I playfully smirked at Treasure's nosiness and nodded at him. "Yeah."
"Get her one too then."
"Shit! Divine is going to kill me! Fuck!"
Treasure sucked her teeth as she drove the old Neon, which her mother had handed her down, through the south side of Chicago. Englewood to be exact.
"Calm down," she told me. "It's only fifteen minutes after twelve."
I didn't even respond because Treasure had no idea what I had going on at home. That was my fault, though, because I hadn't told her. I was too ashamed to tell anyone.
My heart was beating a mile a minute as I tore myself out of the dress that I had borrowed from Treasure. I then threw back on the dingy jogging suit that I had originally worn to walk over to Treasure's house after my baby had gone to sleep.
"I don't understand why you have a curfew anyway. You're seventeen! It's lame as hell that you have to be in by midnight. You get good grades, and you're always in the house with your baby. I don't see what the issue is."
I was too embarrassed to respond. I just hurriedly threw all of my stuff into my book bag. Then I flipped the visor down and wiped the lipstick off of my lips.
As Treasure sped through a yellow light, I shook my head, thinking about how I had so stupidly forgotten the time. I was too busy all up in that old man's face. He had so easily made me forget the time, with his jokes and good conversation. I was constantly losing myself in the twinkle in his brown eyes. Now, I was about to probably have to pay for it.
Within minutes, I finally felt some relief because we were pulling up to my house.
Once Treasure threw the car in park, I leaned over and hugged her. "See you later, girl."
Treasure hugged me back while sucking her teeth. "Yeah, whatever. This is some bullshit. You were finally having fun."
"I'm sorry," I hurriedly said. Then I quickly opened the door and jumped out. I slammed the door in a haste and then took off for my front door.
As I rushed towards the house, I noticed that all of the lights were off inside. So, I was grateful, and my heart rate slowed down a little. Once I reached the front door, I looked back and quickly waved goodbye to Treasure. She honked the horn and pulled off. I quietly put my key in the lock and tried desperately to quietly open the old, wooden door.
I was successful. I sighed discreetly once I was able to close and lock the door just as quietly as I had opened it. With relief, I kicked my shoes off, in order not to make any noise as I tip-toed through the living room towards my bedroom.
Just as I reached the hallway, I felt a hard tug on the Dream Weaver bundles I had managed to sell just enough of my mother's Link to buy.
"Aahhh!" left my mouth in a yelp of pain, but no surprise, because I knew exactly who it was pulling my fresh sew-in from the root. "Mama, it's me! It's me!'
"Intruder! Intruder!" she chanted crazily as she tossed me around by the hair. "Somebody call 9-1-1!"
I fought desperately to keep my head from banging against something in the darkness. "Mama, stooooop!" I wailed.
I began to cry as I felt my hair ripping from my scalp while her big ass tossed me around. I wasn't crying from the pain. I was used to this, my mother spazzing and putting her hands on me. I was crying because I felt that I had let my sister, Divine, down. The demons in my mother's head always told her that anyone coming in the house after midnight was coming in to kill her. That's why I had the midnight curfew. I had let a cute, old man cause me to slip. Now, me and Divine were about to experience my mother's crazy antics yet again.
"You're coming to kill me, bitch!" she shrieked as she tossed me around in the darkness like a rag doll.
"Mamaaaa!" I clawed at her hand as it gripped my hair.
I had gotten my large assets from my mama. I was a miniature version of her. At seventeen, I was one-hundred and ninety pounds of ass and hips. At fifty, she was three hundred pounds of the same. So, it was hard to get her big, crazy ass off me.
We tussled and wrestled in the darkness of the hallway. Loud thuds could be heard as our large bodies banged against the old drywall. I prayed that my mother's hysteria wouldn't wake up my baby or Divine. But I was already sure that Divine had been so afraid that I wouldn't make curfew that she wasn't going to allow herself to fall sleep until I got home.
Finally, my mother's arm passed over my mouth. So, I opened it and bit down hard.
"Arrrrgh!" she screamed and finally let me go.
I wasn't trying to hurt her. I felt sorry for her, no matter how many times we had gone through this.
I stood in the darkness trying to find some light as I stared at her. Because of the moonlight coming through the broken blinds on the living room window, I could see her standing there gazing peculiarly at her arm and then at me.
Holding the back of my head where she had most definitely pulled some cornrolls from the root, I glared at her.
"Mama, it's me, Heaven." I tried to reason with her again, now that it seemed like the bite had brought her back to reality. "Go to bed."
"Heaven?" She finally looked at me and winced. "You hurt me."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"I'm going to go now," she mumbled in a confused state as she turned her back to me. "I think someone is trying to shoot me."
I didn't even bother watching to make sure she went back upstairs. I scurried a few feet down the hall into my dark bedroom. I swiftly closed the door and locked it.
I leaned against the door, taking a long, deep breath.
Don't cry, Heaven.
I didn't even bother to change my clothes. Mama had sucked all the life out of me. I just climbed into the bottom of the bunk beds Divine, Sunshine, and I shared and snuggled next to my baby.
"You okay, Heaven?" My youngest sister's sweet, sleepy voice came out of nowhere.
I cringed. "Yeah, I'm okay, Divine. I know I promised to be home by midnight. Sorry I'm late. Go to sleep."
"K." There was only a few seconds of silence before I heard her tears. "I'm sorry too."
I sighed long and hard. I stared at the bed above me as if I could see Divine's face. "You don't have anything to be sorry about."
"Yes, I do. She up woke because of me. I had to pee. She heard me flush the toilet."
My heart ached as I heard Divine's voice crack from the tears. I quickly got out of the bunk bed, climbed the ladder and fought to see her face in the darkness. I couldn't see her little chocolate face because of the blankets we had as curtains hanging from the window. I heard her tears, though. I felt around to find her cheek. When I did, I rubbed it, wiping her tears away. I bent down and quickly kissed her cheek.
"It's okay," I tried to promise her. I didn't even sound convincing to my damn self, though.
"It's my fault she hurt you."
"Stop crying. Okay? I'm okay. See?" I then smiled as if she could see me. "Go to sleep, and in the morning, I will take you to McDonald’s for breakfast. I got a few dollars. We can get stuff off the dollar menu, okay?"
"Okay," she cried.
My heart broke.
I slid down the ladder, climbed back into the bed next to Sunshine, and silently cried. Divine was wrong. This was not her fault. It was mine. I usually would have never left out of the house. I just wanted to live a little for once.
This was also the fault of the son of a bitch that had murdered my only other sibling and big sister, Angel. It was his fault that we were stuck here with my mother's crazy ass.
My mother was a schizophrenic. She hated to take her medication because it made her feel "dead." Because she never took her medicine, she couldn't work. She also couldn't keep my father happy, so he'd left when I was fourteen. Angel was eighteen then and left soon after him. Divine and I wanted to go with her, but she'd said we couldn't because she didn't have a place to stay herself. She came to visit us every day, however, eating and showering because she was homeless on the street. However, she was much happier in the filth of homelessness than in the house with our mama. Every day, Angel pro
mised that she was doing everything she could to get a place to stay so that she could come back and get us. Then the rest of us could get away from our mother too.
After six months on the streets, Angel met my bro, Caesar, just before DCFS came and took me and Divine away when my mother was hospitalized after spazzing out in a grocery store. When Angel came to get us from the state, she took us to this apartment on 79th and Hermitage. It was Caesar's place. She had just moved in a few weeks prior. Luckily, he was feeling Angel enough that he was willing to take me and Divine in as well.
That was three years ago, and it was the happiest that I had ever been in my life. Caesar was a hustler, so he had a little money, and he spoiled all three of us. We were "his girls", and he treated us like queens. So, I finally felt like a kid. I wanted for nothing and needed for nothing. I didn't have to go outside begging on the streets. I didn't have to be a mother to Divine. I didn't have to physically and verbally fight with my mama every day. Life was good. We were just living in a three-bedroom apartment on the south side of Chicago in the hood. People were getting shot right outside our front door, and cluckers littered the streets. Yet, the fact that we had clean clothes and cooked food made life feel like a fairy tale to me.
But that fairy tale only lasted up until a year and a half ago, when Angel was killed in a drive-by shooting on the Bishop Ford Expressway. She was driving Caesar's Cadillac truck, so everyone assumed the bullets had been meant for him. Yet, he'd died as well in the passenger's seat.
The day they were killed was the day that I died emotionally as well. My life was over. I was pregnant at the time, so I asked my baby's father, one of Caesar's customers, if I could stay with him. That's when his bitch-ass told me that he was actually in a relationship with kids of his own. He told me to get an abortion and never talk to him again. I took his three hundred dollars, but instead of having an abortion, I took care of me and Divine on the streets for as long as I could. The money eventually ran out, and we were forced to find my mother. She was out of the hospital and back at home. The state had reinstated her custody because she had taken her meds in order to get us back. That was something one of her many personalities was pressed to do. But once we were back, she was back to her sporadic self, not taking her meds, and Divine and I were back begging for food and clothes.
Mama's schizophrenia only seemed to get worse as time went on. At this point, she was manic. She was always paranoid. She swore somebody was trying to kill her. Some days, she was a normal mother to us. Most days, she felt like we were monsters trying to eat her. But I was too scared of getting her help because that meant Divine, my baby, and I would become wards of the state again and possibly split up. So, I took the brunt of mama's bullshit. I shielded my baby and Divine from it all. I had given birth to Sunshine, but I was Divine's mama too. Hell, we took care of each other. I looked after her, and on nights when I wanted to be a teenager, she kept an eye on Sunshine for me behind the locked door of our tiny bedroom.
Two days later, I was walking through the hallways of my school when I spotted Treasure. She immediately rolled her eyes to the ceiling. At the same time, she looked relieved to see me. So, I knew the look on her face meant that she had some tea.
"Girl, here."
I looked strangely at Treasure as she approached me, handing me her cell phone. "Why are you handing me this?"
"That dude, Ross, has been calling you all weekend."
I smiled from ear to ear as I took the phone and started to follow Treasure to first period. Ross was the older dude at 7even Friday night who had bought us drinks. When Ross had asked me for my number, I had to give him Treasure's because I didn't have a cell phone.
"Eeew," Treasure teased me as she peeped my smile. "I knew you liked his old ass."
"He's only twenty-five."
"He looks a little older than that."
"He's sexy, though."
"Sexy as fuck," Treasure added. "Call him. I told him you had left your phone in my car that night, but I wouldn't see you until today."
I stopped outside of the classroom door where our first period was held at Simeon. We weren't supposed to have our cell phones out, but I didn't see any teachers or security guards. Plus, I was willing to risk it to call Ross back. Besides being sexy as fuck, he was cool as hell and the only man I had had any real contact with since my baby's father. All the boys who usually tried to holla at me were my age, but I had been through too much in life to be attracted to them. We didn't have anything in common. Those lil' boys were worried about if their parents were buying them the next X-box game. Meanwhile, I was worried about how I would feed Divine and Sunshine when my mama's Link ran out because I had had to sell most of it to get tissue and maxi pads, since we had used all of the tissue up, using it in place of maxi pads.
I scrolled through Treasure's call log. Once she pointed out his number, I hit the call button and waited for him to answer.
"Hello?" When his deep voice rumbled through the phone, I instantly started cheesing.
Treasure playfully rolled her eyes. I leaned against the locker next to Treasure and tried to sound the sexiest and most mature that I could. I let a soft and feminine, "Hey," swim from my overly glossed lips.
Treasure started cracking up laughing at my attempt. "Ahhhhh! Hell nah!"
I covered up the phone and narrowed my eyes at her.
"Damn. Your girl finally got you your phone back, huh?" Ross asked.
"Yeah," I lied. "Sorry about that. I was too busy all weekend to come get it from her."
"It's cool, lil' mama. It's good to hear your voice now, though. I've been thinking about you since that night. You cool as fuck with your pretty self."
I blushed again. I had been thinking about him all weekend too. We were having a nice conversation that night until I had to rush out of there. It was obvious that he was attracted to me. Once I left the club, though, I figured I wouldn't be the only girl he bought drinks for that night and he would have to fight hard to remember through the fog of his hangover the next morning.
"I been thinking about you too," I told him.
"What you doin'? Lemme take you to breakfast."
I perked up. "Breakfast?"
"Yeah. You busy?" Before I could respond, he went on, answering his own question, "You sound busy. What's all that noise?"
"I'm dropping my sister off at school," I quickly lied again.
"You busy after that?"
"No," I insisted almost too much. I damn near sounded thirsty.
"Okay. Well, you wanna meet me, or you want me to pick you up?"
"Ummm..." Think, Heaven. Think. "You can pick me up. I'm not driving."
Treasure's eyes bucked as she listened closely. I playfully stuck my tongue out at her.
"What school does your sister go to?" Ross asked.
"Simeon."
"Bet. I'll be there in fifteen."
"Okay. Cool." I was straight up cheesing as I gave Treasure back her phone.
"You're going to breakfast with him for real?" she asked me with a grin.
"Yeah." I figured why not. That would be the only highlight of my life for God only knew how long.
Treasure jumped a little, cheering me on, "Yaaaaaaaasss!"
"If you see Divine, tell her I will be outside at the bus stop waiting for her."
"Here. Take my phone. You don't know that dude, and you may need to call somebody."
I smiled. Treasure was my girl. We had met freshman year and had been BFF's ever since. At the time, I was living the life because Caesar was still living. But when Angel and Caesar were killed, all I had told her was that I had to move back in with my mama who was broke. I was too embarrassed to tell her the whole story. But it kept her from coming over to my house, and I was grateful for that. Treasure's parents weren't balling. She had two parents in the household working nine-to-fives, however. But like most people in the hood, they were struggling to keep ends met. However, she was fucking with enough card crackers to get whatever
she needed and then some.
Treasure eyed my uniform and asked me, "You got a change of clothes?"
I realized what I was wearing and pouted. "Damn. Nope."
"Then how you gonna go meet him with your uniform on? He thinks you're twenty-one. Duh."
I was stuck. She was right.
Treasure then smirked slyly. "You lucky I'm always prepared. C'mon."
After we ran to her locker, she opened it and took a PINK jogging suit from her book bag. I then ran to the nearest bathroom and changed. By the time I was done fidgeting with myself, I ran out of the school just in time to see a Range Rover running in front of the entrance.
"Damn," I mumbled to myself as I froze.
This dude was in a Range. Suddenly, I felt out of my league. But, hell, a dude in a Buick was out of my league. I didn't have shit.
I forced myself to keep walking. I figured this would probably be the only date I would have in a long time, so I went for it.
By the time everyone was going to lunch at school, I was at Ross' house feeling guilty as hell.
We'd eaten breakfast at White Palace. I'd had the best breakfast I'd had in a long time. He talked my ear off about himself, trying to impress me, not even realizing the omelet I was scarfing down had my panties wet all by itself. Then, I rode around with him while he ran errands, and we got to know each other some more. As the day went on, I peeped that he was a hustler. I was from the south side of Chicago, so I knew a street dude when I saw one. But whatever he was dealing was not drugs. I could tell from the code words he was using when talking business. But, still, I couldn't get a grip on what exactly he was dealing.
When Ross stopped at the liquor store, I assumed I knew where this day was going. As I drank the 1738 and his hand slipped on my thigh, I most definitely knew for a fact that he was about to try to get some. Because of the way my life was set up, I rarely was in the presence of a guy, especially with one touching me. So, his mere hand on my thigh felt so good. So, I decided to just roll with it.
But once we got back to his crib, I saw how he was living. This was a real man. I could tell. So, as he started to make out with me, guilt was slipping in.
When the Side Nigga Catch Feelings 1 Page 2
