Sister Girls 2 by Angel M. Hunter Page B

because they think it’s my duty. It’s not even like it’s that pleasurable and even though it’s far and few in between, I no longer want to.
    I’m in my thirties for goodness sake, and you’d think that with all I’ve been through, I would know better.
    I do know better, it’s just been hard to do better.
    Â 
    Your friend in need, Faith

    A nother hang up. Faith was tired of this shit. It’d been going on for so long now, too damn long and she was getting tired of the games, of pretending like things were okay between them, tired of accepting the fact that he had mistresses.
    She was his wife, damn it! It was either time to work it out or move on. Who was she kidding? There would be no moving on. The truth about their situation was there was nothing left to work on. The, I love you so much, I don’t know what I’d do without you, feeling was gone. The “I can’t live without you” had turned into “I’m grateful to you, love.” That is not the type of love that kept a marriage together.
    Faith refused to let Raheem walk all over her anymore. She refused to let him think he could see other women and that it was okay.
    It amazed her the way some men seriously thought they could do whatever they wanted to and however they want to as long as they were paying the bills.
    The night of Susan’s party, listening to Timothy’s friend, Malik, showed Faith that this crazy way of thinking didn’t only pertain to her household, that it was going on in a number of homes as well. Homes where the wives were treated as doormats, homes where they dealt with it because the men were financially well-off. Homes where outward appearances represented something different than what was actually going on, homes where the money was plentiful but the love was not.
    The funny thing was when she’d counseled women that were in abusive relationships, women stayed in spite of what they were going through. She would try to convince them otherwise, she would try to talk them into leaving. “You don’t have to live like that!” she’d tell them, but she was living the same way but under different circumstances.
    Faith believed that she was getting too old for games, she wanted to be loved and cherished, not treated like a piece of property. She didn’t want to feel like she was owned or like she owed anyone. She didn’t want to feel like she had to love someone because they helped her survive.
    Faith finally beat her addiction and it had been years since she’d used. Put those years clean with years of use and you’d get a woman that still had inner struggles and inner demons. She wanted to rid herself of her personal demons; she needed to in order to continue helping others rid themselves of theirs.
    On and off of cocaine for months at a time, a year off here and a year off there and a few binges in between had taken its toll on her physically, spiritually, and mentally. Each time she returned to her habit, it had gotten worse. She attended meetings on and off, following a step here and a step there but never ready to surrender.
    It was that surrender word Faith couldn’t get past. Surrender to Faith meant giving her life up for someone else to run. She wasn’t ready to do that.
    What changed is when after a three-day binge, Faith got into a car accident and almost totaled the car. She didn’t remember anything about the accident and that scared the shit out of her.
    Faith decided to start attending meetings again and this time she was going to listen and learn instead of just sitting there and doubting. This time she was going to take part and tell her story instead of getting engrossed in others. This time she was going to get up the nerves and ask for a sponsor. That sponsor ended up being Susan and with Susan’s support, her sobriety became a reality.
    It was Susan that kept it gully and asked her how the hell she could