Call Me Mrs. Taylor: An Obsessive Dark Romance (The Taylors Book 1)

by Shae Sanders

What the fuck else has this girl not told me?

I take a seat in a dimly lit corner booth where I can watch without being seen.

“You think I won’t crash out behind you? Huh? Keep playin’ with me.”

We’re soulmates. It has to be written in the stars.

I don’t want him to know the real me. He can’t know the true ugliness inside. He’d never love me.

“And why am I with you?” I say before I can stop it. She’s quiet for a while before she says, “What do you mean?” in a small voice. The smallest voice I’ve ever heard come out of her.

The woman is an enigma, or maybe I’m just not good at researching people. The only thing I manage to find is a tag on a Facebook post from the daycare she works at from two years ago.

Raymond Ashford Retires from Delta Air Lines Following Tragic Accident.

Tragic accident is mentioned once, but it doesn’t say what it was.

“I mean, I’ve checked the state certification databases. No license. No records. Nothing under her name or any variation of it.”

“I triple checked. Unless she’s using a different name, she never got certified, never taught in a school, and she didn’t graduate from Spelman. No record of her at all in the alumni directory.”

“This is about your girlfriend,” Mama says.

“I know you lied. You’re not a teacher. You never went to Spelman. You stay keeping secrets. I’m over this shit.”

I feel like I just pulled the pin out of a grenade, and she’s back there behind me, smiling, waiting to go off.

I'll let him think he's free. For now.

I think I’m dissociating.

I turn to face her. “It’s over. For real. Don’t call me. Don’t text me. Don’t come to my fucking house. Leave me alone. Leave my family alone.”

I listen to him talk numbers like my credit isn’t a black hole full of missed payments and bad decisions.

She’s like a demon haunting my soul.

“What are you doing here?” I manage, my voice barely cracking a whisper.

When I finally muster the courage to look up at him, I see something I’ve never seen on his face before. Disgust.

She looked like she wanted to die watching me walk out of her room. It took everything in me not to wrap my arms around her and hold her until she fell asleep. But I had to go, for my own sake. For my own fucking sanity.

I can’t hurt you because I really do love you.”

“I’ve been fucked up for a long time,” she says, her voice cracking. “I just wanted somebody to love me. Somebody to belong to, who belongs to me. I need to know what that feels like.”

I was out. I had the clean break I needed. But here she is in my arms again. And I don’t know how to let her go.

“I tried to kill him.” Somehow, I’m not shocked by this. I’m more curious than anything else. “How?”

I’ve been needed before. I’ve been fucking useless before. I’m never gonna be that again for a woman I care about.

“You’re moving in with me.”

I want you to stay with me at night. Just so I know you’re safe.

“I’ma Uber up to the site to get my car,” I say. “Going forward, you can drive mine when you need it.”

“We’re not back together, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Ace has a hero complex.

he says the words I’ve been waiting to hear for what seems like my whole life.

“I love you.”

“I fuckin’ hate this shit,” he groans against my neck. “I can’t let you go.”

I feel it instantly. A cold emptiness.

“I talked to him yesterday and told him I had a game today,” he said. “So, nah, he didn’t come to see me.”

I wish I could lie about it. I’ve spent my whole life keeping that part of me locked up tight. I refuse to relive it, no matter who’s asking.

maybe Ace is enough. Maybe I don’t have to control this outcome.

He loves me. He really loves me. And I think it's healing me.

“I love you. I’ll always love you. But this is a mistake.” Her voice softens. “Just know that I’ll still be here when she fucks up your life.”

“I don’t have it in me to give a man my everything. I just don’t, Auntie. I can’t get hurt again. Ever.”

“If you wanna keep her, you’re gonna have to move a certain way. And I think I can help you with that.”

She talks like Raya’s a bomb with a 60-second timer and me being with her means constantly defusing her, praying I cut the right wire every time.

I want to tell him how he ruined me before I ever had a chance to become somebody worth loving.

There was this old movie on, A Thin Line Between Love and Hate,

That’s the thing about men, that’s what they do. They show up to ruin women’s lives, bending and twisting us until we break. I kinda liked how she broke, though.

Ferris got thirteen years for felony aggravated assault. I remembered he still had my old phone, so I lied and said he robbed me, too. I remember how good it felt seeing him dragged away in handcuffs, proclaiming his innocence,

an undetectable paralytic.

Tori never said it, but part of me believes Daddy must have done something to her, too.