A Flower and Spandex Friendship

There was no getting back together with Number Two, but that didn't mean we were completely done with each other.

Toward the end of the summer, he called to give me some song and dance about how before everything happened with Tay-Tay, he was starting to fall in love with me. I politely told him it was over, but I had a false sense of serenity. I believed I could go back to New Haven and see him on a cordial, friendly basis.

I had spent the summer starving myself down to a size 6 and entering two "starter pageants," Miss Black World Michigan and Miss Michigan International. To my deep consternation, I failed miserably at being a beauty queen. Apparently, I couldn't walk. I didn't have the right clothes. I didn't have the right weave. And even though I was dizzy and hungry as hell from slurping Slim Fast plus one small meal a day, I was still considered 20 pounds "overweight."

I had also met a really good-looking guy on the Boblo Boat and convinced myself I was in love, even though we only saw each other a few times, and he kept stringing me along and standing me up.

But I digress.

When I got back to New Haven for my junior year, Number Two spied me strutting down the street in black-and-pink, floral-print spandex biker shorts. (Me and my booty were particularly effective at turning heads that day.)

Less than a week after returning to school, he came to see me with flowers in hand, and we went for a ride in my raggedy car, which promptly broke down for what felt like the millionth time. I didn't even have money for a tow truck, so I took Number Two's offer to buy my car for $200. He paid me $100 cash up front and was supposed to pay the $100 balance in a few weeks. Plus, I had left the tools my dad had bought me in the trunk.

I guess you can guess how this story ended.

Our new-found "friendship" was every bit as trifling as the love affair.

Fast-forward about five months, and this fool still owed me money. He claimed my jumper cables and toolbox had been "stolen." And on top of that, I had an $80 ding on my credit report from some stupid movies I had rented for him just before he went to jail.

It was time for another cuss-out session, only this time I was out for blood. And I cut him to the quick with what was really festering under the surface ... my nagging suspicion, egged on by my new boyfriend, that this fool was gay.

(Number Two Diaries Part 7 of 8: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 | Lessons Learned Parts 1-3: 1 2 3)

Ign'ant Phone Calls

Why, oh why, did Tay-Tay call my house as soon as Number Two got out of jail?

Foster Mama didn't play that. She called Number Two and asked to speak to Tay-Tay. He refused to put her on the phone. So she told him in her meanest Foster Mama voice to "leave all that bullsh*t in Connecticut" because she "wouldn't have any of that breaking up her home."

Then I called. "Hello, is Tay-Tay there?"

"Who is this?"

"This is Anita. Put that bitch on the phone."

"Oh, man, I don't believe it," Number Two groaned.

"Well, believe it, baby, put that bitch on the phone!"

He handed the phone to her and click! That trouble-making bitch hung up on me.

I called right back. "Is there a motherf*cking reason why I was hung up on?"

"Uh ... the cord is broke," Number Two mumbled.

And that's when I started cussing him out from can't do to can't try. But it wasn't a particularly empowering cuss-out session. Because I was cussing him out for still being with her, instead of cussing him out for who he'd been to me. My tirade continued until he said, "I guess it's your turn to hang up now."

Bam! I took his suggestion.

By this time, Foster Mama and my foster sisters had gathered around like they had ringside seats to the most comical Friday Night Fight ever.

Number Two called back seconds later on Foster Mama's phone. I went into my bedroom, closed the door and called him back on my phone line.

"Anita, I don't understand why you're cussing me out. I haven't given you any reason to do that. I guess all this time you were secretly hating me and I just never knew it."

That instigated another barrage of cursing about how he threw me out at 3 a.m., how he didn't care about me, how he was stupid for still dating Tay-Tay.

"Anita, why are you cursing so much?"

"Because I motherf*cking can!!!! Now that I'm home with my family and I'm free, I can talk how I want, look how I want and be how I want, without somebody trying to change me into somebody else!"

Around this time, Tay-Tay started cutting up in the background. "Who's on the phone?"

"Tell that bitch Anita's on the phone!"

He didn't.

"Well since you're her motherf*cking guardian, give her this message. Tell her ugly black ass that she's a stank ho, and I'm just glad I didn't get her cooties."

Tay-Tay started throwing things. "Who are you talking to? Who's on the phone?"

Number Two, probably while ducking, gasped, "Tay-Tay stop that. Why are you breaking my stuff. That phone cost a lot of money!"

I continued screaming into the phone, until it dawned on me: This fool wasn't even paying attention to me at my angriest, most foul-mouthed best. Tay-Tay had truly won.

"Well, I hope you two live in unhappy bliss. Don't call me, and I never care if I see your face again, and tell that bitch she better not call my house no more, and if I see her face again, her ass is mine!"

With that I slammed the phone down, with red flames shooting from both ears, and yanked my bedroom door open to storm out of the room ...

... only to have Foster Mama and at least two sisters almost fall on top of me. They'd had their ears pressed to the door the whole time.

(Number Two Diaries Part 6 of 8: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 | Lessons Learned Parts 1-3: 1 2 3)