Wrong for the last time, right for the first

“I’ll kill you if you ever leave me,” the egregious words spoken by her ex boyfriend that Nia vividly reminisced as she lay emotionless on the dark blue couch of her therapists office. “Hello, Nia?” Dr Walker repeating her sentence for the third time, “Tell me what’s going on? You've been my client for about 2 years and you’ve only called an emergency session one other time so this is alarming.”

Standing up, Nia walks across the room to gaze out the window.

“You know doc, My relationship with men has always been very indifferent. I just always seem to pick the wrong men but this time I really outdid myself and I don’t know how to move forward.”

Dr Walker, concerned,checks her phone and then takes out her little black book so they can begin the session.

“Ok Nia, tell me what you mean by that? What happened? Please, Start from the beginning and tell me what went wrong…”

It was a mild day in Atlanta. The sun was out and Nia was driving down I-285 listening to the Grand Rising morning show when her gaslight started blinking.

“Shit, this is just what I need”, Nia heads for the next exit where she finds the nearest Gas Station. Walking into the freshly modeled store he grabs her attention. A tall brown skinned man, seemingly in his early thirties steps out his Model 3 Tesla in a dark grey tailored business suit. Playing it cool, Nia makes her way around the store to grab a few items before standing in line to check out. “Wow you are even more gorgeous up close,” jumping right behind her holding a Ginger Ale and a bag of frito lays. Nia’s body completely locks up as she stares straight ahead.

Nia’s last dating experience put her on the path to seek therapy, so even the simplest compliment could send mind into a frenzy. Her trust she preferred to keep it amongst her close home girls and her therapist, so even though her cheeks were red as a rose from this man's compliment, she was super apprehensive about interacting from fear of what it could turn into. Still nervous, Nia turns around. “Oh thanks I guess,” getting lost in his pretty brown eyes.

“HELLO, NEXT! interrupted by the store clerk,“DO YOU WANNA BUY OR NOT?”

Nia, startled by the interruption, drops the items she held in her hand and scurried to pay for her things before awkwardly running out of the door. “Perfect, just perfect. How freaking clumsy can you be… all you had to do was say thank you and go about your day but nooo you want to stare gaze and shit” Nia retorts to herself while walking back to the car. “Excuse me!” he jogs to catch up to her,”hello, Nia?” Nia stops in her tracks and turns around extremely frightened.

“Okay, at first I thought you were cute but this just got creepy extremely fast. How the hell do you know my name!” Nia is carefully walking backwards towards her car when the unnamed gentleman sticks out his arm with a card dangling from his fingers.

“Umm you left your card in the machine, I was trying to catch you before you pulled off. My apologies, I’m Avaris and I really didn’t mean to creep you out, I was just tryna save you some time”. Nia lets out a huge sigh of relief while as she nervously laughs at Avaris

“Ohhh okay, I thought you were some stalking murderer or something. Well thank you for grabbing my card. Sometimes I can be forgetful.” Avaris laughs and alluringly steps a little closer to Nia. “It looks like you might need a break, miss lady… I don’t want to hold you up because you seem like a very important woman so here, take my number. Maybe we can hang out sometime.” Alarmed, Nia took a step back and eyed Avaris from head to toe. She was about to reject his proposal but then she remembered her therapist's advice,“stay open to meeting new people.” She ultimately agreed and pulled her phone out to take his number. Nia didn’t know it yet but Avaris was about to change the trajectory of her life as she knew it.

Nia and Avaris’s relationship escalated very swiftly over the course of six months. It felt like they had known eachother forever. They were very different individuals but it seemed to work well for them. Nia was more on the outgoing side of life. She was a social butterfly that loved hanging with her friends whereas Avaris lived on the private side, with no friends and a hatred for social media. Things were going so well that Nia even contemplated quitting therapy but recanted after Avaris suggested it was still a good idea. Avaris had a thing for spending money and well, let's just say Nia had no problem having money spent on her. The two were a match made in heaven...or so she thought.

It was the evening of April 8th. Avaris and Nia had plans to attend her bestfriend’s monthly game night. When they arrived, the energy in the room was vibrant and full of love. Two and a half hours of fun goes by and Kacey, who is Nia’s best friend, stands up and raises her glass in the air.

“Alright guys it’s been another successful game night and I want to thank everybody for coming out so before we leave let's take one more shot”.

Everyone but Avaris who is now kneeled over the couch from too much to drink raises their glass in the air.

“Cheers”!

People begin to grab their belongings and slowly make their way out of the house leaving Nia and Avaris in the home with Kacey and her girlfriend. They were able to put their strength together to get Avaris in the back of Kacey’s car and back to his sky-rise apartment.

“Alright sis you take care of that one he’s out cold”.

“Thank you guys so much because we would’ve been spending the night at your house for sure,” Kacey and Brax give Nia a hug before leaving.

Nia begins to undress while Avaris is passed out on the couch. She heads to his bedroom where they had made love many times before and as she plops down on the bed money flies from underneath it and catches Nia’s attention. She gets up and looks underneath the bed to find a black box slightly opened.

“What the hell? Who still keeps money under their bed”

She goes to open the box in an attempt to return the escaped twenty dollars and when she removes the cover, she finds a wad of cash totaling twenty thousand dollars, a plethora of pictures of herself along with a burner phone and a composition notebook. She then opens the notebook and sees a very detailed list filled with times and dates of almost everything she’d done for the last year, along with every detail about her life that one can possibly imagine. Now beginning to panic, Nia opens the phone and reads the only incoming text message.

“Congrats, you got her to fall in love. The money is in the box. You will get the other half when the job is done. Keep it on you and silent at all times. Don’t ever text me. I will contact you with more instructions”.

Nia was still completely perplexed over a man that she thought loved her. Her investigation was interrupted by a still drunk Avaris standing in the doorway staring at her with a devious look she had never seen before.

“Damn, I thought I’d have more time before you started going through my shit,”

rapidly charges at Nia grabbing her neck and pinning her against the wall.

“All you had to do was play along. You could’ve died peacefully and I could've walked away with my money. She just wanted him to forget about you”

Nia who is desperately gasping for air feels for his testcales and with her left hand she yanked for dear life making Avaris release his hold and kneel to the ground.

“AGHHHHH, BITCH!”

Nia escapes into the kitchen where she’s able to grab a knife and with Avaris not too far behind her she turns around and plunges it right into his stomach. The two look at each other directly in the eyes as Avaris’s body goes limp and drops to the ground. Nia starts pacing around him.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU WOULD DO THIS TO ME, WHO HIRED YOU HUH?! COME ON YOU PUNK AT LEAST BE MAN ENOUGH TO BE HONEST BEFORE YOU DIE!”

She kicks him in his side and bends down to push the knife in deeper

“Tell me Who the fuck hired you?”

An almost lifeless Avaris looks up at Nia.

“She’s gunna kill you if i dont, Take the money and run.”

“Who’s she? Who wants me dead?”

“Call”

“Call who? What are you saying Avaris?”

Avaris then closes his eyes taking his last breath and Nia begins to panic again.

“Shit,call what? What was he saying?”

She then remembers about the familiar number on the burner and dials it from a blocked number on her phone. She was extremely shocked to find that the number belonged to Dr Walker’s Office.

“Why the fuck would she want to kill me?”

With very little time to process, Nia anxiously began to look for clues and after ten minutes of vigorous searching she stumbled across Avaris’s hidden social media accounts and eventually a DM between Avaris and Dr Walker hidden underneath unknown aliases that dated back six months, right before Nia spotted Avaris at the Gas station.

The messages showed Dr Walker giving Avaris a play by play on Nia’s entire life.It was almost as if Dr Walker took everything she learned about nia during their weekly sessions and regurgitated them to Avaris but, Why? Nia clicked on the pictureless profile of the therapist and on it she saw a full page full of pictures and videos of her life, one of those being a year old picture of Dr Walker lip locking with her Ex-boyfriend. The same ex that landed her in therapy in the first place and then it all clicked. With the sun now rising, Nia changed her clothes, grabbed the black box filled with the money and knew what she had to do next.

“...So you see Dr. Walker I realized I was with a liar and I have you to thank for it all. The things I’ve learned being your client have been outstanding but one of the biggest lessons i’ve taken away is to do what’s best for your peace no matter what so for that imma need a hug because I now know what I need to do next.” Dr Walker stands up ready to embrace Nia as she walks closer to her.

“That is wonderful Nia, so tell me...what do you think you need to do next?”

The two give each other a deep hug as Nia pulls a knife from her back pocket and plunges it into Dr Walker’s back, she drops and bleeds out onto the floor.

“Kill you and keep the money”.

Nia grabs her bag filled with 20,000, steps over her lifeless therapist and heads towards the door.

“Oh…& You’re fired bitch”