3. Pearce #3
It was six in the morning, the next day to be exact, and I was at Maria’s apartment.
Tasha never came home from work the day before.
I didn’t start to worry until about eleven.
I called her, and the phone went straight to voicemail.
I checked her location, and she was at the airport, which had me stumped like a muhfucka.
The airport? The only thing that made sense to me was that someone else had her phone or maybe she was there dropping someone off.
After staring at the phone screen for a few minutes, I tried calling her again.
Again, the call went straight to voicemail.
When I attempted to check her location a few minutes later, she had stopped sharing it with me.
I looked for her on social media, and I couldn’t find her accounts, so either they were gone, or I was blocked.
Once again, I was stumped because what the fuck had happened?
Why would Tasha just up and leave without taking any of her belongings or saying anything to me?
The situation had me so baffled that I couldn’t sleep.
Was she considered missing? I assumed that would only hold true if no one else knew where she was either.
For ten minutes, I knocked on Maria’s door.
Eventually, her neighbor came out on her way to walk her son to the bus stop.
“Maria isn’t home. She left last night. Had a few suitcases with her.
” The woman who always eyed me inappropriately stated.
“Appreciate it,” I nodded before walking away.
If Maria had bags, then Tasha being at the airport made sense.
But why didn’t she tell me they were going somewhere?
That was the part that didn’t make any sense.
And unless it was a short flight, I couldn’t imagine Maria traveling anywhere because she’d get dope sick unless she was bold enough to smuggle heroin through the airport.
Dropping by Maria’s home had left me more confused than I had already been, but at least I got my answer.
Tasha wasn’t missing. She was with her mother.
But where the fuck were they at? Out of every scenario that I could think of, none of them made sense to me.
I’d never been on the type of time that a lot of other men were on.
I had a mother, two grandmothers, three aunts, and no uncles on my mother’s side.
Women played a huge part of raising me. I didn’t cheat nor was I disrespectful or abusive.
Tasha never had to ask me for much because I was a real nigga and if I saw she needed something or if I even thought she wanted something, I was getting it with no hesitation. And she just up and left me?
Anytime I got close to becoming angry somehow the emotion would never fully surface because just leaving me with no rhyme or reason wasn’t even in her character.
There had to be more to the story. My pride was telling me to just let it go, but I had to go by Tasha’s job.
When I walked in, I recognized her cousin behind the counter.
She recognized me immediately, and she smiled.
“Hey, Pearce. What you doing in here?”
“I’m looking for Tasha. I haven’t seen or talked to her since yesterday morning.”
Kenya’s mouth opened slightly but no words came out. Her demeanor had changed to an ‘oh shit’ vibe.
“Was she supposed to work today?” I probed.
I could tell by the way Kenya’s eyes were darting around the room and looking at everything but my face, she didn’t know what was going on, and she didn’t want to say the wrong thing.
“She was. Yesterday, about two hours after she got off, she called my dad and said she needed a few days off. She didn’t really go into detail or sound like anything was wrong.”
Kenya’s eyes held a bit of sympathy. I wasn’t sure of the reason she felt sorry for me.
Maybe it was because she knew more than what she was telling me.
Or maybe it was because neither one of us really knew what was going on.
In any case, I wasn’t about to keep stressing the shit.
I had reason to believe that Tasha was alive and well.
If she didn’t feel that it was necessary to come home or at the very least pick up the phone and communicate with me then it was what it was.
I loved Tasha, but I hadn’t done anything that warranted her to get missing.
I was baffled, but I refused to let it worry me.
Maybe she’d come back in a few days with some wild ass story.
Maybe her mom got her caught up in some shit with her antics because I couldn’t see Maria volunteering to leave her home.
No matter what the issue was, it stung that Tasha couldn’t come to me and talk to me about it.
I left the beauty supply store with no answers.
Maria’s things were still in her crib as far as I knew, and Tasha had only asked for a few days off.
She was coming back. At least that was what I tried to make myself believe.