Chapter 10
EXODUS
She looked up at me with dipped brows, standing between the door and its frame.
“Hey,” Jada softly said. “What are you—what are you doing here?”
I pushed the door opened, stepping inside, the smell of lavender and eucalyptus hitting my nostrils as soon as I did.
Raising the grocery bag, I showed her why I was there.
She knew. She had to know. Did she really think sending me a picture of a positive pregnancy test was going to mean something to me?
I was a man who dealt in facts, and facts only.
It’d been three days since the picture came through.
Waited three days to address it on purpose. I liked three’s, remember?
Didn’t even have to go to Big G about this one.
Shit no. For what? I knew what to do the minute that picture came in.
Jada had to know me well enough to know I would never take her word for it when it came to something like that.
There was no sweat off my back, seeing that shit.
It didn’t move me. Didn’t shake me. Had no effect on me.
I was chilling. Chilling so much that when she sent message after message after I didn’t reply to it, I didn’t give a fuck.
She was in the thread going nuts. Calling me a deadbeat, saying shit like she couldn’t believe I’d turned out to be ‘one of those’.
Sent long paragraphs about how she was going to raise her baby just fine without me.
Said lil’ shit about child support. The whole nine.
I ignored her. Opened every last one of them, driving her crazy because my read receipts were on.
She called a couple of times. Instead of blocking her, I let it ring, only sending it to voicemail a couple of times. That shit drove her nuts.
She probably thought I was here to choke her dumb ass out for talking crazy to me.
By the shakiness in her voice, I’d say yeah.
But I wasn’t on that type of time. Jada was a woman and women…
they’re naturally emotional. So, I didn’t trip.
Didn’t give a fuck about anything she said, for real.
Words had no effect on me. She could go off.
She didn’t have to worry. I didn’t even plan on addressing it. I truly didn’t give a fuck.
The whole situation was heavy on her. I could tell.
Felt it the minute she opened the door. Her energy was heavy.
Low. Drowning. A little busy. She was dressed in an oversized Chrome Hearts tee that once belonged to me and a pair of black biker shorts.
Her hair was up in a bun on top of her head, and she didn’t have on a lick of makeup.
The dark bags under her eyes was a clear indication of how much sleep she hadn’t gotten.
“Hello?” Jada called out, questioning my silence.
I lifted the Family Dollar bag I had on me. “I need you to piss on this stick for me, sweetheart.”
Shifting my attention away from her, I took in the crib.
She’d made it a home. There were pictures on the walls and everything.
All of her. Blown up, big and obnoxious as hell, sitting on the wall opposite of the flat screen TV she had mounted.
Shorty had a new sectional, one of them fluffy rugs I hated, and fake ass plants.
Had to go the fake plant route because the only thing Jada was capable of taking care was her fuckin’ self.
And she didn’t even do a good job at that all of the time.
Despite the house being decorated, it was mess.
The mirrored coffee table was covered with fast food containers, bottles, cups, napkins, recording shit.
It was a mess. Couch and floor were just as bad off.
All but one area of the crib was dirty. The den.
Where she had her recording shit set up.
“You want me to take a pregnancy test?” She asked, like she was slow as shit.
I looked over at her, squinted and said, “What you think I mean by piss on a stick, Jada?”
She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “I can’t believe you.”
“You can’t? I find that very hard to believe,” I said, walking around the crib, kicking at trash. “You need to clean this bitch up.”
“Why you worried about it?”
I looked over my shoulder at her. She was right.
“Exactly. Why am I worried about it?” Jerking my head, I motioned to the back of the house. “Come piss on it.”
“You want to watch me too, guard?” She asked, hesitating, eyebrows dipped, frown on her face.
“I do,” I told her before walking off, heading for the bathroom.
I didn’t have to look over my shoulder at her to know she was following behind me. The house shoes scraping against the dusty, worn, hardwood floors told me she was. The deep breaths she kept taking told me too.
Rather she had a problem with taking the test or not didn’t matter to me.
I didn’t know how she felt for real. I didn't pay attention to that. I was here for one reason and one reason only. The pregnancy test. I didn’t have an interest in studying her or none of that shit.
She could be nervous. She could be confident.
The only thing that mattered was that test once that piss hit it.
I pushed the bathroom door open and shook my head at how much of a mess it was. The vanity was just as cluttered as that coffee table. With makeup, hair shit… there was even a take-out cup sitting in this bitch. Who the fuck ate and drank in the bathroom?
I went through the bag and handed her one of the test. I had three. Three’s… remember?
She snatched it and positioned herself at the toilet. The bathroom was so small that if I reached out just a little bit, I’d touch her. Shit, I’d be able to hold the test under the stream too, for real.
With my arms crossed over my shoulder, I leaned against the sink, waiting, watching.
“You gon’ watch me the whole time?” She shook her head. “I can’t focus on peeing with you watching me.”
I didn’t say anything.
She looked down, between her legs and then back up at me. Sucking her teeth, she said, “Exodus. Can you please give me some privacy? I cannot—
“You need some motivation?” I asked.
“Motivation? Exodus I just need you to—
Before she could finish telling me what she needed me to do, I pulled the gun from my waistband and went back to crossing my arms. She looked at it. Eyes wide. Mouth open. Stunned. It didn’t take long for tears to fill her pretty little brown eyes.
“Seriously?”
I didn’t say shit.
Just waited. Ran my tongue over my bottom lip and locked eyes with her.
Yes, seriously. It was that serious. So serious that if the test came back negative and she’d lied to me, I was killing her.
Without hesitation. Gun to the head, finger on the trigger, squeeze.
Simple. I didn’t like to be lied to. I didn’t play these types of games.
Jada hadn’t experienced this side of me.
She’d witnessed it, yes. But to witness it and to be on the receiving end of it were two completely different things.
A positive pregnancy test was serious.
She could talk all she wanted to talk. Express herself freely. Call me names. Lash out… whatever but shit shifted the minutes he sent me that picture. It went from a woman simply being in her emotions to a woman playing with mine.
It didn’t take long for me to hear piss hitting the toilet water. She sucked her teeth, looked down and positioned the test better.
“I can’t believe you just pulled a gun out on me. Is this what we’ve come to?”
Silence.
I didn’t have any words for her. She wanted conversation. Since the breakup, she’d been trying to pull one out of me. I truly prayed to God she hadn’t sent me a false positive just to get my attention.
“Whatever Exodus,” she mumbled, pulling the test from between her legs, sitting it on the floor, at her feet. She leaned down, resting her arms on her knees. I shifted my attention from her, to it, focusing on it, waiting.
“Why do you hate me now? I didn’t do anything to deserve this shit man. You—you just… you’re treating me like I’m nothing. Like… like I did something to you. I didn’t do anything Exodus. I just—they did that. They…”
She cried.
Hard.
Couldn’t tell if they were tears of fear or truly tears of sorrow. Had I been in the mood to pay attention to something other than the test, I would have known the minute she opened her mouth. But again… my attention… it was elsewhere. Undivided. Had to be.
My heart raced as I waited. For several reasons.
One being, it could be positive. If she was truly pregnant, things would shift…
yet again. If she wasn’t pregnant, I’d have to watch a woman I once cared about take her last breath.
Doing it… it would be easy. I’d pull the trigger without a second thought.
Why? How? Because I’d already made peace with my decision.
I didn’t have to spend much time thinking about it.
It was a no brainer. But the reality of it was…
she was Jada and we did spend a lot of years together.
When I did my short bid, she held me down and looked out for me when I needed it.
There was some loyalty there. Maybe not love…
but certainly loyalty. But I didn’t do well with betrayal.
She stopped talking. The tears, however, kept flowing. The only sound filling the small space was her sniffling every couple of seconds.
“X,” she whispered.
“Yeah?” I answered, eyes steady on the pregnancy test, watching the little window that would change everything.
Without warning, she reached down and picked it up. “Do you really think I would lie to you?”
She wrapped her hand around it and put it behind her back. “Seriously? What do you take me for? You think—
I took a deep breath and looked to the ceiling, cutting her off. “I think you better put that test back where it was.”
She shook her head and stood up from the toilet. “Uh, uh!” She yelled, crying hysterically. “After all of the years we spent together, you think I’d pull some weak bitch shit like… like… lie!? I can’t believe you’re doing me like this.”
Again, I took a deep breath. “Jada.”
“What X?! I don’t have to prove shit to you!” With that, she ran off.
I didn’t run after her. I stood in the bathroom with my back against the wall, letting her have her way.
If it weren’t for already going to Big G about this shit, I would have asked for directions.
Instead, I asked for more patience. For the most part, I was a patient nigga but dealing with Jada…
it required another level of it. Instead of immediately running after her, I had that little talk with dawg.
If it weren’t for being slow to respond, I would have upped and blew the back of her head off.
Regardless of what the test said. Few years ago, that’s how I would have responded.
Irrationally. Purely out of frustration.
But I was a different nigga. Thank God for that.
After a couple of minutes, I uncrossed my arms and pushed up off the wall to follow her out of the bathroom. When I made it to the living room, I found her pacing, both hands wrapped around the test, trying to break it in half, steady crying hysterically.
She glanced up at me. “I can’t—I can’t believe you treating me—treating me like this! After all of the years. After all of the time! And you… you acting like I’m some… some weak ass, desperate ass bitch you don’t know! I deserve—I deserve better than this! I’m—I’m the mother of your child and—”
Before she could finish her statement, I pressed the gun against a forehead I used to bless with my lips. She froze up. Eyes widened. Bottom lip quivered. Body shook, too. Violently.
“Give me the test, J,” I calmly told her.
She hesitated, her eyes telling the story of how hurt she was. I didn’t give a fuck though. I was here for one reason, and one reason only and that didn’t include compassion.
Finally, she lifted her hand to give it me. Once I had it in my hand, I turned it over and looked down at it. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, looked at her and shook my head.
Damn Jada.
to be continued