His Betrayal Her Lies Read Free Page A

through it. “Hell naw, I’ll kill him for you!”
Angry tears started to form in Libby’s eyes.
    Everyone snapped to attention as they heard
footsteps barreling down the hall. Toni came busting into the room,
a worried look on her face. “What happened? Why y’all call me
saying get to Tay’s place right away?” Toni looked down at her
sister’s hands and realized she was holding a gun. “Oh no, Tay.
Don’t kill yourself.” She looked desperately at Pam and Libby.
“Help her. Help my sister.”
    Libby stood and put her arm around Toni’s
shoulder. “It’s not what it looks like. Come on; I’ll fill you in
on everything.” She led Toni out the French doors from the bedroom
to the patio. Toni reluctantly followed Libby, purse and keys still
in her hands.
    As Taylor lifted her eyes from the floor and
stared into Pam’s face, she knew this was something that neither
her sister nor her two friends could make better. Taylor and Pam
sat there in silence.
    Pam started to inch closer. “I need you to
give me the gun, Tay.”
    Taylor raised the gun toward her friend,
handle first, and handed it to her. Feeling defeated, she folded
her body into the fetal position and cried.
    Pam wrapped her arms around her best friend
and cried with her.
    There was a faint hope-I’m-not-intruding
knock on the door. “Is it okay to come in?” Toni quietly asked.
    “No, we’ll come out there with you,” Pam
replied between sniffles. “It’s hot in here.” She wiped away
Taylor’s tears, blotted her own cheeks, then took her friend by the
elbow. “Come on, Tay.” She guided Taylor to a tan wicker patio
chair.
    “That’s alright,” Taylor uttered. “I need to
stand for a little while. Do I …” She envisioned how her
makeup must look. “Do I look like a raccoon?”
    The four BFFs shared a good chuckle. Libby
moved forward, licked her thumb, and acted like she was going to
use that moisture to clean off Taylor’s smeared mascara and
eyeliner. Taylor jerked her head back. When the laughter died down,
the only sound was the crunching of fall leaves where Libby stood
tapping her foot.
    Libby was first to break the silence. “Okay,
I can’t hold back anymore. I can’t believe this bastard has a
two-year-old daughter. How the hell did he walk around all these
years and not say anything?” She paced the floor back and forth,
rattling off one question after the next. “Does he feel any remorse
for his actions? You definitely can’t marry him.”
    “Actually,” Toni responded, looking directly
at Taylor, “I think you have to marry him.”
    Three pairs of puzzled eyes glared at
Toni.
    “Why does she have to marry a cheater?” Pam
asked standing up.
    “Hear me out, ladies. You all know our father
is running for his second term as mayor of Chicago. If Taylor calls
off the wedding, which is next week , it could cost him
votes. Everyone will want to know why and then the media is going
to start poking around. This is something father doesn’t need. It
would really hurt his chances of getting re-elected.”
    Taylor pointed her index finger at her
sister. “I don’t give a damn about that. I refuse to marry a
cheater and a liar. And how can you—” Realizing how loud her voice
was becoming, she lowered her volume. “How can you stand here and
think only about the family reputation?”
    Backing up, Toni raised her hands. “I know, I
know. I shouldn’t think like this but it’s the politics in me.”
    Toni was just like their mother. Taylor
remembered the countless town hall meetings they had to attend and
the late-night press conferences her father held in city hall since
she and her sister were young. She knew how hard her father worked
as an activist for the community to get where he was today. Mayor
John Briggs was well known on Capitol Hill and it was rumored that
he could be a great president one day.
    As Pam and Libby gave Toni testy feedback,
Taylor thought about all the times her mother had told her that