Thats Just My Baby Daddy...THE BOOK

While Wade was love bombing me to make me fall in love (which worked), he was also isolating me from my neighborhood friends and acquaintances. Like most girls, I thought it was cute for him to want me all to himself. It made me feel special.

"He like me so much that he wants all my time and attention!" I would think.

As an adult, I now know that monopolizing all of someone's time is a control tactic. Since we grew up on the same block, we know the same people. All the boys on the block had liked me at one time or another. Before Wade and I started dating, I would sometimes be on my front porch talking to guys from around the way. Some were my age, some slightly older, like a year or two and some even older than that. We would just talk. The topics ranged from anything to everything. We all were just friends. It was all platonic and innocent.

Wade started coming over to wherever I was at with my friends and tell them to leave. The crazy part is, they actually left! After a few times of this happening, people just stopped coming to my porch altogether. They would just holler at me in passing. After a while, even that stopped. I still had my two female best friends. They didn't live in the neighborhood, thank goodness. I would try to start conversations with neighborhood guys that were my friends sometimes and if the person stayed to talk depended on if Wade was around. There was this one time when I had told Wade something that I didn't think was a big deal. I actually thought it was kinda cute.

I told him that one of my childhood friends older brother had a crush on me. Wade went to this boys house (his and his sister lived like 5 or 6 doors down from me), to tell him to his face that him and I are together and that he better not catch him or hear about him talking to me again. I felt terrible. The guy was so nice. He was quiet and soft spoken. He never bothered anyone. I confronted Wade about it.

"Why you do that to that boy? It was just a harmless crush. He wasn't hurting nobody!" I said firmly.

"Stop playing wit' me yo!" He shot back.

"You just a bully." I said and walked away from him.

Remember, Wade is only 5'5" and about 150 pounds. He was bossing other guys around. It appeared to be a gang mentality. Wade was the number one and everyone else was underneath at different levels. No one ranked higher than him. That's the reason I gave myself for why people just did whatever he said. I would speak up for them. He would tell me to "stay in my place" because I didn't understand. I stopped speaking up. Not because he told me to, but I figured why should I say something if they wasn't saying nothing. I thought they were all fools. "Not my problem" I would tell myself. It must not bother them because they still hang around him. I decided that it was a good thing Wade ran everyone away because I needed to focus on getting my life in order.

The school I went to for my medical assistant and phlebotomy certifications only held two graduations a year: one in May and one in October. I finished my program right after the May ceremony so even though my classes were done, I hadn't graduated. Graduation would turn out to be very interesting...