“Nigga, what you over here smiling about?” Tariq asked as he walked up to Zeek’s truck.
Zeek was so deep in his thoughts that he hadn’t even realized he’d reached his destination.
“Not shit, what’s going on over here?” Zeek questioned.
“Nothing but money, you know that,” his cousin answered.
Zeek couldn’t help but to notice Trae was glaring at him like he wanted to do something. He knew Trae was in his feelings about be laid out on his ass but Zeek had been wanting to do that shit for a while and he saw that as the perfect opportunity.
“Where was you last night?”
Zeek smiled devilishly before running his hand over his waves.
“Oh, so you and Chanel back good for now?” Tariq asked with a raised eyebrow.
“I wouldn’t know because I wasn’t with her last night.” Zeek shrugged.
“Then where the hell…nah, you lying,” Tariq laughed as he put two and two together. “Coco?” he asked through his laughter.
“You damn right,” Zeek boasted as he grabbed Jayliah’s key that he’d snagged.
Trae was so pissed that he didn’t know what to do. Here he was standing a few feet away from a nigga who was bragging about spending the night at his girl’s house. Even if he and Coco weren’t on good terms right now, she would always be his. Whenever she got off her power trip, she always came crawling back to him.
Walking away, Trae pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Coco. He knew today was her day off so she had no excuse not to answer his calls.
“I’m busy, Traevino, what can I do for you?” Coco answered on the third ring.
“Damn, straight up, Coco? That’s how we doing shit now? You just like to listen do you?” Trae asked heated.
“What are you talking about? Listen about what? It’s been a whole month since I’ve heard from you, so why are you calling me?” Coco asked like she really didn’t want to talk to him.
“Come see me tonight, we need to talk,” he told her.
“Nope, I have plans.”
“With who, Zeek?” Trae spat.
“Ahh, now I see. So that’s what this phone call is all about? Traevino, you are so full of shit,” Coco laughed.
“Either you come see me or I’m coming to you,” he said before hanging up.
Trae looked over in Zeek and Tariq’s direction and Zeek hit him with a smirk that Trae wanted to shoot off his face. He couldn’t stand Zeek and if he wasn’t Marco’s cousin, he would have been gotten rid of him.
___
“Eww, what he want?” Jayliah asked.
She had just walked in the house and overheard her sister mention Trae’s name. She had never been a fan of his fake ass and was happy that her sister wasn’t with him anymore. Every time he came around her, her trigger finger started twitching.
“Nothing, girl, he must be round Zeek or something because I haven’t heard from him in a month, now all of a sudden he calling me questioning me and shit,” Coco said as she waved her hand like she was waving Trae off.
“Zeek, huh?” Jayliah smiled.
Just then, Coco remembered her sister gave Zeek a key to her apartment so she jumped off the couch and charged at her.
“You bitch!” she yelled.
Jayliah jumped off the couch laughing as she ran to the back where Coco’s bedroom was and locked her out before she could reach her.
“Bitch, unlock the door, that shit is not funny!”
“Stop, Jacole, you play too much,” Jayliah said as she laughed with tears falling from her eyes.
“I play too much? Jay, you gave that nigga a key to my house and I don’t even know him!”
Jayliah opened the door with a serious eye roll and her hand on her hip.
“Why are you really mad, Coco? Because you don’t want him to know how much you actually want him? Or because you’re not as over Trae as you claim to be?”
Coco looked at her sister as if she was offended. She didn’t like the insinuation she’d just made, accusing her of still being in love with Trae.
“That’s bullshit, Jay, and you know it. I’m very much over Trae, this has nothing to do with him.”
“Is that right?” Jayliah asked with her head cocked to the side. “Then why not change your number so he won’t call you? Why answer when he does call you? If you’re as over him as you want people to think, you wouldn’t want anything to do with him.”
Coco opened her mouth to say something but she quickly closed it. She didn’t have an answer to either of her sister’s questions. She honestly didn’t know if she was really over Trae or not. He was the only thing she knew and she really wasn’t trying to open that door for anyone else, including Zeek.
“Look, Coco, take it from me. I know how hard it is to get over your first. Even when Quadir left me out of the blue with no explanation, I still loved him. The love I had for him overtrumped the hurt and pain I felt. Sure enough, I was confused because one minute everything between us was good then I woke up the next morning and he was gone. It took me six years to finally get over him. So it’s alright if you’re not over Trae but don’t let him suck you back in because he’s no good for you, even if you don’t give Zeek a chance.”
Coco just stood there and digested everything her sister had just told her. She didn’t want to be stuck on Trae forever but at the same time, she wasn’t trying to jump head first into another situation.
Chapter Six
As soon as Coco laid down to go to sleep, her phone started ringing. Snatching her phone off the dresser and seeing that it was Zeek calling her, she rolled her eyes and hit the ignore button. She was not in the mood to entertain him tonight. Rolling over, her phone started ringing again.
“What?” she answered.
“Try again,” Zeek said before hanging up.
Coco looked at her phone like it was crazy, trying to figure out what the hell just happened. Before she could even put it back on the dresser, once again, Zeek was calling her.
“Oh my gosh, what the hell!” she yelled before answering again. “Hello?” she answered.
“That’s better, don’t answer with no ‘what’ when I’m calling you,” Zeek told her.
“Zeek, it’s after midnight, why are you calling me?” she sighed.
“Did you think about what I told you?” he questioned, referring to the conversation they had yesterday.
“Yes, and the answer is still no!” she huffed as she got out of the bed to see who the hell was knocking on her door like a maniac. “Hold on,” she told Zeek.
“Who the hell banging on your door like that?” Zeek asked.
Ignoring him, Coco snatched her door open with an attitude.
“I guess you think a nigga be playing with you,” Trae said as he barged his way in, damn near knocking her down.
“What are you doing here, Trae?”
At this point, Coco felt as if she was about to lose her mind. She had one crazy nigga on the phone and one that had just showed up at her house. Hanging up on Zeek, she decided to focus on Trae since he was standing in front of her looking all types of crazy.
“Trae, I’m not going to ask you again.”
Trae was pacing back and forth until he stopped and stood in front of Coco with a look she couldn’t decipher.
“You fucked that nigga?”
“What?” Coco laughed. “Trae, get out of here with all that.”
Before she knew what was happening, Trae had slapped the shit out of her and dragged her down to the ground by her hair. Trae placed his hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming as he placed his weight on her while removing her shorts. Coco tried to scream and fight him off of her but her screams were muffled and she was no match for his strength.
“Don’t act like you don’t want to open your legs now. You had no problem throwing the pussy at Zeek,” Trae sneered as he pulled his soft dick out.
Coco cried and continued to fight Trae off as he rammed into her. Coco s
creamed because due to her being dry, it felt like Trae was ripping her as he pounded into her unmercifully. The pain soon became too much for Coco and she blacked out.
Finally regaining her consciousness, Coco realized she was still in her apartment. Pains went through the lower half of her body as she crawled to her phone, calling her sister.
“Somebody better be dead,” Jayliah mumbled, still half asleep.
When all she could hear was her sister’s sniffles, she jumped up on alert.
“Coco, what’s wrong, baby?”
“He…he raped me,” Coco whispered weakly.
“WHAT! I’M ON MY WAY!” Jayliah yelled as she jumped out of the bed.
Jayliah’s mind was in a frenzy as she grabbed her purse, making sure her gun was in there. She was praying to God that she had heard her sister wrong and she didn’t actually just tell her that she was raped. Seeing that it was going on two in the morning, she called Tariq and told him to meet her at Coco’s house.
____
Jayliah paced back and forth in the waiting room. She was so hurt and pissed that she couldn’t even sit still. To walk in the house and see her sister in the condition she did invoked something in her. On top of that, Coco wasn’t talking or saying who it was even though Jayliah had a pretty good idea of who the culprit is.
“What’s up, Jayliah? Talk to me,” Marco said, snatching her from her thoughts.
The only reason she’d called Marco was because he was Tariq’s brother and even though he’s Trae’s friend, he was Coco’s friend first.
“She was raped,” she told him solemnly.
“What? Nah, stop playing with me. By who?” Marco asked confused.
When Jayliah called him and told him to get to the hospital because Coco needed him, he asked no questions. Now to get here and hear that she was raped, he didn’t know how to take that. He and Coco had grown up together and even though they didn’t get close until they were in high school, he still loved her like a sister.
“That’s the thing, she won’t say who and she refused a rape kit,” Jayliah sighed.
“Where’s Zeek?” Marco questioned.
“Your brother said it wasn’t best that we called him.”
Marco nodded his head in agreement. He knew Zeek would have to be told eventually but right now was not the best time.
Hours later, Coco walked out ready to go. She was tired of being poked and probed at and just wanted to get some sleep. If she could just forget that this night even happened, she would. Never in a million years would she have thought that Trae would have done such a horrendous thing like that to her.
“Coco, you good?” Marco asked as he rushed over to her.
“Yea, I just wanna go home and go to sleep,” she told him.
“Home my ass, you’re coming home with me,” Jayliah told her. “It’s not up for an argument, Jacole, just come on.”
Knowing better than to even try to put up a fuss, she just headed for the exit.
Chapter Seven
After realizing what he had done, Trae decided he had to go into hiding. It was never his intention to hurt Coco but thanks to the coke he had snorted before showing up at her house, he wasn’t in his right mind. He had secretly been getting high off of the work he was supposed to be distributing. Nobody knew about it, though, not even Marco.
After he left Coco’s apartment, he hit the highway and went straight for Indiana, where he was originally from. Trae did the whole four hours straight with no stops until he reached his parents’ house. He was sure Coco had told Zeek and everyone else what he had done and Zeek probably had a price on his head by now.
“Mom, your fuck up of a son is here!” Mercy, Trae’s older sister yelled as she stood in the doorway.
Growing up, Trae and Mercy had always been at odds with each other. While Mercy was the straight A student, receiving any scholarship you could think of, Trae was infatuated with the streets and anything that had to do with them. Trae was always getting into trouble that required his parent’s to bail him out of jail but no matter what he did, his parents refused to cut him off and Mercy hated it.
“Mercy, don’t call him that,” Rosa, their mother fussed as she rushed to open the door for her only son.
When Trae reached his mother, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly as if she was scared that he was disappear if she let him go. He sighed in relief. Trae had always been a mama’s boy and it felt as if it had been an eternity since the last time he was in her arms.
Mercy sucked her teeth and walked away from the pitiful sight before her.
“I messed up, mom, I really messed up,” Trae cried.
“Shh, everything is going to be fine,” Rosa assured him.
She didn’t know the details of what he had done nor did she care to know, she would protect her son at all costs.
“Go upstairs and get some rest. We’ll talk later,” She told him.
“Thank you, mom.”
It had been five years since the last time Trae had any contact with his family but as soon as he hit the highway, he called his mom up, knowing she wouldn’t turn him away. He could do no wrong in her eyes, which is why he chose to come here.
He would just stay here until things back in Detroit died down. He would give Coco time to get over the rape then call her and apologize so they could move past it. Besides, he knew she couldn’t resist him anyways.
“Seriously, mom?” Mercy questioned with a full blown attitude.
“What?”
“You know what. No matter what Traevino does, you welcome him back with open arms. You don’t know what type of trouble he’s in now; he could have the police or some big time killers after him and where do you think is the first place they’re going to look for him?” Mercy exclaimed.
“He’s my son, Mercy! I’m not going to leave him out there just like I wouldn’t leave you out there,” Rosa argued.
“Of course not, mom. I know better! Trae is a grown ass man so let him take care of himself. You’re going to let him drag you into some shit that only God can help y’all out of. Watch what I tell you,” Mercy said before she left the house.
She hated to say it but it was the truth. Trae was always in some shit and their mother loved running to his rescue instead of letting him be grown and figure things out on his own. Mercy refused to sit back and watch her brother drag their mother down. She would take him out on her own before she allowed that to happen.
___
Zeek pulled up to Jayliah’s house wondering what was so urgent for him to be here. When he saw Marco standing on the front lawn smoking a cigarette, he knew something had to be wrong because he didn’t smoke. His first thought was something was wrong with somebody in the family, especially with the gloomy look on his cousin’s face.
“What’s wrong?” Zeek questioned.
“Come on,” Marco said, leading him in the house.
When they walked in, Tariq was sitting on the couch with his head in his hands. Zeek stopped dead in his tracks because he wasn’t feeling the way his cousins were looking.
“I need for one of y’all to tell me something because I don’t like the way y’all looking,” he said.
Tariq cleared his throat before he spoke. “Coco was raped last night. She won’t tell us who did it or nothing—“
“Where she at?” Zeek cut him off.
Tariq could have sworn he saw the devil himself flash in his cousin’s eyes before they went from light brown to coal black. He knew Zeek would feel a way about Coco’s incident but he didn’t think he would hold that much emotion.
“She’s upstairs with Jayliah.”
Before Tariq could even finish his sentence, Zeek was already halfway up the stairs. Not even bothering to knock, he busted through the first door he came to. He stood there as he watched the two sisters. They both laid in bed while Jayliah held her little sister, rubbing her hair as Coco stared into space and silently cried.
Jayliah lifted her head up an
d glanced in his direction before she eased her way out of the bed and over to him. She took another look at her sister before they stepped out in the hallway and she closed the door behind her.
“Thanks for coming,” she said softly.
In all the time that Zeek had known Jayliah, he had never heard her so soft spoken so he knew this had to be effecting her just as bad as Coco.
“How she doing? Damn, I mean…” Zeek didn’t even know what to say right now. He could obviously see that she wasn’t doing too well so he didn’t even know why he let that fly out his mouth.
“She has her moments. I kept trying to get her to get some sleep because she didn’t get any last night, or should I ask this morning. The moment she closed her eyes, she had nightmares and she’s been staring into space ever since, refusing to close her eyes. I swear, when I catch that nigga, Imma make sure they have to cremate his ass.”
“You mind if I talk to her?” Zeek asked.
“Boy, don’t ask me no shit like that,” Jayliah sassed. “Just go ahead in.”
While she headed downstairs, Zeek went into the room to find Coco in the same position her sister had left her in. Zeek took his phones out of his pockets and powered them off, placing them on the dresser before he kicked his shoes off and climbed in the bed with her. He positioned Coco so her head was laying on his chest and she didn’t bother to protest.
“Imma tell you something I’ve never told nobody before. You’ll probably use this against me later on down the line,” Zeek lightly chuckled. He glanced down at her to see that she was still staring into space. “When I was thirteen, after I watched my father being killed, I used to have nightmares for a year straight. They were so bad that my big sister had to sleep with me and rock me to sleep because if she didn’t, I would wet the bed. No lie, imagine that shit. Bad ass Zeek wetting the bed and shit. But it happened because I just couldn’t get those images of my head until one day my granny had me pray with her. After that, I never had another nightmare again. God probably wouldn’t hear nothing I have to say these days but maybe you should give it a try, I’m pretty sure he would hear you out.”
The Wrong Side Of Love: A Hood Love Story Page 3
