Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jameera
Sitting on Amill’s plush sofa, we swiped through potential influencers for our upcoming launch.
A few of the girls Amill met in Miami made the cut, lightening our search.
A text from Mama Marissa came through on her MacBook, and Amill clicked to open it.
It took her to TikTok. I couldn’t understand how Amill could withstand social media.
I got on for business, then got right off.
The space could be so negative when blogs platformed randoms who made up stories about you and your loved ones for pennies.
I didn’t have enough fingers and toes to count how many times I saw something negative and untrue about Q online.
Travis posted the video two hours ago. It was a time-lapse video of him walking through Amill’s apartment, showing off her sanctuary.
The living room, closet, bedroom, and terrace were all given their time to shine.
Then he went into her office, and the camera panned down to the sketches of our unreleased spring collection.
I gasped and my blood boiled. We had a whole rollout planned to hint at the color scheme, style changes, and all of that before showing the sketches, and Amill’s fanned-out ass man beat us to the punch. The caption of the video said, “Get you a girl with her own shit.” I wanted to gag.
“I’m going to text him to take it down. It’s only been up for thirty minutes,” Amill explained, furiously tapping around on her phone.
I went to the comments, and everyone was talking about the sketches they saw.
Thankfully, the comments were favorable.
But that wasn’t the point. All of the likes and shares Travis got were off Amill’s back.
I bit my tongue, went to his page, and noticed that video had about two hundred thousand views in thirty minutes while the rest of his videos sat at fifty and sixty thousand.
The last video he had that reached a million views had a picture of Amill on the cover.
I clicked on it and music played loudly in the background.
Amill drunkenly danced with Travis, his hands roaming her body.
She pulled away and tried to leave but stumbled into the pool.
Travis shook his head before jumping in to fish her out.
That solidified everything I thought about Travis. I hated him for Amill.
“Why would he post this?” I inquired, shoving the MacBook into her lap.
“It was funny,” Amill answered.
“Amill, you shouldn’t be content for his pages or livestreams. When you get to Atlanta with him, all I see is videos of you drinking and showing your ass,” I complained.
“Mama Marissa is already giving me a lecture. I don’t need to be jumped with lectures at the same time,” Amill whined, sounding just like Yarissa.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The banging at the door startled both of us. We sat up on the couch, and I paused the movie, placing the MacBook on the couch next to me just in case we needed to run.
“Let me look at the camera to see who that is,” Amill whispered as the incessant banging continued.
“OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!” Q barked from the other side of the door.
Amill hopped from the couch and rushed towards the door. I was slower to get up from the couch, but I wasn’t far behind.
“You ain’t shit! I know you knew what Jameera was doing! Get the fuck outta my way,” Q ranted, brushing past Amill as soon as she opened the door.
Her mouth slipped into a wide, shocked O and her head tilted to the side as Q stormed over to me.
“You fucking around on me with a nigga that just wanted to use your stupid ass for clout?!” Q accused, holding his phone up a mere two inches from my face.
There it was again. Fight-flight-freeze.
I froze, again. My eyes involuntarily widened seeing the misleading picture of me and D3.
I didn’t freeze out of guilt, but out of surprise.
It had been almost two weeks since the incident, and I filed it away in the back of my mental rolodex when we resigned as D3’s stylist.
“You did that shit! I know how you look when you’re guilty of some shit. Your bug eyes always give you away!” Q hissed, punching the wall in the foyer. “I hope it was worth throwing everything we built away!”
“I don’t know what he’s saying online, but it’s not true. No matter how bad that picture looks,” I sputtered, watching Q pull his bloody fist back.
Out of instinct, I reached for Q’s hand to help him.
Since having the kidney transplant, he’d often find bruises that he couldn’t remember where they’d come from.
The doctors said one of his meds could make him bruise more easily and heal slower.
Punching the wall was sure to leave him swollen and healing for days.
Unlike any other time, Q refused my help.
He pulled his hand away from me and continued talking shit.
“Don’t try to fucking help me. I can take care of my fucking self! You pillow talking to that nigga about how easily I bruise and shit. You’re the last motha fucka I want to help me.”
“Q, what are you talking about? I don’t even know D3 to talk about our business to him!” I argued.
“Pictures of you and that nigga are everywhere, and he speaking on my fucking business, but you wanna stand in my face and keep lying. At least stand on that shit you did!” He barked, a few inches away from my face.
I pushed Q back, and Amill jumped in between us. “Get the fuck out of the way, Amill. Do y’all even be working when y’all claim to be so busy?” Q interrogated, glancing from Amill to me. “Or you be out hoeing with Amill?”
HAH!
Amill gasped. “Now why am I getting called a hoe?”
“I know why your location randomly has you in Miami, Amill!” He snapped his neck in her direction.
She zipped her lips and looked away, making me wonder what secrets they were harboring.
“Birds of a fucking feather, huh? Fucking embarrassing! You knew what the fuck Jameera was doing, and you’re supposed to be my sister.
Fuck both of y’all!” He turned his anger on Amill, who looked both guilty and amused.
“What are you even talking about?”
Q pressed the button on his phone and music started playing at a medium volume.
A smooth melodic beat played through the speakers for a second before D3’s voice cut through the music.
The longer I listened, the more my blood boiled.
My jaw clenched, and my nostrils flared.
Disgust roared through me as I heard D3 spit a bunch of shit that wasn’t true.
I understand how horrible this looked and sounded, but none of it was true.
“I wasn’t fucking him, Q!” I broke down crying.
“I only went to his hotel because Khaleesi had the flu and couldn’t get a courier to take the pieces we grabbed for him.
Nothing happened. He touched me, I pushed him off of me and got the hell up out of there!
We can ask Khaleesi. Call her! She sent me his hotel information and his phone number.
That’s the only reason it’s in my phone.
I never even talked to him on the phone though.
All of our communication went through Khaleesi or my dad! ”
“Then how the fuck does he know all of my fuckin’ business?” Q retorted.
“I don’t know,” I lied.
Deep down, I knew the answer, but I didn’t want to believe that my father would have stooped so low.
However, that was the only viable answer.
There was no way that D3 recorded that song and had us all over the blogs without my father being privy to something.
My phone hadn’t rang from him that day, and I was fighting back tears as I stormed over to the couch to find my phone.
“Fuck outta my face. Y’all all think I’m fucking stupid!” Q roared, marching towards the door.
I took a deep breath, trailing behind him. “Q!”
“Stop fucking following me, Jameera! I don’t have shit to say. Stay down here with Amill and keep doing whatever the fuck y’all always be doing!” He spat, slamming the door behind him.
My heart shattered, and I stood there trying to gather my breath and thoughts.
“Jameera,” Amill’s soft voice called my name as her hand landed on my shoulder.
Snapping out of my own thoughts, I reached for the door handle and rushed out to find Q.
When I entered the hallway, I saw him stepping onto the elevator.
I sprinted in his direction. My fuzzy slippers slapped against the floor with each step.
Our eyes locked, and Q pressed the button to close the elevator doors.
“Q! Please, wait!” I shouted.
“Fuck you!” He snarled.
“Fuck me? Is it that easy for you to throw me away? No, fuck you! When you realize you fucked up, don’t come looking for me!”
My light sniffles grew into a loud sob as the doors slid closed.
I was devastated that Q didn’t take the time to listen.
However, the years of letting things slide with my father were what really pushed me over the edge.
He was the only person who would tell D3 that stuff.
Not only did my father allow me to be publicly embarrassed, but he was willing to ruin my relationship in the process. Growing up, his work always came first.
I was a junior in high school when my mother died in a car accident. Instead of my father spending time with me to help me through the grief, he moved me closer to family so he could take on more jobs in peace. I was constantly left alone in that big ass house during my senior year.
He was on the road for most of my major accomplishments during my senior year of high school.
Missing my homecoming and prom send-off, plus my honor society ceremonies.
The only thing he made it to was my graduation.
It took a lot of work for us to get to where we were over the last few years, but it all went down the drain.
Speaking of the devil, a call came through from my father. I almost broke my pointer finger stabbing the answer button.
“How could you?!” I screeched before emitting a loud sob.
“Jameera, I didn’t know anything about the song or what y’all had going on.”
GAH!
I gasped aloud. My father sounded so nonchalant about the situation, and the fact that he believed the lies rubbed salt in the gaping wound. “I didn’t have anything going on with D3! He’s a fucking liar!”
“Jameera, he has a picture of you in his hotel room. Y’all look very…”
“UHHHHH! Don’t ever call me again!” I grumbled and hung up in my father’s face. If that was all my father had to say about that situation, he could go to the deepest pits of hell.
“Come on, Jameera. Let’s go back inside,” Amill coaxed, wrapping her arm around my shoulder.
“No,” I brushed her off. “I need to be alone right now!”
“No, I’m not letting you leave in your condition,” Amill hopped in front of me and wrapped me up in her arms. “Fuck, Q! You’re going to be good regardless. When he comes back groveling, make him kiss your ass real good before you forgive him.”
I laid my head on her shoulder and expelled all of my feelings in the middle of the hallway while she held me tight.
Throughout the duration of my relationship with Q, we’d never gotten into it like that.
He’d never talked to me that way. I was always given princess treatment, and I didn’t know how to handle whatever the hell just happened.