Chapter 16
Skai
This is not how it was supposed to go, and I am physically ill to my stomach. We were supposed to have a one-on-one conversation with my mom and DJ, but they kept pushing about me moving in with them and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Jabarri has been trying to get me to tell our family for months, and I kept dragging my feet, but now I wish I had. Oh well, it’s too late to change anything now. Jabarri walks over, pulling me in his arms, finally getting the hug I know he wanted to give me before, making me melt into him.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Jaasiel says.
“In here, NOW!” DJ says to me and Jabarri. I look at him and my mom to try and gauge their feelings, but they both have their faces set on neutral. Shit. I think. This is a cluster fuck. I disentangle myself from him, but he grabs my hand, giving it a little squeeze in support as we walk to the back room with them.
“How long has this been going on, Skai?” my mom asks, obviously hurt by the fact that I kept this a secret from her. This is one of the only secrets I have ever kept from her, and I feel like shit keeping this from her. When Jabarri continued to push to tell our family, I fought against it, but I did not think of the ramifications. I didn’t think about the look my mom would have when she found out I kept this a secret from her, the look that I am looking at right now, and all I want to do is cry. Goodness, how did I fuck this up so badly?
“Umm,” I hedge, biting my bottom lip.
“Spit it out, Skai,”
“Well, uh, it’s been a year,” I say so low it’s barely audible but my mom hears like a bat, so I am sure she heard me.
“A year!? You kept this a secret from me for a whole year?”
“Yes,” I once again whisper out.
“And Jabarri, what about Natalie?” DJ asks.
“If you could just sit down, we can explain,” Jabarri says, and luckily for us, they do, and we tell them how the past year went and Natalie’s secret.
“And you decided to keep this a secret? Why?” my mom asks.
“I wasn’t sure how y’all would feel, Ma. Technically, he’s my uncle, and we weren’t sure how you guys would feel. We didn’t want to take the risk of losing our family if you and DJ were against this, even if everyone else was okay.”
“Hmm,” my mom says, looking over to DJ as he holds her hand. Jabarri rubs my back as we sit on the sofa across from them. No one is saying anything.
“Ma, please tell me you are not mad at me, that you understand, please.”
“But I don’t understand, Sweets. You are my child, my daughter. How could you misjudge your mother so badly, twice now? You kept your sexuality a secret, you kept what happened with your cousin a secret, and now this. How could you think that I would turn my back on you or not support you?” she asks, and I know she has told DJ about my past because she asked me if I would be okay with her telling him and I said yes. I also know that she knows if I am with a man, well with Jabarri, that I told him about my past too.
“Ma,” I try.
“No, hush and listen. Jag and I knew for years that Jabarri was in love with you and truth be told you loved him too, but you weren’t ready to admit it. We were waiting on the two of you to come to us. We also knew that things had changed between you too, but I don’t think we thought things had gotten this far between the two of you,”
“You knew?” I almost screech.
“We knew,” DJ says, and I wanted to kick my own ass for allowing fear to keep secrets from my mother.
“Well, damn,” Jabarri says.
“And what do you feel about us, Momma?” I asked because her opinion and feelings about this means everything to me.
“How do I feel?” she asks, and I shake my head. She looks over to DJ who has been pretty quiet for the most part, then back to me. “It’s about time.” she says and I take my first real breath.
“Jabarri,” DJ calls him.
“Yeah?”
“That is my wife’s daughter, and for all intents and purposes, my daughter. If you’re not about to step up and do right, leave this shit alone now.”
“We’re engaged,” he drops yet another bomb, and I drop my head in exasperation.
“Jabarri,” I say almost exhausted from his bomb dropping today.
“That’s good because if you hurt her, lie to her, betray her trust, not be gentle with her, or don’t love her right….she’ll be a widow. Mohio?”
“Understood,” Jabarri says and DJ nods at him, but the look he’s leveling on him says try me.
“Savvy?”
“Yeah?”
“I have been wanting to ask you this for a while now, but I couldn’t figure out how I could without tipping y’all off but, uh, where is her cousin?”
“Jabarri,” I try but he just grabs my other hand, holding it never taking his eyes from my mom.
She looks over to DJ, who gives her a slight nod. “Skai only asked once and never asked again and I gave her a generic answer, but she is old enough and healed enough to know. He’s dead.”
“Ma, he’s dead?”
“Graveyard dead. Your father and I went to talk to him. We were going to press charges on him, and we walked in on him doing the same thing to another cousin that was even younger than Skai. He lied and tried to blame it on her, but when that didn’t work, he bolted, running from the house, and he stayed hidden for a while. One day, I was on lunch and spotted him. He was living in a studio in a not-so-good part of town. We went in that night, and let’s just say he’ll never be found.”
“Ma,” I whisper out because for all of these years, I lowkey felt like my mom didn’t do anything about what happened to me, but she literally killed him.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you feeling guilty about it, one, me taking someone’s life and, two, someone’s life being taken because of what he did to you. I didn’t want you living with all that guilt. I know you felt like I swept it under the rug, but I promise you I didn’t. You are my child and I didn’t feel one moment of regret or grief over it. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you, your brothers, or my grands,” she says, and I am off the sofa and in her arms in seconds, crying.
“Well, that explains why I couldn’t find him,” I hear Jabarri say to DJ. “Knowing Savvy, I should have known.”
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, baby. Now let’s talk about how we plan to keep you safe.”
“She’s with me pretty much all of the time.”
“But there are going to be times when she can’t be with you,”
“True, so we’ll coordinate someone else being with her, and I will begin digging to try and find who is gonna end up dead. I just got you, baby, and I refuse to lose you to anyone,” Jabarri says, hugging me when I pull back from his kiss.
“Not in front of my momma,” I tell him, looking at him like he is crazy.
“Really, Skai?” he asks.
“If you want us both to live long enough to get married, you better act with some decorum in front of my mother,” I tell him.
“Well, if we are going to set up a schedule to protect you, I suggest we go back out front so everyone can help figure this out around everyone’s schedule,” DJ says as he pulls me in for a hug that has Jabarri pulling me out of.
“Watch it!” he snaps at DJ, making him laugh. As soon as we walk back in the room we hear,
“It’s about damn time. Now that y’all have figured that out can we please get down to business?” Atlas asks. That’s my Uncle Atty, I think.
We sit around for the next hour or so making a preliminary schedule, and I am grateful the women aren’t here, but I know they already know what’s going on not only because they don’t keep secrets from each other but mainly because, quiet as it’s kept, the men are huge gossips. When my phone chirps and I see the two-word text from Brooklyn, I know I am right. It simply says, lunch tomorrow! I don’t need the time or location I already know when and where to go. I reply with a simple, ok. Ugh, I am not prepared for the Spanish Inquisition I know is coming tomorrow.