CHAPTER 3
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Kaleasha “Kales”
A week had passed since Quay got locked up, and every day since then had felt heavier than the one before.
The house didn’t even feel like a home no more. It felt cold. Empty. Wrong. My front door had finally been replaced, but every time I looked at it, all I could think about was the sound of it getting kicked in and my whole life turning upside down.
I still wasn’t sleeping right. Every little noise had me jumping. Every time my phone lit up, my chest got tight. Half the calls were people being nosy, and the other half were bill collectors and people looking for money I didn’t have.
That was the part nobody talked about.
When a man get locked up, it don’t just hit him. It hit everybody tied to him.
Quay had made sure I was straight. The rent was paid, the lights stayed on, food stayed in the fridge, and if I needed something for school, he made a way. I knew how he got his money, but I also knew what it felt like to be taken care of when life had already taken enough from me.
Now he was gone.
And I was sitting in that house with locked accounts, an evidence tag memory in every room, and bills coming due like the world didn’t care that mine had just fallen apart.
The police had taken everything. Cash, phones, paperwork, even stuff I felt like had nothing to do with nothing.
All of Quay’s accounts had been locked, and the little bit I had to my name wasn’t about to stretch far enough to cover rent, utilities, groceries, and everything else that kept real life moving.
I had missed class. I had missed work. And after everything that had happened, I wasn’t even sure if my job was still my job.
So there I was, sitting on the couch in an oversized T-shirt and some leggings, scrolling through social media and job posts, trying not to panic.
I was looking at a listing for front desk work at some little office across town, wondering if they’d even consider me with my schedule, when somebody knocked at the door.
I frowned wondering who it was since I wasn’t expecting nobody.
For a second, I thought maybe it was another reporter, or maybe Ryann, or maybe one of Quay’s people finally deciding to show they face now that shit had hit the fan. I got up slow and walked to the door, peeking out first before opening it.
Standing there was a woman I had never seen before with a baby on her hip.
She was pretty in a loud kind of way. Long hair laid, lashes thick, lip gloss shining, attitude already written all over her face. The baby on her hip looked about one, maybe a little younger, with big eyes and a pouty mouth.
The woman looked me up and down like she was sizing me up before she even opened her mouth.
“Quay here?” she asked.
My stomach tightened.
The way she said his name let me know she wasn’t just nobody.
“No,” I said, keeping my hand on the door. “He not here.”
She shifted the baby on her hip. “Well, where he at?”
I stared at her for a second. “He in jail.”
That made her whole face change, but not in shock. More like irritation.
“Are you serious?” she snapped.
“Yes, I’m serious,” I said, my voice flat. “Now who are you?”
She looked me dead in my face and said, “I’m Victoria. I’m Quay Junior’s mama.”
For a second, everything in me went still.
I looked at the baby.
Then I looked back at her.
Then back at the baby again.
The baby had Quay’s whole face.
I ain’t even know what hit me first…the disrespect, the shock, or the embarrassment of standing there finding this shit out at my own front door.
Still, I kept my face hard.
“And what exactly you want?” I asked.
Victoria let out a little laugh with no humor in it. “You can help by being a good little stepmama and getting me some money for my baby since Quay can’t.”
I know she thought that was cute, but it wasn’t.
I opened the door a little wider and stepped outside, closing it behind me halfway.
“First of all,” I said, “watch your mouth when you talking to me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Or what?”
“Or you can take your ass from in front of my house before you got a real problem.”
Victoria shifted the baby again and smirked. “Your house? Girl, please. This look like Quay’s house. You just the bitch he was playing house with.”
That one hit, but I wasn’t about to let her see it.
I folded my arms and looked at her like she had lost her mind. “If you came over here for money, you can turn right back around. I ain’t got shit for you.”
Her face twisted up. “So you mean to tell me you over here laid up in this man house, probably sleeping in his bed every night, and my son can’t get nothing?”
“Your son’s father is in jail,” I shot back. “And if you knew him well enough to pull up over here, then you should already know that.”
“I do know that,” she snapped. “That’s why I’m here. Because unlike you, I got a baby to feed.”
I laughed then, short and bitter. “Unlike me? Bitch, you don’t know what the fuck I got going on.”
She looked me up and down again, slower this time, with straight disgust on her face.
“Well, from the looks of it, your fat ass ain’t missing no meals.”
That did it.
I stepped down off the porch so fast she actually took half a step back.
“Listen here, bitch,” I said, my voice low and sharp. “Don’t you ever fix your mouth to play with me like I won’t drag you up and down this damn walkway.”
Victoria’s eyes flared, but she lifted her chin like she still had something to prove. “You mad at me like I’m the one who lied to your dumb ass.”
My chest burned.
Because that was the part I hated.
Not that she was there.
Not even that she had his baby.
It was the fact that standing there looking stupid in my own doorway, I knew there was truth in what she was saying.
Quay had never told me about no baby.
Never told me about no Victoria.
Never gave me a warning that one day a woman could pop up at the house with his child on her hip and blow another hole through what was left of my pride.
But I was too angry to sit in that hurt.
So I let the rage hold me up.
“Ain’t nobody dumb but you if you thought pulling up over here disrespecting me was gone get you paid,” I said. “I told you I ain’t got no money.”
She laughed in my face. “That’s because you lying. Quay always got money.”
“Did you not hear what the fuck I said?” I yelled. “The police took everything out this house for evidence. Cash, phones, paperwork, all of it. Every account tied to him is locked. So no, I don’t have shit to give you.”
For the first time, she looked like she halfway believed me.
But her attitude still wasn’t gone.
“So what I’m supposed to do?” she asked. “My baby still gotta eat. Pampers still gotta be bought. Formula still cost. Jail don’t stop life.”
“And you think I don’t know that?” I snapped. “My bills due too. Rent due too. Lights due too. My whole life got flipped upside down, and I’m trying to figure this shit out just like everybody else.”
Victoria sucked her teeth. “That sound like a you problem.”
I pointed toward the sidewalk. “Then your problem need to get the fuck off my porch.”
She stared at me hard, rocking the baby on her hip while he looked between us with sleepy eyes, too young to know how ugly the world could be.
Then she said, “Quay always did have a type. Loud, thick, and clueless.”
I smiled, but it wasn’t from amusement.
“Nah,” I said. “His type must be bitter baby mamas with bad timing and too much mouth.”
She gasped like I was supposed to care.
“You know what? Fuck you.”
“Fuck you too.”
She stepped closer, and I stepped too, because I wasn’t backing down from shit.
“If I come back over here,” she said, “I better have something for my son.”
I looked at the baby, then back at her.
And my voice turned cold.
“If you come back over here disrespecting me again, I hope that baby ain’t with you.”
Her whole face hardened. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” I said. “Because I’m trying real hard to keep it together out of respect for that child, but the next time you come in my face with that slick shit, I’m gone beat the fuck out of you.”
For a second, all she did was stare.
Then she shifted Quay Junior higher on her hip, then mumbled, “Trifling ass bitch,” and turned to walk away.
I stood there on the porch watching her go, my whole body shaking with pure anger.
Because that whole exchange had cracked something open in me.
A baby.
Quay had a whole fucking baby.
And the fact that I had just found out the way I did was crazy.
No warning. No explanation. No soft way to take it. Just another woman at my door with his face staring back at me from her arms.
I went back inside and locked the door, then leaned against it like my legs had suddenly gone weak.
The house felt even quieter now.
Meaner somehow.
I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, but I refused to cry.
I was tired of crying.
Crying wasn’t gone unlock no accounts.
Crying wasn’t gone pay no bills.
Crying wasn’t gone bring Quay home and make him explain why every day seemed to come with a new secret attached to his name.
So I pushed off the door and went back to the couch.
I picked my phone up and stared at the screen.
Jobs.
That was all I could focus on.
Because one thing was clear now more than ever: whatever life Quay had built around me was gone. Whether it came back or not, I couldn’t sit there waiting on it.
I was going to have to do what the fuck I had to do.
Just like Victoria said she had to.
Just like any woman did when life stop giving a damn about being fair.
My fingers moved across the screen as I filled out another application, jaw tight, heart bruised, pride bleeding from wounds nobody could see.
And the whole time, one ugly truth sat in my chest like a stone: I didn’t know Quay nearly as well as I thought I did.
And if loving him meant finding out who he really was piece by piece after everything fell apart, then maybe the worst part of this still wasn’t what he got arrested for.
Maybe the worst part was realizing how much of my life had been built on shit I was never told.
By the end of that night, I had applied to six jobs, cried exactly zero times, and made one promise to myself.
I wasn’t about to drown behind no man.
Not Quay’s lies, or his baby mama’s bullshit… none of it.
If I had to claw my way through this one angry day at a time, then that was exactly what the fuck I was gone