19. Sametra
T he vibrating phone wasn’t letting up. With one eye slowly opening, I grabbed it and answered.
“Sweet pea, please don’t do me like this,” I groaned, sitting on the side cool tub to catch my breath. Tears came to my eyes thinking about Malik and our fight yesterday. Everything felt like it was ruined, and that made me even sicker. I turned back to the toilet just in time to throw up again.
“I’m going to forgive him,” I whispered to my still-flat stomach, “but we gotta teach him a lesson first. Never let a man take away your voice.”
I giggled, speaking like I knew it was a little, beautiful-eyed girl.
From the minute I heard the news, I felt a connection to this child.
It was the same with Samaj, that instant, fierce love that made everything else fade into background noise.
This wasn’t planned, but we hadn’t been taking precautions either.
I only had one tube left. The other one didn’t survive what my body went through bringing Samaj here.
The doctors had always told me getting pregnant again would be difficult, maybe impossible.
Yet here I was.
I pulled myself up from the bathroom floor and splashed cold water on my face, staring at my reflection in the mirror.
I looked like hell, puffy eyes from crying, hair all over my head, that particular paleness that came with first-trimester nausea.
But underneath it all, there was something else.
A glow, maybe. The knowledge that I was growing a life again.
I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and jumped in the shower.
I’d gone to bed in nothing but panties last night, spent.
I was weird like that when something was going wrong; the thought of clothes infuriated me.
My phone buzzed with a text notification, and my heart jumped, hoping it was Malik. Instead, it was Halo.
Halo: We’re bringing breakfast, and we’re not taking no for an answer. Be there in an hour.
I smiled despite everything. My girls always knew when I needed them most. I’d cancelled on them last night when they wanted to come over, turned out I wasn’t in the mood to do anything but sleep and cry.
It seemed like now that I knew I was pregnant, all my symptoms had decided to show up and make themselves known.
I scrolled up and reread the message that had come in late last night while I was tossing and turning, unable to sleep.
Rommy: Baby, I know you want space, and I’m going to give it to you, but you gotta know I never lied about how I feel about you. I love you, Sametra. I love our baby. I love Samaj. And I’m going to spend every day proving that I can be the man y’all deserve.
I’d read it at least twenty times throughout the night, my finger hovering over the keyboard, wanting to respond but not knowing what to say.
Part of me wanted to text back that I loved him too, that I missed him already, that I wanted to work through this together.
Because he was all that and more. But the other part, the part that had been violated, lied to, and treated like a child, needed him to understand the weight of what he’d done.
And this wasn’t about submission or conceding.
I loved Malik and believed that he was a leader and that’s what I wanted to be led, not managed.
Words were easy. It was the actions that mattered, and his actions had shown me that when push came to shove, he didn’t trust me to handle stuff or even have his back. And I didn’t like that feeling at all.
This grown up shit was exhausting. My emotions were all over the place, but that was understandable given everything I was processing.
I was dealing with the anger and disgust of knowing Ashe had been watching me, violating my privacy, trying to extort money from my man.
And playing in my son’s face at the same time.
I felt fearful knowing someone had been stalking us, taking intimate photos without our knowledge.
Then there was the hurt of discovering that both Malik and my own son had conspired to keep secrets from me, making decisions about my life like they were in the mafia or something.
On top of all that, I missed my man something fierce, and I was pregnant with a seventeen-year-old at home.
The whole situation felt insane and reckless, but here we were.
And I still had to tell my dad about the pregnancy, and I didn’t have a ring to show for it.
Tears welled up in my eyes, and I got mad because I hadn’t cried this much in years.
This was definitely a fucking girl, boys didn’t make you this emotional.
“Ma, here, take your vitamin,” Samaj said, peeking his head through my cracked bedroom door.
“Thank you.” My voice was clipped. I was still upset with him, and he could tell.
He lingered in the doorway for a moment. “Ma…”
“Not now, Samaj. Please.”
He nodded and retreated, but I could see the hurt in his eyes. That made me feel even worse. My own son was walking on eggshells around me.
“I love you, Maj,” I yelled out the door.
“Love you too ma.” I heard him say back faintly.
Malik was still taking care of me even from a distance.
I knew he’d sent the food last night, and I’d heard Samaj talking to him on the phone.
It was probably Malik who’d reminded Samaj to remind me about the vitamin.
It was going to be hard to stay mad at him because I knew this was a lapse in judgment; it wasn’t personal.
But it felt personal. They loved me, they wanted ease for me, I understood that.
I was dressed in a grey lounge set when I heard my front door open, followed by the familiar sound of heels clicking across my hardwood floors.
“MiMi, where you at?” Halo’s voice called out.
“We brought provisions!” Winnie added, and I could hear the rustle of what sounded like multiple bags.
“Here I am. Stop yelling. I called back weakly, coming into the dining room. They took one look at me and poked their lips out. And so did I.
“It’s a girl,” I cried with a smile.
“Sametra, go to hell,” Halo said, nudging me.
“I can’t stop crying. It has to be. What did y’all bring me to eat?”
“Ma…Uhm, Maj said you like the breakfast sandwich from Ambrosia Cafe & Deli, so we grabbed some sandwiches, coffee, and donuts. How you feeling, pooh?”
“Maj huh?” I joked with a raised eyebrow as they shrugged before nudging each other. “I feel how I look. A hot damn, missing my man ass mess.”
“Oh, so a category 5?” Winnie mumbled, setting the bags down, and immediately pulling me into a hug.
“Okay, first things first, congratulations, mama. Second, sit your pregnant ass down and start from the beginning. Between you blubbering, crying, and threatening to push Ashe off a cliff, we barely made out half of what you said.”
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “Y’all got time? Because it’s a lot.”
“We got all day,” Halo said, unpacking the food and setting it on my dining table. “Winnie cleared her whole schedule, and I called in a personal day because them fuckers pissed me off yesterday. We’re not leaving until you’re good.”
I settled into my chair and unwrapped one of the breakfast sandwiches, my stomach growling despite the nausea. “Okay, so yesterday was literally a fucking blur and a mess, but also maybe the most important.”
“Start with the pregnancy,” Winnie demanded, sliding into the chair across from me. “When did you find out? How far along are you? And why didn’t you call us immediately?”
“I found out yesterday. During a fight. On speakerphone.” I took a bite of my sandwich, grateful that it was staying down.
“The doctor’s office called to remind me about prenatal vitamins, and that’s how I learned I was pregnant.
Ok, well that’s not completely true. I believe I was told at my doctor’s appointment, but I was distracted and not listening. ”
“On speakerphone?” Halo’s eyes went wide. “In front of Malik?”
“In front of Malik and Samaj. During our first and biggest damn fight. Which is why I was distracted.” I shook my head, still not believing how everything had unfolded. “It was like a damn soap opera. Messy.”
“What were y’all fighting about?” Winnie asked, her detective instincts kicking in.
I took a deep breath and told them everything. The blackmail, the photos, the suspension, the secrets, the way I felt betrayed by both Malik and my own son. By the time I finished, both of them were staring at me with their mouths open.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Halo held up her hand. “So, Ashe was stalking y’all? Taking pictures? And Malik knew about it?”
“For weeks, apparently. And instead of telling me, he decided to ‘handle it’ himself. What the hell does that even mean?”
“That trifling-ass baby daddy of yours,” Winnie muttered, shaking her head. “A roach you can’t kill. I always knew something was off about him showing up out of nowhere.”
“But I’m also mad at Malik,” I continued. “He should have told me. We’re supposed to be partners, and partners don’t keep secrets like that.”
Halo leaned back in her chair, processing everything. “Okay, I can see both sides. Malik was trying to protect you, but…”
“But nothing,” I interrupted. “I’m a grown woman. I’ve been handling my own problems for seventeen years. I didn’t need him to coddle me.”
“You’re right,” Winnie agreed. “He should have told you. But girl, that man loves you. He was willing to risk his whole career to keep you from being stressed and worried about Ashe.”
“That’s what makes it so frustrating,” I admitted, tears starting up again. “I know he loves me. I know he was trying to do the right thing. But it felt like he didn’t trust me, and I don’t appreciate him and Samaj teaming up either.”
Halo cleared her throat, and I knew that tone. She was about to call me a dumb ass without saying it.