Chapter 24 #2
Yanna inched her way around Kas and attempted to get to her Jeep.
“Wait for me, Yanna, I’m coming with you.”
“No, you don’t have to do that. I just want to be alone.”
“Yea, she needs to get used to that. On some real shit, Jaiyanna, you don’t have shit to say to me ever. I fucking mean that, yo ass is dead to me! On Layla.”
“Don’t put that shit on me, boy. You need to calm the hell down, and both of y’all let me talk to you.”
“I do not want to talk to that bitch ever! And she better not bring that fucking baby around trying to pin it on me. Take that shit to that other nigga!
Yanna was now leaning against the rear of her Jeep, doubled over, bawling her eyes out from the words Kas spoke.
She wanted nothing more than to hop in her vehicle and take off, but her feet wouldn’t move.
She was rendered immobile as if her body was forcing her to hear Kas’ berating as some form of punishment.
“She got the nerve to be crying like she’s the one who’s fucking destroyed. What the hell did I do to deserve you, Jaiyanna? Why would God put you in my life to fuck me up like this? Gone end up just like yo mumma, and---”
“You!” Onyx pointed to Kas, stopping his statement because he was taking it way too far. He’d come outside a few moments earlier and was beyond disappointed in the way his brother was handling the situation. “Take yo ass in the house!”
“Nah, Nyx, I---”
“In the fucking house, now!”
Knowing not to play with his brother, Kas tossed Yanna one more hate filled look before storming toward his house.
“Jaiyanna, give me yo keys and get in the passenger seat.”
Yanna didn’t protest; she handed Onyx her keys and slid into her Jeep.
“Wait, where you going? You taking her home?”
“Baby, can you let me handle this, please?”
“But… Onyx, she’s---”
“I know, Baby, I know. Trust me, I got her.” Onyx gave his mother a quick glance for her reassurance as well. He jumped into the driver’s seat of Yanna’s Jeep and zoomed off.
“What did I do? What did I do?” Yanna repeated to herself, head resting on her window.
The look of hurt on Kas’ face replayed through her mind like a reel.
She was disgusted with herself. She’d spent so much of her life trying not to become like her mother that she’d somehow become her father.
Making shitty decisions and breaking hearts in the process.
She’d subjected Kas to the very thing she’d been terrified of her entire life.
“You hurt my brother.”
“I hurt him… I--- I don’t know what’s wrong with me. There’s nobody in this world that understands me like Kas. I’ve always been a mess, and Troi is usually my rock, but then she had you. Kas took her place, and most nights he was all I had. How could I be so stupid?”
“You’re a human being, that’s how. I know for a fact my brother done fucked up more than a few times. He created that little seed of doubt, then he tried to fix it, but you just kept watering the muh’fucka.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Nah, I do. You spent so much of yo life dwelling on childhood trauma that you let the shit manifest. Instead of getting help and working through it, you self-medicated by cutting niggas off when you got close and hopping to the next one. You let yo trauma fester and eat at you until it became yo whole identity. That sound about right?”
“Yea… sounds about right.”
“You love my brother?” Onyx questioned. Yanna gave him a knowing look but still couldn’t bring herself to confess the sentiment. “Then, you gotta get yo shit together. You gone be a mother, and yo child will need a mother who’s not passing on generational trauma.”
“I’m not like Troi. I’m not strong enough for shit like this… I run, that’s what I do. I close myself off from the problem and pretend it never existed, no matter how bad it hurts.”
“You can’t pretend my brother never existed, and since you’re keeping it, you can’t pretend the baby doesn’t exist either.
And you are strong… now that you’ve found a problem you can’t run from, you’re about to see that.
Hang up the running shoes and sit yo ass down somewhere. You gone feel it, but you’ll survive.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve been in yo shoes. I fucked up with the love of my life and had to fight to get her back.”
“Oh, please, she barely made you fight.”
“Not too much on my Baby. She did enough… I had to see her running around with that wack ass nigga, Brick. But I got her back, that’s all that matters.”
“Yea, that’s all that matters.”
“So… it’s time for you to grow the hell up. Got baby boy all sad and in his feelings. I can bet my bank account he in the house crying while he listens to Carl Thomas. Ole I wish I never met her head ass boy,” Onyx joked.
“Not you sounding just like Mumma Lay.”
“I know, right? Ight, you getting yo self together, and I’mma help you every step of the way. Tell me… what do you want to do?”
“Um, I think I really should---” Yanna’s statement was interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing.
Hoping that maybe it would be Kas, Yanna quickly pulled it from her pocket.
She sighed, disappointed that instead of Kas, it was her mother.
Deciding it may be important, she answered the call, praying it would be brief. “Yea, ma?”
“Jai… yanna… something is… wrong. I don’t---”
“Ma? Hello, ma… mommy! Hello?!”
“What’s wrong?”
“Something is wrong with my mumma. I need to get to her house now!”