Chapter 8 #2
Last night was beautiful. Very fucking beautiful.
We grabbed food, watched The Chi, talked about Eve and even had sex for a second time.
As good of a night we had, I hated it. Crazy as hell right?
I hated it because I didn’t know how many more of those days we would have.
It was the guilt. It ate at me the most during the good moments, which was fucked up because good moments were far and in between.
She didn’t notice though. I smiled and participated in the conversations as if nothing was even going on.
I mastered that. Existing with guilt. Didn’t matter what went on inwardly, I kept a smile on my face and interacted as if my mind wasn’t racing with a lot of what if’s.
It was the same shit. Diary. On one hand I wanted to forget about everything, and pretend Diary didn’t exist. Thought about blocking Rochelle and carrying on with my life like nothing even happened.
On the other, I couldn’t do that shit. Even thinking about doing to her what my pops did to me made me sick to my stomach.
All of it did. Made me sick. Lying. Hiding.
Existing with that truth over my head. Not only had I been thinking about the results…
I was grieving too. How fucked up was that?
Grieving alone, over an old side chick I had a secret baby with. Fucked me up.
With a sigh, I leaned down and pressed my lips against Mahogany’s warm forehead, with gratitude. I savored the moment just like I savored every other moment. I hated it. So much that I was damn near brought to tears at the thought of losing her.
I laid there for about ten more minutes, feeling sorry for myself, before I decided I’d get up and help her out with the kids.
Because I didn’t want to wake her, I slid out of bed nice and slow.
Grabbing my phone from the nightstand, I saw that I had about twenty minutes before she would get up.
She stirred a little bit but didn’t wake.
After sliding into my house shoes, I crept out of the room.
The house was nice and quiet—different from what I was used to experiencing.
Because it was too early, I didn’t bother with the kids.
I went straight to the kitchen to make a little breakfast. We didn’t have breakfast often.
Just grabbed what we could before we went out which was cool.
However, because it was early and I didn’t need the me time Mahogany took between getting the kids ready, I decided to cook something up. Just a few waffles, eggs, and bacon.
Once I was finished cooking, I brewed her morning tea and carried it up to the bedroom. Right before I walked in, I heard her alarm sound.
“Good morning, beautiful,” I greeted.
She sat up and adjusted her bonnet. With a smile she said, “Good morning, D.”
I handed her the cup of tea and kissed her on the forehead. “I made breakfast. Chill for the morning. I got the kids.”
She drew back with raised brows and a smile. “Oh! You do? Okay daddy.”
I laughed and kissed her again. “Yeah, I got it. Do you, little baby.”
She closed her eyes and blew into her mug. “Thank you, baby.”
“You know I got you,” I told her before turning to leave the room. “They about to be surprised too.”
I hadn’t woken the kids up for school in a minute, if ever.
That was Mahogany’s territory but I kind of wanted to fix that.
With her working extra hours, I had been pulling my weight more and I actually enjoyed being in father mode.
It gave me a sense of purpose other than what its always been. Plus, my baby needed a little relief.
“Come here,” she said before I could leave the room.
I turned around. “What up, baby?”
With opened arms, she invited me for a hug I accepted.
I sat in it a while. Like I said, I savored every single moment I had with her.
Before she pulled away from the hug, she kissed me on the lips.
Think I gave a fuck about a little morning breath?
Shit no. I tried to slip a little tongue in and she said, “Ugh, no,” before falling over, laughing a little.
“You know I never gave a fuck,” I told her, with a laugh. “You need something else?” I asked with raised brows, pinching my bottom lip between my teeth.
She shook her head. “My tea, freaky.”
I laughed and told her it wouldn’t take but a couple minutes to take her through there.
We joked a little more before I left the room with the biggest smile on my face.
Damn shit was good. Before going to wake the kids, I stood in the hallway for a minute and silently asked God to keep her. To keep us.
“You said you ran the numbers twice?” I asked one of my team members, Josh.
Hours later, I was at work. My morning had started off good as hell, and I wanted to keep it that way. However, in the middle of doing quality control I spotted a mistake made by one of the team members. A mistake that might’ve been his fault but was on me.
“Yeah, I ran them twice.”
“Impossible. I found a miscalculation off back.”
“Shit man… my fault. I—”
“It’s cool. You weren’t supposed to calculate them anyway. However, the next time I give you a job please be as thorough as I told you to be. Too many lives on the line to be cutting corners.”
He nodded. “Got you boss. I thought—”
I waved him off, shaking my head. “Just told you it was cool. I got it.”
He wasn’t supposed to run the numbers in the first place.
I was the structural engineer, so I was supposed to.
However, the other day I asked him to take care of it.
My mind was on other shit. Like Diary. Like Erika.
Like my fucking marriage. As usual. Didn’t seem like anything would be changing about that any time soon.
I was slipping. Allowing outside shit to pour over into work knowing that in the position I was in, I couldn’t do that.
I worked on freeways. Had been working for the company for the past six years.
They trusted me with millions of lives. I fucked up and put one of the most important tasks on a team member that didn’t know shit for real about calculating for an overpass.
I couldn’t let what I had going on at home pour over into work.
You know how detrimental shit would’ve been had I not caught that miscalculation?
Yeah, there was an inspector but what if they would have missed it?
Shit, even if he found it, I would’ve been in trouble.
I had to get my shit together, and fast. I never fucked up at work. Ever. I wasn’t about to start now.
After Josh walked out of the office, my phone rang.
With annoyance, I grabbed it and picked it up expecting it to be exactly who it was.
Rochelle. For the third time this week, I ignored the call.
I felt like shit, but I did it anyway. I needed a minute.
She didn’t know about the results, and I didn’t know when I would be telling her.
A nigga just needed a couple more days—weeks really—to bask in the reality I already knew.
I wasn’t ready for things to change. Wasn’t ready to incorporate another child into the routine I already knew so well.
Brushing a hand down over my waves, I stared at the phone, watching as she called for a second time.
It could have been about anything. Diary was still in the hospital.
Maybe she wasn’t doing too well. Did it make me a fucked-up person to hope for that?
It did. Especially since I knew she was mine.
I just… I didn’t know how to handle what life had thrown at me.
The kid was mine.
Had concrete proof I never really needed but what the fuck was I supposed to do now?
Play daddy to a little girl I didn’t want?
Live two separate lives? How in the fuck was I supposed to do that?
With everything my life demanded? I couldn’t get a fuckin break.
Felt like the walls of life were closing in on me and I was insanely close to being taken out of this bitch.
The phone stopped ringing, and I sighed again, brushing another hand over the top of my head.
Right after the ringing stopped, a text message came through.
It was from her, of course. Letting me know that Diary was being discharged and that she needed a little help because she didn’t get off work until later.
Why in the hell was Ms. Rochelle still working? She had to be in her sixties.
I didn’t reply. Left it on delivered, stuffed the phone into my pocket and got back to work.
Did I want to be a deadbeat? To any of my children?
Hell naw, but fear was keeping me planted in the reality I knew.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to get to know Diary it was just that shit…
at this stage in my life I couldn’t. My marriage was barely hanging on by a thread.
Things went well yesterday and this morning.
Didn’t mean I was in the clear and we’d be good like that forever.
I was crippled with so much fear that even the good times scared me.
I just didn’t know how long the shit would last. I felt like if I played the situation with Diary right, I could navigate around it for a nice little minute.
Possibly. Hell yeah, I wanted to take it to the grave.
Prayed like hell God would look out for me in that way.
But shit, with my track record… there was no telling.
Which brought me right back around to the topic of fear.
Was too scared to make a move. Was too much of a real nigga to treat the situation like it didn’t exist too though.