17. Baby
BABY
“You been quiet since I got here, you good?” I lifted my head once I heard Jayda’s voice.
I called her yesterday after the situation with Leah and told her to come over. I needed somebody to talk to about all this, and she was the only person I could trust. After she got here, we talked until the early hours of the morning.
“I’m alright, Jay. You were right about Leah this whole time.” Now that I thought about it, she didn’t really seem surprised by the news when I told her. All she did was shake her head.
“Did you know?” My eyes narrowed seeing the guilty look on her face. She averted her eyes, biting down on her bottom lip. That told me all I needed to know.
“Jayda!” I hit her hard on her thigh.
She held up her arms in surrender. “Okay, okay. I saw them together a few months after you went to prison.”
What? So, she kept this from me this whole time. All of them visits, she never thought to tell me what was happening. It seemed like she read my mind when she spoke.
“Baby, don’t look at me like that, girl. What was I supposed to say to you? You were in prison for protecting her. It was only gonna make you feel worse when you needed to focus on keeping your head straight to get out of there,” she confessed.
I could admit she brought up valid points. I would have gone crazy with this information on my mind. That ain’t the place to lose your head.
“What about when I got out?” I gave her a side eye. “You still ain’t say nothing, then.”
What’s her excuse now?
“Baby, okay, I probably should have,” she admitted. “I’m sorry I ain’t tell you, but I’m not the one you should be mad at. I ain’t fuck him!”
I sucked my teeth, sitting on the back of my hands.
“So, what did you see?” I watched her blow a bubble with her gum, then popped it.
“They were at the mall in one of them expensive ass stores. I was wondering what they were doing in there, because neither one of them ain’t got it like that.” She smacked her lips, but I agreed.
Leah wasn’t clocking in on nobody’s job, and T.K. damn sure ain’t got bread to be shopping nowhere expensive. He always been lazy as hell, found every excuse not to get off his behind and work. I was sure nothing had changed in the last few years. I don’t know what I ever saw in him.
“Which store?” I inquired, my mouth twisted in disgust. I couldn’t believe my sister was running around with his punk ass.
She rolled her neck with attitude.
“Nordstrom, girl. They ass can’t afford a sock up in there,” she giggled, stretching out her legs in front of her. That’s the same place where she met the Derek dude. Something in the water wasn’t clean.
“But anyways,” she continued. “What you gone do about Love, boo?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“As much as I like him, I can’t go back, Jay. The last thing I need is to throw myself in the line of fire,” I replied sadly.
“Soo,” she dragged out. “He definitely ain’t do this?”
With her eyes on me, she waited for my response.
“No!” I spoke sternly. “He was here when I called you to help me. Waiting in the living room the entire time, patiently at that. Girl, I thought he would have left.”
“Oh, that’s right!” she recalled, smirking at me. “That surprise date. How it went before he got arrested, though?”
My mouth quirked up in a smile. I couldn’t help myself at this point. Goosebumps rose under my skin just thinking about how good it felt being in his arms. He gave me all his attention like I was the only person in the room, and I felt like I was. He made me feel so special.
“It was that good, huh?” Jayda’s voice brought me back to the present. I looked over to see a grin on her face.
“It was alright,” I said nonchalantly, downplaying the situation. She saw through my lie when she sucked her teeth, waving me off.
“Girl, bye. You in love already. You should’ve seen the way yo’ face lit up, stop faking the funk.”
I threw my head back in laughter. I wouldn’t say I was in love but, if all this shit wasn’t in our way, I’d wanna see where it goes between us. We had mad chemistry and I always found him attractive, even back then.
“Snap out of it!” She reached over, waving her fingers in my face. “Uh huh. We need to get yo’ man out, ASAP. You suffering from Love withdrawals, hoe.”
“Bitch, whatever.” I dismissed her. “I don’t want to talk about him. I want to talk about you and Kasey.”
She rolled her eyes. “His name is Kai, Baby.”
“Same difference,” I replied with knitted eyebrows.
I didn’t care what the fool’s name was frankly, because I don’t like him for her.
He was slimy, and I knew it when I saw him.
I may not know much about relationships, because I only had a handful myself, and they never went right, but I knew she deserved better than him.
As she went on and on about him, I put on a smile as if everything was okay. On the outside, I seemed fine, thriving even, but I was a hot mess on the inside. The only thing I wanted to do was go in my room and hide under the damn blankets until Love came home.