19. Ezekiel
“Here’s your food. Be careful, the plates are hot.” Our server had his hands full of entrees Crystal ordered. She practically ordered one of everything off the menu at Brandon’s Bistro. I stuck to the basics, shrimp and grits. The way my stomach was set up, I needed a safe choice.
Today was a big step for Crystal and me. Not only were we celebrating her reaching six months pregnant, we were also finding out the sex of our baby.
Together.
No Sunnie.
Just Crystal and I.
“Do you want to say grace with me?” Palm open and waiting, her head bowed and her lips began to give God praise for our meal.
I listened to every word she said. Watched the movement of her dark maroon painted lips. It’s crazy to see the wild hair growth she’s had throughout her pregnancy. Month one she sported a low pixie cut and now she had black curls crowning her head. So many things about her appearance had changed in the short months. She’s always been a gym rat, eating good and taking care of herself, but the hips and ass that sprouted from her body were beyond sinful.
Don’t even get me started on her breast that had tripled in size. My kid was going to have a field day nursing.
I knew what Crystal looked like naked pre-pregnancy, so I could only imagine what she was going to look like post-pregnancy.
A prideful smirk covered my face, easily hidden by my glass of mango lemonade. My baby mama was bad as fuck and my lady at home was equally fine. Maybe not the best thing to admit or think about, probably disrespectful, but at least I was consistent when it came to my preference in women.
“Are you not able to talk while you eat?” Mouth full of pecan praline french toast and her fork stabbing a sausage patty, Crystal’s tolerance of my presence was weaning.
Clearing my throat, I pushed around my food, unable to know where to even begin. Outside of doctor appointments, our paths never crossed… intentionally. She held grudges like no one I’ve ever seen. Her middle name should be ‘don’t fuck me over’ because if you did… mannnnn.
“This isn’t what I wanted to talk about but I’m curious to know…” I felt like I was going to regret asking this question, but I wanted to know. I mentioned my situation to my barber the other day and I got a thousand different opinions and unsolicited advice I never asked for. “Why haven’t you asked if we could be a family?”
Shocked, she went through several emotions with the last being so disgusted that she started coughing so bad that people thought she was going into labor from her red eyes. “Damn, Ezekiel. You know just what to say to take a girl’s breath away.”
Yeah, I’m such a charismatic dude.
“Um, well.” She started laughing holding her stomach. “Why would I want to be a family with you? You must really want me to hate you more than I already do.”
Well, shit.
“Damn, Crys.” My damn feelings were mauled and hurt. “You really hate me?” My voice exposed my raw truth.
I was genuinely hurt.
Feelings fucking crushed.
“Yes, Ezekiel. For a long time, I did hate you.” She took a deep breath all the while looking down at her large belly. “The early months of my pregnancy are a sore subject for me. You wanted this baby, Ezekiel, not me. I had no problems going to the clinic. Had you not walked into my dressing room that day and saw the pregnancy tests, my respect for you wouldn’t have wavered. You abandoned me, Ezekiel.” Her bottom lip trembled and eyes watered. “Treated me like shit. Had me stressing when everyone knows the first three months are the scariest because the possibility of having a miscarriage is high. I had Hyperemesis Gravidarum until a month ago. In and out of the hospital. Losing weight. High risk and you wouldn’t so much as answer my calls or respond to my texts. Not once did you check on me. I’m in and out of the hospital from preterm labor, and where the hell were you?”
Grieving.
Burying my mother.
Trying not to self-harm myself.
Falling in love with Sunnie.
“I was so scared. Scared of dying and not having anyone to call on to take care of my baby because the child’s father decided to abandon me.” She snorted with a hard roll of her eyes. “For a long time, I didn’t want to forgive you. Damn sure didn’t want to talk to you again. One thing I can say that I thank you for is abandoning me because it taught me how to never depend on anyone but God. I could’ve lost everything trying to take care of myself. Hospital bills ain’t cheap. Prenatal care ain’t cheap. Taking care of me alone ain’t cheap, but God did it. He took care of me in ways that I’m still in shock.” Her legs were bouncing and the frequency of her hands rubbing her belly increased.
“He gave me a small tribe of people that genuinely want to be in life. So, to answer your question about why I haven’t gone the route of asking you to be a family is quite simple. You’re unreliable and fickle as hell and I don’t need that in my life. I need stability. Our child deserves stability. This is a whole human being that will be here before we know it. My hate turned into disgust and a lack of respect when you brought Sunnie to my house. I could’ve been a complete bitch but I wasn’t. Not at all jealous of her, but pissed at you.” I knew I messed up bringing Sunnie with me, especially with that being my first time seeing Crystal since we took the DNA test.
I roped Sunnie into this with motives that were anything but straightforward.
The whole idea was to flex my responsibility muscles—to show her that I’m solid in this aspect too. I’ve got what it takes to be a top-tier dad for our future kids, handling my business with my firstborn and still holding us down. I was gunning for her to see me, and her eyes to light up even more with love, her heart exploding with respect for the man I’m stepping up to be.
I wanted to give her another reason to love me.
But it all blew up in my face.
Crystal clearly saw through my bullshit.
Anger pushed her tears aside and eyes of pure rage glared at me. “Have your love life, Ezekiel, but also have some wisdom to know how to delegate. I’m over here fighting for life while you boo’d up. Nigga, the fuck. Then you want me to welcome you in with open arms, again, boy, fuck you. I understand you were mourning your mom. My heart does have empathy for you in that regard, but everything else, fuck you, disrespectfully. I could’ve left town and changed my name so you wouldn’t ever find me again. I could put your ass on child support and have the judge rule in my favor so you wouldn’t ever see your child, but I refuse to fight battles that I know God will handle. Karma is gonna beat your ass and when that day comes I will be there with an ice pack in hand saying that’s what your Black ass gets for fucking me over.”
Jay’z never lied when he said his baby mama is harder than a lot of you niggas cause Crystal Rose Pierce was a straight savage.
A lot of men say that a woman scorned was the worse but I’m starting to think a woman who doesn’t care about you is worse.
“You’re a savage, and I really think co-parenting counseling might work in our favor.” I wasn’t joking. Bishop was going to get a call from me tonight because I couldn’t go against this woman alone. We couldn’t raise our child healthy with this type of animosity between us.
“If you think that’s going to help you become a better communicator, then pay for it and give me the date and time.” Her nonchalant shrug and unbothered eating spoke of the dismissal I had in her life. “Our relationship is like this because of you. Six months may not seem long, but it is when I didn’t know if I was going to be placed in a position to choose life or death alone. You act like I asked you to give me the world. All I ever asked of you was to stand ten toes down with me as we navigate this new chapter. Never asked for money. Damn sure ain’t ask to be your woman, ain’t ask for dick. I didn’t ask for anything, Ezekiel.”
It’s crazy because before this Crystal and I were tight as hell. Real friends that fucked around a lot. Had some deep life talks, actually got to know each other, and genuinely liked one another. She outranked Candice any day. Where Candice wanted to be up under me after filming, Crystal didn’t. She and I had clear communication to know that we worked in black-and-white spaces with no gray areas of confusion. Outside of Sunnie, she’s probably the closest lover I had in my life and probably the reason I felt comfortable enough to ask her to keep the baby and we could raise it together.
She hated confrontation so I knew I wouldn’t have that issue. Yeah, she did porn but outside of that she was low key and stayed to herself. Sunnie was too much of a risk to ask something like that. I valued her presence in my life more than to mess it up with my mistakes if I turned out to be a shitty father. With Crystal, I didn’t have that pressure because I didn’t owe her anything, whereas I felt like I owed Sunnie everything because she owned my heart. She saw me flawed and still stuck around. She wanted a future with my dysfunction.
I can’t take back what I did.
I can’t take back the promises and hopes I fed Crystal for her to feel secure enough to have my child.
I felt like I was growing in every area of my life, but this, I’m failing. I don’t know how to fix this. Sometimes I don’t want to because the weight of my responsibility hasn’t been born yet. Regardless of how much I fuckin cried like a baby hearing the heartbeat. Regardless of feeling my child kick against my hand at the sound of my voice. I’m having a hard time accepting responsibility and my actions mirroring my words of accountability.
“Regardless of what I do to make my money or in my personal life, I will never allow a man or woman to disrespect me. One time, okay, life fucking happens. Second time, shame on you. Third time, that’s a big shame on me and an even bigger fuck you too. You will never treat me that way again because I won’t give you that access to me to do so. You always know the real version of someone when you go through adversity, and you sir, showed me your true stripes. I’m good on you. So good. I have three months until I deliver this baby. You will not stress me out. I’m done talking.”
What the hell was I supposed to say after all that?
Condensing all of that, she basically said I ain’t shit. Won’t ever be shit.
Yeah, I think that’s the brunt of it.
“I know right now my actions mean more than my words but I am sincerely sorry. There’s no excuse for the way I treated you, especially when you are someone I enjoyed calling my friend.”
“That’s the part that hurt the most.” Biscuit crumbs all around her lips, tears fell from her eyes. “You were my friend, Ezekiel. A true friend that I genuinely loved and cared about. When you told me that you wanted me to keep this baby because you wanted your mom to see you as a father before she passed, I happily wanted to go on this journey with you because you were already a great honorable man and I knew you were going to be an excellent father. How could you treat me like this?” Unable to hold it in anymore, she sobs in her hands at the table.
Uncaring of the nosey lurkers, I moved around to her side of the booth and hugged her. Her sobs weren’t loud, but loud enough that it awakened my conviction. Our server came and boxed up our food. She finally calmed down, and her cries were hiccuped sniffles.
“While I don’t deserve it, I pray one day you find it in your heart to forgive me. I’m so sorry for the pain I’ve inflicted on you and our child because if you’re hurting so is our baby.” Chancing it, I placed my hands on her belly and sure enough, those little kicks were knocking. “Either they’re angry at me for the hurt I caused you or they’re happy to hear my voice.”
She finally smiled. “Let’s hope it’s the latter.”
“Hi, guys. I have a little surprise for you.” Our server had returned with an all-white heart-shaped cake. “Congratulations on your bundle of joy.” He handed us two flutes, leaving us confused by the second.
“Do you know what this is about?” Why give us flutes with no champagne?
Gasping, Crystal started giggling reaching for her phone. “You better marry Sunnie. I so forgot that I told her I wanted a simple gender reveal with a cake.” She propped up her phone and I sat there stunned that Sunnie would do this for us, for me. “We’re supposed to cut the cake with the mouth of our flutes and when you scoop it up, you’ll see the color of the gender inside. Are you ready?”
All I could do was nod.
Our baby was stubborn like me, not a good thing at all. We were in month six finally finding out the sex from a DNA sample because the baby refused to uncross its legs or position itself for the doctor to see.
“Okay, you cut one side and I’ll do the other.” I owed our server a big tip. Crystal’s cloud of despair had passed and sunshine radiated off her. She was smiling and happy. “On the count of four. One… two…three… four…”
“It’s a boy!” I shouted, making the entire restaurant celebrate with us.
“Damn, another you. God ain’t even right.” She was smiling but I don’t think she found humor in knowing she was carrying a male version of me.
A son.
I was having my junior.
My smile decreased. My excitement simmered. Reality hit me square in the chest and hard.
Why a son?
Why not a little girl that I could spoil rotten and teach how to avoid lame ass dudes?
Who am I to teach him how to be a man? My da…
“Hey, snap out of it, Ezekiel.” Crystal’s firm grip on my hand became my focal point. “Don’t get in your head. Don’t take on someone else’s mistakes. Your son is your son. He’s your son. Be the father you wish you had. You have a perfectly good example of what not to do, so make a vow to yourself that you will do what you’re supposed to do. I can’t raise a man, Ezekiel. He’s going to need his father; he’s going to need you.”