Because I Love You 2

by A'zayler

  “What, Azayna?”

  “Propose.” her hands were on her hips as she said it harder that time.

  It was weird between us for a minute before I felt myself lowering to my knee. She said I had to propose; she didn’t say I had to marry her, so fuck it. I got my ass on one knee, so I could hurry up and make up with this crazy ass pregnant girl.

  “Az—”

  She stopped me before I could get started. “You have to hold my hand or something. You just down there talking to me. Ain’t nothing genuine about what you’re doing.”

  I sucked my teeth. “You gon’ let me ask you or not?”

  “Not if you ain’t gon’ do it right.” She was smacking her teeth and rolling her neck, being ghetto as fuck for no reason.

  It was crazy because she looked even better from where I was kneeling. She’d been fine as fuck all day, but for some reason, I was seeing her in a different light. Maybe it was because she was acting like she had standards, or maybe it was just the sun bouncing off her natural beauty that had me.

  “Azayna, marry me.”

  She looked off like she had to think about it. “Okay.”

  I couldn’t even hold it together after that. She was so fucking crazy that I had to laugh at her. She obviously didn’t find anything funny at first, but she ended up laughing too. When I was back on my feet, I pulled her beneath one of my arms and walked us toward the park.

  “You gon’ be my wife for real?”

  “Yeah. When we getting married?”

  “After I propose to you the right way.”

  She squeezed me tighter and laid her head on my shoulder. “I can’t wait until that day.”

  “Me either, boo.”

  We were quiet the rest of our walk to everybody else. Slowly, we pulled away and walked on our own. When we got back to where her friends were standing, I pinched her back softly to get her attention.

  “I’ma be over here.” I nodded toward where my boys were standing.

  “And I’ma be over here.” we smiled at each other before parting ways. Me to my boys and her to whatever she wanted to call them hoes she sold pussy with.

  A small uproar of feminine laughter erupted behind me. When I glanced back, all of her li’l friends were bent over and shaking their ass to the song that had just come on.

  “Fucking women.” I shook my head and kept walking.

  I had gotten all the way back to my niggas before I had to stop again. This time, the strap had to come out. Shit was about to get real ugly. Azayna had her big belly ass bent over dancing. Man, if I could have shot her in the back of her head without killing her, I would have let the cannon rip, but since that wasn’t possible, I was forced to walk my ass back across that fucking field. All that walking was getting old.

  “Ayyye, Dream, get that nigga,” one of her trashy ass friends yelled that hoe shit to her.

  As if that didn’t piss me off enough, that nigga Blue had just walked up and pressed up against her. My head damn near exploded. I snatched my Mac out the holster so fast that I almost took my arm off. Azayna had stopped dancing, but only so she could turn around and talk to him. I knew when her eyes had caught mine because they got big as saucers.

  She said something that had the nigga Blue turning around. Before he could say or do anything, I had my Mac in his face. Totally against what I’d thought he’d do, he looked at my gun and smiled. The park went quiet as my hot temper caught all of the free attention.

  “No, Egypt.” Azayna jumped in front of that fool and grabbed my hand.

  “Get the fuck back.” I nudged her with a little bit of force.

  “You good, Azayna. Move out the way, baby.” Blue looked at her. “Let him do what he got to do.”

  This nigga here was really trying me. Not only was he out here with my girl, but he didn’t look to be the least bit afraid of my gun being in his face. With good reason, niggas from all over the place ran up on us. Some in blue some in red. Shit was about to get ugly.

  “Aye, y’all niggas chill.” Master brought his hoe ass from somewhere. “Come on, not out here. It’s kids and shit.”

  I gripped my gun, considering what he was saying. I had promised BB I would chill, and this was an unnecessary issue, so I dropped my hand.

  “All this chaos about a hoe? Y’all both got more sense than that,” Master yelled. “Fucking Dream? This a prostitute we’re talking about!”

  “That’s the Dream that be selling ass?” somebody from the crowd asked, bringing about a host of different responses.

  “Damn, I ain’t even know that was her.”

  “That can’t be her, all pregnant and shit.”

  Blue and I looked at Master like he’d lost his mind as the rest of the disrespectful chatter caught our ears. The laughter and agreeance from others in the crowd pissed me off bad enough to kill everybody. Obviously, Blue felt the same. I could see him patting his back where I assumed his gun was. I didn’t know how mad he was, but I was ready to shut the whole park down.

  On my mama, I would load and reload my whole clip on every person who had just agreed with disrespecting Azayna. As if that hadn’t been enough to get me fired up, I looked at my baby, and she had tears in her eyes. I could tell her feelings were hurt, and seeing that shit fucked with me so bad that I lost my temper. I snatched her to me first so that she was under my arm before raising my gun again.

  “Baby, get my keys out of my pocket and go get in the car. I’m about to shoot all these muthafuckas.” I aimed my gun around the crowd of niggas who had just been making her feel bad. “You ain’t got to cry about this shit.”

  She sniffed. “No, Egypt, it’s okay. Let’s just go.”

  I heard her, but I still wanted to lay these niggas down.

  “Let’s just go.”

  I kept my eyes on the bitch niggas who all of a sudden didn’t have very much to say. They’d known better than to even try me like that from the beginning.

  “You sure? Because I’ll shoot all they asses.” I aimed my gun in Master’s face. “Starting with his punk ass.”

  Blue and Master were both looking at me. Blue didn’t look confrontational or scared, while Master looked like he was about to piss on himself.

  She patted my chest and shook her head. “I’m sure. I don’t want you to do that.”

  “Y’all niggas lucky she ain’t feeling death, or it would have been over with for all of y’all today,” I eyed each and every one of them.

  The hood knew I was serious. Hopefully, the next time they thought about trying me or Azayna like that, they’d think again. With her holding tightly onto my arm, I began to back away. Once I felt we were in a safe enough distance, I turned my back on the whole situation and headed to where I’d been all day. She was still holding onto me, so I quickly kissed the top of her head to reassure her that she was good.

  “Yo, I’m out,” I told everybody who began to follow my lead and prepared to leave.

  People watched us the entire way to the cars, and I wanted somebody to do something stupid. I’d been praying they would the entire walk so I could let off, but nobody said or did anything other than look. If I could shoot them just for having their eyes on us, I would have done that too.

  I didn’t know if Azayna was shook from my actions or the things people had said because she’d been quiet the entire ride to her house. I hadn’t bothered to ask her where she’d wanted to go, because I didn’t care, I was going to her house, so we could chill. Both of us needed a minute to relax, and her house was calming enough to do just that. My heart had been aching for a while with nothing to appease it for months. I couldn’t go another day like that.

  Nothing appeased me the way Azayna did. It wasn’t until I’d seen her today that I’d known that for sure. It was her. Not her house, her body, her job, none of that. Just her. Knowing that she was carrying my baby hadn’t made it any easier. It had actually made not having her even harder to deal with. I was fixing all of that now.

  “Egypt
,” her voice disturbed the silence of our ride.

  “Yeah.”

  “I have something to tell you.”

  I looked over at her. She was fidgeting and looking crazy as hell.

  “I don’t live there anymore.”

  “Where you live?” I asked with more than enough urgency to let her know that I didn’t approve of the life change she’d made without me.

  My attitude didn’t have as much to do with her moving as it did with her not telling me that she’d moved. I’d been mad and not speaking to her, but I was still her man or something of that nature. She didn’t just do shit without checking with me first, especially changing her address. I’d been riding by there for nothing because it was obvious her ass hadn’t been there.

  “With Pat.”

  My whole car swerved when I found the first parking lot that I could and turned in. I slammed on brakes and pushed my car into park before I said another word. I’d turned in my seat and was ice grilling the hell out of her as she sat there looking nervous.

  “The fuck you do that for?”

  “Because he asked me to.”

  I was sure my frown had never seen a deeper day. “Because he asked you to?”

  “Yes, Egypt! Because he fucking asked me to.” She finally looked at me and crossed her arms over her chest. “You left me, and I didn’t have shit. I wasn’t going back to selling pussy, and I wasn’t about to be out here struggling when I didn’t have to be.”

  I turned back around in my seat. “Ain’t this a bitch?” I mumbled to myself, trying to figure out the ignorance that I was hearing. “I can’t even believe this shit.” I continued talking to myself like she wasn’t sitting there.

  “Speak up!”

  My head snapped around when she raised her voice. “Who the hell you yelling at? You better watch your fucking mouth, girl.” I pushed the middle of her forehead with my index finger.

  After she smacked my hand off her, she punched me in my chest. “Don’t put your fucking hands on me, Egypt. I’m not playing with you.”

  I was breathing like a damn dragon in my front seat. I was so tired of that loud mouth ass girl trying me that I didn’t know what to do. What I did know was that I had no words for her ass. If she wanted to play with me, I could play better. I started my car again and pulled out of the parking lot, making sure to turn my music up loud as hell. She didn’t look like she was about to say anything to me, but I wanted to make sure I couldn’t hear her even if she did.

  I drove all the way to the east side of town before turning my music down. “Where that nigga stay?”

  I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t answer me.

  “I said where he stay?” That time it was me yelling at her ass.

  “I’m not telling you, so you can go over there starting shit with him.”

  I side eyed her like a muthafucka because she was really trying me. “I ain’t gon’ ask you again.”

  Since I wasn’t looking at her, all I could do was hear her in her seat moving around huffing and puffing all hard. I didn’t bat my eye because I meant what I’d said, and she knew I did too. All the shit she was doing was for her benefit only. Not mine. I wasn’t letting up regardless. I didn’t care how big of a fool she wanted to act.

  “Egypt.”

  “Where he stay?” I ignored her calling my name.

  “Please, don’t make me do this.”

  “Where. Does. He. Stay?”

  She huffed for the thousandth time before rattling off that nigga’s address. I put it in my GPS and headed over there. She was getting her shit and getting out of there tonight. I didn’t care if she had to live with me until she got her another spot, she just wasn’t staying there. He may have been her daddy or what the fuck ever he was, but he wasn’t shit to me. The only Crip I respected was Nipsey; any other one could get the fuck on. Including her bitch ass daddy.

  “You might want to go to the hospital to see BB before we go over there. He told me before they left the park that he needed to see Pat about some business.”

  I could tell by the way she dropped that bomb that she was hoping it would deter me from checking her punk ass daddy, and she was right. Why would BB tell her that shit and not me? He and I talked about everything, even Pat. BB had been considering getting work from him for weeks now because of the pussy shit Master kept pulling with our paper. I hadn’t expressed any real feelings toward it because I would do whatever BB wanted to do, but I thought the nigga would at least talk to me about it first.

  “We still going over there,” I told her while making a U-turn in the middle of the road.

  She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. I knew she’d heard me just like BB was about to hear me. As long as his ass wasn’t doped up on medicine, then he and I were having this conversation. Well, both conversations. We’d talk business first, but he was telling me why the hell Azayna had been living with Pat, and he hadn’t told me anything about it. I wasn’t leaving the hospital without answers for both. That was a promise.

  Chapter Nine

  -Azayna

  “Girl, he’s mad about me living with Pat,” I whispered to Zebrina as we sat together on the hard, plastic sofa in BB’s hospital room.

  “Why did you tell him?” She looked at Egypt before looking back at me.

  I looked at her like she was the dumbest person in the world. “Because you left me out there with him. What else was I supposed to do?”

  Zebrina’s eyes bucked when she covered her mouth. “Oh, my god! I did not think about that when I left you. I’m sorry, Zay.”

  I waved her off. “Girl, please. I was just worried about BB. Egypt will be okay. He can’t go missing for months then come back trying to regulate like everything is alright.”

  My eyes traveled back to Egypt. He was seated in a small chair next to BB’s bed. BB wasn’t as coherent as he normally was, but he was awake and talking. I could tell by the way he’d squint every so often that he was still in a tremendous amount of pain, but he was handling it very well.

  I looked away because watching him was making me too sad. I honestly didn’t see how Zebrina could sit by and watch him get like that over and over. That had to be hard for her.

  “Did they say how long he has to stay?”

  She too was looking at him. Her empathy for him way worse than mine. Her eyes were wet, and so were her cheeks. The tears weren’t falling at a fast pace, but they were rolling enough to make me turn my head. My baby made me emotional enough. If I kept looking at Zebrina, I’d be a ball of water within minutes.

  “Azayna.”

  Egypt called out to me. I remained seated until BB motioned for me to come over. I got up and waddled slowly to them. They were both quiet when I approached the bed. BB spoke first.

  “Did you make that happen for me?”

  “Not yet.” I nodded my head toward his friend. “He was taking me to do that before we came here.”

  BB nodded. “Keep me updated.”

  “If Egypt lets me,” I sassed sourly.

  “He will.” BB smirked again.

  I didn’t linger once I assumed our conversation had concluded. Our visit carried on for a few minutes before BB began to gasp out of nowhere. Zebrina and Egypt both flew to him while I ran for the door. I needed to get a nurse in there ASAP. I wasn’t aware of what was going on then, but I knew neither of us could do anything about it.

  “He needs help in there!” I screamed in panic.

  Three or four nurses jumped up and took off running for his room. I followed slowly afraid to see anything happen to BB. Lord knows I’d fall dead. Even with me barely taking any steps at all, I eventually made it back to the room, and it was pure chaos. The nurses stood around him doing one thing or another but all working together to get BB better. They were looking unsuccessful as fuck.

  “What did y’all give him?” Zebrina yelled as Egypt stood next to her and watched.

  “Just pain medication, ma’am,” the nurse closest to
her spoke.

  I watched in horror as BB kept gasping as if he couldn’t breathe until one of the nurses held an oxygen mask over his face, and the other ran from the room.

  “What’s the name of it? This has never happened before. What did y’all do to him?” she screamed again, grabbing the nurse this time.

  Egypt stepped in and grabbed Zebrina then. I was thankful for that because Zebrina was a big girl, and this was her husband we were talking about. BB, her B. She would kill the world about him.

  “The other nurse is checking now.”

  Zebrina was right back in her face. “You mean to tell me that you don’t know?”

  “Chill, Zebrina. Just let them do their thing. They can’t help him with you antagonizing them.” Egypt pulled her away the best he could. “They already know I’ll air this bitch out if something happens to my nigga on their watch.”

  I palmed my forehead as I watched the two of them go at those nurses so harshly. I thought Egypt would have been a help, but he was just as bad. Seconds and minutes passed before BB’s room calmed down again, and he was breathing on his own. My heart was so thankful that they’d figured out the problem and addressed it. I was damn near ready to die right there on the spot when BB’s monitors began to sound off.

  “I should sue their asses.” Zebrina shocked me when she cursed. “How incompetent must they be to give him medicine that he’s allergic to?” She kissed BB’s head again.

  She was lying in bed with her arm around his neck while he snuggled close to her with his eyes closed. He’d been sleeping for a little over an hour, and Zebrina had been lost in her head the entire time.

  “Had he died, I would own this hospital.” She laid her cheek against the top of his head. “Look at my baby, man. This is just careless. Sickle cell is not that complex. They’re nurses for God’s sake.”

  Her hand rubbed up and down BB’s swollen hand. Because of his allergic reaction to the medicine they’d given him, his face, arms, hands, and feet had swollen horribly. His eyes were so bad that he could barely see out of them. With all of the crying Zebrina and I had done, our eyes were no better than his.