“What is the point of telling me all of this, Tara? You were wrong for coming back into the apartment unannounced!” I furrow my brows and ask through gritted teeth, “Why are you even here?”
Tara’s unmoved by my animated terse. She doesn’t flinch or grimace. But she does answer. “Because I now realize how much I’ve lost. I never knew Azmir could be so…emotionally available. He had always seemed to be above me and dissatisfied.” She pauses again, this time giving me room to consider her words.
The Azmir she’s been describing is not the man I encountered in the cafeteria of his recreation center last January. He’s not the man I lie down with each night. Not the sensitive man who employs patience and a soft hand in his approach to me.
“I don’t know…” Tara exhales, snapping me from my musing. “If you decide to stay, then I’ll have to live with my transgressions. I’m sure you’ve heard about my relationship with D-Struct and considering the way he was with you last night, possibly by Azmir—though he never confided shit in me. It was stupid, but I refuse to be judged because no one knew what it was like constantly feeling like I wasn’t good enough for Azmir. I mean, damn, I knew he was older, but I wasn’t ready for rocking chairs. He wanted me to be something I wasn’t. I hated his hood ass friends.” Her curious eyes wander over to me. “I don’t know how you’re doing with them, but I felt that if Azmir was on the come up why in the hell would he still hang out with the likes of Petey and Kid? And that Wop… Ugh!” She grimaces as she shakes her head resolutely. “I wanted no part of them.”
Hearing her assessment of Petey and Kid is like a blow to the gut. They were Azmir’s inner circle, my friends. None of them deserving of the disdain she’s expressed. I recall Chanell, Liz, and Tionne’s description of her, and can now confirm they were on par with their depiction of Tara. For a minute, I consider asking for her take on Mark and Eric to confirm her sense of superiority, but I can’t formulate the words, so I remain quiet, afraid of the next discovery or confirmation of just how snobbish and selfish Tara indeed is.
“Then he had the nerve to close up on me,” she continues her forlorn invective rant. “It was like we were in the same space, but he was eons away. I couldn’t take that shit anymore, so I started hanging out more and…I guess I got caught up. There were a lot of perks with being his girl. I got a lot of attention,” she confesses with a shrug. “I slipped up.” Tara shakes her head again, trying to snap out of her trance.
“I fucked up and got pregnant in the meantime. I wanted so badly for my baby to be Azmir’s, but I knew it wasn’t and decided to try my luck. Azmir’s no dummy, so it was no surprise when he asked for a DNA test and kept pressing the issue.” Her eyes rise to mine and in no time slant. Mine narrow.
Where is she going with all of this?
“If you fuck up, I will be waiting in the wings. And so help me god, I will push, crawl, beg, and fight for another chance with him. I will come with full force and with no thoughts of you or your marriage if you make it to that point.” Tara speaks each word through clenched teeth and with conviction.
“If?”
“Yeah.” The sinister smile resurges. Something is brewing in her brain. “I saw the video. This morning, after trying to fall asleep with a broken heart and having another sleepless night with a newborn, I got an e-mail from a good friend of mine of you deep throating some random island guy. I thought to myself she’s no different from me…just a fuck-up away,” she giggles.
I stare at her in sheer disbelief of her boldness. She returns the gaze, telling me she’s most sincere with her threats of watching my throne of Azmir’s heart. Should I take this seriously or is this simply a desperate attempt at her trying to get into my head? She doesn’t falter in her gape and neither do I. Tara has presented a challenge to me that I can’t refuse. She doesn’t deserve Azmir. More than that, he’s mine. She blew it, not me.
My heart nearly leaps from my chest when I hear the door burst open. Two large figures fly in, flared and brewing. Instinctively, my back flies into my chair and mouth swings open. Azmir looks at me with examining eyes and then at Tara with a derisive glower.
His head cocks to the sides as he calmly utters in between a flexing jaw, “You are really testing the bounds of my patience, Tara.” I hear the air roughly sloughing from his flared nostrils. “Have you any idea just how much in violation you are?”
Without a tremble, she comments back, “We’re just having a civil conversation…like old buddies.”
I watch as she tries to conceal her mirth. Does she like seeing him worked up like this? Does she enjoy his attention, no matter the cost?