Breaking The Cycle

By Eddie Mckissic

Royce learned two huge lessons in this relationship: loving someone requires more than just love, and second, time tells everything. People will show you who they are, and it is your choice to decide what you are going to do with that information, judge people on how they treat you when they don't need you, and recognize the difference between someone who is loving you out of love and someone who is loving you for survival.

The book is called Breaking the Cycle because it shows how the couple didn't end up in the statistics that they should have. In most of the relationship stories we hear today, when there is a breakup, it usually ends up in nothing but hate toward each other. Royce and Alyssa were able to break that cycle and were able to co-parent effectively for their daughter. Royce was also able to become successful and provide for his daughter against all those odds. As for Alyssa, she is still trying to figure out her path to becoming an aspiring actress as she spends most of her days waitressing until an opportunity presents itself.

The crazy baby mom/baby dad stories we have all went through or heard of from our peers is nothing compared to this.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9781639859191

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Breaking The Cycle

Eddie Mckissic

Copyright © 2022 Eddie Mckissic

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2022

ISBN 978-1-63985-918-4 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63985-919-1 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Sagittarius Meets a Cancer

Chapter 2

No Time Wasted

Chapter 3

Red Flags

Chapter 4

Time Tells Everything

Chapter 5

Lustful Thinking

Chapter 6

The Breakup

Chapter 7

Pimpin' Ain't Easy, Surprise

Chapter 8

By Any Means Necessary

Chapter 9

God's Grace

Chapter 10

Dreams Do Come True

Chapter 11

Juarez, Mexico

Chapter 12

Brotherly Love

Chapter 13

Mom Wants a Life Too

Chapter 14

Hidden Inspiration

Chapter 15

False Reality

Chapter 16

Used and Abused

Chapter 17

Sin City

Chapter 18

Beating the Odds

Chapter 19

Astro World

About the Author

Introduction

Time tells everything, a quote that has helped Royce get through the most hectic times of his life. When you allow time to pass, all the issues you were questioning expose themselves on their own. In this book, you will see how time has shown a couple's true intentions and exposed red flags that were there early on. This story addresses how a young man overcomes the stereotypes of his cultural background by breaking the cycle of being in a crazy young relationship, being incarcerated, giving into addictive habits, becoming a young parent, and dropping out of college. Through all the trials and tribulations, he established a newfound peace within his relationship and has beaten the odds that were stacked against him in every aspect of his life.

Chapter 1

Sagittarius Meets a Cancer

In hindsight, my adolescent years have shaped me into the man I am today, Royce Jones. My parents divorced when I was seven years old. I remember it like it was yesterday. Seeing my dad taken away in a police car while my mom cried on the steps isn't a memory that most would forget. Little did I know in that moment, my future was about to change drastically. Being raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, by a single mother with my younger brother and sister has made a huge effect on my life. Going back and forth from Houston to see my dad and Vegas to be with my mom has shown me that I am going to do everything in my power to keep my relationship in the future strong and healthy so my children wouldn't have to endure this pain. Even though my parents didn't work out. I was still blessed to be able to have parents that were financially stable enough to take care of my siblings and me. We never struggled during my childhood, and seeing that my mom was able to stand on her own two feet and take care of her three kids on her own shows just how strong she is.

My favorite sport to this day is basketball, and I can't remember my mom missing a single game. She supported all three of us in every activity we were interested in, and she always went to the full extreme when it came to our teams. She was the mom who had all the healthy snacks and drinks for us after the games, and she always had to buy our custom team jerseys every season. My dad, on the other hand, still played a huge part in my life. Being that far away from his kids, he always made sure to stay involved in our lives. Every summer and winter break from school, we would fly out to Houston to be with him. Dad lived his life in the corporate world, so I was able to see the suit and tie profession and how successful you can become in it. All in all, my parents did a pretty good job of balancing their problems with what we actually saw when we were kids, which wasn't much.

Meanwhile, a young woman from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, had it a little bit harder than I did growing up. She was raised by a single mother, but her father was not around. Not having a father figure in her life has caused confusion to what she should look for in a man. Instead of looking for an equal partner, she used men to guide her. Not having that true first love from a man has caused her to look for male attention elsewhere. This led to an early relationship in her adolescent years with a man she ended up moving with all the way to Northern California for school. Moving away at an early age has forced her to depend on others to survive. During her path, she has learned that people tend to take advantage of those in need; however, she has gained a great sense of independence from all the lessons she has learned along the way.

While a young girl was following her boyfriend across the US, I was chasing my dreams of becoming a professional basketball player, but I had to get through college first. I will never forget my first prayer as I was preparing for my college journey. God, I want a light skin girl with long curly hair. I want her to have my kids. I do not even care if we end up staying together. Just bless me with a beautiful light skin girl. I already knew basketball would be a success, but I wanted to find my soul mate in college, just like the movie Stomp the Yard. Traveling to different colleges trying out on any and every team that would let me showcase my talent was becoming overwhelming, especially when I knew I was good enough to play collegiate ball. I finally received an opportunity to play in Northern California from a junior college.

The day of orientation was an experience I'll never forget. The professors, classmates, and teammates were so easy to get along with. After I met the team, we all sat together, waiting for the assembly to start. My new teammates and I saw these three ladies walk through the door. We started discussing which one we wanted to shoot our shot at. Right before the assembly started, one of the ladies we saw come through the door approached me and introduced herself as Alyssa. This was the same woman I said I was going to have when she walked through the door. Being from Las Vegas, this type of behavior usually doesn't happen. I was used to women with huge egos, and unless you were somebody with status, no woman is going to go out of their way to introduce themselves to you. I was nineteen. She was eighteen, very beautiful, but she had short hair, and her body wasn't fully developed yet. However, she was light skin, and even though her hair was short, she had that mixed hair, so I knew she had potential. I thought to myself, after these two years of college, her hair will be longer, and then I can introduce her to my mom. After I sized her up, I had the confidence to continue the conversation that she started, knowing she would be the perfect candidate for my soul mate search.

Later that night, I saw Alyssa at a kickback while I was playing PS4. She was out, smoking weed with the rest of the group. Seeing a guy choose a video game over drugs was a little off to her. This led to her leaving the group and coming to find out what type of weird human being I am for not joining them in smoking. She asked if I wanted to smoke with them, and when I told her I didn't smoke, she had this confused look on her face. That is when I knew I had her. Every woman loves a story, so I used that time to explain why I've never smoked and why I never will. After the story I gave her, I knew she had a soft spot for me. It made her even more curious, and I could tell she wanted to know more about me. The only problem was we were both playing with each other. Little did we know, the joke was on us. Remember the guy she came to Northern California with? She just got out of that abusive relationship about two months ago before she met me. She had no intentions of wanting to be with someone else at the moment because she was still healing from her past relationship. She was talking to another guy and a girl at the time I met her, but it was nothing that I could not deal with and eventually take her away from. On top of that, I was from Vegas, so you can imagine the ego I had coming to a college town being on the basketball team.

After that night at the kickback, she ended up texting me a few days later. I don't know how she got my number because I didn't give it to her. She started off by saying that I reminded her of Bobby Valentino. To this day, I don't know if that was a good or bad thing; however, from then on, we started texting all day every day.

Chapter 2

No Time Wasted

Being on the basketball team was going so well for me. The coaches loved me, the players respected me, and it looked like I had a shot of doing really well this season. Going to the parties and kickbacks, on top of having this new girl that I liked, there was nothing else I could've asked for. One of the days after practice, I ran into another woman that liked me a lot. At this point, I felt invincible. Everything was going well for me. I'm in class texting two girls that I met in the same week, and I'm talking to my teammates, trying to figure out how I am going to pull off seeing both of them at the parties this upcoming weekend. I know I was single, but I didn't want to lose one because of them seeing me with the other. I had a plan. I invited the other girl Monica to my place before the party so I wouldn't have to see her later. We made out on my bed for a while as she was lying on top of me, and then something in my heart wouldn't let me go any further. I told her I couldn't do it and made her get off of me. She continued to pursue me, thinking I would change my mind, but this weird feeling would not go away, and that's when I knew I really liked Alyssa. The only problem was I doubted she liked me as bad as I liked her. We had just met, so I had to play the game.

I saw Alyssa later that night at the party, and I showed her a little attention, but I tried to mingle with everyone so she didn't think I was all about her. The next night at the next party, she made sure to stay close to me, but she wouldn't dance on me! I cannot be with a girl who can't dance. I'm from Vegas. This has to be fixed. Eventually, I found out she could dance. She was just shy dancing in front of me. After an hour of her drinking, I convinced her to dance on me for a couple of songs. We ended up dancing and talking a lot that night. It felt good being able to get her to open up to me a little more.

The next school day, after she realized that I was not at school, my phone was blowing up. I was so sick I couldn't move; I don't know how I got sick, but this was some life-and-death type of sickness. I was finally able to get enough strength to use my phone, and she was the first person I called. I told her to let my coach know what's going on and let my teachers know as well. After she did that, she came over to my house and made soup. Alyssa made the decision to take me