It's Messy

By A. Massingale

Dawn Williams fell in love with Tyrone Walker in 2005, to which she met online. Six months into the relationship, Tyrone ghosts Dawn and leaves her heartbroken. In 2010, Dawn moves on with Micah Brown but is skeptical about falling in love. Micah takes Dawn home to meet his family for the annual family reunion, for Dawn to run into Tyrone, who happens to be Micah's brother. Come to find out, Tyrone's real name is Mitch Brown, and the Tyrone persona created on the online site was fake, and Mitch is married with children. To further complicate the situation, Micah proposed to Dawn, further making the unexpected reunion awkward. Mitch silently attempts to sabotage Dawn's effort to bond with the family, and with every attempt, it hilariously backfires. Things get messier when Mitch remembers why he was attracted to Dawn in the first place, possibly falling for her all over again. All chaos and hell break loose on the week with the family. Will everyone survive the reunion?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781684985982

Book preview

It’s Messy

A. Massingale

Copyright © 2022 A. Massingale

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2022

ISBN 978-1-68498-597-5 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68498-598-2 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

To narcissistic abuse survivors

Logline: Mitch, the womanizer, will learn the hard way how messy life can get when an old flame turns up at his family reunion and, to his surprise, is dating his brother. A weekend of chaos, heartbreak, and hilarious mishaps will ensue.

Contents

Characters

Introduction

Part 1

You Again

Part 2

The Susceptible Proposal

The Short Kiss in the Morning

Hell at the Spa

The Mask of Sanity

Vichyssoise (Conclusion)

Characters

Dawn: story protagonist. She is the good girl with a big heart that wants to love and be in love. Dawn has an extraordinarily strong moral fiber (she would never knowingly date a married man), hence the deception of Tyrone/Mitch. She loved Tyrone, and that romance blew up in her face. She is extremely guarded and reluctant to give her heart to Micah.

Tyrone/Mitch: story antagonist and narrator of the story. Mitch tells the romance in flashback to his son, MJ, who is following his deceptive/womanizing ways. Mitch is not happy with his wife and kids and created Tyrone to escape marriage and responsibility. Mitch is extremely (LOW KEY) jealous of Dawn and Micah’s relationship, and does everything to sabotage Dawn’s bond with the family. In the process, Mitch remembers why he was attracted to Dawn/falling for Dawn and tries to woo her as a last-ditch effort to break up Dawn and Micah. Realizing too late that Dawn was really special and did not deserve poor treatment does not stop Mitch from trying to break up her happiness with his brother. (Mitch is an implied narcopath.)

Micah: Dawn’s boyfriend/fiancé, who is naïve to Dawn and Mitch’s past and Mitch’s double life. Micah is serious and hardworking and is in love with Dawn. Micah and Mitch are as opposite as day and night.

MJ: MJ is Mitch’s son who is turning into a player.

Introduction

We open to MJ bringing home his third girlfriend to his grandmother’s house, much to the chagrin of his mother and siblings. Mitch, the father, is walking over the fireplace and looking at family photos with some hint of sadness over the pictures of his brother and his wife. Mitch is scoping his son’s new girlfriend and is looking around the corner with jealousy and regret at his little brother and sister-in-law.

MJ’s second girlfriend shows up and vandalizes Mitch’s car because of MJ’s actions. Mitch, fed up, starts narrating the story of the all-time love of his life—much to MJ’s shock that it is not his mother.

Mitch says, You know, son, through example I taught you some horrible things, and I am sorry. If you knew the heartache I went through, you would know the game you’re playing is not worth it.

MJ says, Dad, when you were married to Mom, you ran the tightest game. You had the finest women left and right. Please, you lived the dream, remember?

Son, being the bad boy, you will lose eventually. It is a matter of time before things catch up with you. The day you play with hearts and minds, you lose yourself. Be careful playing the game with a girl that consistently shows you she is better at it. I lost two good women playing games. Your mother and another.

There was another besides Mom that you regret losing?

Yes. There is the one that got away. My all-time love of my life. She was beautiful inside and out. The sad part is, had I been faithful to your mother, I would not know there was this beautiful person that could exist. She raised the bar beyond your mother, and she was special. She was sweet, beautiful, giving, talented, and out of my league completely. Even though I had problems, she liked me anyway, which baffled me. Being dumb, I lost her, and I know I did not deserve to breathe the same air as her. But she never treated me like scum, which made me admire her more. She respected me even though I did not deserve it. She was pure class.

Tell me more about this mystery woman.

Mitch tells the story in flashback.

"She was sweet. She was my good girl. I knew from the moment I met her she was special, and I also knew how much she deserved better. I am not going to deny it: I am a dog. I was a low-down dirty dog. Every now and then in life, you meet your match. We met online. I was only there to have fun, but she was serious. She wanted love; I wanted a fling. She wanted to give. I wanted to take. She wanted to heal. I wanted to break. It was doomed from the start.

"Being the Don Juan I was, I tried to seal the deal and failed miserably. The only satisfaction I got from that was that I invaded her mind and heart, but she was smarter to never let me invade her body. After six months of trying to conquer her, I moved on. Forcibly, I mean. What choice did I have? She did not give me what I wanted, and I was bored with her. After six months of attempting to woo her, I just ghosted her. I mean, it is all about me. There are hundreds of other girls that were lining up for me to just smile at them. The problem is, they were not her. They were so easy. It gets boring in the game to pick girls you know you are going to conquer. I mean, I am the man, right? My biggest problem in life was always following the rules. I know I should not have started this Russian roulette game, but I was bored.

"At the time, I was not interested in being a family man. Your mother was cool, being a dad was all right, but I needed an escape. I was trapped. When I came home somedays, I felt like I could not breathe. It was too routine.

"At work, I learned the power of the wedding ring. I had so many sidepieces it was ridiculous. One day when I was on the prowl, I saw her. She was interesting. She was the average cute girl. She was a seven or eight out of ten in looks. Something told me to not try it, but boy, did I ever wish I listened to that voice; for where she was lacking in looks, she made up for tenfold in personality and character.

"When I met Dawn, time froze. I instantly liked her, but she was a Goody Two-shoes I wanted to take down a level. She was out of my league. She had character, culture, and class. She was like a ’57 Chevy restored. They do not make models like her anymore. I had my fill of hoochie mamas and skanks; she was beyond the rest. I knew when I met her she would set the bar for the rest, even my wife.

"I hated her for that. I needed revenge! Who was she to try to be so pure and moral? She walked around like her crap did not stink! The only problem is that a mile away, she would never date me knowing I was a married man. So I did the next logical thing: I created Tyrone. Fake online page, fake persona, and I dated her. I learned all her weaknesses. It was fun watching her catch feelings for someone who did not exist. I was going to get the last laugh! Joke would be on her. She could not live with herself for breaking UP a failing marriage anyway. I was going to teach this innocent little novice a thing or two about relationships and heartbreak.

"Instantly I thought she was going to be easy. Every woman wants love, and women are characteristically stupid. All I had to do was play the biology card. I am the alpha male any woman would hope to meet. Every woman has fallen to me. Whoever my heart was set on, that was who I got. Overconfidently, I knew I was going to bed her like the rest with no challenge or minimal effort like the rest. I mean, who would not? I am the stud, the rooster in the henhouse. No hen defied me long. Or so I thought…

"I did what I had to do to get what I wanted, damn the cost to my soul. I lied. Telling her what she wanted to hear was easy. The crazy thing is that she was real and sincere. She was honest with me at all times. Sometimes a therapist. I always went to her because if I wanted to hear the truth, she would tell me. She was not a silly yes-chick.

"Tyrone became more and more real to me. I needed him. What I also underestimated was how being around her was addictive. Her smile and laugh were becoming more addictive than heroin. The mask and the alter ego were my crutch, my fantasy, the fantasy for the dream girl. For a moment in time, Tyrone was an outlet for the shadow of the single man I wish that I had stayed. Tyrone was also the key to her heart. The heart I was slowly going to rip out and eat right in her face and enjoy doing it. Maybe I would?

"There was this nagging little conscience I was fighting to kick to the side. She was genuinely a nice person. I knew screwing with her was wrong. Okay, so to cover my conscience, I did tell her to never