Let the Church Say Amen by Reshonda Tate Billingsley Page A

smile faded. “You thought right.”
    Jonathan looked to see if she was joking. He surmised that she wasn’t. She looked as lovely as the last day he’d seen her. Although now, her long locks had been replaced by a short feathered and flipped haircut. It was beautiful on her, accenting her almond-shaped, hazel eyes.
    “You cut your hair off?”
    “I needed a change.”
    Jonathan could see the pain in her eyes. “Look, Angela, I’m sorry.”
    Angela stopped him before he could continue. “Hey, don’t apologize to me. I get dumped by the loves of my life all the time. I’m used to it.”
    Jonathan didn’t know what to say. He knew this day would come. He and Angela had not ended their relationship on good terms. “I didn’t dump you.”
    “Oh no, what do you call it?”
    “We just kind of grew apart, that’s all.”
    Angela looked at him like she wanted to give him some choice words right there in the church. “No, you grew apart. You changed. I remember how difficult it was to get you to even kiss me after you came back from school two years ago. You seldom called and when we did see each other, you were distant. And after you went back your junior year, you wouldn’t even make love to me.”
    “I told you I just wanted to stop fornicating.” Jonathan was having a hard time looking Angela in the eyes. She was right. He had become distant from her. He kept trying to get the nerve to break things off with her, but he always backed out. He didn’t want to do it over the phone, and when he saw her over the Christmas holidays, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.
    Angela rolled her eyes in frustration. “Oh, Jonathan. Save that, please. I know that’s what you told me. But I also know you. You may be a preacher’s son, but you liked having sex with me, premarital or not.”
    She was right about that, too. He used to love being with her. Angela had to be the best lover he ever had, and he’d been with his share of girls since losing his virginity at fifteen to his best friend’s twenty-three-year-old sister. The funny part was, everyone thought he was so sweet and innocent, including his father, but Jonathan had been around. He just knew how to keep his trysts secret. Even when he and Angela were together, he had all kinds of women on the side. That all changed, though, when he met Tracy.
    “Angela, where is this conversation going?” Jonathan asked, wanting to remove himself from her glare.
    “Nowhere, Jonathan. I’m not mad at you, I respect your decision. I just wish you had been man enough to tell me you’d found someone else.”
    Jonathan froze. What did she know? He had taken the coward’s way out: sending her a brief “Dear Jane” letter, telling her that he wanted to concentrate on graduating and that they should go their separate ways. He totally avoided her calls and never returned her tear-filled, then anger-filled, messages. She had called him everything but a child of God. Finally, after about a month she just stopped calling. Fortunately for him, he hadn’t run into her on his trips home from school. This was their first time talking in over a year and a half.
    “Wh … what do you mean, someone else,” Jonathan stammered.
    Angela laughed at his nervousness. “You never have been good at lying. I know you went down to Morehouse and found you another woman, a college girl and all. But I’m okay with that.” Angela nodded like she had prepared for this moment many times.
    Jonathan’s nervousness eased and his eyes softened. He reached out and took her hand. “Angela, I didn’t leave you for anyone else. Okay? That much I promise you.” He wasn’t totally lying. He hadn’t broken up with her because of Tracy per se. But rather because he was confused about what he wanted.
    Angela looked at him like she desperately wanted to believe him. Finally, she spoke. “Whatever you say, Jonathan. I just wanted to say hello.” She turned to leave, then stopped and looked back over