The Makeover Read online

  Phoenix eyed the pills. Bottles of Grey Goose littered her makeshift bed in the corner of the bedroom, where she now slept, where she had slept for the past two weeks.

  If she took the pills, it could go away.

  Voices taunted her as she relived the night her fiancé broke her heart exactly sixteen days, five hours, and nine minutes ago. She closed her eyes and replayed the events as though they were a movie she could watch instantly on Netflix.

  ***

  Phoenix’s hands flew to her mouth. Her head jerked back as she trembled. “What?”

  “Listen, I’m not about to say anything further that I will regret later,” Cedric snapped.

  Phoenix let out a hollow chuckle. “Oh, well, we’re long past that point. You are tired of looking at my ugly, fat behind? You did say that, right? You might as well tell the truth and shame the devil, Cedric.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “It’s a couple years late and thousands of dollars short, but I’ll take it. How about the whole truth?” Phoenix sneered. She wanted to seem in control, even as her heartbeat pounded in her head. She unconsciously clutched her heart, as if she could will it to stop slamming against her chest.

  Forcing out a breath, Cedric ran his hand over his head and looked around before continuing. “Well, truthfully…yeah, I was attracted to her.”

  “So you don’t love me?” Phoenix hated herself even more for asking.

  “Yeah I loved you…I guess. At least I thought so. I loved you for being good to me, for taking care of me when I lost my job, letting me move in. I appreciated you and how you loved me, but looking back, I don’t think…” Cedric began to pace. “Man! I don’t know what to tell you, Fe. I do love you, but I don’t think I am as in love with you as I thought I could be. I wanted to love you. You were good for me, really good. You’re smart, funny, educated, hard-working, and sweet. But I can’t get past your weight or the way you carry yourself.”

  ***

  “How could he do this to me?” She howled before guzzling from the bottle of Grey Goose. “I don’t think I can live through this!” she cried out.

  You’re so disgusting. No one wants you. God doesn’t even care about you. You spent years taking care of people to make them love you, but they don’t. They can’t! You’re unlovable. Fat, ugly and worthless. No one loves you. Just take the pills! Forces of darkness taunted and heckled her. Take them! You’re disgusting. Nobody wants you!

  Satan watched, anticipating where he would place this pathetic soul when she crossed over into his realm.

  Take the pills, Satan whispered as his minions jeered. It will make everything alright again. You don’t want to be here without love, do you? Nobody will ever love you.

  Trembling, Phoenix took a pill as she continued to watch the movie playing in her mind.

  ***

  Phoenix crumbled onto the bed, grabbed her middle and held on. Gasping, she folded over as though someone had kicked her in the ribs. “I was never small, Cedric. You met me at this size…” her voice trembled as it faded away.

  Cedric continued to pace. “I know, Fe. I know. I was never really attracted to…women that look like you. I usually date lighter-skinned women, women with more slender shapes. But I liked your personality so much. I needed someone stable to help me get off those streets. Yeah, I have a college degree, but I ain’t done nothing with it. I wanted someone like you in my life to help me better myself. I figured you’d be a good influence on my son since his mom ain’t about nothing. Heck, I wasn’t even about nothing when I met you. But I loved you for the way you always tried to be there for me.”

  Phoenix felt a burning in her chest. “So you were with me because of what I was doing for you?”

  Cedric didn’t answer.

  Phoenix needed to hear the rest. “But why did you get involved with me, Cedric? If you only wanted my friendship, I would have been there for you as a friend. Why make me believe you are attracted to me, date me, then ask to marry me when I was never your type?”

  “Look, Fe. I thought I could make you into my type. I realize people gain weight sometimes, and I tried to look past it. I tried to love you, but I couldn’t get past it. I loved the idea of you, of what being with you could do in my own life. I tried to help you, I did. I tried to encourage you to work out with me, tried to get you to dress up sometimes, tried to get you to take better care of your skin…situation. Yeah, there are some full-figured people out there, but that doesn’t mean they have to be all sloppy. I wanted to marry you, but I hate the way you look! When I met you, you used to swear you would get in shape. At the very least, your hair was done, your nails too. You at least tried to wear cute dresses, heels, and make up. But, since we’ve moved in together last year, you stopped even doing that. Dang, we weren’t even married yet and you already let yourself go. If your body looks like this now, how would you look after you had my babies? How would my babies look?”

  Phoenix stared.

  “What? It’s how I feel! I work out three times a week, wear cologne, get haircuts, and dress nice for myself. But you? You barely comb your hair anymore. It takes you weeks to get your hair done, even when I would beg you to spend some money on yourself.”

  Phoenix laughed. “What money, Cedric? You moved in here without a job. I’ve been paying the rent by myself, buying all the food, helping you pay child support, while still buying things for your son when you have him here for days at a time. I give you money to hang out with your friends, even when you don’t want to spend my money to go somewhere with me. I even give you gas money to drive my car—the car that you crashed, that I still am paying for!”

  “Don’t throw it all that in my face, Phoenix!”

  “Like you are throwing my looks in mine, Cedric? What money to pamper myself? Huh? You lost your job in the first six months of us dating. I took care of you right from the beginning, even before you moved in here. I gave you an allowance, practically! When I met you, I was trying to do something about my weight. I was seeing a boxing trainer twice a week, remember? I was trying to keep myself up at least by wearing nice clothes and doing my hair. I was getting facials and seeing a dermatologist. But that costs money, money I was giving to you, because I thought you loved me.”

  Cedric’s caramel skin flushed a bright crimson. “No, Sweetie. Since we’re being real, let’s be real. You give me all that not because you thought I loved you, but because you wanted me to love you!”

  Phoenix froze as the truth became a shape blade that punctured holes in her gut.

  “That’s why I can’t take you anymore. You make me sick! I tried, but if you really loved me, you would have cared about your looks instead of embarrassing me like this.”

  “Why couldn’t you help me like I helped you, Cedric? Why couldn’t you just support me and hold my hand in the process just like I had to do for you?”

  “That ain’t my job, Babe,” Cedric snarled. “It ain’t my job to give you no makeover.”

  ***

  Phoenix cried as the words and pictures in her mind continued to choke her.

  Satan laughed, as he touched Phoenix’s head, and continued to flood her with images of what Cedric had said and done to break her heart. “Take another pill, Phoenix. It’s no use,” he growled. He looked up as the room began to become flooded with light. Groaning, Satan manipulated Phoenix’s mind with more of the harrowing memories.

  She took another pill and drank from the Grey Goose. She hoped the Ambien she had been prescribed the previous year had not expired.

  If she was going to do it, she wanted it to work.

  Two angels of Heaven stood beside Phoenix, motionless. They stood, ten feet tall, dressed in flowing robes of white, with flames dancing in their eyes. With swords raised, they stood poised and ready, awaiting a command from the Lord.

  ***

  Cedric sighed and sat on the bed. “Look, this is getting us nowhere, alright? I am sorry I hurt you. I tried to love you, but I got tired of
looking at you like this. Why you think I don’t go out with you as much as you asked me to? Why do you think we had sex like once every three weeks? I wasn’t feeling you like I should, Fe! You had the brains but ain’t have the looks to match. I believed in you, which is why I gave you a chance, even though you weren’t initially my type. But I guess I was wrong!”

  “So all this is about my weight, Cedric? After all I’ve tried to do to make you happy?” Fresh tears burned Phoenix’s cheeks, as she turned away, hunched over, clutching her midsection.

  “Look, I can’t lie anymore. I am sick of my friends asking me why I am dating someone who looks like you—”

  Phoenix whimpered and buried her face in her hands.

  “I got tired of making excuses. I used to tell my boys you were on medications that caused weight gain and skin problems as side effects for God’s sake!” Cedric snickered. “You claim not to have the money, but I think you just didn’t want to be bothered.”

  Phoenix looked back up at him, her mouth agape, eyes unblinking.

  Cedric continued, “I was going to give it one last shot at getting back into the woman I wanted to try to fall in love with. I know it wasn’t going to be easy, but—”

  “Try to love me? You slept with me last night, Cedric,” Phoenix moaned.

  “Yeah I slept with you. Last night was more to keep you from getting suspicious. I guess…I mean, I—”

  ***

  Cedric’s voice faded away as Phoenix began to wail again.

  “Instead of cheating on me, you couldn’t sit down and talk to me? You couldn’t try to help me?” Phoenix’s shrill yell pounded the walls around the apartment as the voices laughed and taunted in her head.

  Satan and his minions continued to taunt her with thoughts straight from the darkest pits. Why would he help you? You’re an ugly, fat, loser! Loo-ser! Loser! As in lose her! You’re not worth the effort, Ugly Girl! Just get it over with. You’ll always be alone in this life. Why live it?

  Satan made a face at his former brothers. “There is nothing either of you can do, Caliel and Uriel. She is mine now!”

  Uriel knowingly eyed his brother Caliel. They continued to stand guard, tall and silent, two bronze, regal statues in the room. They felt their power growing stronger, knowing that the Spirit was using a soldier in Christ to fight for this young woman.

  Satan, of course, did not know this. Too wrapped up in his own agenda, he failed to acknowledge that Uriel and Caliel would not have been sent to fight for Phoenix if someone had not requested it. As much as he had always wanted to be like God, he could not be God, which meant that he could not be everywhere at once. Satan had no idea that someone, at that very moment, was praying.

  And prayer always changes things.

  Still, Satan wasn’t born yesterday. Caliel and Uriel’s presence, alerted Satan that something was happening. In a huff, Satan began to throw every ounce of his power into Phoenix’s mind.

  Phoenix cry was snatched away in a gasp.

  “You have to take all the pills,” Satan shouted.

  “I have to take all the pills,” Phoenix slurred.

  “You have to end the pain. You won’t have to live with rejection and loneliness anymore,” whispered Despair, one of Satan’s minions.

  “I have to end the pain. I won’t have to live with rejection and loneliness anymore,” Phoenix repeated, in a trance.

  She put the bottle of pills to her lips and tilted her head back.

  Caliel reached out and merely placed a hand on Phoenix’s head.

  She put the pills back down.

  “I have to finish the movie of my life first…” she slurred.

  ***

  “I have been trying to help. But you’ve got to help yourself, Fe! I can’t do it for you! I—”

  “But I can do all kinds of things for you, right? I can help you in every single way, but you can’t help me, right?”

  “Like I said, it isn’t my job to help you be beautiful, alright?” Cedric snapped.

  Phoenix began crying. “It’s not your job to help me, but it’s okay to allow yourself to be tempted into cheating because I am overweight? Are you that shallow? For real? So what if I slim down to a size four, and my skin clears up, but then I get into an accident that disfigures me? Would you do me this way again?”

  “That’s not fair! You’re talking about things you cannot control. I would have dealt with it. But this issue is all you. You are lazy, sloppy, and weak. And I hate it. Sometimes I hate you for making me look bad for being with you!”

  Phoenix collapsed on the bed. “You know what? You’re right. I did stop working on myself. But I didn’t do it because I stopped caring. I stopped because I didn’t have the money or the time! I work full-time with the Mental Health Mobile Crisis unit, then work another twenty at the homeless shelter to cover your expenses! You haven’t found one job but I’ve been working two! I am working on my dissertation for my doctorate. I am taking care of my mom and grandmother because my brother doesn’t lift a finger. I help out with your mother, grandmother, and aunts. I even help you take care of your son when he’s here—”

  “Don’t bring CJ into this. Don’t throw that in my face!”

  “You keep saying that, but you don’t get it. For your information, I hated how I looked too. But I am tired… exhausted, in fact.” Phoenix paused to take a breath. “You know what? You said you understood everything I had on my plate, but you don’t. Someone always needs something from me! Everyone is always calling on me!”

  “I never asked you to do all that stuff and—”

  “But you were sure excited about my doing it. I did it all because I love you, not because I didn’t think I could get love any other way! How dare you say I wanted to buy your love when you already promised that I had it? How could you take my generosity and spit on it like that?”

  “I didn’t say—”

  “Yes you did! You say you didn’t ask me to do all that, but you sure took me up on it, didn’t you?”

  Cedric had a moment. His face crumbled and he put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

  “Don’t touch me!” Phoenix seethed, as she snatched her shoulder away. “It makes me feel good to help those I love, but it leaves me no time to do the things I would like to do for myself.”

  Cedric sighed. “I know you are busy, but why didn’t you—”

  “Why didn’t I? No, the question is why did I? Why did I love you? I know I wasn’t the sexiest woman out there, but I know I took good care of you and everyone else. I built you up when you kept slipping back down. But you’ve made yourself very clear. My being a good, hard-working woman, a giving woman, wasn’t good enough because…because I am fat? I take responsibility for allowing myself to become a beached whale, but you did not have to make your point in this way. I get it! I’m fat, unstylish, and unsexy. It’s all my fault, alright? I get why…” Phoenix’s voice trailed off as she began sobbing again.

  “What are you saying, Fe?”

  “I want you out! I tried to keep it all together for you. I wanted you to be proud of me, to love me…to marry me, to realize that I would make a good wife to you.” Phoenix’s eyes burned as she blinked back the new set of tears in vain. “I wasn’t trying to earn or buy your love.”

  Cedric sighed then stepped closer. “Yeah, right. You say it ain’t true, but how else could someone like you get it?”

  “How could you say—”

  “Forget it. You should admit that I did try, though. I don’t like your looks but I did still wanted to love you and make you my wife. If nothing else, you are good for me. I need you.”

  Phoenix looked up.

  “You know what? I’m wrong. I can help you, Fe. But will you give me another chance to be the man you need? Will you forgive me?”

  Phoenix looked away. “Are you kidding?”

  Cedric let out his breath.

  “I want you to go. Take as much as you can and go.”

  “Alright, fine. I’
m gone,” Cedric sneered. “But your ugly behind will never get another good-looking dude to even sneeze in your direction, Chick. Beggars can’t be choosy.”

  ***

  Phoenix’s eyes closed as the movie in her mind faded away. Her stomach churned as she recalled the way Cedric had gathered his clothes, and called the girl he’d slept with to come pick him up. Phoenix began twisting her engagement ring, the one she had paid for, off her finger. She yanked it off and tossed it behind her onto the floor. “I won’t need that anymore.”

  She didn’t want to turn her mind-movie back on, but the pictures in her mind forced their way through.

  ***

  Phoenix advanced on Cedric as he walked around her apartment, still on the phone with the girl, talking about her as if she wasn’t in the room. She had slapped his face hard. “Still disrespecting me? Get off the phone with that whore!”

  Cedric snapped the phone shut and shrugged. “Yeah, I tried to be your man, so it ain’t my fault. I even tried to man up just now—”

  “Man up?” Phoenix gave a hollow laugh. “It’s too late to man up now! It’s too late to hear my side of the story or help me now. I’ve already gotten cheated on, already lost my fiancé who just told me he has to try to fall in love with me because I am ugly. I already realize that because of how I look, no one will ever love me. I see women out there treating men like dirt. I watch my friend, Nic, go through dude after dude, using them for cash and not lifting a finger to lift them up. But they allow her to do it because she has a slim waist, because the only thing fat on her are her butt, hips, and thighs. San treats her husband like one of the children, bosses him around, chastises him in public, controls him. But he just lowers his head and wags his tail because she’s pretty and he loves her for that. I do everything in my power to treat you like a king and it’s nothing because I don’t look good to you.”