Wounds of Love: Memoirs

By Sharrae Vaughn

When Sharrae first met Troy in high school, it was love at first sight for her. Troy was popular, attractive, and a wrestling team champion. Although nothing happened between them, she always wondered about what might have been. Twenty years later, when Sharrae runs into Troy again, her feelings resurface, and she decides to take action and get to know the man she had loved so many years before.

But as Troy and Sharraes relationship blossoms, Sharrae realizes that not all is as it seems to be. More and more frequently, Troy begins blowing off dates and holiday gatheringsnot to mention the fact that he may be involved with married women. Although Sharrae often asks Troy to stop playing games and tell her the truth, he eludes her questions, swearing that she is the only girl for him.

After six years in an on-again, off-again romance, Troy asks Sharrae to marry him. Although shes elated at the possibility of spending the rest of her life with him, she faces a choice: accept the man of her dreams and the emotional price that comes with the relationship, or find the strength within herself to let him go in hopes that a better man waits for her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462027934

Sharrae Vaughn

Sharrae Vaughn, a native of Chicago, Illinois, earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Chicago State University and an associate’s degree in secretarial administration from Robert Morris College in Chicago. She is also the author of Wounds of Love; Memoirs. She lives in Calumet Park, Illinois, with her three sons.

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Contents

Dedication

Epigraph

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Afterward

Conclusion

About The Author

Dedication

To my parents, Frank Brown Sr. and Louise Brown; both looking down from the Heavens; I hope I’ve made you proud.

Epigraph

Most women can relate to what I’ve been through. A relationship is like going to war and we all have our war stories to tell.

Preface

Wounds of Love is about actual events that happened in my life while I barely existed in a dysfunctional relationship. Although I did acknowledge what was going on and what was happening to me, I didn’t react to it because I was dealing with my Mom’s down-hill battle with cancer and other personal family matters which caused me physical and emotional turmoil and my attention was not focused on what was going on within the relationship.

One of the major reasons why I stayed with this dysfunction relationship was because I got comfortable and just settled for it, hoping that one day things would get better. Unfortunately, one day turned into weeks; weeks turned into months; the months turned into years, and there I was, asking myself; where did the time go? That was when the bitterness and self-pity overwhelmed my self-esteem; how did this happen; I did it to myself.

I also fault my traits and personality for my tribulations. I’m the kind of person that finds gratification in helping, nourishing and giving to others. I was taken advantage of by people that only know how to take, and I allowed them to absorb the life out of me. My self-esteem; or lack thereof, played another major role in why I stayed in the dysfunctional relationship for too long. I had this longing to be loved and to feel needed by a man.

A male friend of mine once told me that dating is a game; and there are no rules. You win some, and you lose some. When you get tired of playing; then get out of the game, or you will come out of it a sore loser. These events that you are about to read happened to me because I didn’t get out of the game. I didn’t have the accurate playing equipment to guard and shield myself.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank:

The entire staff of IUniverse

My critique team: Troupe-Eleven

Bridgette Beard-Jackson for her book-writing inspiration

Kelly Rowland for her inspirational song Heaven N Earth

Special thanks to my family and to all of my friends; both life-long and seasonal, for your manifold and abundance of support.

Introduction

I saw him for the first time in over 20 years; I even remembered his voice. My instincts were to stay away from him because I knew he was a womanizer. He was then, and he still is. Because I had such a crush on him for all these years, and now here he was acknowledging me, not as that little girl, with a high-school crush, but as a woman, I wanted to explore a relationship with him. For me, it was love at second sight; for I loved him the first time I saw him over 20 years ago.

When you are in love with someone, you trust them with your life and your heart, but it always seems to be the people you love that hurt you the most. But, time heals all wounds; even wounds of love.

Chapter One

Year 2003

Getting Reacquainted with Troy

I am a mid-forty, single, and never been married, mother of three wonderful sons; ages nineteen, sixteen and ten years old. Following my failed relationships with their fathers, I found myself wanting to enter into a healthy relationship with a God-loving man. Due to my sons’ fathers not being as active in their lives as they should have been, I needed a positive role model and father-figure for my growing young men. Performing the roles of both parents was overwhelming; I needed a full-time male figure in their lives.

I am retired from the State of Illinois. I am financially surviving, but like everyone else, I needed some extra income to support my family. I already had a diploma from Robert Morris College; RMC, so I decided to further my education by returning to RMC to receive my Associates degree. From there, I enrolled at Chicago State University and received my Bachelor degree in Elementary Education; concentrating in English. My Mom assisted me with caring for my boys while I attended school; she was my inspiration. Both she and I were so proud, because I was the first, out of her six children, that she was blessed to see graduate from college, it was also an accomplishment for me. Graduating from college was a birthday present to myself; I had received my bachelor degree for my fortieth birthday!

June 3rd. I was enrolled at Robert Morris College, and at the time I was living on the far Southeast side of Chicago on 77th Street. I took the Metra train to and from school. Although it was a few blocks away from my residence, it was the safest and most convenient way of getting to school. School let out early one June evening, and while I was walking from the train station and approaching the stop sign on the corner of 76th and Exchange, there was a car and a man on a purple motorcycle yielding me the right of way; translation; they both stopped to let me cross the street so that they could both watch my ass. As I walked by, the man on the motorcycle asked for me to come over to him with this husky voice. Usually, I would have just kept walking because I am not one to stop and talk to men or look into peoples’ cars, but this particular voice made me freeze in my tracks; I thought to myself, I know that voice from my past; from way back when. So I turned around to see if the face matched the voice from my past. Yes, it did! It was him, Troy; a.k.a., Yours-Truly, the guy from my old high school that I secretly had a crush on; who didn’t have a crush on him? All the girls had wanted him. He was so mature looking in high school. He had a full mustache, and a grown man’s body; and from the rumors that I heard around the school, he had a grown man’s penis too.

I stopped and went over to him; he still looked good after all these years. Troy was a little heavier than he was when in high school, but who hadn’t put on a few pounds after twenty plus years. He was wearing a lilac bandana, a pair of goggles on his forehead and a purple sleeveless t-shirt showing his pretty dark-brown skin and all those muscles! His beard and mustache were finely groomed; damn he still looked good. I asked him was his name Troy, and he said yes. I asked him if he had gone to John Marshall Harlan high school; JMH, and if he were on the wrestling team. I remembered that he had transferred from JMH when the wrestling coach transferred to Orr High School; OHS. I also asked him did he go to OHS with the wrestling coach. He was in awe. He was now looking at me wondering; who was this woman and why does she know so much about me and in such detail. He probably was also wondering if I was going to tell him that he had slept with me; in his wild stripper days, and had a baby that he knew nothing about. Now he looked concerned and as if he were about to start his bike up and get the hell up out of there, so I belted out that my name was Sharrae; and that I was a wrestling cheerleader when we attended JMH. I asked if he remembered my cousins Renee and Monica Wright; they also had gone to JMH. Thank God he remembered them, now he could relax a little and continue to talk to me. I could tell that he still didn’t quite remember my face, but he was sure interested in getting to know me this second time around. He told me that he had transferred to Percy L. Julian high school in his last year in order to receive a wrestling scholarship for college.

At the time, I was dating Matt; a.k.a., Metra, he was the conductor on the train. I had met Matt while riding the train to RMC. Although that being the case, I most definitely wanted to keep in touch with this man that was now acknowledging me as a woman and not some little girl with a high-school crush. I almost felt flattered that Troy was now interested in little ole me. If I didn’t know then, I knew now that I wasn’t that little skinny girl from high school that he barely gave a second glance. He gave me his home and cell number and told me to give him a call, and that he would be waiting for that call.

July 3rd. Although I was still involved with Matt, I decided to give Troy a call; just to say hi and maybe go out for a friendly let’s get reacquainted cocktail. I called the cell number; it was no longer in service. I was like damn; I waited too long, now I may never see this man again. Let me try the other number, I hoped that it wasn’t off too. So I called the house number; it rang. Now, I was hoping for a few things; one; that a woman didn’t answer the phone and two; that it was still his number. You know how people change their phone number like they change their minds these days. I waited for someone to pick up the phone; but it went to voice mail. Was it going to be a female voice, an automated voice, or his voice; I would soon find out. This heavy, husky voice spoke, and it was Troy’s voice, so I left a message after the beep. I was so hoping that he would call me back that night or the next night, maybe even the following week. How’s never; he never called back? I assumed he just wasn’t interested in little ole me after all, so I never called again. I didn’t leave my number because I just knew that he would see it on his caller ID; how was I supposed to know that he didn’t have caller ID? Besides, even if I wanted to call him, I couldn’t, because somehow I had misplaced the little piece of paper with his numbers on it. I thought to myself that maybe that was a sign just to leave him alone. Remembering that back in high school, he did have a reputation of being a lady’s man, and a jock that all the women wanted and maybe all he wanted with me was to put another notch in his belt. You know the wham-bam, thank you ma’am. Maybe I should have followed that sign.

October 15th. I had just moved from the Southeast side of Chicago to a city-south-burb. I called it that because if you lived on one side of the street, you were in Chicago, and if you walked across the street, you were either in Calumet Park or Blue Island. While I was moving a dresser out of my room, I noticed some dust bunnies and a few pieces of papers that had fallen behind the dresser, I got the broom and a dust pan to clean behind the dresser, I picked up the pieces of papers, looking at them to made sure that none of them was of any importance; like a receipt or a phone number. As I was throwing the junk paper away, I ran across this one piece in particular, I remember the way that piece of paper looked when he gave it to me. My heart started beating a little faster. I immediately dropped the broom that was resting on my arm. With my eyes popping damn near out my head, mouth wide open, lo and behold, there were the numbers that Troy had written down. The first thing I thought was maybe it was another sign. Since the relationship with Matt and I wasn’t working out too well, maybe it was meant for me to find Troy’s number when I did; maybe he could be someone that I could occupy my time. I looked at the piece of paper, remembering that the cell number was disconnected but what about the other number? I didn’t call right away because I had a lot of moving to do. I put the numbers in a safe place and decided to call Troy after I got settled in my new place.

October 24th. I decided to call the home number that Troy had given me that June day. I wanted to know if the number still belonged to him, or if it was even still in service. I dialed the number, okay it was ringing; at least it was not disconnected. Now once again, I’m hoping that a woman didn’t answer. The phone rang another time. Oh well, no answer. I’ll just wait for the voice mail, so that I could hear if his voice was still on the recording. The phone rang once more and connected; someone had picked up the phone. Please don’t be a woman, or a new resident. I held my breath, waiting for the voice on the other end to speak, and it was Troy’s deep, husky voice saying hello. My heart dropped to the bottom of my feet, that voice, it was his voice; how could I ever forget that voice. Smiling from ear to ear, I managed to spit out a hello and stated who I was. I asked him if he remembered me from JMH, and that he had given me his number over the summer.

While waiting to hear his response, I am holding my breath, hoping that he’d remembered me and was still interested. Yes, he remembered me, and he asked me how had I been? Damn he had a deep sexy-ass voice; I managed to say that I was doing fine, and asked him the same. He responded that he was doing much better now that he had me on the phone. He thought he would never hear from me again. He said he had gotten the message I had left, but I didn’t leave a return number, so he waited and waited for me to call again, but I never did, he said he just gave up after a month of waiting for me to call again. I asked him why didn’t he get my number off his caller ID, or dialed the function from his voice mail to connect the call to me. I told him that I thought that he just wasn’t interested in me, and that’s why he never called me back. He let me know that it was most definitely not that, it was that he didn’t have caller ID on this phone and he was not up on all this new technology. Putting all that aside, now that he had me on the phone he was going to make sure that he wrote my number down this time. I gave him my number, and he continued to talk about how he waited for another call, then he asked if he could see me. He wanted to take me out for dinner that night, or lunch the next day; he didn’t care; he just wanted to see me. We talked on the phone for hours, and said our see-you-later and good-byes; we decided to do lunch the next day.

I felt so good going to bed that night thinking maybe this time we could get to know each other; sweet dreams. At this time, my car was down in the worse way, and I had to go to the bank, he even offered to take me to the bank in the morning. I got up the next morning feeling rather giddy, because I was finally about to get to know Troy. He came and picked me up, and there he was in the flesh. I got a better look at him; he still was very handsome, but the only thing that was different was that I noticed now he had no hair; he had a clean bald head. At first, he looked strange to me because the last time I saw him was years ago in high school when he had a full head of hair. When I saw him back in June, he had on a bandana, so I wasn’t aware that he was bald; I had to