14. Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
Demetric
I pulled up to my parent’s house and hesitated to get out. Shit sounded funny as hell calling them my parents now, especially after I found out that Zeus was my real pops. Shit was crazy, but I guess it is what it is. I walked in with Daizha’s hand held in mine. That was more so to calm my nerves. When we walked in, the aroma of whatever food that Ma Izzy was cooking hit my nose immediately, making my stomach grumble. I instantly remembered the food I had in the car.
Rounding the corner, I walked into the family room and saw Isabella and Jay sitting down.
“Wassup, y’all?” I spoke. Isabella was looking at me with weary eyes and that shit was tearing me up, so out of instinct I went and pulled her into a hug and kissed her temple.
“I’m glad you came, hijo. We need to talk this out like a family. I know you’re hurt, but you need to hear your father out,” she pleaded. I didn’t answer right away. I walked past Jay and sat on the loveseat and brought Daizha down with me.
“It’s nice to see you again, Daizha. I’m proud that my son found somebody his own age, because I was tired of beating those old perras (bitches) for taking advantage of my baby.”
“Chill. I didn’t do nothing that I didn’t want to do,” I smirked. She hated that I liked older women, but the choice wasn’t hers. Daizha was the exception, though, that I gladly accepted.
“Chico, cállate. (Boy, be quiet.) Daizha, sweetie. Where are you from?” she asked.
“Charlington,” Daizha answered.
“How did you get here?” Before Daizha had a chance to answer, Zeus came walking through the door, but he wasn’t alone.
“You got to be fuckin’ kidding me. This what you brought me here for? If so, I’m out!” Zeus walked into the house and had Juanita in tow. She looked good…she always had, but she still wasn’t shit. I stood to leave, but Zeus speaking up stopped me.
“Son, we need to talk about this,” he said sternly. I looked at this nigga and wanted to rock his shit again. My shit was still sore from yesterday. Reluctantly, I sat back down, and Daizha looped her arm through mine in an attempt to calm me down.
I stared at Juanita, and she had tears streaming down her face and if I hadn’t hated her so much, them shits probably would’ve fazed me.
“I know you have questions for your mama,” Zeus started, but I cut him off.
“I ain’t got no mama,” I snapped.
“Hijo!” Isabella chastised.
“My bad. Juanita ain’t my mama. My mama wouldn’t have let some strange muthafuckas come into our home and strip me from everything I knew and place me in a fuckin’ group home until I got shipped off. My mama would’ve fought tooth and fuckin’ nail to make sure she got me back, or at least came and visit me to give me some kind of hope. I wasn’t that lucky because I ended up with a mama who would rather fuck and suck dicks for money than be more concerned with her son’s well-being. So what the fuck could you possibly tell me now that’ll make me give a fuck about you.” I stared a hole in Juanita’s ass, fighting back tears that were stinging my eyes.
“Meechie,” she croaked out.
“Don’t call me that shit,” I growled.
“Demetric, I know you hate me, but it’s not what you think. You have to give me a chance to explain,” she begged. I dropped my head and took a deep breath. I felt Daizha rubbing my back before I heard her whisper in my ear.
“You can do this, and I’ll be right here with you,” she voiced. Taking a deep breath, I lifted my head and just stared at her until she started speaking.
“Meech…Demetric, I never wanted things to end up like they did. I did what I thought I had to do to take care of you. You can thank your grandmother for that. I’ve been selling my body since I was thirteen to help her pay the bills. When I saw how easy the money was, I kept doing it. You always had everything you wanted when you were with me, right?” She looked at me for a response, but I didn’t have one for her.
“The day that they took you was the worst day of my life. I watched as they tore a piece of my heart away from me and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.”
“But it was, though! You just didn’t want to,” I snapped.
“You might be right. I sat around that house for a month straight, merely existing because I missed you so much. Because they put you in the system and they were investigating, I wasn’t allowed to see you. After the first month, things didn’t seem to look up, so I went back to do what I thought was best. I left you alone. I knew that somebody would come and take you in and do better with you than I did. After three years, they contacted me and said that they were running out of space and that if I wanted to get you back, I could. I gave them Zeus’ name and told them he was your father. I know it sounds farfetched, but it’s not. I knew someone that worked there, and they saw Zeus and his wife were already foster parents. She placed you with them without him knowing you were his son. I knew you would be better off with him, so I left.”
“Zeus didn’t know about you, and from my knowledge, he still didn’t find out right away. From the looks of it, they took pretty good care of you.” I scoffed at words because all I heard were excuses and I didn’t have time for that shit.
“When did you find out?” I turned my attention to Zeus. Since he wanted to talk, I needed to hear his version.
“It was not long after you turned sixteen. I heard you and Kev talking. Y’all had just reunited, and I heard you ask him has he seen your mama. He mentioned Juanita’s name and my ears perked up. I remember a Juanita from my earlier hustling days from the same area, but I only saw her a handful of times after that, but I never saw her with a kid. You remember when Izzy took you to the doctor a few weeks later for your physical? Well, I paid the doctor to send off our blood samples to get tested. As you can see, they came back a match.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? Do you know how long it took me to get over the fact that I didn’t have real parents that gave a fuck about me? Yeah, I had y’all, but it wasn’t the same.”
“I honestly thought you would reject me and want to leave. I was already excited that I had a son, even though Izzy didn’t give birth to you. I got a late start on everything, but I never made you feel like you weren’t mine. When I found out, that was when I started grooming you to take over because I now had an heir I could pass my legacy down to. Believe it or not, son, I was scared of losing you.” I heard Zeus and after looking into his eyes, I believed him.
“Demetric,” Juanita called out. My eyes dropped on her, waiting for her to speak. “That’s not the only reason I came back. There’s something I need to tell you,” she voiced.
“What? Jaylen is my real sister that you abandoned too?” I asked sarcastically.
“No. I only had one child. The reason I reached out to Zeus is because I have cancer and I wanted to see my baby boy before it took over.” When she said that, all the breath left my body. This shit couldn’t be happening.
“Are you for real right now? You came back into my life just to tell me that you’re dying? Fuck kind of shit is that?” I bellowed.
“Calm down, hijo,” Ma Izzy said with her eyes full of sympathy. I looked over at Jaylen and she was sitting quietly, observing everything.
“No…no, those aren’t my intentions at all. I just wanted to lay eyes on you, that’s all.” I couldn’t take the tears coming out of her eyes, so I put my eyes back on the floor.
“Juanita, you’re more than welcome to stay for dinner. You are staying right, hijo?”
“Yeah, Ma. I’m staying.” I purposely called Isabella Ma so it could piss Juanita off. It wasn’t shit she could say about it because Isabella had been my mother for the last ten years. No matter how mad I was at her for not telling me, I’d never disrespect her by calling another woman mama in her face.
“Good. Y’all go wash up. Juanita, you can come with me.” I got up and pulled Daizha with me. I led us upstairs to my bedroom and closed and locked the door behind us, before falling down on the bed.
“I’m not even going to ask you if you’re okay, because I know that this is a lot. Shit, it has my head spinning,” Daizha voiced as she took a seat next to me.
“Shit, mine feels like it’s about to explode. I feel like I talked her up. I never talk about Juanita and after our conversation the other night, she pops back into my life after thirteen years. Ain’t that some shit?” I swiped my hand down my face and laid back on the bed. Daizha curled her lil’ thick ass body next to me and my nerves started to settle. I really believe this girl is my soulmate because she came into my life and brought peace without even realizing it.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For what?” she asked, looking up at me in confusion.
“For bringing a nigga peace. I be needing that shit.” I placed a kiss on her lips and tried to take it further, but she stopped me.
“Uh uh. You won’t have Mrs. Izzy cursing me out and I won’t know what she’s saying. Let’s go down here and eat because I’m starving, then we can go back to your house and you can thank me then,” she smirked.
“Our house,” I corrected.
“Huh?”
“I said, our house. That’s your shit, too, Dai.” I saw the perplexed look on her face, but I’d address it later. I wanted to go downstairs and get this dinner over with.
When we got to the dining room, everyone was already seated, and I was glad that Jay was seated next to me. After I pulled Daizha’s seat out, I took mine between her and Jaylen.
“Uhm…so, Demetric. Do you go to school?” Juanita asked.
“Nah,” I answered flatly.
“Oh. So, you’re working?” she continued to interrogate.
“Yeah.”
“Oh ok. That’s good. Where do you work?” I looked at her like she was crazy, asking all these questions like she was the police.
“He works with me,” Zeus butted in. Her eyes ballooned because she knew the type of nigga Zeus was.
“Oh.” She turned her attention toward Daizha. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I didn’t get your name.”
“It’s Daizha.”
“That’s a pretty name for a pretty girl. He looks happy with you.” I looked over at Daizha when she said that, and she blushed.
“Why didn’t you come back for my brother?” Jaylen’s question seemed to surprise everybody but me. One thing she was gonna do, and that was take up for me the same way I do for her.
“Jaylen!” Ma Izzy chastised.
“No, it’s okay. I actually like the fact that he has someone like her in his corner. To answer your question, I thought that I was doing right by him. I figured he deserved more than a whore as a mother, since I wasn’t able to experience that. I didn’t want to corrupt him.” She was looking at me the whole time that she was talking to Jaylen. For a moment, the hate that I harbored for her vanished and it was replaced with the love that was once there. I’d be a fool to act on it, though.
We continued to have dinner, and she gave me her number before she left. I told her I wouldn’t make any promises, but I took it, anyway. I was getting ready to leave when Zeus walked outside with me and Daizha.
“Meech, hol’ up,” he called out, stopping me in my tracks.
“Wassup?”
“I didn’t do any of this to hurt you, son. Shit, just had me fucked up, that’s all. You know how we can get. Why try to fix what’s broken? I know you hate me right now, but I want us to be cool after all this. I want to keep the relationship with my son.” I’m not even going to lie and say his lil’ speech didn’t fuck me up because it did.
“We’re good, Pops.”
His face lit up and pulled me into a hug. Shit hit different now that I know he’s my pops. We disconnected, and I turned to leave.
“Aye, son,” he called out.
“Yeah?”
“Take care of that young lady.”
“I’m already on it,” I stated honestly. I got in the car and Daizha was staring at me.
“You okay, now?” she asked.
“Better than I was when I first got here but it’s still gonna take some time, you know?”
“Trust me, I do.”