Going Back
Iwoke up, and we were in the car. Gio was right beside me while Carlos drove. As I sat up to get comfortable, Gio was all in my face.
“How did you sleep, luv?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes. “Nigga, you knocked me out. Where the fuck are we going?”
Carlos looked at me through the rearview mirror, shaking his head as Gio said, “To Cali.”
I looked around on the highway, frantic.
“No. No. No. No! Gio, you can’t take me from my life. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
I turned to the window and started beating on it, yelling for drivers in passing cars for help.
He pulled me away from the window and tied my wrists together.
“I am not taking you from shit. I am taking you back to the life that you had!” he explained.
“Why won’t you understand I don’t want a life with you. I don’t want shit with you!”
Gio nodded, took that white cloth with something on it, and before I could get the word no out, he placed it on my face again, holding the back of my head tight so I couldn’t move away from it, and before I knew it, I was asleep again.
By the time I was walking up again, the car had stopped, and as I opened my eyes, my heart started beating fast. I was in front of the house that Gio bought for us.
I was trying to gather my thoughts, thinking how I could get to my parents’ house or to Crenshaw to Bully, hoping he could talk sense into Gio, when the door opened.
“Come the fuck on,” Gio blurted out.
“No, I don’t want to be here!” I yelled out.
Gio tried to grab me and I smacked at him, trying to get out the other door, but the child lock was on it.
Gio eventually grabbed me and pulled me outta the car and into the house, tossing me onto the floor.
Frog shook his head at Gio. “I am about tired of you and how you are doing her.”
Frog and Carlos helped me up, and Gio looked at them with disgust.
“I don’t give a fuck how y’all niggas feel. Get the fuck out of my house.”
They all looked at him, shaking their heads.
Kev, Joe, Carlos, and Frog each told me to be safe before they walked outta the door, and Gio closed it behind them, then looked at me with a big smile on his face, raising his hands in the air.
“Welcome home,” he said, pulling me around. “Now I didn’t set everything up the way you would to let you do it, but I did the big shit. What do you think of our home?”
I looked around the living room. The nigga hung up all our pictures that were up in the apartment; the living room was arranged like I used to have it.
“This is not my home, Gio,” I said softly.
He frowned at me, like he was getting madder by each passing second.
“I am really getting tired of hearing that shit. Atlanta is not your home; that nigga is not your home. Cali is your home—I am your home, your happy place. The same shit that we had months ago, we are going to have it now.”
I looked at him calmly and shook my head.
“You know what?” I said, turning to face him.
“When you are with somebody so long, they do become your safe space, the love of your life, your home, but when that home was never standing on solid ground, and you finally open your eyes, you realize that the home that you were in was never your permanent home, just a rental. My permanent home is in Atlanta.”
I could feel the air coming out of Gio’s nose the way he was breathing.
“So you are calling me a rental?”
I nodded. “I was sharing you, right?”
“You can’t let that go?”
“You can’t let me go?” I fired back.
“You know what, Islah…I am not gonna do this with you.”
Gio grabbed me by my arm, and I tried to pull away from him, yelling for him to let go, hitting his hand as hard as I could, but the nigga had a different kind of strength with him that he could just ignore it.
He stopped at the bottom of the steps, looking up at them, while I was still beating on him, and he picked me up, carrying me up the flights of stairs while I fought him the whole way.
Once we got to the top of the steps, he dropped me on the floor and pulled me, kicking and screaming, into one of the rooms.
“Stay your ass in this room until you get some fuckin’ sense!”
He slammed the door behind him, and I lay on the bed crying and praying to God for help until I fell asleep.
When I woke up later, I didn’t know what time it was, but Gio was tapping my foot.
I kicked him.
“Man, can we stop all this shit, please?” he said softly. “I don’t want to do this with you.”
I sat up and looked him up and down. It looked like he had showered. He smelled better, had fresh clothes on, and lined up his hair.
“Well, I don’t want to be here with you.”
Gio sat on the foot of the bed and palmed his face before letting out a deep breath.
“Islah…I loved you—I still love you with all my heart, and I never meant for the shit with Trina to hurt you. I just wanted to get ahead for us, and I did that. That bitch was just mad I didn’t want her.”
I shrugged. “Okay…thanks for the apology. Now she can have you.”
“You know I don’t want her, I never wanted her. I was making a home with you—”
“While paying her rent?” I asked, cutting him off. “Her rent in her house while we were still in a two-bedroom apartment on Crenshaw.”
Gio nodded. “Can you give me another chance?” he asked. I could see tears forming in his eyes. “Can you give me a chance to make it up to you, a chance to right my wrong with you and show you I can be the nigga that you needed and wanted for seven years?”
I noticed that he seemed to be trying to calm his nerves, and that was something I could work with to get my ass outta the house.
I took a deep breath, getting myself together to get into character.
“Fine, Gio, I will give you a chance. This is your only chance, but if it doesn’t work—honestly don’t work—you have to let me go back to Atlanta.”
“I will buy you the ticket myself.”
I rolled my eyes. He could have been playing me just like I was playing him, but it was okay. I knew how to get on Gio’s soft side.
I nodded my head, and we shook hands.
“Can we start now?”
I didn’t know what time it was, but it looked late.
“Now, Gio? We can start in the morning.”
He shook his head and pulled me up by my hand, leading me downstairs.
In the living room, he bought some food and had an air mattress set up with blankets and candles all around.
“What is this?” I asked.
“A movie night. Got you some chicken from the spot you like, ya half and tea, and my green juice. I even got you some edibles from that lil’ shop you liked around the corner. They were happy to know that you were back around.”
I laughed. That was low-key thoughtful. A bitch for sure needed to de-stress.
“That’s cool and all, but I would like a shower. I have no clothes. I need bathroom shit.”
Gio smiled and walked into the kitchen.
“I put in an order while we were getting closer. I got you some clothes until we can go shopping, and I got you all ya bathroom shit you liked.”
I took the bags from him and went back upstairs to the room I was in, locked the door behind me, and went into the bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror.
I looked tired, fucked up, over everything that was going on, then I placed my hand on my stomach, remembering the life I was growing inside of me, and the life and the man I had waiting for me in Atlanta.
I knew Love was working overtime to find me; I could feel it.
“I have to tell Love where I’m at. Play ya part and get back home, Islah,” I mumbled to myself.
It’s been a minute since I had to play a nigga, but a real bitch never forgets… Gio was finna learn a lesson or two.