~~~Chapter 5~~~ #2
“Jaylah, we’re just gonna have to accept that you’re gonna be my biggest baby,” my mama told me one day.
“And aint nothing wrong with that. As long as you don’t have any medical issues, then we’re not about to harp over your size.
Especially when you’re built like this, along with that face.
These other hoes could never. I need you to know that.
Big or small, you the shit, baby girl. And I’m not just saying that because I’m your mama.
You still got it, and these niggas will still be choosing.
Now, you might have some haters, thinking that they can poke at a weak spot.
But you just remember…they’ll be mad, because they could fucking never. ”
After a while, I realized that my mama was right.
And for whatever reason, I’d meet different girls and the claws would immediately come out.
I guess it was because of the shape and proportions.
Yes, my sisters were all fine, but their weight was controlled.
However, with me, the ass on me was more pronounced, especially when you considered how flat my stomach still was.
At the end of the day, I just had great genes, and some women couldn’t help the bitterness.
I was always accused of doing too much or dressing too provocatively.
When in reality, clothes just looked different on me, and bitches were mad because their man was looking.
Or they thought that if their man was around, he’d look. Which was far from my fault.
So, after having more than my share of shade from women, I always relished when women outside of my family showed love. So, that’s why I really fucked with Kema.
“I see you aint playing,” I mentioned, as I watched Kema quickly braid down the client’s short hair.
“Oh, you already know,” she bragged, while I sat next to a chocolate beauty.
“Damn.” My nose twinkled. “Is that your perfume I’m smelling?” I asked the girl next to me.
She smiled. “It’s Vince Camuto and YSL. I layer my scents.”
“Okay, okay. I might need to try that combination.”
The young Kenya Moore’s doppelganger eyes ping ponged back and forth between me and Riah. “Hey, are you and Jahreiah sisters? Because y’all favor. A lot.”
“Yeah, that’s my big sister.”
“Oh, okay.” She nodded with her bottom lip poked out.
“You must be a new client,” I assumed.
“I am. I’ve been waiting for months to get in her chair.”
“Yeah, sis stays booked.”
“Yesss,” she concurred. “I’ve gotten my hair done by y’all Auntie Rye too. But just like Jahreiah, she’s hard to book.”
Listening closely, I figured that the girl must’ve followed most of my family, which wasn’t uncommon. My entire family had massive followings on social media, as people loved to keep up with our lives.
“Yeah, Rye barely does hair these days,” I revealed. “You’d do better trying to book one of the girls at her shop.”
“Nah, I need the direct connect,” she claimed. “Or it won’t hit the same.”
“True,” I couldn’t deny, as I checked out her long, thick hair. “How are you getting your hair today?”
Smiling, she ran her fingers through her hair. “I need some new tape-ins added, and then some cute curls.”
I nodded my head with approval. “That’ll definitely be fye with all the hair you have.”
“Yeah, I hope so. I need to go home and put something on that nigga’s mind. Do you hear me?”
I smirked. “Your man’s been tripping?”
“Girl,” she huffed out, sounding like she’d been waiting to vent to somebody. Hell, anybody. But I wasn’t judging. Shit, it be like that sometimes. “That nigga was acting like he could breathe without me and shit. And now, I gotta show him that he fucking can’t.”
“Hey, I feel you. Sometimes you definitely gotta pop out and show a nigga.”
“Yesss.” She animatedly bounced in her seat.
“So, what’s the issue?” I nosily questioned, truly not giving a fuck. I loved hearing other people’s mess, and if I was overstepping, she could just say so. I didn’t give a damn, either way.
Once again, she sighed. “Kahreme is a good dude. Like seriously. He keeps me satisfied. He’s generous.
Smart. But he rarely has time for me, because he’s deep off in the streets, and I was getting tired of it.
So, I been fussing about it, and he was acting like he was cool with me being done.
Like, nigga, can’t you see how much I love your stupid ass?
If I wasn’t complaining, then he’d need to worry. ”
I nodded. “I hear you…but do you be nagging about it?”
She cut her eyes at me. “Nagging?”
“Yeah. I mean, is it a situation where you constantly wanna argue about it?”
Her lashes fluttered. “So, am I supposed to be passive when there’s something that I don’t like?”
“Not y’all over there having a therapy session,” Jahreiah snickered, as she was applying glue to her client’s wig cap.
“Right,” Kema tittered.
I waved them off, as I focused on Ms. Thing next to me. “No, you should definitely speak your mind, but constantly repeating yourself veers the course into something else.”
“So, when a nigga aint giving you what you need, how are you supposed to handle that?” She wanted to know.
“It depends on what you need. If it’s something that every woman naturally wants, then that’s one thing. But if it’s about him doing something that he was doing before he met you, then you’re the problem.”
“Wait, what?” She laughed. “I legitimately wanna hear how you came up with that.”
“I’m just tapping into the mind of a man,” I admitted.
“A lot of times when I hear women complain, we talk about how a man should be. But never do we stop to think about his mindset, and who he is at the core. I don’t care how much you love a nigga, he’s gonna be whoever he is.
And we shouldn’t enter into relationships, hoping to change them.
So, when it comes to a nigga in the streets…
you gotta meet him where he’s at. Accept it for what it is.
Because he’s not gonna walk away until he’s ready.
All the arguing in the world won’t change that.
If anything, it’ll just have y’all in a fucked-up space.
So, I say…either accept what he’s doing, and make peace with it.
Or leave him alone. Otherwise, y’all will never see eye to eye, and maybe he will walk away to find something with less drama. ”
“Yeah,” Jahreiah spoke up. “My daddy always says that a woman can’t force a man to do nothing. He gotta wanna do it on his own. So, constantly arguing with a nigga about the streets is probably just gonna lower the morale.”
“Okay, I get that,” ole girl claimed. “But how do you at least try to get the man to see where you’re coming from?”
“By speaking from the heart,” I offered. “Tell him how you feel. Without the rah-rah. With anybody it’s about the approach. Sweet-talk the nigga. Be soft. That’s how you gain control over these niggas.”
“Basically, manipulate his ass,” Kema jested.
We all laughed.
“You know what?” Ms. Thing uttered. “I appreciate this conversation. All bullshit aside. Because I really love that man, and the last thing I wanna do is push him away.”
I nodded. “Aint nothing wrong with loving and fighting for your man.”
“Right.” She lightly bumped my shoulder. “So, what’s tea with yours? I know you got a man somewhere.”
I shook my head, while scratching the back of my neck. “I’m single.”
Jahreiah pursed her lips. “So, you still on that?”
“Yep.” I nodded.
“Why?” My sister wanted to know.
I lifted the cell that was in my hand. “Because this is a new phone. I had to replace the last one, after he smashed it into my TV.”
“What?” Jahreiah paused, with a frown on her face. “And you’re just now mentioning that? I know that nigga didn’t put his hands on you—”
“He didn’t,” I stopped her before she could get started. “But I’m still done with his ass.”
“And why is that?” Ole girl questioned.
I shrugged. “Because he don’t love me like my daddy loves my mama.”
Kema and the other girls laughed, while Jahreiah smirked.
“We don’t expect y’all to get it,” my sister commented. “You would just have to be there. My daddy set the bar high, and he has the biggest shoes to fill. So, I get exactly what Jaylah is saying.”
“In other words, Sin J is a big stepper, because she was accepting nothing less,” Kema summed up.
Jahreiah shimmied her shoulders. “Pretty much.”
“Right.” I nodded, as I crossed my legs. “And now, it’s on to the next.”
Ole girl next to me smiled. “I like your style. You don’t be playing with these niggas. I can tell.”
“And don’t. Anyway, what’s your name?”
“I’m Paisley.”
“Jaylah,” I offered.
“Here.” She handed her phone to me. “Put your IG in here. We can link and do brunch or something.”
I nodded, as I typed in my username. “I’m down.”
“Okay, cool.” She bobbed her head, after I handed her phone back. “I’ma hold you to that. Because I know that my hard-headed ass is gonna need more advice. Cause I stay giving that nigga a hard time.”
I lightly laughed. “Aint nothing wrong with it. It’s alright to be his headache sometimes.”