Thicker Than Water (6 page)

“Bullshit!” He interrupted angrily, before she could get anything out. He was really pissed. Neli could see his nostrils flaring and his yellow skin becoming red with anger.

“I opened my home to you, tried to make a woman out of you when you were nothing but a fucking slut!” Neli just stared at him appalled. His words cut her deep and tears began to come to her eyes.

Yeah, cry now, Penelope. You run around here with your slut friends trying to be down, fucking and sucking lowlife drug dealers thinking someone’s going to discover your talent-less ass and you’ll be famous. You think I’m stupid? Yeah, you’ll be famous all right, you fucking whore!” By this time, Neli’s shock turned to hurt and she was crying hysterically, almost to a point of hyperventilation.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” she mumbled, through sobs. His words hurt so much and they were true. Neli had heard them from her dad and from every man that she ever loved. Ray just stood there staring at her. He was hurt but he loved her. What really hurt him is that she didn’t love him back.

Neli became even more upset. She began thinking about all of the men who told her that she was nothing more than an insecure slut. All the people who told her she wouldn’t be anything, and people like Sasha who appeared to have it all.

“DON’T TALK TO ME LIKE THAT!” She screamed as she picked up a plate off of the counter and lunged it at him. Ray ducked it but rose up in time to catch a China bowl to the crown of his head. Blood dripped down his temple as he held his head in disbelief. Neli was going mad.

She began screaming blood shreikingly and pulling at her hair. It was scary. Ray attempted to calm her down.

“Listen, I’m sorry baby, just come here.” He spoke softly as if talking to a child. He walked slowly toward her with his arms open wide. “Come here sweetie, it’s okay.”

She came to him sobbing, not sure what had come over her. Once he got close he put his arms around her and hugged her. He really was sorry.

“Neli.” he whispered, with a worried look. “Maybe you should think about seeing someone, baby.”

This wasn’t the first time Ray had seen her act like this, and it was starting to get worse. Neli thought for a minute.
This nigga thinks I’m crazy. Oh so now there is something wrong with me. Why do men always have to find something wrong with me?

Neli paced back and forth in the bedroom crying and holding herself.
Why did he leave? He doesn’t even care about me! What’s wrong with me, why can’t I just be happy?

Neli fell to the floor and began crying until she felt like she was about to vomit. She took a few deep breaths and in the midst of her insanity, she picked up the phone and dialed a familiar number.

She was nervous but she needed someone to talk to.

Ringgg. Ringgg
.

The phone rang and rang and on the fifth ring, Neli hung up but then called right back after giving it another thought. This time they picked up immediately.

Neli began to cry again, she felt so empty so alone. She had no one to love her and she really wanted Chauncey to, the way that he loved Sasha.

“But Chauncey, I really need someone to talk to.”

She could tell he didn’t give a fuck, she heard people talking and laughing in the background and to her it seemed as if they were laughing at her.

“Nah, not really,” Chauncey stated coldly. He had the potential to make a person feel low and he was hurting Neli so much right now.

She sat with her mouth open for a while. She thought that she could make him love her, but the thought crossed her mind now that he didn’t give a fuck about her.

“It’s Sasha right?” Neli asked already feeling the answer. Chauncey sighed and then took a pause before answering.

“Yeah it’s Sasha. In fact, it should’ve been Sasha all along.” With that, he hung up, and when she tried to call him back, he sent her straight to voicemail.

At that, Neli began a downpour that no one could save her from. She couldn’t call her friends and tell them about anything that had to do with Chauncey, so she lay on the bed and cried.

So many thoughts ran through her head that she just cried and cried some more, until her eyes burned and were too heavy to open. And then she fell asleep to Destiny’s Child singing especially for her and Chauncey,
‘Is she the reason you don’t call like you used to, fall through my hood like you used to, put it on me hard like you used to…is she the reason that my calls couldn’t reach ya, the deepest of my love couldn’t please ya, la la la la la….’

Chapter 4 - Control

It had been a week since E came and picked up Chauncey’s things and Sasha hadn’t heard from either of them since.
Maybe it’s about time that I moved on.

Sasha knew soon she would have to, and there were guys lined up around the block waiting for her so she knew it wouldn’t be hard. She answered the ringing phone.

Sasha realized that Kim was going to do what she wanted to do and that Kim wouldn’t look at her as a friend or tell her anything if Sasha got out of character. So Sasha asked the question that Kim had been waiting for all week.

Sasha thought for a minute about her own boring ass sex life, well the one that didn’t exist since Chauncey left. Sasha began to think the impossible.

“Sasha I didn’t want to tell you this but I saw Chauncey up at the motel the night I was there with Blair. So no, I don’t think you should invite Chauncey over for anything.”

“Sasha, listen, he had a girl in the car and it was like four o’ clock in the morning when we got back from the club, it wasn’t no damn party. Especially not at the Super, girl you know that’s where they bring the jump-offs.”

Sasha was hurt to death. Yeah it had been two weeks since they had broken up but Chauncey and Sasha had been together for two
years
, how could he even think of being with someone else?

“Yeah well, I guess I better get back to work. Kim listen try not to get all caught with Blair again. I know it’s hard cause the dick is good but I don’t want you to get hurt mama.”

Kim felt bad. She knew that Sasha was hurt and was just trying to get her off of the phone so that she could be sad in solitude. Sasha was a good person and Kim knew that if anyone out of all of them didn’t deserve to be hurt, it would be Sasha.

“Alright Sash, I’m gonna call you later, okay?”

“Bye,” Sasha said softly as she dropped the phone on the receiver, and dropped a single tear to go with it.

She sat at the desk debating whether to act on her anger and call him up. Let him know that he had made the biggest mistake of his life and that he was a fucking asshole.

Or on the other hand, she knew she could finish her day at work, go home, take a long hot bath, read a book or something, and try her hardest to forget about him. She knew that was almost impossible but she also knew that she had to be strong. Calling him wouldn’t change the fact that he had obviously moved on.
I gotta be strong.

Ree sat at the edge of his bed rolling up some weed, half listening to his little man Deets fill him in on the usual.

“Like I said Ree, niggas is starving over in Queen City. Little niggas hungry, willing to peel a nigga cap for fucking peanuts. Peanuts nigga! We already got North Jersey locked, we moving twice as fast as we thought, we even had to recruit new niggas!”

Ree lit the blunt and stared blankly at Deets, which was normal for Ree, you could never tell what the man was thinking.

What Deets was saying was definitely true. Since Ree and his crew came from Brooklyn a couple of years ago, they began locking Jersey down- from Newark, to Elizabeth, even Jersey City and Bayonne. But now this nigga was talking bout Plainfield, going down to Central. Deets continued.

“We can get that suburb money. That white boy money. Ree, that dope money.”

Deets watched the dollar signs in Ree’s eyes at the sound of dope. Ree had a new heroin connect and was just looking for a small town to ship his hardest and most loyal soldiers to. He had a couple of workers he wanted to make captains, put them in charge of their own cities and not just sections. Right now, Ree had Fats and Deets overlooking Elizabeth, while he had Chauncey basically handling Newark on his own. Of course Chauncey had E, his right hand man, but Ree basically had set Chauncey up to be the next him, the lieutenant.

And his plan would come together even smoother if they got all of Jersey involved. Since Chaunc was a little hot right now and the cops were all on him, Ree could set him up nice in Central while he let other niggas do the work and laid low. Sort of what Ree did now but just not with as much territory to cover.

Ree was extreme; it took a lot of power and respect to do what he did. Ree started out in the drug game over in Jamaica as a part of his family business. When a territorial war broke out and his father presented him the idea of expansion to the States, he hopped on it. He traveled around the country pushing premium goods in major cities, being the middle man for the connects, even doing dirty work for bosses that his father had set him up with. Ree was a monster when it came to this game and although soon many began to know of him, few really knew the man himself.

He always kept a low profile but people knew not to fuck with him. Niggas started calling him Ree-spect because he had so much of it that it was crazy. By the time he reached New York, he had put together an army of soldiers including Fats, Deets, and Chauncey and became the head nigga. Now niggas was doing his dirty work and
he
was the connect. Although Ree never had to pull a trigger after that because he knew any one of his men would love to do it just to earn stripes, he still loved to split a nigga’s wig when it came to something personal. He had killed too many to count and it soon became so easy to him. That’s what was so scary about him. His calmness and cool demeanor, even when dealing with the most serious matters, made it impossible to tell that he was a ruthless, no thoughts about it, killer.