This novella is a work of fiction. Characters – including their names, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are otherwise used fictitiously. Any similarity from this book to events occurring in real life – including locations, or persons living or dead is wholly coincidental. All affirmations used are public domain.
Copyright © 2013 Pepper Pace.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, except for short excerpts appearing in book reviews. For reprint or excerpt permission inquiries, please contact the author by e-mail at peppe
[email protected] or http://pepperpacefeedback.blogspot.com
First published and distributed in the United States of America in September 2013.
Cover art created by Kim Chambers
Edited byCeCe Monét
This book is dedicated to YOU; my amazing reader who supports independent authors like myself by purchasing this work and not downloading it illegally. You are loved and appreciated!
My Beata reader Leslie worked tirelessly on this project, as did my editor CeCe Monét. My sister-friend Sue gets props for inspiring my logo and all of the readers and authors on the 2013 IR Romance Cruise Event get much love for being my experimental Betas. If you keep reading, I promise to keep writing.
“I am perfectly imperfect. I strive for better while loving all that I am today. In loving myself today, I am better equipped to improve myself tomorrow.”
-Hayden’s Affirmation
“I am more than my past, my mistakes, my faults, my circumstances, my struggles, or my diseases. I am a magnificent totality of imperfect parts only beautified by my choices, bravery and impact.”
-Brian’s Affirmation
Table of Contents
~PROLOGUE~
APRIL 9, 2011
~Chapter 1~
GETTING RIGHT WITH SELF
~Chapter 2~
GETTING TO THE MONEY
~Chapter 3~
THE BOILER ROOM
~Chapter 4~
PRETTY GIRLS
~Chapter 5~
THE STRIDES WE MAKE
~Chapter 6~
THE LOSS OF PROGRESS=A FRESH START
~Chapter7~
PERFECTLY IMPERFECT
~Chapter 8~
HOW TO TREAT A FRIEND
~Chapter 9
SWEET DREAMS
~Chapter 10~
LIVING IN THE TRUTH
~Chapter 11~
HELLA MONEY
~Chapter 12~
NO PROMISES NO LIES
~Chapter 13~
THE YEAR THAT HAD NEVER BEEN THROWN AWAY
~Chapter 14~
A RIPPLE IN THE WATER AND THE SMELL OF MORNING SEX
~Chapter 15~
A PERSON BENEATH ME CAN’T HURT ME
~Chapter 16~
A WONDERFUL CAPACITY FOR HEALING
~EPILOGUE~
OCTOBER 30, 2013
The Throwaway Year
~PROLOGUE~
APRIL 9, 2011
It was Sunday morning and Hayden had no desire to get up and dressed to start her day. The TV was turned on to The Food Network and Paula Deen was cooking something deep-fried, fattening, and more than likely also deadly. Hayden’s stomach grumbled--right now she would eat ten of whatever Paula Deen was cooking!
MyKell was laying quietly, eyes staring at the TV screen. He’d been quiet all weekend. “Hey, you want to go to The Cracker Barrel for lunch?” They had lazed through breakfast and now it was early afternoon. MyKell’s eyes seemed to flinch. “I’m paying,” she interjected before he could object.
MyKell put the cheap in cheapskate. He was 42 and had just gotten his first decent paying job since they’d been together. All of his other jobs had been in sales where he barely raked in enough commission to cover his own personal expenses, let alone enough to help her out financially. They had been together for nearly six years, so Hayden knew the routine. If she wanted to go out to eat then it would be her treat.
MyKell turned to her slowly. “Hade, I need to talk to you.”
Oh shit. He’d lost another job. The hell with this! He’d only been working at the new place for six weeks-
“I met someone else.”
Hayden blinked. “What?” Her heart had momentarily frozen in her chest and was now fluttering rapidly against her ribcage. MyKell pulled himself out of the bed, looking like someone had socked him in his stomach instead of the other way around…
“I’m sorry, Hade. But things haven’t been right for a while… I’m moving out.” He walked to the closet while she stared after him with her mouth hanging open. Things hadn’t been right for a while…
How could he be saying this when they’d just made love last night? She had picked him up from work Friday and for once they’d had a good evening. He had allowed her to ramble on and on about work and her best friend Dani’s problems with her man of the hour. He had actually listened to her intently without rolling his eyes and stating that he was tired of hearing about her whiny-ass friends.
Was that why? Was he only being nice to her because he knew that he was going to do this? Her breath froze in her throat as she watched him pull on a jogging suit; a 42 year old man that dressed like a 22 year old in his Sean Jean urban gear and Timberland boots.
Then like a boomerang, her mind sprang back. This entire weekend had been fake, just a bone he’d thrown her to ease her pain. She watched his back thinking, he has met someone else. He has fallen in love with someone else. He is not in love with me anymore…
Every new thought brought another crashing pain. She was 35 and had given this man six years of her life and now that he had finally gotten a decent job, he was leaving her. It was her house that he had moved into because why should two struggling people have two households? It was also her paycheck that had kept them fed when he quit a job because it was yet another low paying job not worth his time. Hayden felt the tears burn the back of her eyes, but she thought that she would rather die than to let him see her cry.
She already felt foolish enough. Things hadn’t been right for a while… but she hadn’t known that. MyKell placed a suitcase on the bed and began loading things into it. He was talking about making arrangements to pick up the rest of his things.
She wanted to get up, but she couldn’t. Beneath the bed covers she was still naked and… well, he already had someone else. How could she let him see her naked when he had another woman? She quickly averted her eyes. She wouldn’t look at him because then she would see that tall caramel colored man that she remembered from six years ago; with his toned body and thick curls due to his mixed Black and Hispanic heritage.
Back then she was pushing thirty and convinced that she would never find a man that would want her for more than just a booty call or a stepping stone to something better. So even though now he was a lot less muscular and a whole lot greyer, she didn’t see that because he would always be that fine man that had chosen her. Hayden realized that the real reason she couldn’t look him in the eyes was because she was afraid that she would see in them just what she really was to him; a fat, short, yellow skinned, freckled face Black woman with kinked out sandy red hair.
“Hayden?” he was talking to her.
“Just take all your things now.” Her voice was a whisper even though she was trying to speak normally. She gripped the bed covers and slid to the end of the bed while he watched her with his dark, hurt eyes.
There was a pile of clothes on the floor; hers, his. She picked up the panties that she’d shed the night before and pulled them over her big thighs, knowing that he could see the crack of her ass when she bent over. She quickly put on yesterdays jeans and a t-shirt, both were dirty, but it at least didn?
??t require her to walk across the room to the dresser for something fresh.
She dressed quickly wondering when he had met her; this other woman. Was it someone he worked with? Someone she knew? She wasn’t going to watch him walk out the door because… yes, he was the one leaving her, but she wouldn’t watch him do it!
The tears were running down her face suddenly, but she kept her head down so that he wouldn’t see. She would die if he saw her crying. He’d used her, faked it with her, but when he left, she would at least still have her dignity.
“I’m going to leave now. When I come back… if you could just not be here…” Then she hurried out of the room and down the hall as the first sob forced its way from her mouth and the hot tears blurred her vision, dripping down her face and from her chin. She grabbed her purse and slipped on flip-flops and then she was hurrying out of the house and to her car. MyKell didn’t have a car but… well, he had someone else and she probably had one. Yeah, chances are, she would have one.
Hayden started her car and pulled out of her driveway without looking. Thank God she lived on a residential street that saw very little traffic, or she might have been hit. She gripped the steering wheel as the tears and sobs wracked her body. Her chest ached when she thought about the six years and how easily he’d been able to say that he’d found someone else. Even after all that she had done for him…
Knowing that it wasn’t safe for her to continue driving, Hayden pulled into the nearest place where she could safely lose it. It was the parking lot of a Kroger’s grocery store. After she was safely stopped, she stared at herself in the mirror, not recognizing the ugly woman that looked back at her. Hatred bubbled up inside of her, but it was all directed at herself.
She hated her too light skin with its freckles scattered across her nose. Red bone. High yella – but not pretty, she didn’t have the long flowing hair or the limber body that most people associated with light skinned females. When she looked at herself she simply saw an out of shape woman with a Don King mess of hair covering her head. When she reached up to wipe her blotchy face of its tears and snot she smelled her unwashed body. She averted her eyes in disgust.
~Chapter 1~
GETTING RIGHT WITH SELF
Hayden was staring at the phone number that MyKell had left on a slip of paper. When she’d returned that day, MyKell had been gone but there had been a brief note telling her that if she needed to contact him for her to call him on his cell phone. Then she’d seen a new number there, one that probably belonged to his new cell phone that was probably provided by his new girlfriend.
Hayden felt herself frowning. She could stand here, staring at this phone number for hours speculating about what the two of them were doing together right now, or how many times had they made love since he’d left, how many times he had called her baby… She felt another spike of hurt before it dwindled down into a dull ache. The phone rang and she hurried to it, almost picking it up before the first ring had ended. She stilled her hand and let it ring twice more before she slowly answered.
“Hello?” she tried not to sound hopeful.
“Hayden? You okay girl? You haven’t been to work in two days and I was getting worried.” It was her best friend Danyelle; Dani. She didn’t answer. The disappointment that it wasn’t him was just too strong. “Do you want me to come over? Hade?”
“I’m okay.” She mumbled. “I just, need some time alone.” Dani sighed, but after a moment gave a reluctant goodbye. Staring at the phone receiver, Hayden wondered just how long she was going to do this. How long was she going to rehash this betrayal, this hurt? Why couldn’t this part be over already? If she could just go to sleep and wake up and it could be a year later—because then, in a year she could be skinny and over him. If there was only some way to throw this year away…
Hayden hung up the phone when it began to beep loudly and then walked into her kitchen. Her feet carried her automatically to the refrigerator before she brought herself to a stumbling halt. She blinked in disbelief at how automatic it was to open the refrigerator and to place food into her mouth without even realizing it. She had sworn to herself that she was going to go on a diet and straighten herself up—but she couldn’t stay disciplined for even one day!
She looked around almost amazed at how she was living. There were unwashed dishes in the sink from the week before! Her floors needed sweeping, her laundry needed doing, her bathroom needed cleaning… but more importantly she was a hot mess; and not just physically. Her credit was a mess from indulging in her and MyKell’s every whim. She needed to get right with herself; outside and in.
Hayden gritted her teeth and stormed to the sink where she filled it with hot soapy water. Almost frantically, she began to clean. Sweat ran down her body in rivulets as she moved through her house like a cleaning tornado.
Hayden did not stop moving until after 2:00 A.M. and by that time her floors were mopped and waxed, her furniture glowed with orange oil, her bathroom was scrubbed and sparkling, and her laundry was washed, folded and put away. She stripped out of her clothes, averting her eyes as she passed the mirror and stepped into her shower. She scrubbed her body and her hair but when she stepped from the bath wrinkled like a prune she felt just as dirty as she had when she had entered it.
Exhausted, Hayden slipped into her crisp clean sheets, falling asleep almost as quickly as her head touched her pillow. When she woke up the next morning, the idea that had taken root in her head wouldn’t leave. She stared at the ceiling feeling the empty gnawing in her stomach—what others called hunger, but what she knew was really just an excuse to bury her pain in food.
She climbed out of bed slowly, her body sore and stiff from the impromptu workout. She picked up her telephone to call in sick yet another day, and not because she wanted to sit around and mope, but because she had a plan. Hayden walked over to the calendar that hung behind the door. April 12, 2011.
Why shouldn’t she throw away the next year of her life, especially if it was to get right with herself? She had given six years to a man with no ambition, no drive and obviously no loyalty. So why shouldn’t she just devote one year of her life to better herself; regardless of how much discomfort it gave her or how unpleasant it was? One year to become a new person…otherwise she would always be this woman that she had grown to hate.
Hayden returned to her bed and made it up neatly. No more messes. She had to get her house in order, her finances straight and of course she had to get right with herself.
After getting dressed she went to the supermarket and loaded the cart with healthy and nutritious food. She had always hated the taste of low fat anything and she would choose tepid water over an iced cold drink sweetened with fake sugar. Diets worked for a while, until she ended all of her hard work with a slice of cake and buffalo chicken wings. Or her daily cup of coffee loaded with whipped cream and caramel.
Hayden knew the foods that would help her to lose weight—and she knew the diets that were the most successful because she had tried them all. She just couldn’t stick with anything unpleasant; including exercise, tasteless food, and denying herself some small pleasure. Hayden stared sadly at a display of Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
Heated for a few seconds in the microwave, and then dunked into a steaming cup of coffee, that was one of her favorite treats… Wait, she couldn’t tolerate unpleasant things? She had tolerated her own gluttony and lack of drive. What do you want more Hade; doughnuts or to be someone that you can be proud of?
With a decisive nod, Hayden walked past the doughnuts. As she was loading her groceries into her car, she spotted a Quick Cuts in the strip mall across the street. She touched her ponytail, which didn’t even capture all of her split ends. Then she hurried across the street and stepped into the small shop. All eyes were on her until a stylish white woman whisked her away to a chair, a look of horror on her face as she studied Hayden’s head. Hayden just shrugged inwardly.
“Cut it off.”
“All of it?”
&nb
sp; “Leave me an inch.” That was about the amount of her new growth. The hairdresser nodded in relief that she wasn’t going to be given the task of flat ironing, curling, or otherwise trying to make her sandy kinks halfway acceptable. Hayden wouldn’t miss it. The hair was over processed, dry, and pretty much beyond repair anyway.
After the cut, what was left curled softly with the help of proper moisturizers. The woman commented that it looked good, and it was the truth. Yet, Hayden just nodded. It didn’t matter if it looked good. The point was to get rid of the bad so that there would be room for the good.
After leaving the strip mall and taking her groceries home, Hayden headed to a local gym. It was less than five miles from her house, which meant that she should be able to go to the gym even on a whim. In the past, she had always put off joining this gym because it was too hot to be working out, or it was too cold to be driving to a gym. However, the truth was that she just didn’t want to look like a fat ass. Ignoring the sight of the toned bodies as well as the not so toned ones, Hayden walked up to the receptionist desk.
“I want a one-year membership, and I need a personal trainer, please. How much will that cost?” The receptionist gave the woman a surprised look as if thinking that fish didn’t generally jump onto the hook.
“Let me get a member’s representative.” Hayden nodded. This was going to be one easy sale…
A buff Black man approached her with a folder in his hand. After introducing himself, he had her sit at a table where he proceeded to try to talk her into buying a membership. Hayden interrupted him.
“Sold. Explain what’s in the fine print and then tell me where to sign.” The man stuttered and then smiled broadly. Moments later they were shaking hands.