Live and Learn (16 page)

“B
itch, you
must
be crazy!”

My eyes widened as Bones flipped out at the news of my pregnancy. This definitely was not the reaction I dreamt about. As he cussed and fussed about me setting him up to gank him for his loot, it started to feel a lot like Reverend DeMark’s reaction.

The same sorry-ass shit.

I felt like crying because it hurt so bad, but I refused to let this ignorant Negro see the pain.

“You ain’t gettin’ no money, so your ass can forget about it.”

“I don’t want shit from your sorry ass,” I spat, pissed and hurt. I got out of his bed, naked and with a wet ass as I started to pull on my sister Latoya uniform clothes.

My words angered him.

“If
I’m
sorry, why your ass get pregnant,” he shouted, getting out of bed to pull on his boxers.

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck me?”

Damn, I didn’t think I said that aloud. Oh, well. “Yes, fuck you.”

I grabbed my purse and stormed out of the bedroom. I felt nauseous, and tension made my shoulders and neck stiff as panic began to set in. I had to get out of his presence before I broke down completely.

He followed behind me. “Who says it’s mine? Ho, I don’t know who you fuckin’.”

“Well, only a jackass would eat a ho’s pussy.” I kept moving on to the door and didn’t break my stride.

“Bitch! Shut the hell up.”

I turned and looked at him. I mean, I really looked at this man standing before me. Just ten minutes ago he was diggin’ out my pussy and tellin’ me how special I was to him. How he couldn’t picture life without my smile and my touch.

So I looked at him, and I damn sure didn’t like what I saw.

Without saying another word, I turned, leaving his apartment and his life.

It really began to sink home that I was in the same predicament again. Pregnant with a more than reluctant father. What in the hell was I going to do?

All of my bravado and toughness cracked once I was in that elevator. I felt weak with pain and regrets and disappointment and shame. My tears ran like waterfalls, and I stumbled back against the wall, sliding to the floor as my legs gave out beneath me. I felt so engulfed by the pain of his rejection and accusations. I hated myself and I hated him. God, I hated him.

The elevator ground to a halt, but I didn’t have the strength or the will to rise.

“What the hell…Mo? Mo, is that you?”

I looked up, and there stood Cristal and Sahad. Crying hysterically, I made myself get up and then flung myself into her open and waiting arms. “Help me, Cris. Please, help me,” I sobbed, grateful for my friend.

“What happened? Where’s Bones?” Sahad asked. “What’s going on?”

“What is the matter, Mo, huh? Tell me what happened?” she asked me again as she led me off the elevator.

I cried even harder onto her shoulder at the concern in her voice as she rubbed my back.

“Let’s all go upstairs,” Sahad suggested, looking around at the curious eyes that were on us in the lobby.

“No!” I yelled, lifting my tear-streaked face to look up at Cristal. “I’m not going back up there. Please, Cris, take me home.”

She nodded and looked at Sahad with concern. “I better just take her,” she told him softly.

“Take the car,” he said, handing her the keys. “I’m going up to see what the hell is going on.”

I said nothing as we walked out of the luxury apartment building on the Upper East Side. Not even when we were settled into his Hummer did I speak. It hurt so much to admit to anyone the horrible way Bones had flipped on me. I might as well have been some damn groupie.

“Did you and Bones argue?” Cristal asked again.

“I don’t feel like talkin’, Cris.”

We fell silent after that with Cris handling the powerful and massive vehicle easily through the busy night metropolitan streets. I looked out the darkly tinted windows at the people, the cars, the stores and saw nothing but Bones’s angry face and then Reverend DeMark’s condemning eyes.

I hated them both with a passion.

“Are you sure you want to go inside? You can stay at my place.”

Cris’s words jolted me, and it sank through my haze that we were double-parked outside my parents’ house.

“I can call Ze, and we can all go to my apartment.”

My tears were gone, and nothing but hatred remained. Much as I loved my girls, they would want to talk about what happened, and I was just too ashamed. “I’ll be all right. I’ll call you tomorrow, a’ight?” I told her with a stiff smile.

I hopped out before she could say anything else. I wasn’t going to rely on my girls this time. I had to take care of this for myself. Besides, I was going to make that bastard pay, and they would stop me. I was tired of sorry-ass men who didn’t want to take care of their responsibilities. Bones was partly to blame for me now being pregnant, penniless, and hopeless.

I was not having another abortion.

Not this time.

I let my last baby daddy get away with that dumb shit.

Not this time.

I walked into the house and headed straight for the living room. My mother was reading her well-worn Bible, and my father was watching the news on television. The tears that fell from my eyes were real. “Ma…”

“Good heavens, Latoya, what’s wrong?” she asked as she rose to walk over to me.

I didn’t even look at my father because I didn’t expect a reaction out of him anyway.

“What’s wrong, Latoya?” my mother asked again.

I took a deep breath. “I been raped.”

“C
ameron, you wanted to see me?”

“Yes, come on in, Monica.”

I closed his office door behind me and moved to take a seat before his desk. “I still cannot believe today is my last day. I’m going to miss everyone.”

Cameron signed a few papers with bold slashings and then looked up at me with a smile. “We’re going to miss your energy. You really were helpful on a lot of the projects we worked on in the two short months you’ve been here. Keep working on that degree and soon I’ll have to watch my job,” he joked good-naturedly.

“Every man for himself and God for us all,” I joked in return. I tried to smile but I just couldn’t.

“Something wrong?” Cameron asked, his concern obvious.

“Sorry, I just got a lot going on these days.”

“Anything you want to talk about?” He rose to come around his desk.

It certainly wouldn’t be right to discuss Mo’s recent sexual assault or the details of my rocky relationship. “No, I’m okay, but thanks for the offer.”

Cameron moved over to the sprawling bay windows of his office. “I remember in Houston you told me how much you loved dancing,” he said, looking out at the busy metropolitan streets below.

Yes, I did. As we slow danced under the chandelier of the elaborately decorated ballroom, I had told him about my love, how it flowed in my blood and sustained me.

He turned his head to look over his broad shoulder at me. Our eyes met, and there was a crack in his confident façade as he cleared his throat and retook his seat. “I, uh, have tickets to Dance Theatre of Harlem performances tomorrow night. Would you like to attend with me?”

My face showed my surprise. Cameron was asking me out on a date! He was handsome, intelligent, classy, well dressed, financially stable…and not my type. He was better suited for Cristal than me.

I had to admit that we vibed well on the job and when it came to work we had many similarities. We even shared a lot of laughs as we worked. And I felt comfortable around him. More comfortable than I would have thought. But dating Cameron? Or Cameron wanted to date me? I never saw that coming.

For me that “I don’t give a fuck” attitude of a thug drew me. Even a thug whom I hadn’t spoken to since I returned from Houston last week.

Lionel had filled in the void quite well.

“Cameron, I—”

“Don’t think that would be a good idea,” he finished, taking the words straight out of my mouth.

“I consider you a friend, that’s all,” I said, lightly, feeling so put in a damn corner.

Cameron turned down his lips, nodding as if he truly understood.

“I hope this doesn’t cause any hard feelings between us.”

“I’m not a sexual harasser, Monica,” he countered sternly, picking up his pen to return his attention to the files atop his desk.

“No, you are my friend, or at least I thought you were,” I told him, actually hating that I may have hurt his feelings. “At least I thought we became friends in Houston.”

“Your friend but not your type, right?”

I flinched under his piercing gaze.

“You want to know why I’m so upset right now, Monica?” he asked, tossing his pen onto his desk as he leaned back heavily in his chair.

“I’m gonna go, Cameron,” I said softly, turning to leave.

“One day you’ll grow up and realize you deserve better,” he said.

His words followed me out of his office and remained with me long after my final workday was over.

I turned my mother’s car down the street Rah lived on. He was avoiding my calls, and I finally decided to just bum rush his ass at home. If it was over, then I was going to make him be a man and tell me to my face.

The only thing I would miss would be the money and not that sorry-ass itty-bitty gherkin dick, that’s for sure.

As soon as I pulled into the gated parking lot, I spotted his car. I felt like throwing my mother’s steering wheel Club through his windshield. But I’d seen enough Judge Mathis to know that if Rah sued, I would have to pay to get the m’fer fixed. That’s a big nothing.

I parked the car and hopped out, clutching my key. I had a surprise for his sorry ass. I signed in at the security desk and climbed onto the elevator. Soon I was standing at his door, easily unlocking the latch and walking into the apartment.

The scent of weed was strong. As I neared the bedroom, I heard the telltale grunts of two people fucking. I caught his ass! As if he had enough dick to share.

I bust into the bedroom.

“Who’s the best?” he asked, sweat dripping down his back to the crack of his butt as he screwed some tramp from behind.

“Sure ain’t your sorry ass,” I yelled, lifting my foot to kick him straight dead in his ass as hard as I could.

Rah hollered out in pain and surprise as he fell forward onto his mystery woman. He rolled out of her and jumped off the bed to push me roughly out of the bedroom and against the wall hard. “Get the fuck out,” he yelled in my face, his hands closing tightly around my neck.

Using the keys in my hand, I attacked his cheek, and he released me. Gasping for air, I slumped down to the ground and then used all the energy I could find to crawl away from him when I saw the crazy and hate-filled look in his eyes.
What the hell is he so mad for?
I thought, feeling the first bit of true fear.

I yelled out as he lunged for me with blood dripping from the deep gouge on his cheek. Futilely I scratched at the cold tile floor as he grabbed my feet and dragged me back toward him. I got one foot free and kicked wildly as I fought like hell to get away. As a kick landed on his arm, he only got angrier. I felt like I was in the middle of a damn nightmare.

“No good trick,” he roared, flipping me over onto my back before he knelt and struck me twice in the face with his fist.

I howled out in pain, feeling like a truck ran over my face, as I lifted my hands and arms to block the rest of his blows.

I couldn’t believe it. Rah had never hit me. Never.

“Stop, Rah! Stop it. What the fuck you doin’?”

Even through the pain of his blows landing on my body, I knew that voice. I turned my head and looked between my arms at her. “Dom!” I gasped, seeing one of my best friends’ naked and sweaty body as she tried hard to pull Rah off of me.

Dom was the bitch fucking Rah.

She yanked him to his feet and stood in front of him. I scrambled onto my own feet, but as I stumbled, I fell back over one of his bar stools. I could taste blood in my mouth, and my body ached like I’d been in a bad car wreck.

Still, Dom’s betrayal hurt me worse.

“Fuck that. Fuck that. All the shit I did for that bitch and she gone fuck some nigga on me,” he shouted, his face enraged like a charging bull.

Rah pushed Dom out of the way, and her body slammed against the bedroom door. He moved to stand over me. “No-good, bitch,” he spat as he raised his leg and stomped down on my left thigh atop the stool.

I heard the bone snap before I screamed out in the worst pain I ever imagined. Pain that caused me to slip right into unconsciousness. I welcomed the black abyss that swallowed me whole because at least I wouldn’t feel the pain of a friend’s ultimate betrayal.

I
wasn’t shit. No, no. I was a no-good piece of shit. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I poured more dope on the back of my hand and sniffed up as much of that shit as I could.

It filled my bloodstream and sent me high as a motherfucker.

I didn’t want to remember nothin’. Not Lex, not Alizé, not Rah, not even Kimani. Not a damn thing. I wanted to go numb cuz I knew I f’ed up big-time. My man was dead because of me. One of my best friends was in the hospital because I told Rah about Lionel while I fucked him like he wasn’t my best friend’s man. I wasn’t no kind of mother to my fuckin’ child. I wasn’t shit.

I sniffed more until the second bag I bought was gone, too. I felt like my body was floatin’ up to the sky. Smiling, my head nodded forward, and I scratched at my cheek.

“I’m fucked up,” I slurred, my lids so heavy that I couldn’t open them.

I couldn’t even stop my body from falling forward onto the steering wheel, weighin’ down on the horn.

I don’t remember shit after that.

M
y nerves were just about shot as Sahad and I rushed into the emergency room of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey on Bergen Street. I was so glad he agreed to drive me because my hands were shaking so bad that I could not even think about handling a vehicle.

“Excuse me, I am looking for my friend,” I said to the twenty-something woman behind the admitting desk.

She looked past me to Sahad, and her face suddenly lit up with recognition. “
Daaaamn
, aren’t you Sahad Linx?”

I stiffened with anger, and Sahad placed a comforting hand on my lower back. “Excuse me, but we’re looking for—”

“My name’s Tashi,” the woman said excitedly, rising from her seat with pen in hand. “Could you autograph this for me?”

Sahad’s two burly bodyguards immediately stepped forward, forming a wall of pure muscle around us. “No autographs,” Hammer ordered roughly.

“Cristal.”

I turned and stood on my toes to look over one of the guard’s massive shoulders to see Diane. I pushed past them to run to her. We hugged each other tightly. “Where is Dom?”

“They rushed her in the back. Cris, did you know Dom was on dope?” she asked, her eyes reddened and filled with question. “Did you know?”

One of my best friends was messing with one of the worst drugs on the street. Pedope was a cheap version of heroin and was one of the worst drugs to get clean of. Sadness, helplessness, and guilt washed over me as tears racked my body. “I did not know. I swear, Diane,” I whispered, wrapping my arms tightly around my body.

“I didn’t raise her to get hooked on that shit,” Diane spat angrily.

And my tears stopped for a second as I looked up at her. She did not really raise Dom at all. Smoking weed with your daughter was not a fucking antidrug statement.

Sahad walked up to me, and I turned into his sweet embrace.

First Mo turned Bones in for rape.

Earlier today Rah beat up Alizé and broke her leg in two. She was across town in Beth Israel recovering from surgery.

Now Dom damn near died from overdosing on pedope.

What the hell was going on?

I hated to be selfish, but was I next for tragedy?

I held Sahad closer. “Thank you for being here. I really…really needed you, baby,” I whispered in his ear, closing my eyes and wishing for better days.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

I nodded into his neck, glad that the fact that I believed Mo and he believed Bones did not come between us.

I had not seen or spoken to my friend since the night I dropped her off at home. Her parents truly had her on lockdown. When I went by her house, her father told me it was all my fault Mo was raped and then slammed the door in my face.

As we sat in the ER awaiting word on Dom’s condition, I tried to figure out where we had all dropped the ball in our friendship. Dom was using drugs, and as far as I knew, none of us knew it. She pulled away from us after Lex’s death. Was that when she turned to drugs?

And Alizé. I told her to leave those damn thugs alone. She was a beautiful, college-educated woman. Why did she fall so easily into the “gotta have a thug” mentality? Had Rah hit her in the past? What drove him to such rage that he broke her leg in two? Would it hurt the dancing she loved so much?

And Mo. Sahad posted bail for Bones against his future royalties. Bones was saying Mo was upset and lying on him because he denied fathering her child.
Shit, so Mo is pregnant?
She would have told us, right? But what about the night Sahad and I found her on the floor of the elevator in Bones’s building crying hysterically? What was that about?

Overwhelmed by it all, I dropped my head in my hands. I was not one to cry easily because my life in foster care made me that way, but at that moment I could not stop the tears from falling. I was not overly religious either, but I had to pray. “Please God, help all my friends. Please.”

Sahad hugged me to his side. It did not seem fair for my life to be so perfect when all of my girls were catching pure hell.

My eyes fell on the four-carat Tiffany solitaire on my left ring finger. I had done it. I caught my big fish. I gave him just the image he wanted. I stayed on top of my game. I made sure to be all the things he could ever need when he needed it: supportive, quiet, outspoken, classy, sophisticated, smart, dumb, sexy, trampy, and everything else.

Sahad had proposed tonight on the balcony of his luxurious penthouse apartment.

We stood on the balcony together facing the beautiful New York skyline. A slight wind shifted over our frames. Even on the thirty-second floor the sounds of fast-paced and energetic life reached us.

“I came from nothing,” he said suddenly.

I shifted my eyes up to his strong and handsome profile, and I saw the city lights reflected in his eyes.

“People told me I was nothing and that all I was ever going to be was nothing.” He shook his head a bit, and his face became cocky as he waved his hand in a sweeping motion before him. “Look at me. How they like me
now
.”

“You have so much to be proud of,” I told him, taking his hand in my own to grasp it tightly. “You worked hard for the life you have, and you deserve these blessings. Do not ever let anyone in your past, present, or future take that from you.”

Sahad dropped his head and bit his smooth bottom lip. “You never know how deeply your childhood affects the type of adult you’ll become.”

“My apartment at The Top is nothing compared to this, but it is a long way from where I came from,” I said, in a rare show of honesty. “All I knew was I wanted more and I was willing to work hard to make a better life for myself.”

Sahad turned me into his embrace, and I tilted my head back to look up at him framed by the moonlight. “I love the fight I see in you. And how fine and sophisticated you are but you still have the same crazy-ass friends from high school. And your loyalty. Your friendship when I just feel like talking. And the feel of your arms around me when I just want to be held. And your calmness when I’m about to do something I’ll regret later. My life is so different with you in it.”

I smiled and wrapped my arms around his waist. “Is it?” I asked softly with a smile as I raised up on my toes to nuzzle his neck. I had never wanted him more than I did in that moment.

He reached up to grasp my left hand in his, and a second later I felt the coolness of metal. I leaned back and immediately gasped at the brilliant twinkle of the solitaire ring now on my finger.
Well, I’ll be damned.

Sahad touched my chin with his warm fingers and raised my head a bit so that I looked up into his eyes as my heart pounded. “I’m ready to settle down. I’m ready to slow down,” he said, laughing a little. “Marry me.”

I fought not to let out a squeal. “Yes, yes, yes.”

I smiled a little at the memory as I looked down at my ring. Finally, I was going to be a celebrity wife. My financial worries were over. The man hunt was over.