After The Pain

By Tia Barnes and Alycia Morris

Charity has experienced nothing but heartache since her mom passed away. All the men she has tried to love only let her down, including her father, making her sink deeper into a dark place not even her two best friends can help her out of.
Jasmine is the friend that’s always trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel. She has her own demons with her abusive husband. How far will she go to keep her secret, and once it’s out, will she ever be the same?
Lori seems to have her life in order, or so she thinks, and she doesn’t mind rubbing it in the faces of her friends. She’s the true meaning of sweep around your own front door before worrying about someone else.
These ladies have all experienced different trials in their lives from infidelities, lying, death of a child, etc. With God on their side and true friendship, they learn how to cope with life after the pain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781387329786

Book preview

After

The

Pain

This is the work of non-fiction. Any character references or likenesses to persons living or dead are completely coincidental. Actual people and places have been added to give the story a sense of reality.

Copyright©2021 Tia Barnes

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above. No part of this book may be reproduced into retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written consent from the author.

Charity

I had been having the worst luck in the love department. All the guys I’ve come across were losers, including my own daddy. I hadn’t spoken to him since right before my mama passed away. It was really sad. The man that was supposed to protect me from losers like the ones I’d been attracting, turned out to be the biggest loser of them all. He was living a double life with my mama’s best friend, Natalie. He even had kids with her that I didn’t care to know. Thanks to that and the fact that my last few relationships were shit, I refused to lower my standards anymore just to say that I had a man in my life.

I learned to be fine by myself even though the nights got lonely, and cold. I threw myself into my work and started my business. It hadn’t been easy, but it was all worth it because it was something that I was really passionate about. I started a non-profit called Sistahs That Support. It’s a women’s support program that assists women from all different walks of life. My mission was to help employ, house, and train as many women as possible so that they could go on to do whatever their hearts desired.

I wanted to do something positive to uplift women because my mama was an amazing woman that was always helping others in any way that she could. God put it on my heart to follow in her footsteps because she used to always tell me that uplifting my queens was better than putting them down. That plays in the back of my mind all of the time. Now, all I wanted to do was live up to her expectations, helping out all the Queens I could. I knew that she was looking down on me with a happy heart, and that was all the motivation I needed to keep pushing.

My two best friends, Lori, and Jasmine were also my business partners. They were the ones that supported me the most. We hadn’t been seeing eye to eye because they thought that I set the bar too high for any man to even attempt to approach me. Both were married with children and felt bad for me because I hadn’t even been on a date in the last year in a half.

I was low key jealous of the relationships they had but I just couldn’t see myself settling for anymore assholes or having my heart broken again, because the way Josh broke my heart. I mean that man had broken me down to my core from all of the lying and cheating, to the baby mama drama from all seven of his kids moms; he tried to turn me into some kind of sex freak. There was so much shit he had done to me that I could write a mini-series. When I was finally able to pick myself up and shake that shit off I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t ever allow another man to hurt me in that way again. I knew that I shouldn’t let one failed relationship allow me to hate all men, but in my case there was Josh, Michael, Christopher, Robert, and Jackson so yes I felt that I had the right to feel the way that I did. After one failed relationship I dusted myself off and jumped right back out there only to be fucked over again. It took me numerous tries before I just said fuck it and that’s my feelings in a nutshell.

Maybe it wasn’t meant for me to have a good man or be in love, I might have been created to be the crazy cat lady that all of the kids in the neighborhood were afraid of. If by chance there was someone out there for me I needed him to find me because a sister was lonely; I wasn’t doing anymore searching for him. He who finds a wife finds a good thing, I knew my worth and what I brought to the table. However if I said that I wasn’t starting to feel a little self-doubt then I’d be lying. If I had to put in all the work for him to only meet me twenty percent of the way then he would need to keep his ass where he was at because I wasn’t settling.

I’m human just like any other woman so it was only natural that I yearned to be held, told I was beautiful, and I wanted to be touched by a man that wanted only me. Since I didn’t have that I’d just stick to dressing up for myself to make me feel good and keep making out with my Mr. Dickalicious because he always got the job done without all the extra shit.

I would have to take it to my grave that I still thought about Josh sometimes because they would have my head for that shit, I couldn’t help it though he was the last man I was with, and things weren’t all bad in the beginning he was just what I needed. When we reached our sixth month mark in our relationship he started to change, and all his fuck boy tendencies came out. I kept some shit he did to me from my girls because I was embarrassed to admit to them that he had hit me, I said that I would never be that girl who put up with an abusive man, I did for a while because I liked the idea of him being there even if it was part time, I found out about his baby mamas at three months into our relationship, he swore that there was nothing going on between them so I believed him until one day I did a little digging only to find out that they were some kind of cult. They all lived together, slept together everything. I begged him to leave that alone so we could be together, but the more I begged him to leave the more he was trying to pull me into that lifestyle. Maybe that was the best I could do, but I just couldn’t see myself sharing what was supposed to be meant for me I didn’t operate that way.

Lori

Charity girl come open this door! I know you hear me ringing this damn bell. She knew I hated waiting.

Girl what do you want? I just want to be alone; can’t you understand that and stop all that damn yelling before my nosy ass neighbors call the laws! Charity replied when she came to the door.

Girl fuck them folks and I’m not going nowhere what kind of friend does that make me. If I let you be miserable when there is so much potential out there. All you have to do is let your guards down just a little bit girl damn. I was tired of her sulky and being unhappy.

Look Lo I love you like a fat kid love cake, but if you came over here to give me this same old tired ass speech of yours then you can just go the hell home because I am not trying to hear it. Charity was over the help.

Whatever, I’m just looking out for you, and I didn’t come over here to argue with you. I actually came to see if you wanted to go to the club with me and Jasmine tonight, there is going to be some fine single men up in the spot tonight. I smiled at her.

Look I’ll go but I’m going to hang out with my girls I’m not checking for none of them niggas up in there so whatever you got up your sleeve you need to cut that shit out now. Charity knew Lo was up to something but she did need to get out of the house.

Yea okay if you say so, I’m just glad you are coming because we haven’t hung out at all this month and we all deserve a break. I was happy she gave in.

I was glad that she didn’t have any idea what I was up to, we were going to the club, but there was this new guy named Adrian that works with my husband Jamal. We had him over for dinner the other night so that I could feel him out for Charity, and he seemed really nice so I asked him to meet us at the club, I didn’t tell him it was a setup I kept that little tidbit of info to myself the only other person that knew what I was up to was Jasmine and my husband of course.

It was so hard seeing my best friend like that all she did lately was work and go home; ever since that ole scrub ass little boy Josh played her. I knew that she put on a front like she was cool and didn’t want or need a man she had been trying to keep her guards up. She needed to get back out there to find her a man that’s worthy of her. I was going to push the issue to get the ball rolling for my girl, she would thank me later when her and Adrian hit it off. I wasn’t trying to be a pushy friend, but Charity has been through so much since I met her. I was only trying to help her through all of this.

Jasmine knew all about what I was trying to do, and she was against it. She would say things like letting Mr. Right find Charity but that shit could take forever. This was a new day, and age so there was nothing wrong with a woman going after what she wanted. I guess it was just me that knew what the deal was, so I had to get my girl a good man.

I could hear Charity now cursing me out because she claimed to not need anyone, but I bet Mr. Dickalicious was tired of her ass, and I for one was tired of her pity party every day. Adrian was just what the doctor ordered, and I was going to make sure that Charity took advantage of everything he had to offer. He’s educated, handsome, nice body; the total package so I wanted her to get him before one of those vultures that work with them tried to snatch his ass up.

Jasmine

Michael are you going out with us tonight it’s going to be so much fun. It’s a celebration for how far we’ve come with the business; we have done so much for the women in our program plus it would give us some much-needed alone time. I asked my husband.

Bitch I’m not going nowhere, and neither are you. How in the hell are you gone help some other bitches with their life when you don’t even have your shit together. That’s all I ever hear you talking about these days is that funky ass so called business. Those hoes you call friends, taking my hard-earned money putting it into this bullshit you call a business. I’m, sick of it! Michael yelled at her.

Michael was my first everything. The Lord knew that I tried to be patient with him because we’ve been together for thirteen years, but I just didn’t know what happened to him over the years because he went from being a nice, sweet, and caring man to a mean ass person that I didn’t recognize. I couldn’t even stomach being around him anymore. He was so mean to me in front of our kids. It seemed like everything we did aggravated him I felt like my babies were starting to despise me for putting up with the shit; I felt like I was stuck between a rock and a hard place because I knew how important it was for the kids to have both parents around. I also knew that staying for the kids wasn’t the answer either. This situation really had me torn so much to where I didn’t know if I was coming or going. It was really messed up too because I kept it all hidden.

This was not something that I shared with my girls because the last thing I needed was them looking at me like I was one of the women we were trying to help down at the center. Besides Charity had her own issues she was dealing with so I wasn’t going to add to that, and Lori wasn’t actually the easiest person in the world to talk to when it came down to stuff like this because she always came off as a know it all when she shouldn’t be giving advice about something she had never experienced. I didn’t want to be judged

Reviews for After The Pain

[Tonya Simpson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was a really good read I love that the author touched on subjects that we as women can relate to, it was a page turner for me from beginning to end I highly recommend this book.