Miss Independent Read Free

pile of old issues of the magazine that were sitting atop a coffee table and began rummaging through them.
    “I hate these walls,” she said. “Most have ears, mine has eyes, ears, noses and handprints from toddlers smeared across them. I always have to look like I’m doing something so that it doesn’t appear as if I’m pissed off or gossiping.”
                  “The ‘walls’ were your idea, right?”
                  Vanessa looked to the ceiling and rolled her eyes. “How did you manage to see the invitation?”
                  “I went home after class, got the mail, and there it was. Maurice got one too.”
                  She turned back and arched her brows. “Really?”
                  Nikki nodded. “I guess they didn’t want to leave him out.”
                  “Or,” she began, “they just wanted to rub our faces in the fact that we all still live together and they’re getting married.”
                  Nikki snickered. “I don’t think so.”
                  She whirled around on the heels of her red Mary Jane’s. “I do. Why not just address it to one of us? She sent it to all of us individually like we wouldn’t tell the other and collectively decide not to go to that complete circus. The fact that she sent my invite to the office instead of at home tells me that guttersnipe has yet to change for the better. She wanted me to see it first thing and knew it’d ruin the rest of my day. She didn’t have yours sent via courier to the coffee shop or to Maurice’s ad agency.” She stopped and rattled her head. “If that ‘woman’ thinks I’m traveling over 5,000 miles to see her marry Nathan, she’s even crazier than I ever thought she was to begin with. And him? Where’s the backbone?! How could he just sit there and approve of that shit? Does he not have a voice when he’s with her? Can he not speak up like a man? God knows it’s not like he had a problem doing that when WE were together. And you know, he often made the most noise while we were having sex?”
    Nikki cowered down, covering her face. “Yeah, yeah. You’ve told me --” She shuddered, remembering.
    “What he liked and preferred and what he didn’t like? I was the only person he’d been with and there was no way in hell he knew what he liked and didn’t like if not for screwing someone else at the same time. And I should’ve known that if he was screwing anyone, he was screwing that bitch. Especially when he constantly insisted on me sucking his dick a certain way as if I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”
    “You didn’t.”
    “HE didn’t know that. The point is, I should’ve known then. I should’ve known. All the times she bragged about getting ‘good and laid’ in high school by half of the football and basketball teams, and I had no idea it was Nathan forming the foundation. It’s only by the grace of God that I never contracted an STD during that time, you know that.”
    “V--”
    “I mean, what in the FUCK, possessed him to go there? Was I not a catch? Was I not worthy?”
    “You’re forever acting like this was yesterday and not five years ago.”
    “Because I’m still ANGRY, Nikki! I’m still angry! He never gave me a reason, he just went off with her as if it was always supposed to be that way. As if he had planned this entire life with her from the very beginning and I was just someone he decided to do until the timing was right for THEM. He made a fool of me and a mockery of our entire relationship and what WE were supposed to mean to each other. He made me believe in him complete with ‘forever hold your peace’ and then he shattered it, leaving ME to pick up what was left behind of my own heart. And he never even said ‘I’m sorry’, not for a single thing he did, for what he made me believe, nothing. He just kept moving along through life while I remained dumbfounded still