and regret washing over me as I watched Phear get up from the chair. I got up too, placing my hand on the glass partition, desperately hoping he'd reach out and touch his hand to mine. But he didn't. He just looked at my hand with a pained expression, as if he wanted to bridge the distance between us but couldn't bring himself to be vulnerable.

After eight years together, the chasm between Phear and I felt cavernous. The man who had taken me in when my mama died by suicide had become a closed-off stranger. We barely hugged anymore, let alone said "I love you." I think he resented how much I had come to depend on him over the years. My neediness was too much for him to handle on top of his own issues. But I clung to the shreds of our relationship, wishing we could have the family I always dreamed of.

It wasn't until a customer offered me a job as a music teacher that I considered leaving. Working with those kids stirred long-buried memories and dreams within me. Little did I know that taking that job would also lead Giuseppe Stefani back into my life after years apart. Just as I was getting to know the captivating Psalms Blue, my messy past came barreling back.

Between my controlling ex who refused to let go, a manipulative new boss, and an old friend who needed me, I found myself caught in a vortex of complicated relationships and choices. My demons, it seemed, were determined to keep their claws dug deep in my heart. The men I should have run from became temptations I couldn't resist. Maybe that's what happens when you let yourself get tangled up with those down south country boys.

In this first edition of: "I Let A Country Boy Get Me Pregnant" by Krystal Armstead, she brings you an emotional love story filled with drama and African American romance that will have you nearly in tears and late for work the next morning.