Chapter 5
“What kind of wife leaves her home unattended for a week to traipse around a school she didn’t even graduate from?” Janet asked as Emani walked into the house from a day full of work. No hi, how are you, how was your day, just judgement from the gate.
Emani dropped her bag by the door and looked at Janet, who was making food for what appeared to be an army. “Is someone coming by? Is that why you’re here?”
“My son called me because you weren’t answering and told me he had a hard day at practice. So I used my key. This was an emergency,” Janet quipped, a frown instantly made its way to Emani’s face.
She looked and didn’t have a missed call from Malik. “I don’t feel like this.”
“You feel well enough to shake your ass in a mirror though,” Janet poked.
Emani stopped her shuffle to the couch to ask. “Do you know who I am? Are you aware that there is a world outside of Malik where I exist? Where I’m just as much a big deal as he is? If I want to shake my ass in the mirror, I’m doing it and you don’t have a say so about that.”
“I do. You’re marrying my son. You’re taking my last name. You need to learn how to be a wife and be available for him,” Janet huffed, as Malik strolled into the open living space.
“I can’t be available for someone who didn’t call me but called his mama,” Emani snapped back. “Like what is it going to take for you? It’s always something with you.”
“Because it’s always something with you!” Janet shouted, now that she had an audience. “All these men hanging off of you and you want us to believe you’re just friends. Have you slept with all of them? That’s what it seems like to me.”
Emani snapped her eyes to Malik and pointed. “You’re going to let her continue?”
“Ma, chill,” Malik said, his eyes on his phone.
“Can you put the fuckin’ phone down for five minutes and pay attention, Malik?
” Emani snapped. Between the botched engagement to prove he had a bigger dick in the imaginary dick measuring contest, his mother’s disrespect, and him attached to that phone.
“Who the fuck keeps calling that you can’t focus on this? ”
Malik groaned, tossing his phone on the counter. “What is the problem, now?”
“Now? What’s the problem now?” Emani scoffed. “You don’t hear your mother yelling at me?”
“Y’all need to work this out. I got bigger shit to handle,” Malik spoke, grabbing his phone and walking away.
Emani glared at his back. “I’m not doing this shit. Not today. I’m fucking tired, can’t get peace in a house I pay to live in too.”
Janet cackled. “Girl, you don’t pay for shit. You wouldn’t know a mortgage if it slapped you.”
“How long are you going to do this with me? I just need to know. It’s been three years, are you going for six, twelve?
What? Tell me so I know how to adjust to this.
I’m not going to be too much more of the uneducated whore you think I am.
I graduated top of my class while juggling my career.
Also, my tight pussy has known less men than you’ve had kids with or didn’t. ”
Janet shot her a look as she walked past. “I don’t know why he wants to marry you.”
“It could just be that I’m the baddest bitch he’ll ever know.” Emani rolled her eyes and started to the stairs to go to their room. She whisked in, stopping when she heard him whispering in the closet.
“What’s the problem? I told you I would come back when I had a minute. I got my girl here arguing with my mom. I don’t have time for your shit too,” he hissed.
Emani pulled off her shirt and tossed it into the basket. Then she pulled her phone out of her pocket and texted Donnée.
Emani: Malik is in the closet on the phone with a bitch
The red flags were starting to pop up left and right.
The flag of the day was that Malik never came back home last night.
Emani was a heavy sleeper but she could always feel him crawl back in the bed, he assured it.
Whether a kiss, a snuggle, a smack to the ass, something.
Even if he fell asleep watching film, he used to make sure she knew he was home. This wasn’t the time for him to slip.
Malik exited the closet, spotting her undressing from rehearsal. “Y’all done?”
“Are you?” Emani asked. “I’m never going to be the bitch you have to lie to. So if you’re fuckin’ someone else, you should tell me now. If I find out any other way it’s going to be bad for you.”
Malik made a face as if him cheating was so far-fetched. “You know better, Emani.”
She scoffed, hummed, then smirked. “Be careful how you handle me, Malik. I said yes, I still have time to say no.”
He looked at her like she wouldn’t dare, like she’d won when she said yes. “This is why I didn’t want you around your friends. You act like you can do and say what you want.”
“I can. That’s the part you and your mother are missing. I’m Emani Rose with or without you. Don’t let no side pussy have you fuckin’ up the best thing you’ll have. And rehearsal was good, thank you for asking.”
“Yeah, well your ex is back with a chip on his shoulder. Don’t do shit that’ll cause me to have him up out of here.”
Emani looked at him and laughed before walking into the bathroom. “Don’t slip, nigga. ‘Cause you tripping over yourself.”
“You think he’s cheating?” Donnée asked as Emani stood in the storefront show room waiting for Joanna to wrap up whatever she was doing and Sandi to arrive so they could go over homecoming in its entirety.
“I think he’s so full of himself he’s going to get his ass caught up. I haven’t had a scandal or nothing since Tyriq and I want to keep it that way.”
“What if he is?” Donnée asked.
“Then he’s going to feel the gravity of that decision.
The shit is simple. I’m not his wife yet.
I’m not someone he can toy with and I have really been trying to be the cookie-cutter version of myself but I’m getting tired of the disrespect from Janet and this one-sided competition he’s in with Jahlil. ”
“That’s what it is,” Donnée crooned. “The love of your life comes back and he’s losing his mind. That engagement was rushed as fuck.”
“And big as fuck. I asked him to keep it lowkey. Make sure if no one else knew, you and Carson knew. That was a dick swinging contest.”
“Well, whose is bigger?” Donnée asked.
Emani cut her a look. “It’s not about that.”
“It is. For Malik, anyway.”
“Well, I can tell you it’s not the man running out the house and taking secret calls. It’s the one who could care less about what I have going on. This isn’t about Jahlil. This is about Malik. This shit is getting old. The trippin’, the three minutes.”
“The three minutes?” Donnée gasped.
“Pussy don’t even get wet like it used to. I can handle a lot. A sexless marriage and a nigga with side bitches is a no for me. Hard no.”
Donnée winced. “How long are you going to hold on before you can’t?”
Emani dropped her eyes from the clothes to her shoes. She pulled in a deep breath. “Until I get it through my head that being alone is what it’s going to be. So anyway, homecoming. I rented a house a few doors down, stay with me?”
“Still can’t stay by yourself, huh?”
“Not really.”
Since Emani was a child, she couldn’t stay alone.
That was her trauma. The home invasion and her mother’s disappearance.
Her father’s gang involvement that landed him in prison by the time she was fifteen.
Emani had spent so many years alone that she opted for sleeping on the floor of her aunt’s home.
Donnée had the couch, her mother and boyfriend had the bedroom.
To this day, Emani found herself laying on the floor to find comfort.
Malik didn’t understand it. He couldn’t understand in full why she needed reassurance so much.
“I’ll stay as long as you promise to hang out with the crew. It’ll be good for you. Your light is dimming. We can see it.”
Emani looked at Donnée and spoke just above a whisper. “I’m scared that if I go through with this, I’ll lose me.”
“You is all you got, E. You can’t lose God and you can’t lose you. Don’t wait until it’s costing you millions to escape.”
Joanna joined them almost twenty minutes later, clearly flustered.
“What’s wrong?” Emani asked.
“Malachi needs to see a specialist for his speech. And the insurance I have doesn’t cover it and his father is refusing to put him on his insurance,” Joanna shared. There had always been a huge mystery around who Malachi’s father was but Emani didn’t dwell on it because it wasn’t her business.
“How much is the specialist?” Emani asked.
“E, no,” Joanna huffed.
“I’m his godmother. How much is it?”
“Twenty-five hundred,” Joanna replied. “That’s the first six visits, they want him to do three rounds.”
“Have them send me the invoices. I’ll get them paid. My baby boy needs it, he’ll have it,” Emani stated and watched the weight fall from Joanna’s shoulders. Most of the weight anyway. “Let’s get into these homecoming looks. You’re going to be available right?”
“Yes, I got everything set up.”