I hadn’t answered the phone in my hotel room all day, so when Cameron knocked on the door I wasn’t surprised. I’d been holed up in the Greenbelt Marriott for three days straight. She banged incessantly and I knew that she wasn’t going to give up.

I climbed out of the bed and opened the door to see her standing there looking the part of a concerned ally. “I brought you some Boston Market. Let me by.”

“I’m not hungry. I told you that and I also told you that I don’t want company.”

“Khalil, you can’t just stay up in here and shut the world off. You have to keep on moving. She’s not worth this. Nobody is.”

Hearing her speak negatively about Honey angered me. Even with all that I’d learned, I still loved her, though I wouldn’t admit it to anyone. Cameron insisted that I eat and I had to admit for the first time in days that the thought of shoving a meal down my throat didn’t make me want to throw up.

Before I knew it a couple of hours had passed and Cameron and I were talking the way we used to in her office. She was off the record and insisted that I respond the same way. It was like a free session. We talked about the pain of my discovery in regards to my parents and about my desire to kill Kevin, which I was glad to learn was normal.

“This was a really bad time for you to find out about Honey, I know. Just dealing with your other issues has to be incredibly tough, but you were about to marry her. So in essence, this may have been the best time.”

I digested her words and accepted that she may have been right. “So what do I do?”

“What do you want to do?” she asked in response. “I mean if you love her and you think you can get past it maybe you should call her.”

“I could never forgive her. Our whole relationship was built on lies.”

“Perhaps, but let me ask you this. Do you feel like you know why she didn’t tell you the truth from the beginning?”

I thought about it and the answer was so easy that I imagined that Cameron was trying to set me up. “She lied so that I wouldn’t know that she was a call girl.”

She smiled. “No, she lied so that you wouldn’t judge her for her past. You see as humans we all have secrets, things we do that we wouldn’t want to share with anyone else in the world. As time goes on, we find acceptance from ourselves and that is often so incredibly difficult. Sometimes we beat ourselves up daily over these things. Naturally we reason that if we have so much trouble accepting ourselves that there’s no way in the world someone else will accept us for who we really are or in certain cases who we were.”

“So are you saying that I should forgive her?”

“I’m not telling you anything except for what I’m telling you.”

“Which is?”

“Do you have ears?” She laughed. She stood up and said, “Khalil, I have to go. It’s getting late. I’m in a hotel room with a man who I’m slightly attracted to and who I know deep down inside is somewhat attracted to me. The thing is I know that that man is in love with someone else. Someone who has secrets just like everyone else in the world.”

“Even you?”

“Especially me.” She headed for the door and before she turned the handle she said, “Khalil, call me if you need me. Don’t sit in this room too much longer, it won’t help the pain, and most of all be true to yourself.” I was listening attentively. “Always remember, you can’t choose who you love. When you find that the person is bad for you, usually it’s gonna hurt. As a matter of fact, it always hurts.”

With that she walked out of the room.

Hours after Cameron left I stood in the shower, replaying the entire scene in my mind. The car pulling up, the window going down. “I know we haven’t met formally, but I feel like I already know you. Khalil, there are some things that you need to know about Honey. After you hear them, trust me, brother, marriage will be the last thing you want to do with her.”

Cheron had gone on: “I told Honey that she couldn’t build a future on a lie, and that you deserved to know the truth. As much as I don’t want to admit it, Honey is evil and I know you’ve been through so much already that you don’t need to be with someone else who would deceive you about something so important.”

I hated to admit that I had become all ears as Cheron poured out hateful gossip that was more lethal than acid. Each word destroying a piece of the love and trust that I felt for Honey.

I questioned her motives at first but she never made an advance. It was like she was playing the role of my guardian angel.

“I thought you were her friend. Her best friend,” was the only thing I had responded with.

“I was. But right is right and wrong is wrong.”

I climbed out of the shower and got dressed. My heart ached and felt as though it might stop beating at any second. I needed to see Honey. I picked up the phone to let her know that I was coming home. I got halfway through dialing the number when I heard a knock at the door.

I hung it up and walked to the door. “Who is it?”

“Cheron.”

When I opened it up she walked in. “What are you doing?” I asked, shocked with her boldness.

“I came to check on you.” I’d made the mistake of calling her from the hotel the next day for more details. She’d seemed to take pleasure in delivering as much detail as I was willing to listen to.

“I’m okay.”

“Really? I brought you something to help you out.” She lifted a bag of liquor and put it on the dresser. “I thought you could probably use a drink.”

“I don’t think…” She was already popping the top and pouring the XO into a cup.

“Plus there are some things I wanted to talk to you about.” She was talking really fast. “First I need to use the bathroom.”

As she headed into the bathroom I realized that I wasn’t wearing anything but a towel and I needed a pair of underwear. I began digging through my bag, searching to no avail, when the door swung open. I looked at the door and she was standing there in nothing but her bra and panties.

Cheron had to be at least five or six years older than me but her body took my breath away. She looked like one of the girls you see in King or Smooth magazine. I knew what time it was as I scanned the black-and-pink bra-and-panties set. “Cheron, what are you doing?”

“You know exactly what I’m doing.”

“So is this why you told me about Honey? So you could steal me from her?”

“No, that’s not it at all,” she said as she moved toward me, hands-out. She touched my shoulders and as the sensations trickled through my body I lost my temper.

I yelled at the top of my lungs: “Cheron, get the fuck out of my room before I kill you.” I was so angry. She had ruined my life. In that instant I wished that she’d never told me anything about Honey. For the first time I realized that staying in the dark about Honey’s secrets wouldn’t have been so bad. She’d taken an HIV test at the prenatal appointment, which came out negative, so it was a case where what I didn’t know wouldn’t have hurt me. My anger persisted. I shoved Cheron into the wall and told her for the second time to leave.

She yelled back but sounded fearful: “I’m trying to help you out. All I did was try to look out for you. Nigga, you crazy.”

“Nah, your ass is crazy.” Like Martin Lawrence sending Cole, Pam, or Tommy out of his crib I yelled, “Now get to stepping.” I grabbed her clothes and opened the door. I tossed them into the hall along with the liquor bottle. “Your ass ain’t a friend to anyone. You’re a snake.”

She scrambled out into the hall and grabbed her clothes. Ten minutes later I was on my way to Honey.