by B. M. Hardin
Maybe I could try.
Maybe I could at least stick around for a little longer, just to see what happens.
I’d been by myself for the past three years and I wasn’t in a hurry to go back to being alone.
I guess there was no harm in taking things one day at a time.
I shared my thoughts with Silas and told him that I couldn’t make any promises but that we could see where things go.
But in the meantime, I was still going to wear my ring.
Yep, mostly just to piss Carmen off.
And besides, despite what Carmen said, I absolutely loved it!
***
“I’m sorry that I had to give you the bad news, but I had to let you know the type of man that you were dealing with,” Carmen said.
The look on her face didn’t say sorry at all; she seemed to be amused by it all.
I really couldn’t stand her.
I was sick to death of her.
“You can do much better than him anyway,” she said.
I purposely scratched my nose so that she could see that I was still wearing the engagement ring.
At the sight of it she rolled her eyes.
“Yes, thank you for sharing, but it’s his past. I’m his future. Thanks though,” I said to her and entered Room 313 to see what piece of a man was waiting for me.
I smiled but not at the sight of the man.
The look on Carmen’s face when I’d said those words…
Priceless.
Another week or so had gone by and since I’d revealed that I was still seeing Silas, I hadn’t been ordered or reserved.
Not even once.
I was sure that Carmen was trying to make sure that I didn’t make any money, but I could have cared less.
I had more than enough money saved up and I was actually glad that I hadn’t had to screw anyone other than Silas.
She was actually doing me a favor.
She walked around as if she hated the sight of me.
I was hoping that one day she’d finally do us both a favor and just rip up the contract and let me go.
My fingers were crossed.
After sitting around all day, it was finally time for me to go, so without a single word, to anybody, I made my exit.
It was such a beautiful day outside.
I was glad that the weather was starting to warm up because that meant that I was getting closer and closer to the date that I could leave the hotel!
Boy, I couldn’t wait!
By now, I couldn’t begin to count the number of men that I’d been with but I didn’t even care.
When my time was over on the thirteenth floor, I was going to start over.
I was going to start brand new.
I arrived home and I’d hoped to find Silas there but he wasn’t.
I still didn’t know everything that he dabbled in because I hadn’t asked.
To be honest, I felt that if I asked too many questions, he would start asking questions of his own.
He had yet to ask me how I knew Carmen and I had yet to get my lie together.
But I would be ready whenever he was.
I walked into the house to the sound of crying.
Both Horizon…and Tia were crying.
I ran to Tia’s side.
She was bawling uncontrollably and Horizon seemed to only be crying because she was crying.
It’s time!
“Aww, it hurts so bad! Get it out of me!” Tia screamed.
I almost smiled but she would have surely tried to knock my head off if I had.
I remembered those pains.
I found Horizon’s shoes and helped Tia with hers.
I headed to her bedroom to grab her overnight bag and her purse and then I helped her out the door.
As Tia moaned and groaned, I made sure that the door was locked.
I turned back around to help her down the front steps but…
There stood a woman.
She looked as though she was drunk and as if she had been crying.
She stared in our direction as if we were her enemy.
By instinct, I grabbed Horizon and placed her behind me.
Tia continued to cry as we all just stood there, staring at each other.
I had no idea as to who the woman was but I was sure that I was about to find out.
The more I looked into her eyes, my gut told me that it was her; the one who had been coming by the house and the one responsible for all of the mysterious incidences, including trying to burn down the house.
I know that Tia said it was a man, but she could have surely put him up to it.
She was the woman whose ass I was supposed to whoop!
But now just wasn’t the time.
I attempted to walk towards the car but she moved in front of us.
Tia cried out in pain again and I knew that we didn’t have time to play around.
It was almost time to delivery this baby.
So Lady, get the hell out of the way!
“So, you think you can just sleep with other people’s husbands and get away with it?” she finally asked.
Damn it!
I knew that it was somebody’s wife that was behind all of this.
I knew that one of the men at the hotel had made some kind of slip up and now their wife was pissed off and wanted answers.
But she wanted answers that I just couldn’t give to her.
Especially not right now.
My sister was in labor.
“Look, I have to get her to the hospital. Come back in a few days and we can talk.”
I tried to walk off again but she still wouldn’t move out of our way.
Instead, she pulled out a gun.
My heart dropped as Tia and Horizon both began to cry even louder.
Was she serious?
Was this really happening?
Damn, okay, I get it, you’re upset but to pull out a gun on me in front of my daughter…oh she was playing with fire!
I was getting more upset by the seconds and her best bet was to go ahead and shoot me because if she didn’t…
“Look, we can talk about this some other time. Please just let me get my sister to the hospital, please.”
The woman didn’t say anything.
Instead she started to scream.
She was screaming at the top of her lungs like she was some crazy person.
It was almost unreal as though someone was playing a nasty joke on us, but I knew that she was serious.
I felt so bad for her.
Even though now wasn’t the time to be feeling sympathetic, I still felt bad for her.
She must really love her husband…whoever he was.
Although in her mind I was just as guilty, I wanted to express to her that I never intentionally slept with her spouse, but I knew that she wasn’t going to listen.
She started to mumble and then I heard the gun make a clicking noise which meant that she was preparing to shoot.
Was this really about to happen?
Was she really about to shoot me?
Was she going to do this in broad daylight, in front of my daughter, without hearing my side of the story?
I started to plea with her but I could tell that she didn’t want to hear a word that I was saying.
Out of options, finally, I started to cry.
Not because I was scared, but because I hated that things had come to this.
That damn hotel was really about to cause me to my life.
This was exactly why I didn’t want to have sex with anyone that was married.
Knowing Carmen, all of the men she’d sent to my room were probably married and her messy ass probably had something to do with the wife finding out in the first place.
Carmen was capable of anything and I was sure that she was responsible for all of this.
If only the woman would let me explain.
But I knew that she wouldn’t.
She held the gun tightly and whe
n she put her finger on the trigger, I knew in my heart that she was going to shoot.
I knew that she had come to kill and I knew that she was going to do just that.
It was in her eyes.
It was all over her face.
Still holding on to Tia and with Horizon holding on to the back of my legs, I closed my eyes.
But at the sound of a car speeding into the driveway, I opened them.
Silas!
I had never been so happy to see someone in my entire life.
But the woman didn’t look happy at all.
Instead she looked at him as he got out of the car and then with no more time to hesitate.
“He chose you. My husband chose you,” she cried and with that the gun sounded and everything seemed to start going in slow motion.
Slowly I watched Silas start running towards the woman.
I wanted to move.
I wanted to hit the ground for cover, but I couldn’t.
My feet were frozen.
My entire body was frozen in time.
So instead, I just waited for the bullet to hit me.
Slowly I waited.
And I waited.
And then….
I felt a huge weight on the left side of my body.
I struggled to keep my balance.
My eyes shifted to the woman who was now smiling as Silas bum rushed her to the ground.
Seconds later, the weight was gone and my arm felt as light as a feather.
And that’s when it hit me.
She wasn’t there for me.
The bullet was never for me.
Looking to my left, there on the ground, I saw Tia with a single shot to the head.
Dead.
*********************************************
Chapter NINE
I stared at Tia’s body on the ground.
My mind and my body couldn’t seem to get on the same page.
Horizon actually made it to Tia before I did.
She was crying and begging Tia to get up, but Tia couldn’t hear her.
So this whole time everything had been going on because of Tia?
All of the incidents, the fire and everything were all because of Tia?
It was all starting to make since.
The woman was the wife of the married professor that Tia had slept with just to get enough money for us.
No, this was all my fault!
Tia was dead because of me!
Finally my body came out of shock and I dropped to my knees beside Tia.
I held her in my arms and I spoke to her.
I shook her and tried to wake her but she wouldn’t move.
She didn’t respond.
She didn’t do anything.
Tears started to fall from my eyes as the blood from Tia’s head soaked the shirt that covered my breasts.
I held her close to my heart.
She just couldn’t be dead.
My sister just couldn’t be dead.
People filled the streets and some even ran into the yard and tried to help.
I could hear sirens in the distance so I was sure that someone had called for help.
I could hear Horizon crying and calling my name but I couldn’t comfort her.
I couldn’t do anything but hold Tia and cry.
I forced myself to look in the direction of Silas and once he made eye contact, he moved from restraining the woman and headed for Horizon.
No sooner than he’d headed in our direction, another gunshot ranged through the air.
The crowd screamed as two gentlemen rushed to the woman who was laying only a few feet away.
I didn’t bother to look in her direction.
I already knew that she’d probably shot herself.
I hoped that she was dead.
She deserved to be dead.
I saw the blue lights in the distance and I was eager for them to get Tia to the hospital.
There just had to be a way to save her.
She just couldn’t be dead…
“What are you going to name him?” Silas asked me.
I didn’t bother to respond.
I just looked at my nephew through the glass window and cried.
He’d survived the shooting but his mother hadn’t.
He was a beautiful, healthy baby boy and the saddest part of all was that he looked so much like Tia. It hurt me just to look at him.
Tia was pronounced dead on the scene.
There wasn’t a thing that they could do for her.
The woman who had killed my sister and then shot herself hadn’t died until later at the hospital.
I couldn’t believe that she had taken something so precious away from me.
How could she kill her?
How could she shoot her right there like she was nothing?
It was confirmed that she was the wife of Tia’s college professor.
Though he’d been notified, he had yet to show his face.
Why couldn’t his married ass have stayed away from my sister?
Whether Tia called him that night or not, he should have been man enough to tell her no.
So, basically, it was just as much his fault for Tia’s death as it was mine.
I cried and cried until there were no tears left in me.
I couldn’t believe that my financial struggles had led to something like this.
Had I not needed the money, Tia would have never slept with him.
Had I not lost my job, Tia would have never tried to help me out.
Wait a minute…I should have never been fired in the first place!
Carmen was just as much to blame as the rest of us.
She’d fired me for nothing.
All because I’d initially refused her offer to sell my body.
Yes, that bitch was to blame for this too!
As far as I was concerned, everyone was a fault!
But blaming folks wouldn’t bring my sister back.
No matter what I said or who I blamed, she was gone and nothing was going to bring her back.
“Envy.”
I turned around at the sound of her voice.
My sister Josephine looked so different that I hardly even recognized her.
I hadn’t seen her in person since Keymar’s funeral, over three years ago, and it was sad that if she hadn’t said my name, I probably wouldn’t have known who she was.
She was darker and she was about a hundred pounds heavier.
Her hair was even different.
She didn’t look like herself at all.
Immediately she hugged me and we cried together.
She asked me what seemed like a thousand questions but I only answered one.
The wife of her child’s father shot and killed her.
The end.
After all, that’s all that pretty much mattered.
Though Josephine hadn’t noticed him at all, Silas decided to take Horizon to the cafeteria to give us some alone time.
“Why was she sleeping with a married man?” Josephine as though she was disgusted.
It was as if she was looking down on Tia and it was almost as if she understood why the wife had killed her in the first place.
No, I’m not saying that sleeping with the married man was right, it wasn’t.
But it was only one time and it was only to help me.
Tia hadn’t deserved to die because of it.
I was so angry at myself.
I was the one that should have been dead, not her.
I scowled myself for being frozen in shock.
I should have jumped in front of that bullet.
Heaven knows I would have taken that bullet for her.
Josephine continued to talk but I tuned her out and focused on my other sister heading towards us.
Sonni looked as beautiful as she always had.
She and I actually favored the most.
But though we looked alike, we didn’t have a thing in common;
never had.
She was the child that was always different.
She would rather read instead of playing outside or while everyone would be playing together, she would be somewhere in a corner, sitting, and playing all alone.
Sonni had never been to close with anyone of us. We used to think something was wrong with us because on most days, she wouldn’t even talk to us.
I mean not one single word.
She just liked being alone and her own little space and no matter how much we tried, that’s just the way that she was.
It was as though she was ashamed of us or as if she just didn’t like us or most people for that matter.
Actually, I couldn’t believe that she’d even gotten married or had kids.
I would have never guessed that she would have let someone that close to her.
As soon as Sonni graduated high school, she took off a while.
At one point she was in Texas, then New York and then somewhere in California.
She dabbled in a few things and became very good with advertisement.
After she’d gotten skills and had become adored in the industry, she headed back to North Carolina, settled about four hours away from Charlotte, and soon she went into business with a gentleman, who eventually became her husband.
Their business was pretty successful I suppose.
I didn’t know much about it and of course Sonni didn’t share much of anything with any of us.
It seemed like the only person she’d ever really talked to or even liked was Mama.
And well, obviously her husband and kids I guess.
Once she was close enough, surprisingly she reached out to hug us.
She wasn’t crying but I could tell that she was hurting.
“What happened to her?”
I gave her the same answer that I’d given Josephine, only this time I went more into detail.
I told them both about the incidents at the house and that Tia had only messed around with the husband on one occasion.
I left out the fact that she’d done it for money.
I was already feeling guilty enough, so I didn’t need anyone else blaming me for what happened to her.
“I was just thinking about you guys. All of you. I’d just talked about how we needed to do better as sisters and that our kids needed to know each other and spend more time together.”
I was surprised to hear those words come out of Sonni’s mouth.
But I was glad to hear them because with Tia gone, I was going to need both of them more than ever.
