Side Chic 2 (A Ratchet Mess)

by West, La'Tonya

  “I appreciate your apology and yes I accept it.”

  “Thanks and I don’t need a blood test. I know that they are mine as a matter of fact we need to make arrangements for me to put my name on their birth certificates.”

  “Okay but I still want to have the blood test done for the simple fact that I don’t want to have to go through you saying they’re not yours again when you get mad.” She paused for a second and then I heard Laila stop crying. “Awwww…mama’s baby is mad. Don’t be mad with mama…I had to clean you up Miss Laila.” I stood there listening to her talk to Laila. Then she turned her attention back to me. “I’m sorry Tre.”

  “You’re fine.” I assured her. “We can still do the blood test but you don’t have to worry about me saying that again.”

  “I hear you.”

  “Can you send some pictures of the girls to my phone so that my mama can see them?” I asked.

  “Yeah sure, no problem I will do it as soon as we hang up.” She promised.

  “Alright, I’m going to get back in here where my parents are. I will holla at you later.”

  “Okay…and Tre…I appreciate you apologizing.” We hung up and I went back into the house.”

  Tre

  I was seated at the table with my parents eating when my cell vibrated. I looked at the phone and saw that I had a message. I opened it. It was from Kisha.

  Kisha: I’m free now. Where do you want to meet?

  Me: We could meet up at the park if you want.

  Kisha: I’ll be there in a twenty minutes.

  Me: Okay.

  “Ma…daddy…I have to get ready to go. Thanks for lunch though.” I told them.

  “Awww…I hate to see you go. You don’t come over that much anymore and it seems like when you do come by you are in a rush.” My mama pouted.

  “Ma, I’ve been here for about three hours.” I laughed pinching her cheek.

  “Boy, get your hands off of me!” She laughed too smacking my hand off of her. “Let me see those pictures of those two little butterballs again.” I took out my phone and went back to the pictures that Lala had sent of the girls. I handed the phone to my ma. “Tremaine, they are so precious! Look at those chubby little cheeks. Laila is bigger than Lola. I guess that means that she eats the most.”

  “Nah, Lala said that Lola’s condition causes her to not eat much because she has trouble eating but I’m sure that after her surgery she will be just as big as Laila.”

  “Awww…poor baby.” She sat there staring at the pictures a little bit longer before handing my dad the phone.

  “They truly are precious, Tre.” He smiled continuing to stare at my phone. “What color are their eyes?”

  “They have hazel eyes like their mama. Laila’s are green and Lola’s are grey.”

  “Boy, you’d better get your shot gun ready!” He laughed. “You are going to have boys lined up at your door!”

  “I can handle it.” I stood up and my dad handed the phone back to me. “Alright, y’all I’m going to go ahead and get out of here.”

  “Okay drive safely…we love you.” My ma yelled after me.

  I jumped in the car and turned on the radio. I already knew that Kisha was going to trip so I let a cigarette to relax and prepare myself for what was to come. When I turned into the park, I saw Kisha’s car and there was a girl sitting on the bench but I didn’t see Kisha. I figured maybe she gotten out of the car and was walking around. I parked my car beside her and got out. I looked around the field but I didn’t see anyone.

  I took my phone out of my pocket to call her. I dialed her number and waited for it to ring.

  “Why in the hell are you standing over there calling me?” The girl on the bench yelled.

  I looked closer and noticed that it was Kisha, she’d cut her hair! I put my phone back in my pocket and walked over to her. As much as I hated that she’d cut her hair I had to admit that the style looked really nice on her. I took a seat next to her on the bench. “Hey, how are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m good.” She was popping a piece of gum and fidgeting with the end of the skirt that she had on. I couldn’t get over how good she looked. She was wearing a yellow halter top that showed off her flat stomach and tied up around her neck with a blue jean skirt and a pair of yellow flip flops.

  “That’s good. You look really nice. I like your hair like that.”

  “Mmmmhmmm…whatever.” She rolled her eyes.

  “How are my boys?”

  “They’re good.” She finally looked over at me. “Look, I have somewhere else to be so what is it that you want to talk to me about?”

  “I wanted to tell you the truth about everything. I’m tired of lying, I miss my kids and I just want to try and fix this mess that I’ve made.”

  “Oh so now you want to tell the truth?” She questioned. “Hmph…I can’t wait to hear this.”

  I took a deep breath and then told her everything. When I was done she was sitting next to me crying and holding her head in her hands. She wasn’t saying anything. She was just shaking her head.

  “Kisha…baby…say something. Say anything…please.” I reached over and caressed her shoulder. She didn’t say anything. She just continued to cry. “I’m sorry Kisha!”

  She snatched back from my touch! “Don’t touch me!” She drew back and slapped the shit out of me. She tried again but I grabbed her arm. She punched me in the head with her other arm! “I hate you, you no good son of a bitch! Two years, Tre? Two gotdamn years, you were fucking this bitch behind my back?” She yelled! “You ain’t shit! I should’ve been got my shit and left! My mama and everybody else were right about you!”

  I continued holding onto her arms so that she couldn’t hit me. As I sat there looking in her eyes the hatred that I saw in them told me that we were over. I couldn’t fix this. I’d finally done too much. It hurt me to see the pain that I’d caused her and I knew that she deserved better so I decided at that moment not to ask her to come home. It was time to let her go and allow her to be happy. The last thing I wanted was to see her with someone else but I’d done this to us so now I had to live with the consequences. “Kisha, all I can say…”

  She hawked up a mouthful of spit and spit in my face. “Fuck you and your apology you no good piece of shit!”

  Her spitting in my face hit a nerve but I took it like a man. I turned her arms a loose and used the end of my shirt to wipe my face. Before I could lift my head she was hitting me again. I took all of her licks and allowed her to get out all of her frustration. I understood her anger.

  “You made a pure fool out of me!” She screamed through snot and tears. “I swear I hate you! You don’t ever have to worry about seeing my kids again. I don’t want them around your ass!”

  “Kisha…” I grabbed her arms again to stop her from hitting me. “You are trippin’ now! I can live with you being mad at me and I understand why. You have every right to be. What I did was fucked up but you have to let me see my kids! You have no right to keep them from me!”

  “I bet I do! Watch and see if you see my kids! Motherfucka you’d better look at those pictures that I left at the house because the next time that you lay eyes on Quan and Shaun they will be grown!”

  I knew that it was her anger speaking but I was ready to see my boys. It had already been five days! I missed them! “Kisha, I love my kids! I may not be shit to you and you may think that I am the lowest nigga walking the earth right now but I am a damn good daddy to my kids!” She didn’t say anything. Instead she looked away. “Don’t do this shit! Don’t take my boys from me!”

  I wasn’t prepared for what came out of her mouth next! “Since we are revealing our secrets…I fucked Skeet! Not once but twice! And you want to know what else I plan on fucking him again tonight! How do you like that?”

  I let go of her arms and she used the back of her hand to wipe her face. “What did you just say?”

  “You heard me! I said that I fucked Skeet.” She stepped back and
folded her arms. “I fucked him a few years ago when I caught you with that white bitch and then I fucked him again last night!”

  I was speechless but now a few things started to make sense. I shook my head. “That’s what’s up.” I turned and started to walk away. I was walking away before I put my hands on her! “Call me and let me know when I can see my kids.” I called over my shoulder.

  “Oh so now you want to walk away?” She yelled at my back. “What you can’t handle it when you get a taste of your own medicine, Tre?”

  I got in my car and drove out of the park. When I got down the road I called Skeet, it rung a few times before he picked up.

  “Yo, what’s good?” He answered.

  I let out a sarcastic laugh. “Nigga, you ain’t shit! You were all in my face preaching to me about how I need to do right by Kisha and how she deserved better when all the time you had fucked her! Now ain’t that some bullshit!”

  “On some real shit Tre, we have been boys for a minute but this is what happens when you are out chasing that shit in the streets while you have a good woman sitting at home. A real nigga comes along and picks up the slack.”

  “Oh is that what you call it?”

  “Look I ain’t the type of nigga to be arguing back and forth over the phone about no woman or anything else. So if you want to holla at me, see me face to face!” With that he hung up.

  I thought about riding over to Casper’s crib to see if Skeet was over there but then I thought about the conversation that I’d had with my dad. I was getting older, too old for the dumb shit. My life had been filled with drama and chaos for the past few months. It was time for me to regain some type of order in my life. I knew that if I went over to Casper’s crib I would sure as hell end up getting in trouble. I’d said to myself, before Kisha told me about her and Skeet, that I was going to let her go. So that is what I was going to do.

  I drove in the direction of my house feeling like a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. Even though I felt some type of way about this thing with Kisha and Skeet, at least I’d come clean about all of my shit.

  Lala

  The day of Lola’s surgery had finally arrived and I was a nervous wreck. Nisey had come over to my house to ride with me to the hospital. She’d left Evan with his grandparents so that she could help me with Laila.

  “Lala, girl you need to slow down and take a deep breath.” Nisey called after me as I jogged up the stairs to go and get my pocketbook.

  “I can’t slow down!” I yelled back as I walked into my bedroom and grabbed my pocketbook off the bed. I stopped in front of the mirror to make sure that I was looking okay. I wasn’t only nervous because of Lola’s surgery but also because this would be my first time seeing Tre in over two months. Though there was nothing between us now and I wasn’t interested in there being anything. I still wanted to look nice. Plus I was also meeting his parents for the first time.

  I stood in front of the mirror staring at my reflection. I’d chosen a simple purple V-neck tee with a pair of light blue faded jeans and a pair of purple and white Jordans. Due to the fact that I was breastfeeding two babies, I’d lost all of my pregnancy weight. I was actually smaller than I’d been before getting pregnant. I think that it was a combination of stress and the breastfeeding that was causing the weight to fall off so rapidly. I adjusted my necklace and touched my hair. I had my hair down with the front pulled away from my face in a clip.

  “Lala, your phone is ringing, it’s Reggie!” Nisey yelled.

  “Go ahead and answer it and tell him I’m coming!” I yelled back as I left the room and headed downstairs. When I got to the bottom of the stairs Nisey had Lola and was holding the phone between her ear and her shoulder.

  “Here she is Reggie.” She spoke into the phone.

  I took the phone from her. “Good morning.” I spoke as I walked over and took Laila out of her swing and placed her in her carrier. Nisey did the same with Lola.

  “Good morning.” Reggie greeted me. “I just called to let you know that I was thinking of you this morning and I wanted to know how you were doing.”

  Me and Nisey gathered the diaper bags and the babies and took them out to the car. “I’m doing good. We’re about to leave and head to the hospital now. I appreciate you calling and checking on me. That means a lot.” After we were done buckling the babies in I walked back in the house to make sure that we hadn’t left anything before locking up.

  I continued to talk to Reggie for half of the drive to the hospital but I needed to talk to Nisey before we got there so I told him that I would call him back later and let him know how everything turned out. After I hung up with him, I looked over at Nisey.

  “Girl, I am so nervous. I hope that everything turns out alright with my Lola-Bug.” I confided in her. “I also hope that Tre’s parents are cool.”

  “Don’t worry about them. Either they like you or they don’t, at the end of the day it really doesn’t matter. It’s not like they have any reason not to like you. You are a wonderful mother to the girls and you handle your business. What happened with you and Tre is y’all business not theirs.” She replied.

  “You’re right.”

  “Aren’t your parents going to be there too?”

  “Yeah, they’re going to meet us there”

  “I can’t wait to meet them.”

  When we got to the hospital, everyone was already there waiting on us. They were all in the waiting area laughing and talking like they’d known each other for years! That was a good sign. Tre introduced me and his parents, they were really nice. His mom gave me a big hug. I gave them a chance to get a little bit acquainted with the babies before it was time for me to go and sign Lola in.

  “Can y’all keep an eye on Laila for me while I go and sign Lola in?” I asked everyone.

  “We most definitely can.” Tre’s mom answered already holding Laila.

  “I’ll go with you to sign her in.” Tre volunteered. Everybody gave Lola a kiss and then Tre took her from my mama.

  As we walked down the hall to the admittance desk, Tre said. “Relax Lala. She’s going to be alright.”

  “I know. I’m fine.” I replied letting out a sigh.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  After signing the baby in, we sat in the waiting area waiting for them to come get her for surgery. I sat there waiting Tre playing with her and talking to her. I was happy to see him finally trying to do the right thing. I was really glad that he’d chosen to come. I hated that things had to get so ugly for him to finally come around but sometimes that was the only way to get a person’s attention.

  First Dr. Malone came out and talked to us and explained to us again what he would be doing to her. The procedure would be done laparoscopically so it would be minimally invasive and she wouldn’t have a long hospital stay, only three days. When he was done the nurse came and got Lola so that they could prep her for surgery. They allowed Tre and me to stay with her up until they took her into surgery. When they took her back, I broke down. I wanted to be with my baby. I didn’t want her being alone.

  Tre wrapped his arms around me. “Shhh…don’t cry she’s going to be fine. After they are done fixing her heart you won’t have to be worried all the time about her like you are now because she will be all better.”

  “I know.” I cried into his chest. “But I wish that I could be back there with her, holding her hand. She’s back there all by herself. That’s my baby, Tre.”

  “I know and she’s my baby too. Trust me my nerves are way worse than yours right now and the guilt of not being here for her like I should’ve been is eating me up.” He admitted still holding me. “I keep thinking to myself, what if something goes wrong. I would beat myself up for the rest of my life because I wasn’t man enough to come and get to know my baby before now. So trust me when I tell you. I am in way worse condition than you are but I have faith that God is going to bring her through this and give me another chance t
o do what I should’ve been doing all along.”

  I stood there listening to him shocked by what I was hearing. This wasn’t the same Tre from a few weeks ago who didn’t give a damn about anybody but his self and his needs and wants. He actually sounded like a mature adult.

  I pulled back wiping my tears with my hand. “Wow, what has gotten into you?”

  He let out a chuckle. “Life…reality…sometime you have to lose everything in order to appreciate anything. I was taking everything and everybody around me for granted because to be honest I never thought Kisha would actually leave and I never thought that you would get tired of my shit and say anything. So I pretty much took advantage of the situation but once everything fell apart and I realized just how bad I’d fucked up. I realized that some shit had to change starting with me. When I told my parents what happened they kept it real with my ass and let me know that y’all weren’t my problem. I was my own problem. I tore my own family apart not you! So now I have to live with the consequences. I know that I can’t change any of what I’ve done but I can try not to make the same mistakes again. I can be here for my kids.”

  “That’s true.” I agreed. “I’m sorry that things happened the way that they did. My intentions weren’t to break you and Kisha up. It wasn’t about that at all. I was hurt and upset because I wanted you to be here for the girls.”

  “Yeah, I know. We good, you don’t owe me any apology.”

  We walked back down to the waiting room where our families were. I suggested that we go back to the other waiting area down the hall from where Lola was having surgery so that the doctor wouldn’t have to hunt for us when he was done. Everyone agreed, we gathered our stuff and went back to the other waiting area.

  We all sat around and talked. Talking to everyone helped to keep my mind off of Lola’s surgery some. My dad, Tre, and Tre’s dad all left and went to get lunch for everyone. I was glad to see my dad and Tre getting along so well. When they came back we all ate and continued to wait for Lola’s surgery to be over.