Chapter 40 Nyree
My earth was shattered. Where the hell did this come from?
I left out of respect for my wife's wishes but as soon as I got outside, I realized I couldn't go back home. I had just emptied my apartment.
I went to the U-Haul and got a temporary storage then booked a hotel room. As soon as I got in my room, I looked for Isis on social media. She wasn't even on my friends list. I found her page and called her through messenger. She answered smugly like she'd been waiting for my call.
Isis was this bitch I fucked with a few times over the years but it was never serious. I had never been in a relationship with her; she was just somebody I fucked from time to time. It was a friends with benefits situation since she was fucking other niggas too.
"Hello?" Isis answered.
"What the fuck is going on with you, Isis?" I said, and she took it as a joke. Like she felt gleeful that she made a mess of my relationship with Asia.
"I just figured your fiancé should know," she said with a giggle.
"Why the fuck would you tell her we have a kid together?"
"Because we do.”
"Fuck are you talking about? We never even fucked without a condom."
"Yes we did," she readily supplied. "Remember that night on your birthday?"
The memory jogged me. "That was one time."
"Well, that's all it takes."
My mind was reeling with the possibility that I might have a child with Isis if she was telling the truth.
"How the hell did you even find out about my fiancé? We're not even friends on social media." I was grasping for straws and I knew it but I couldn't take my life crumbling before my eyes.
Isis giggled again. "Your boy Que screenshotted your status."
"Que?" I could hardly believe my ears. Que had always been a hater, but this much?
Isis continued. "He has always tried to push up on me but I never wanted his weird ass. But now that you're engaged, I guess he thought this was his way in."
I couldn't begin to comprehend what the hell was going on. I struggled to figure out how to navigate this.
"How are you so sure it's mine anyway, since you were fucking other niggas around the time you were fucking me? And why tell Asia when you never mentioned it to me? I never even knew you were pregnant!"
It was true. Isis and I had lost touch years ago but I figured she had found a new nigga or something. I had forgotten about her.
"I did DNA tests on the other guys I slept with and none of them are the father. That leaves you." Another gut punch.
"Why would you go to my wife instead of me?"
Isis chuckled. "Well, she's not your wife yet. I had to let her know what she was getting into."
Isis didn't know that Asia and I were already married, but I wished I could go snatch this bitch. I didn't need this problem in my life. Things were already strained with our circle not fucking with our engagement. Now we were married and I might have a baby with another woman.
"I want a DNA test too," I said.
"Gladly," she remarked, and we ended the call.
I hung up the phone and threw it across the hotel room. It bounced off the wall and landed on the carpet. I didn't even check to see if it was broken. I didn't care.
Four fucking years. Four years and I never knew I had a son? How the fuck does that happen?
I paced back and forth across the small hotel room, feeling like a caged animal.
My hands were shaking, and my mind was racing so fast I could barely form a coherent thought.
All I could see was Asia's face—the hurt, the betrayal, the anger—as she told me to get out.
All I could hear was Isis's smug voice telling me I had a child.
A child. A four-year-old boy who looked just like me. A little human being with my blood, my DNA, my name.
"Fuck!" I yelled, slamming my fist into the wall. Pain shot up my arm, but I welcomed it. Physical pain was easier to deal with than whatever the hell was happening inside my chest right now.
I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor, cradling my throbbing hand.
How did my life go from perfect to fucked up so quickly?
This morning I was on top of the world—married to the woman of my dreams, moving my stuff into our place, ready to start our life together.
And now I was in a hotel room, alone, with a wife who thought I lied to her and a child I never knew existed.