw at the sound of it.

"And why do you think she did?"

"Some shit happened and I ended up being there to save her. Part of me believes it was all God's plan because if that never happened, she wouldn't have came back, I saw the look in her eyes that last time that I never seen before. I knew she was done for good."

"Explain to me the difference in you from back then, to now."

Sitting back on the couch, I formed the words carefully in my head that I wanted to say.

"I didn't know how to love, I was never taught how to love and care for a woman, but as I've been growing in this relationship, I can say that I now know how, but she just won't let me."

She stared at me long and hard before nodding her head and pulling her glasses off.

"I'm going to leave you with a final thought for today, and I want you to listen good and just ponder on it, okay?"

I nodded my head and cocked it to the side giving her my undivided attention.

"You have girls that will get hurt and try to reciprocate that same hurt back onto who ever hurt them, by any means necessary. Then you have women that will get hurt and roll with the punches and try to fix the problem and figure out how to make things work, until they realize it's unfixable. Some people would refer to those women as weak or dumb, but in reality that's the kind of foundation all love should be built on. Now just because they're the type to try and make things work does not mean you have the right to run over them, because they will eventually move on to someone that deserves them, and that pain will hurt you more than anything. You can tell somebody you changed all day long, but show them and the message will be clear as day with no room for doubts."