Love, Trust & Loyalty

Love, Trust and Loyalty 
 
 
 This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
 
 
 
 LOVE, TRUST & LOYALTY
 
 
 First edition. February 14, 2023.
 Copyright © 2023 K Renee Hart.
 
 
 
 ISBN: 979-8215067703
 
 
 
 Written by K Renee Hart.
 
 
 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 
 
 Table of Contents
 Title Page
 Copyright Page
 Dedication
 Lyne’e Loyalty Riggs
 Anderson Hobbs
 Her Side... The Beginning
 His Side... The Beginning
 Her Side... The Exploring
 His Side... The Identifying
 Her Side... The longing
 His Side ... The Growth
 Her Side... The Discovery
 His Side... The Reality
 Her Side... The Revelation
 His Side ... The Self Discovery
 Her Side... The Uncertainty
 His Side... The Healing
 Her Side ... The Knowing
 
 
 
 
 
 This book is dedicated to learning how to love, even if the love is you. And the love that inspired me. 
 
 
 Lyne’e Loyalty Riggs 
 For most of my friends, going to college meant getting out of their city and into something bigger, better and more fun. Our senior year, all my friends could talk about were the parties, ice breakers, games and hangouts in whatever state they were going to attend. By then, there was no such thing as new anything or anybody, yet all anyone could think about was the idea of “new”. For me, college wasn’t a question, it was a testimony, written on the walls of some ancient ruins in blood, my blood the day I learned to walk. I never even imagined a life where college was not life, hell if I did, I’m sure my mother would come out of nowhere and knock the thought right back into my head like she was hitting a home run when baseball was good during the steroid era. 
 I have one of those mothers. If men are from Mars and women from Venus then my mother is the and me Jupiter. Close enough to know there is warmth, but just too far to feel it. Paulette is perfection, if it’s to be done, she’s already done it and did it better than anyone foolish enough to come after her. The closest thing to her level of perfection on the face of God’s green earth, would have to come from her golden womb. She was never satisfied with anything or anyone, except my sister. In my mom’s eyes my sister was the second coming and could spit gold, split atoms with her eyes and if she happened to fart because ladies don’t fart, that fart would be a rainbow and smell like Channel #5. Me on the other hand, I’m her other daughter. I take after my father, in fact I heard that so often I could have easily thought that was my actual name. I am second born to a southern bell diva wannabe. No, I’m not ugly, far cry from it, but to my mother, Paulette I just was not pretty enough. I am the more melanated, thicker, shorter hair flawed daughter. It’s a burden that I’ve learned to live with, in fact it's one of the stones or building blocks depending on who’s asking that has made me who I am today. 
 My sister Toni was always in a pageant, program or play, she was my mother’s prize possession and her perfect ideal of beauty. Toni was the version of Paulette that even she didn’t measure up to. Toni was a constant reassurance to my mother that she was beautiful, how could she not be, look at her daughter. By her sixteenth birthday, Toni was all legs. She stood 5’8 bare foot and weighed 125 pounds soaking wet. Everything about her appearance made her seem magical to me as a child, it's like someone drew her up. She has the most mesmerizing eyes I had ever seen in person. Her eyebrows were naturally long and sharp, they seemed to meet every one of her dark lush eyelashes perfectly. And those eyes, one cat like green and the other an exhaust gray that you couldn’t help but stare into every time she allowed them to fall on you. For years I’ve watched her use those eyes as a weapon of mass destruction, destroying the hearts of poor foolish boys for miles to come or simply the threat of them watering up could bring down an entire empire instantly. She had a cute little upturned nose and plush heart-shaped lips... with tiny little freckles. All of that beauty blended perfectly with warm honey, even skin. For the life of me I could never compete with that type of beauty and freckles. 
 My mom flaunted her everywhere, she was the center of our family portraits, the first one to walk into a room, the first mentioned in a conversation and then there was me, I was her shadow. “Baby every star shines, but not every star shines as bright as the North Star” consoled by my maternal grandmother every time I was forced to visit with her. 
 Yes, college was a way out, not just out of this house or city, but this prison.
 Anderson and I met freshman year at Texas A&M. He was originally a football jock with a major in business management, but after a few weeks with me his interest quickly changed to finance and analytics. I remember the first day we met; it was a week into our economics class. I wore my favorite pink velour jogging pants with a baby tee and some clean all white Air 1’s. For once I was in a place where I wasn’t Toni’s little sister so I got to dress however I wanted. After years of being uncomfortable and stuffy all I wanted to do was relax and find my rhythm. Anderson sat on the other side of the room in some jeans and an