Leighton #2
Ashley’s excitement was soothing my anxiety for the moment.
I knew when I called and told my parents and siblings, they’d be excited too.
I loved my family, and I was lowkey embarrassed that I moved away to follow my dreams and ended up a single mother.
My parents loved their grandchild, however, and when he was born, my father put $1,000 in my bank account and told me he didn’t want to hear anything about it.
I had to do this. I wanted to do it for myself, of course, but I wanted to make my parents proud.
I also wanted my son to be proud of me once he was old enough to understand.
Kimora Lee Simmons was one of my idols. My goal was to be a fashion mogul.
The fact that my brain was about to on overload was overwhelming, but I knew I could do it.
Going back home to prepare for the show wasn’t exactly necessary, but I wanted to.
I would go crazy alone. I needed to be surrounded by family.
My parents and siblings would be fighting over who would watch my son.
I could be totally at ease because he was with family.
That would also allow me time to work extra hours without trying to take care of Jaxon alone while exhausted.
If the fashion show was a success, it would change my life.
Anxiety once again elevated my heart rate.
There was only one thing about going back home that got my nerves started again.
When just the thought of a person made your heart race and palms sweat, that was a powerful person indeed.
However, it had been three years since the last time I saw Rodney. Or Rage as the streets called him.
After getting over the heartbreak, dealing with another man, and having a child, thoughts of Rage still caved my chest. He was my first love.
The first man I had sex with. He was also my first heartbreak.
I had sex with one other man after Rage and before Markell.
Neither Markell nor Jamaal made me feel the way Rage did during sex.
It was a feeling that I prayed I’d find again.
The connection we had was so deep that when we had sex it was more like making magic.
Our bodies were so in sync. Rage was rough around the edges in every sense of the word, but he knew how to be gentle with me. Rage made me feel protected. Safe.
An incoming call interrupted what I was doing on my phone. I was going to make a flyer to announce that I was looking for sponsors. The call was coming from my sister, Allison.
“Hey, boo,” I couldn’t wait to tell her about the fashion show. We were ten months apart with me being the oldest. I was twenty-six, and our baby sister, Lexi was twenty.
“How are you doing?” Instantly, I knew something was off. When I was growing up, my parents, Lexi, and I joked that Lexi had a built-in ray of sunshine inside her body. She was always chipper and in good spirits.
She sounded somber which was a red flag for me. “I’m doing good. What about you? You sound kind of down.” Leaning back in my chair, I waited for an answer. I dropped the hint that I had picked up on her mood, so she wouldn’t lie and say there was nothing wrong.
“I know you don’t usually talk about him, and I don’t want me doing so to trigger you. I also know he was a big part of your life, and you may want to know.”
She could have only been talking about Rage. He was dead. He had to be. My chest tightened, and my throat felt as if it closed up. Nausea twisted my intestines as tears filled my eyes. I didn’t want to hear the words. I couldn’t take it. Lexi spoke again as a salty tear ran down my cheek.
“He’s not dead bae. He was shot in the chest, but he’s not dead.”
Upon hearing the words, I cried like a baby.
He wasn’t dead, but I couldn’t breathe. How was it possible for him to have that kind of hold on me for three years?
My sister sat on the other end of the phone in silence while she let me get it all out.
I didn’t even try to stop myself. Essentially, Rage chose the streets over me.
I wanted him to come to Charlotte with me, but he didn’t want to leave the hood.
I was super glad that he was okay but hearing about Rage being shot confirmed for me that I did the right thing by walking away.
Three weeks after the invitation to do a fashion show for a small fashion week type event in Diamond Cove, I was walking into my parents’ home.
My father was right behind me with Jaxon in his carrier.
I had barely pulled in front of the house good before he was rushing out to get his grandchild.
He told me to leave my suitcase in the car, and he would get it once he put Jaxon down.
Since my father didn’t have sons, he was elated when I found out I was having a boy.
For a few days after I found out about Rage being shot, I could barely focus.
I kept waiting to get a call that he’d taken a turn for the worst and passed away.
That call never came. The donations from sponsors did start coming in, however.
Most were small, but there were a few large ones.
I had a total of $17,000, and the show was in two and a half weeks.
Lexi was at the house, and the moment my father set Jaxon’s carrier down, my mother and sister made a beeline for him making me laugh.
“Me and this lady are going to fight,” Lexi stated as she rolled her eyes.
“Wait,” my eyes cut into slits, and I inched closer to her. “Let me see your grills.”
Lexi smiled proudly showing off the gold grills or ‘slugs’ in her mouth. Her smile widened, and I got a good look at the gold machine gun that went across two of her teeth.
“That’s really dope,” I leaned in closer inspecting it even more.
“Thank you. It’s custom.”
“I told her I want one,” my mother stated as she cradled Jaxon in her arms.
My mother’s comment made my lips push out. “Okay old lady,” I jested.
“Ain’t nothing over here old but my money.”
“I know that’s right,” my smile was just as wide as Lexi’s. I was loving being at home already. My parents lived alone in a four-bedroom house.
Growing up, my friends always said I had the cool parents.
I never disagreed with the statement because it was true.
For the first thirteen years of my life, we lived in the hood.
My father worked during the day as a warehouse manager for many years.
I had no idea how long the idea to change careers had been on his mind, but one day my father announced that he was going to get a real estate license.
For two months straight, I watched him get off work three days a week and go straight to class.
He aced the exam and got on at a real estate firm.
A year in, he was able to buy a house of his own.
Three years in, he retired from his warehouse job and did real estate full-time.
My mother was a paralegal and had been one for ten plus years.
In the last year, she’d started working part-time.
Even when we didn’t have much, I loved my family down.
We were rich when it came to important things like love and strong bonds.
My father busted his ass providing for us and when he fell short, which was rare, my mother was there to hold it down.
I couldn’t wait for my fashion line to take off so I could pay off my parents’ home.
An idea popped into my head as I studied my sister’s grills. “Who did them?” my eyes widened with excitement. “I want some of the models in my show to get custom grills. They can wear them for the promo ads.”
Scratching the back of her neck, Lexi looked off to the side while my mother coughed. My head whipped from Lexi to my mother then back to Lexi.
“Um, Rage made them,” the words tumbled out fast.
For the second time in two weeks, I’d heard his name. No matter how I felt, I had to play it cool. “Oh. I didn’t know he made grills.”
“Yeah, he has a shop and everything. I think that’s the reason he got shot. Two guys came in trying to rob him.”
My heart sank. Proud was an understatement.
Especially when the reason for how breakup had been him not wanting to elevate past the streets.
Ironically, the very thing that removed him from the street life was the reason he got shot.
My feelings were conflicted because I was happy that he had a shop but sad that he was almost killed.
At that moment, I made the decision not to be petty.
“Okay, well I still want them. Rage and I didn’t break up because he did anything to me. He just didn’t want to leave Diamond Cove, and I didn’t think long distance would work.” I downplayed the situation.
“The day I went to get my molds done, Kira’s trifling ass was hanging around. The way she runs after him is sickening and most times, he pays her dust.”
“You got any luggage in the trunk that I need to get?” my father interrupted coming in the house with my suitcase and Jaxon’s bag.
“No, that’s it. I am going to have to go home for a day or two next week, so I didn’t bring too much stuff.
I’m mostly going to be working with the models doing fittings and rehearsals.
The rest of the time I’ll be looking over pieces that have been finished and sketching new ones.
In other words, I’ll be too busy to be worried about being cute.
Leggings, sweats, and tees are all I needed. ”
I was rambling because I was grateful for the distraction. More than likely, because years had passed, and I had a baby by another man, Lexi probably assumed that I was over Rage. But I wasn’t, and I didn’t want to hear about the women he was bedding.
Thankfully, the conversation switched, and I sat down to check an email that I’d just received a notification for.
My heart slammed into my ribcage as my eyes darted over the words.
Even after reading the message two times, I still couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing.
It couldn’t have been a joke because it was a notification from the platform that I used for sponsors.
Markell had signed up to be a sponsor for my fashion show, and he donated $15,000.
Appreciative would never be a word that I used to describe how I felt about his donation.
I just wasn’t sure if I should be relieved or disgusted.
Disgusted mainly because I wasn’t in the position to send it back.
I wanted to be independent and tell him to kiss my ass, but I wanted my fashion show to be a success more than I hated Markell.
After the day I hung up on him, he called me four different times.
He called the next day, a week later, two days after that, and when I was four months pregnant.
I didn’t answer any of his calls. He had also texted me a few times, but I deleted them without reading them.
During my entire pregnancy, I didn’t post full body pictures on social media, and I had never posted my child.
Markell didn’t know if I had a baby or not.
But he’d already made it clear that he was married, and he had no desire to be in my child’s life.
I never asked him to provide for him because what good was money if he couldn’t publicly acknowledge my son?
That was my thought process behind not putting him on child support.
I was learning the hard way, however that kids were expensive as hell. Everything was falling on me and it wasn’t fair. So yeah, my mind was made up. I was keeping the $10,000, and it was still fuck Markell.