Prologue #2
I often go to God, asking Him why I couldn’t be my aunt’s daughter, instead of my mom’s child.
Auntie Twan didn’t have any children though.
Me, and Nari were the closest thing to having a child that she would ever get because she didn’t want children of her own.
She was 35 years old, and she’ll tell you loud and clear that she wasn’t pushing any children out of her perfect body.
My mom, and my auntie Twan weren’t my grandma’s only children.
They had a younger brother, which was my uncle Troy.
He got locked up last year. His ass tried to rob someone.
Dumb ass really walked up on a woman, without a weapon in sight, and attempted to rob her of her purse, jewelry, and whatever money that he thought she had.
I was glad that his ass was locked up. I had a love/ hate relationship with my uncle.
He could be cool, but then there were times when he tried to play that overly strict daddy role with me, and I hated that shit.
He had a few more years left to serve on his sentence.
If he was free, I’m sure that he would have been at my graduation.
He could have taken my mom’s ticket, since her ass wasn’t here.
“I’m so proud of you, my girl. Show me that diploma. Girl, let me see it!” my auntie said, her phone out, recording, so that I could show the diploma.
I did just that, and jumping up in her high heels that were just as high as mine, she happily took a video, while continuing to tell me how proud of me she was.
She ended the video, placed her phone in the back pocket of the jeans that she was wearing, and wrapped her arms around me.
It was one of those hugs I’d seen the other women doing with their daughters.
One of those hugs where I wouldn’t have to question if this woman loved me because you felt it in the way she was squeezing me and rocking me back and forth.
We pulled away, and I looked up at her. My auntie was the ultimate ‘it’ girl. She was the woman that I looked up to. Some would find it sad, maybe even disturbing that she would be my motivation, or a goal for me, but she was.
As I was standing here, looking at her, adults and some of the high schoolers were walking past, looking at her and I’m sure it’s because they knew who she was.
To make it sound a little classier, I’ll say that my aunt is a dancer.
If I had to say it in terms of what everyone else labeled her, I’ll say that she’s a stripper.
However the fuck you put it, just know that she was the best dancer out right now in Miami, and she was making money out of the ass.
You could literally see the money on her every time she stepped out of the house.
Even right now, she was standing before me, dripped in vintage Dior, diamonds dancing all around her neck, her ears, and her wrist. The purse that she wore was something beautiful enough to make my mouth drop, and ask her if I could have it once she was finished with it, but I knew that her answer would be no.
Don’t get me wrong, my auntie wasn’t stingy with her pieces, and she’ll hand me down some of her things, but whenever it looked like things where she was the only one in the world with them, she wasn’t going to come up off it.
“I’m so proud of you, my Deja. I know for a fact that this road wasn’t easy but look at you. My baby. My first grandchild,” my grandma cooed, coming over to me, handing me a beautiful bouquet of yellow roses.
She knew that yellow was my favorite color. I smiled big once she handed the roses to me. I thanked her for them, pulled her to me, and I kissed my grandma plenty of times on her cheek. I was a grandma’s baby for sure. I loved this lady to pieces.
Everyone had a gift of some sort for me.
Flowers, cards, gift bags, the whole nine.
Moments like this is why I didn’t feel any kind of way about my parents not being here.
Look at all this love that was around me.
My godmom Arielle is my mom’s best friend.
When she hugged me, she immediately tried to apologize to me for my mom not being here, but I cut her off, letting her know that it was fine.
My mom was such a sensitive topic for me, and with the good mood that I was in, I didn’t want to talk about her and ruin the good vibes.
My family took so many pictures of me. By the time we finished, my cheeks were hurting from all the smiling that I was doing. My aunt already made the reservations for lunch, so now that the picture taking was over with, we were all getting ready to head to the restaurant.
Of course, I chose to ride with my aunt.
I was the only one to ride with her because she had a two-seater.
She pushed a beautiful, black Audi R8. This car was out of this world kind of nice.
It was gifted to her by one of her niggas.
At least, that’s the story I overheard her telling my mom the other day.
She just got this whip. It hasn’t even been a month since she’s had it. Since that was the case, when we stepped inside, you could still smell the new car scent.
I placed all my items down on the floor, and as I was doing that, my auntie started up the car. It made a loud, rumbling noise once it started, coming to life.
“How you feeling?” she asked me.
“I’m good, auntie. What kind of food does the restaurant have that you’re taking me?” I asked, purposely changing the subject because I knew exactly why she was asking me how I was feeling. She was trying to get deep with me, and that’s not what I wanted.
“Stop, Don’t change the subject so fast. I’m asking you how do you feel about Meka not coming?
Talk to me, Toot. You’ll hold that in, and don’t tell nobody how you’re truly feeling.
You know I told you that you could always talk to me about anything.
Tell me what’s on your mind,” she pushed.
Meka was my mom. It was short for Tameka.
“Auntie, I don’t feel no kind of way about it.
She knew that it was never in her plans to come to my graduation, which is why she picked that fight with me last night.
All throughout high school, she’s been telling me that I was going to flunk out just like she did.
That didn’t happen, so she couldn’t bear the thought of even coming down here to watch me walk the stage.
That’s her loss, man. I ain’t sitting here crying because she decided not to come to my graduation,” there was anger in my voice as I spoke.
“Alright. I’m going to leave it alone. Ima talk to her though.
That shit not cool. It don’t matter what fuckin issues ya’ll got going on, nothing in the world should have stopped her from seeing you graduate.
Even last night at the club, I told them that I was leaving at a decent time because I needed to have enough rest to watch my baby graduate.
I’m so proud of you, Toot. I know I keep telling you that, but it’s because I am.
Last year, when you came to me, telling me how you were ready to give up on school, girl I was a little worried about you.
You fought through it though. Now a bitch can’t ever fix they fuckin lips to tell you that you don’t have a high school diploma,” she shot, and I just nodded my head, hearing her.
Before she pulled out of the parking spot, she reached inside the middle console.
I watched her as she picked up a few stacks of money.
Each stack was tied with a yellow ribbon.
With a smile on her face, she handed the money to me.
Like the money she just handed me didn’t put a dent in her pockets, she gave it to me like it was nothing.
“Damn auntie. Thank you. How much is this? Like five thousand?” I asked, picking one of the stacks up in my hand, skimming through the money, trying to count it out in my head.
“No. That’s 10 bands. My niece just graduated from high school.
You think all I got for you is five thousand?
” she asked me, taking her eyes off the car’s screen, where she had been looking at the camera as she backed up.
She put her eyes on me for a second, and then finished watching the camera, swiftly backing out of the parking spot.
I took the ribbon off each of the stacks, and I thumbed through the money, counting it all up with a smile on my face. I smiled even bigger once I got to the end, seeing that it really was 10 bands that I was holding in my hands.