Shawnie's POV

When we left the house. We went directly to the other house because I had to let them know that I was leaving. Joe didn't want to go over there because he didn't want to have a round two with him and Chris so he thought it would be better for him to stay in the car and wait for me. Besides, I don't need security to be over here. Everything is cool on this side.

It was still a little bit early, so I wasn't expecting everyone to be running around the house but to my surprise, when I walked into the kitchen, Chris was there with Mercedes.

"Hey!" I say to Chris

"How are you feeling?" He asks

"I'm good." I take a seat at the island. He walks over and gives me a hug. Mercedes doesn't say anything to me.

"Last night was crazy but I wanna know if you're okay. I was worried about you last night. I was trying to take care of you but he wouldn't even let me get to you."

"It's okay. I'm fine. Thank you but I understand why he wouldn't let you. It's all good." I say. I quickly try to change the subject. "I was just coming to let you know that I am leaving. Obviously you're welcome to stay and try to get on the same page with him but I'm done and I'm leaving."

"Did anything happen after you got back?" He asks

"No. I just don't wanna do this anymore. I'm tired of putting my feelings to the side because he asked me to or because he just wants to prolong things." I explain

"Aight, then we're leaving too." He says

"No, I think you should stay. You and Aubrey should try to spend a little bit more time together to get on good terms. I just wanted to tell you I was leaving."

"But you know we're only here for you. "

"Yeah, I know but it's still a paid vacation. Don't mess up Jasmine's trip. Y'all go do something together."

"Yeah, I want to stay." Jasmine says walking in.

"But I don't want her to be alone." He says to her.

"I won't be alone. I have Joe." I say

"You know Joe is a bitch, right?"

"Can we not get back into that right now? I'm aware of the physical aspect of what happened last night and to be honest, I don't think either of you were wrong. No, he should not have put you down like that... But you shouldn't have tried to attack him. He was doing exactly what he was supposed to do. I don't wanna hear no bullshit about how I should've stopped him, or how I should have a conversation with him. No! He's security. He did what he had to do and that was put you down for trying to attack him. And on top of that, you know what I asked you and you should not have agreed to it. You were being messy Chris and you know it."

He chuckles. ".....I mean, you know. I gotta make sure you're alright."

"If that's what it was for real, then okay, but I know it wasn't. You know it and Joe knows it."

"It was some of both." He says

"Exactly my point. Now that's all I'm gonna say about it because I know both of you did what you did and I wish that you guys can apologize to one another sometime in the near future. I'm not trying to make it seem like it's a huge thing because if you guys are over it then I'm over it as well. Joe doesn't seem to give a shit. So I don't know. It's up to you guys. But right now, I only came to talk about this situation." I say

"Aight. He's still a bitch." He says and I laugh a little.

"Okay. We're going to fly to Toronto right now and get my things out of his house and then I'm just going to go get the kids and go back to San Diego." I explain

"If you want, you can stay at my house."

"No. Thank you for the offer but I'm going home."

"Chicago?"

"No. San Diego. I just said that."

"But that's not home for you." He says

"It is for now."

"What do you mean?"

"That house isn't a rental, I just told y'all that. I bought the house months ago." I explain

"How? People would've found out."

"I bought the house and put it in Joe's name so no one would find out, especially Aubrey."

"You really thought all of this out."

"Yes." I say

"I just want you to think this all the way through."

"Chris, I have. I've been thinking about this for months. I have weighed all of my options, I tried to come up with solutions for every issue that we've had but I just kept getting resistance. I have been trying to avoid this at all costs and this is what it's come to. I feel it's my only option now."

"Okay. I just don't want this to get out of hand. You know how he is. He is not going to just let this shit ride."

"Chris, let me just do this, how I want to do it. With me, giving him all the power to do everything in a way that means he's come to terms with it and he knows there's nothing else that he can do." I say

"I won't say anything else about it. Let me know if you need anything."

"I will. Thank you. I'm going to go find Dori. Is she in her room?"

"Yeah." I walk out of the kitchen but as soon as I do, I hear Jasmine say something.

"Chris, she's  very unhappy." She says

"I know." He says

"No, I mean she's really unhappy. I'm kinda sad for her."

"Maybe you should talk to her." He suggests and I frown in disgust. We are cool, but not like that. 

"Me? No. We don't even know each other like that." She says

"I know but she doesn't have many female friends. Maybe it'll make a difference if she talks to another woman outside of her threesome with Mercedes and Dori."

"Like I'm not standing here." Mercedes chimes in with her attitude. 

"I don't want to overstep." Jasmine says

"Yeah, you are overstepping. Chris, I don't think it's a good idea for her to talk to her about something so personal. Why does it seem like you were trying to force them to be cool with each other?"

"I just think it'll be a good idea for her to talk to someone other than you or Dorian."

"She talks to Joe. Joe is her best friend." Mercedes says with an attitude, and I am just so sick of her right now.

I don't listen any further, I just go to Dori's room. Once I get there, I knock on the door and she answers. I tell her that I'm leaving and I ask her if she wants to stay, or come with me. I tell her my plan that I want to go back to Toronto and get my things and she agrees. I kind of figured she wanted to come because she wanted to maybe go back home. The trip to LA was only supposed to be for a few days and it ended up turning into months. I don't mind that she stayed. I'm happy she made friends and I thought it was only right for me to ask her if she wanted to come back home because I was going home. 

It only took her about 15 minutes to get all of her things together and we were walking out. I heard them talking in the kitchen, but I didn't stop to see what was going on.

"Let me go talk to her." I hear Chris say as we're walking out of the front door.

We were almost halfway down the driveway when I heard my name being called.

I heard Chris calling out from behind me. I turned around and I met him halfway. Dori continued onto the truck. 

"Yes?"

"Talk to me. What's going on?" He asks

"Nothing to talk about." I say

"I just want to say this, I see how much you love him and my heart hurts for you. In this moment, I feel how much you love him, and I really feel like you love him more than me. And that's tough because I know how much you still love me. You're hurt and I don't want you to feel like this. I know you don't wanna go through that with this divorce." He says

"There's just no getting through to him. He doesn't understand that he really has me and he doesn't have to do all of this extra bullshit to impress or keep me. I feel like I asked for little things. I feel like the things I asked for were so small that they could've been done. And that goes for both of you. I'm tired of it."

"Don't drag me into this." He says

"I'm not dragging you into this, it's just that you guys are so much alike that you don't see it because you hate each other so much. There's a lot of things that you did, that he didn't do and there's also a lot of things that he did that you didn't do when we were together, but there's a lot of similarities, and I have acknowledged and accepted that I have dated the same person all of my life. And I love you to death. You know that. I know you love me as well. I know he loves me and I love him very much but me, and you, we're not gonna work. Him and I are not gonna work out either. I've come to terms with that. Both of you need someone who is okay with this. I am simply not. I was not made for this. I just want to live a quiet life with my kids away from anything Hollywood." I say

"I feel that. But everything I said still remains, if you ever need anything, you know I'm gonna be there for you. I don't know what's gonna happen between you and him. I don't know if this is gonna go your way or if it's gonna get messy, but I want you to know that I definitely predict this is gonna be messy. You have my support in whatever you want to do. You know I'm always gonna take care of you."

"Thank you." I hug him. When we pull away, I see him looking past me. I turn around and I see Joe standing at the back of the truck.

"You know I see what's coming..." he says

"What do you mean?"

"When the time is right, I'll fill you in. Can you promise me something though?"

"What's that?"

"If you start dating again, can you just make sure that is the right person?" He asks

"You don't have to worry about me dating anyone." I say

He looks at Joe again. "I only wanna see you happy."

"I know." He grabs my head, bringing me towards him and kisses me on my forehead. "I have to go."

"Okay. Have a safe flight. Call me if you need me." He lets go of me and walks to the car. Joe opens the passenger side door, I get in and once he gets in we drive off to the airport to head to Toronto.

***********

Once we get to Toronto, we go directly to Aubrey's house. To discreetly get everything moved I'm only grabbing my clothes and small things, which is pretty much all we really had here anyway. When we moved in, Aubrey's house was already decorated from top to bottom. There wasn't much we needed to do. He did have the office remodeled for me to work out of his home but I still feel like that wasn't my stuff.

I wanted to leave our son's things here but as far as Genesis goes, all of her things are coming with me because she doesn't live here anymore as of today. My goal was to get the important things out first then our clothes, and whatever else followed behind that. 

We pulled up to the gate and security stopped me. He knew who I was but I still felt like I had to bribe him because they are told to notify Aubrey's personal security when anyone comes on the grounds and I didn't want any one of his guys telling him that I was here. So I gave him a few hundred dollars to not say anything and he let me go.

There's no staff inside the home or on the grounds. So it's just us. Perfect. Dori called one of her friends over to help with some of the boxes. My plan was just to throw things in boxes and get them shipped to San Diego. I had about an hour to get all of my things out. I don't know if Aubrey has been trying to get in contact with me or Joe but for the duration of me being in Toronto, I'm gonna leave my cell phone off.

"This house is beautiful." Joe says, stepping out and looking around.

"It's very beautiful. But that's all it is, a house. When I was here, I didn't feel like this was my home, and I was uncomfortable here. When we first got married and moved here, I felt comfortable when he was here but as soon as he left, it was miserable for me."

"I know how that can be."

"The only thing I'm gonna miss is my beautiful Wraith." I point to my car.

"This is your car?" Joe says surprised, mouth open and everything.

"Yes. He got everything custom on and in it for me."

"That's so dope!" He says

I walk over and hug the hood of the car. Joe laughs.

"Damn. I don't know if I'll be able to part with this either. Is it in your name?"

"Yeah."

"Why don't you just ship it to San Diego? If it was a gift, there's no point in leaving a perfectly good car like this. Don't let it go to waste. I don't care who bought it." He laughs

"Well.... If you can find a company within the hour that will come get it and ship it, you can have it."

"What?"

"Tell them to name their price, and if they can be here within the hour, then you can have it."

He smiles. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"On it." He says pulling out his phone.

I just laugh as I walk into the house with Dori. We go upstairs and start throwing all of Genesis' things in boxes. I go into my closet and I grab my things. We only had two cars to really make this work, but crazy enough, we were able to get almost all of our clothes and items from the house.

Of course, Joe found a company that would pick the car up and ship it to San Diego. He got on the phone with the owner of the company and I guess made magic happen because they came and got it. Got all the information, got the payment and that was handled. Actually, everything was handled and Joe and I went back to San Diego. Dori decided she was going to stay home for a little bit but she promised she would be back out to LA soon to visit.

What did y'all think about this chapter??