11. Vani
My stomach growled as I listened to my cousin, Jared, go off on somebody on the phone.
I was twisting his locs, and I hated the space I was in.
I hadn’t eaten in three days. Aside from a few protein shakes and a few bites of a burger, my ass was too lovesick to eat.
My body was sick of being starved but even with a growling belly, I didn’t have an appetite for food.
It had been three days since I left Darius and what I was pissed about the most was the fact that he hadn’t tried to call me or come looking for me.
I didn’t go to my parents’ house or Hailey’s house because I didn’t want him to come looking for me, and the nigga hadn’t even tried to find me.
That shit was embarrassing. And heartbreaking.
Hailey and Lo always tried to tell me that I was tripping for being leery of Bree.
I knew I wasn’t paranoid. I couldn’t be for sure that Darius hadn’t stuck dick to her and if he hadn’t that was even worse.
Because why wouldn’t the bitch go away? Seeing my man staring down at the old ass bitch and wiping her face with the same gentleness and care that he would mine, made my stomach churn.
I wanted to vomit. I wanted to claw his eyes out.
I wanted to run over her with a freakin’ car.
I hated that hoe, and I hated that I allowed her to get underneath my skin.
“Man, I told you I can’t do it because I have to run to Golden Waters.
How the fuck am I going to be in two places at once?
!” Jared barked snapping me from my thoughts.
“You a silly ass hoe man. On my mama, you don’t ever have to worry about me again.
You a weird, petty ass bitch. Bye!” He ended the call, and I raised my eyebrows.
Jared was pissed. His left leg bounced anxiously, and he kept sucking his teeth.
I just knew that when I didn’t go home, Darius would be everywhere looking for me, so I didn’t go to the suite I rented to do hair.
I was going to my clients’ homes doing their hair.
I might as well take my ass back to the shop because Darius wasn’t thinking about me.
“What’s wrong with you?” I finally asked reaching for the last loc.
“Man, I got niggas waiting on me. As soon as I leave here, I gotta jump on the highway to Golden Waters. I was supposed to be there an hour ago, and I know my people gon’ get tired of waiting.
But I also have somebody thirty minutes away that wants to spend some major bread with me, and if I go get it, I’ll be even later.
I was going to pay Keesha $5,000 just to run that to him real quick, and that petty bitch mad ‘bout some other shit, and she won’t go.
I swear to God I can’t deal with a hoe that’s playing with my money. ”
One thing I was proud of was the money I had in my savings account.
I was up. Up enough that I could pay my rent up for a year if I got a nice place and still have money left to cover my car note for at least six months.
As long as I kept doing hair, I’d be good.
I didn’t even work as much as I could have because Darius gave me so much money but if I stayed consistent, I knew I could clear $1,500 a week easily.
I was pissed when I saw Darius and Bree on the strip but when he didn’t even come looking for me, that sealed the deal.
I wasn’t going back to his house, and we were done.
Bree could have his black ass. So, even though I was far from broke, I was about to be on my own, and Darius did have me used to living a certain kind of way.
I’d have to get furniture. All that shit.
Five bands just to run some drugs thirty minutes away seemed like a sweet deal.
Shit, I rode around with Darius all the time while he made plays, and nothing had happened.
“You know the nigga real well? The one that’s thirty minutes away?”
“Hell yeah, that’s my people. I been serving him for three years. That’s why I hate to keep bullshiting him. I just been having too much going on today.” Jared sounded stressed for real.
“Shit, I’ll do it.” Since I was done with his hair, I stepped back, and Jared turned around super-fast.
“Word?”
“For five bands? Yeah.” I shrugged like it was no big deal.
“Got damn cuzzo, you just saved my life. Shit, I’ll throw in an extra $500 for you.” Jared’s shoulders and his facial muscles relaxed as he reached in his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills.
I eyed the money hungrily as he counted it out.
“I need you to leave right now. I’ll call him and tell him that you’re going to meet him. Aye, you just saved my life fam.” Jared passed me the money, and I stuffed it in my purse while he went to retrieve the drugs that I was supposed to drop off.
I had been with Darius so many times while he rode with drugs, sold them, bagged them, whatever that it didn’t move me too much.
Of course, I was a little nervous but more than anything, I wanted the five racks.
Jared gave me the bag and the address, and I was on my way.
In the car, what was on my mind more than anything was Darius.
I had gone from one of the best years of my life to not even being able to eat.
I loved that man so much that I couldn’t even be for sure that it was healthy.
The fact that he hadn’t even called. My heart was ripped to shreds.
I never wanted to be in love ever again.
It literally felt like somebody had died.
If I ever went out in public and saw Darius with Bree, it would kill me.
No one should have that kind of a hold over another person.
No matter how bad it hurt, I was determined not to be as pathetic as Bree.
I’d never run in behind a man that chose someone else over me.
Bree was a dumb bitch, and I didn’t want to be anything like her.
One of my favorite songs by Mariah the Scientist began to play, and tears welled in my eyes.
This was going to be a long road to healing, but I was determined to see it through.
I hated the fact that every time my phone rang, my heart lurched, and I wondered if it was Darius calling.
Looking at the phone, I saw that Lo was calling.
Still no Darius, and that made the tears in my eyes reach their full potential and stream down my cheeks.
I didn’t want to look like a complete lame to my sister, so I sucked my feelings up and tried to answer the phone sounding as normal as possible.
“Hey.” I swiped the tears from my cheek while pretending to be happy to hear from her.
“Can you come get me?! This bitch ass nigga just hit me while I was holding Jaela.”
My brows furrowed and my broken heart became a distant memory. “Huh? Who hit you?”
When we got back from Vegas, Lo didn’t go through with the abortion. My parents were initially pissed, and Lo ended up moving into the projects in a low-income housing unit just to get away from them. Her and Tyriq were off and on, and I had a beautiful two-month-old niece named Jaela.
“Tyriq! I came to get money from him, so I could pay for Jaela’s daycare, and he had some bitch in the house. We got into it, and he hit me. He also took my keys, and he won’t give them to me.”
I knew how my parents felt because despite warning Lo about niggas like Tyriq, she still did everything I didn’t want her to do.
She fell for him, forgave him for too much, and endured a lot of BS because of him.
Her plans to transfer to a university were over, and she was a stressed-out single mom just trying to make it.
As long as I had money my niece wouldn’t want for shit.
I could buy Jaela all the cute clothes, shoes, and toys in the world.
I could even pay her daycare for the month and fill Lo’s tank up with gas.
But as a college student with a young baby that also had to work, her life was hard.
And Tyriq being a dumb ass didn’t make it any better.
“Jesus, Lo,” I sighed while absent mindedly running a red light.
I didn’t mean to but with all that was going on by the time I realized the light was red it was too late to stop.
I sped through it and in no time at all, I heard a siren.
My heart fell into my ass and suddenly, I couldn’t hear anything that Lo was saying.
It all sounded like a foreign language as I eyed the police car in my rearview mirror.
I was driving a BMW with I didn’t know how much drugs and more than $5,000.
The sudden urge to throw up hit me while the phone slipped away from my ear.
I was fucked. I was more than fucked. I was cooked.
No bond. My eyes were damn near swollen shut from crying.
I had been in the county jail for three days and even though Darius hadn’t come looking for me when I left him, I had a lawyer by day two.
A lawyer that told me I more than likely didn’t have a bond because the Feds were going to pick the case up from the state due to the amount of drugs that were in my possession.
He also said that unless I told the Feds who the drugs belonged to and agreed to cooperate which more than likely meant become an informant my ass was grass.
I was so pissed with myself. Legit angry.
Never in my life had I made such a stupid decision and now the course of my life was altered forever.
I was ashamed and embarrassed. When Lo and my parents found out I had been charged with drug trafficking everyone assumed that I had Darius’ drugs in my possession.
I refused to even say over the recorded line who they belonged to, but I made sure to let them know Darius had nothing to do with it.