by Jahquel J
“Renewing Lives Rehabilitation, how may I help you?”
“Hi, my name is Liberty McGurry and I would like to check into your facility.”
5
Priest
“Kiki, this is the second time you’ve been sick this week. Your temperature is fine, and you don’t look sick, what’s going on?” I asked as she laid under her covers.
This was the second time this week that she complained of being sick. It wasn’t like I was missing out on work and money, but I needed to know why she wanted to stay home when she loved school.
“My stomach hurts. I think my period is coming on.”
“You’re a lie. You had it earlier this month. With what Kiss pulled, I’m on top of your periods,” I revealed.
“Ro, that’s creepy.”
“I’ll be the creepy uncle then. I don’t need no more babies being brought up in here. Go and get dressed so I can take you to school,” I tapped her leg and left the room.
Doing all of this without Justice was like back to normal. Except, I had a crazy little great-nephew crawling and trying to walk. Kiss helped when she wanted and that wasn’t often. When Justice was here, things ran smoother. Even if we had a bad day, I was happy to climb in bed with her at the end of the day. Laying in my empty bed at night felt like torture. Especially since I could smell her on the pillows and sheets. We ate out all the time and missed Justice singing off key as she worked around the kitchen. It seemed like all I missed was what she did around the house and that was the furthest from the truth. I missed having someone to vent to , lay with and laugh with too.
She hated me. I could tell whenever she looked at me. When I came up to see our daughter, she barely uttered three words to me. Everything about our encounters were so cold. A woman who had a smile that could melt a snowman, now became as cold as ice. It was me who made her that way. My selfish decision making was what landed us in this situation from jump. I wish I could have blamed someone. Instead, I had to take that L and try to fix the heart I had shattered. There was nothing I could do that would make up for missing our daughter’s birth, however I could try and be there for them every step of the way.
“Boy, stop messing with that trash,” Kiss yawned as she made her some coffee. Zamari crawled behind his mother in hopes of her picking him up off the floor.
“Where did you go last night?”
“Reese gave me some money for diapers, and we were sitting outside talking.”
“He knows Zamari not his, right?”
She rolled her eyes. “You had a problem when I was in your pockets, and now I’m in Reese’s pockets you just have to ask questions.”
“My point was to be in your own pockets, not a nigga’s pocket. Go back to school or something, Kiss.” This seemed to be an ongoing argument every morning between us.
“Here we go again with this,” Love sighed as she entered the kitchen. She grabbed the bagels I grabbed down the street and took a bite out of it.
“You did something new with your hair?”
“Yeah. I dyed it brown three weeks ago. Thanks for noticing, Ro,” she cut her eyes at me. She and Kiss made some weird eye contact before Love headed to the door.
“Go wait in the car, Kiki is getting ready.”
“I’m going to school with my friends. They’re picking me up this morning. Oh, and I’m going to the library afterschool.”
“Alone?” Kiss asked.
“Why is it your business? You should be taking care of your child,” she snapped and headed out the door.
“You better get your niece. She got one more time to mention my son and I’m gonna beat her ass,” Kiss waved the spoon in the air. “She think she too good because she don’t have a baby or something?”
“Why couldn’t your mother have three boys? She just had to have three girls nearly back to back,” I sighed. “Kiki!”
“I threw up!” she yelled back.
“Kiki, you’re going to school tomorrow and I don’t care if you’re bleeding out of your eyeballs!” I yelled back.
“Heard you!” she replied and slammed her door behind her.
I leaned back in the chair and sent Justice a quick text message. What time you going to see Yasmine?
Usual time.
Can we talk after?
For?
Come on, Jus.
She never replied back. That was the norm when it came to our text messages. I would initiate the text and she would only entertain the message for so long before she never replied back.
“How’s Yaya doing?”
“You insist on calling her that, huh?”
“Yep.” Kiss handed Zamari a piece of the bagel and he finally sat still and tried to figure out how he was going to demolish the piece with only three teeth. “I like how it sounds.”
“She’s doing good. Eating more ounces but haven’t been able to keep her temperature outside of the incubator. I hate seeing her like that.”
“Me too. It will get better and she’ll be home before you know it.”
“Yeah, it’s which home that worries me.”
“Well, you know it won’t be this one. Justice is done with you and for good reason too,” she took a sip of her coffee.
“You my niece, right?”
“Uh huh. I’m also a woman and what you did was wrong. If it was me, I would have shot you, but Justice is taking the nice approach to this.”
I shook my head. “How do I fix this?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not fixable. You hurt her when she told you that she didn’t want to be hurt anymore. Lavern was nice when we were younger, but she’ not the same person she was years ago and you’re not either. Why throw away all of this for something old?”
“Cause I’m a fool,” I admitted.
“Clearly. It’s going to be hard to try and repair what you broke. She already had a broken heart and trusted you. That wall is going to be ten times harder to break down, if you can even break it down.”
Kiss usually spoke about bullshit, so I tuned her out. This morning she made a point and was right with everything she had said. Justice let me in while getting her heart broke by her ex. She told me her fears and why she was hesitant about letting me in. Despite her fears, she let her guard all the way down and allowed me in. What did I do? I fucked that up and ruined what we had.
“I just want to make the shit right with her. I fucking miss the shit out of her.”
“Bet you do. What about Lavern? I’m sure she’s missing you too.”
“It’s nothing with me and Lavern. We fucked and that was it.”
“She knows that?”
“Kiss don’t you have a baby to take care of?”
“Y’all keep bringing my son up and I’m gonna fight you all in here,” she rolled her eyes and grabbed Zamari up.
“Yeah, go and raise that baby,” I continued to tease her.
“Go to hell, Ro!” she hollered as she walked up the stairs.
I laughed and cleaned the kitchen so I could head to the hospital. As much as Justice didn’t want to talk, we had to talk about our future with Yasmine. Despite what we were going through, we needed to have a plan for when Yasmine came home from the hospital. After checking in on Kiki, who was asleep, I showered and got dressed before I headed out.
It didn’t take me long to make it to the hospital. I pulled into the maternity assigned parking spots and sat in the car for a minute. It was like no one wanted me to have a minute to myself because as soon as I leaned my head back on the chair, my phone started to ring. Lavern’s name flashed across my car’s screen and I sighed. It wasn’t that I was pissed with Lavern, it was that I needed to focus on rebuilding my relationship and family, and I couldn’t have them both.
“What’s good, Lavern?” I answered the phone.
“Hi, haven’t heard from you in a little while… are we good?” she asked.
I had been distant when it came to me and Lavern. With Yasmine being born early, me hurting Justice
and trying to keep the girls together, I didn’t have time to lay up and chill. Shit, I didn’t even want to lay up with her anymore. Seeing that look on Justice’s face made me want to stop the bullshit and get my shit together. The pain etched on her face made me hurt ten times more. What hurt the most was that whenever she thought of our daughter’s birth, she would think of our relationship going to shit. Yasmine’s birth was supposed to be a special day for the both of us and all she’ll remember is that I missed it and she had to have Ghost step in for me.
“We’re good. I just been handling a lot so I haven’t had a minute to check in with you,” I replied as I killed my engine and stepped outside the car.
“I understand. How’s your daughter doing?”
“She’s good.”
“Ro, why are you being so short with me? Are we really alright?” she asked for the second time. I knew she could tell from my tone that I didn’t want to be on the phone. And, it wasn’t anything against her personally. My mind had been all over, and I didn’t have the time to sit and explain everything to her.
“We’re good, Lavern,” I spotted Justice getting off the bus from across the street. “I gotta go. I’m visiting my daughter. I’ll hit you up later,” I promised, knowing that I would probably forget.
“Can we meet up for lunch this week to talk? I just really miss you and want to see you. I can book our suite at the hotel.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Talk to you soon,” I ended the call and sprinted across the hospital’s campus until I reached Justice.
She had headphones on and when she saw me, she offered me a weak smile. I was surprised she took one headphone out and stepped to the side so the nurses starting their shift could enter the hospital.
“Good morning,” I felt like a shy little boy trying to talk to Justice. All the nights that I was up inside her guts flashed through my mind. I would give anything to make love and show her how much I loved her and fucked up.
“Morning. What did you want to talk about?”
“Let me take you to breakfast. The nurses are making their rounds, so you know we’ll have to wait in the waiting room while they do their rounds with every baby in there,” she knew what I was saying was true.
“I guess.”
I showed her back to my car and held the door open. It felt like I was in high school and had got my dream girl to go to prom with me. “I thought you were holding onto Staten’s whip.”
“I gave it back to him. Getting around on the bus is fine.”
“Nah, use one of my cars. You’re gonna need it.”
“I’m fine, Priest.”
I decided not to push because I knew my ass was on thin ice with her ass. I was lucky she agreed to even come to breakfast with me. There was a small diner near the hospital, so I ended up going there. We both had come here to grab food whenever we were staying with Yasmine overnight since it was opened 24/7. Soon as we walked in, we were seated in a booth near the bar. Justice pulled her phone out and sent a few text messages while I took in her beauty.
“You can stop staring at me,” she said, not bothering to look up from the phone. “What did you want to talk about?”
The waitress came and took our orders before she left to go put them in. “What’s going to happen when Yasmine gets released out of the hospital? I don’t want you sleeping on everybody’s couch with my daughter.”
She chuckled. “Why are you so worried?”
“Yasmine is my daughter too, Justice. What’s going on between us doesn’t have anything to do with her… feel me?”
She nodded her head. “You’re right. I have an apartment that I’m moving into the end of the month. We’ll be fine.”
“Come back home, Jus,” I slipped and pleaded. I wanted her to come back more than anything in the world. The house didn’t feel the same and knowing that Yasmine wouldn’t come home with me made me feel like shit.
“That’s not my home. Let’s be honest, that was you and the girls’ home, and I just moved in. Priest, I don’t ever want to come back to that house again. Before you did what you did, living with you was hell. You ignored me and refused to speak to me because I had said something you didn’t like.”
“Ma, I love you and want to fix what I did to you and Yasmine. All I want is my family back and under one roof. If I need to buy another house, I’ll do that shit.”
“Shouldn’t you be catching up for lost time with Lavern? Isn’t that what you wanted all along?”
I lowered my head and then looked into her eyes. “I’m not making an excuse for what I did, bu—”
“The moment you add a but, you’re about to make an excuse for what you did. I’m not asking for an explanation as to why you cheated on me while I was pregnant, all I’m saying is stand behind that shit. You did what you wanted and didn’t give a damn about my feelings, so don’t try and act like you care now,” she accepted the coffee from the waitress and poured some sugar into the cup.
“I fucked up; I know that. If I could reverse the hands on the clock and change what I did, I would. I want to make things right because I want to be with you, Justice. I let an old relationship throw me off track and I apologize for that shit. Hurting you was never the goal and I hate that I did that shit to you. You came into my life and made me feel what it felt like to live again. The way you love me and also accepted my nieces made me feel like I hit the jackpot of women. You not only love hard, but you go to bat for the people that you love and care for. I just want to make it right between us,” I touched her hands and she removed them from my grasp.
“You decided that bitch and her history with you was more important than our life that we were building together. I told you to talk to her and square things away, I even asked if she was an issue and you lied and told me that she wasn’t. If that wasn’t enough, you tried to use our issues we were going through to run to her and do what you did. So, no I don’t accept your apology because it’s full of shit,” she pointed her finger at me. “And can you please put that in a to-go box?” she told the waitress and went to stand by the bar.
“Justic—”
“There’s nothing left for us to speak about.”
“What about Yasmine?” I held onto her arm because I didn’t want her to go.
She sucked her teeth. “Yasmine is your daughter and I will never keep her from you. She’ll be able to come spend nights with you and stuff like that. But who are you kidding? This meeting wasn’t about Yasmine because you know I would never keep her away from you. You wanted to plead your case in hopes that I would be a fool and take you back.”
“Ma, you know I love you and want this more than anything.”
“You didn’t want this when you were sticking the dick that was meant for me inside a ghost from your past. Priest, stop wasting my damn time and leave me the hell alone,” she snatched her hand away, grabbed the bag the waitress was handing her and headed out the door. I leaned my head back on the chair and prayed that I could fix the coldness I had put in her heart.
With all I had going on, it had been a week since I had been able to get up with Lavern. She was pissed because she had booked a suite and I hadn’t been able to show up. My mind wasn’t in the right space to sit there and act like I wanted to fuck her, because I didn’t. My mind was always on Justice and how I could fix everything I had done to destroy what we had. She didn’t deserve what I had done to her and I wanted to fix it more than anything. Lavern had asked me to meet her at some café a few blocks down from her house. I wasn’t in the mood to talk about shit, or for her to feel like I’m ignoring her. We never established that we were together or going to be together. We both knew I was involved with someone and that what we were doing was sex; nothing more. The fact that she was pissed, blowing my phone up and shit because I had been busy made me not want to even come to this café. However, since I had been ignoring her, I owed it to her to let her know that I couldn’t continue what I had started with her.
Come to my apartment. I�
�m not ready yet. Lavern sent me a text just as I was pulling up to the café.
I pulled out the spot and headed up the block to her apartment. When I jumped out, a few little niggas nodded as I walked into the building. When I got to her floor, I tapped and stepped back. Lavern opened the door with a silk robe tied around her waist. A part of me felt like she was going to try and pull some shit like this, which is why I was good with meeting at the café.
“This morning has been a shit show. My boss called me in to work this morning, and then my daughter’s father was late picking her up. I’m just so tired from all of this,” she walked down the hall to her bedroom.
“Yeah, my morning has been a little crazy too,” I lied. For the first time, everything ran smoothly between me and the girls. Kiki even got up and went to school without any issues.
“Come back here,” she called from her bedroom and I was hesitant. Sex wasn’t on my mind and I didn’t want to hear her complain when I turned her down.
I walked to the back and found her curling her hair in the mirror. She pointed to the bed, and I sat down and continued to watch her. “What time you gotta be to work?”
“In two hours. He says somebody called out and I could use the hours, so I’m gonna go, even though I don’t want to.”
“Make that money.”
She stopped curling her hair, and then looked at me. “I know I keep asking this, but are we okay? I feel like the vibe is off.”
“Justice found out about us.”
She looked up at the ceiling. “I know something had to be going on. How did she take it?”
I looked at Lavern like she had lost her mind. “How do you think she took it? I cheated on her while being pregnant.”
“She wasn’t making you happy anymore. I could tell from the way you would toss your clothes on the floor and climb into bed with me.”
I had never told Lavern that Justice wasn’t making me happy because that wasn’t the truth. Me and Justice happened to be in a weird place when me and Lavern started to fuck around. Never once did I tell her that I wasn’t happy.
