Chapter 20
Tavion ‘Tank’ Briggs
Everything Unraveled
“Iwas a cute ass baby. If I show you my baby pictures right now, I bet you stop taking your birth control pills. You going to see my baby pictures, and want to give me one,” I talked shit to Dionne, as we were sitting in the living room area at my mama’s crib.
A few seconds ago, a Pampers commercial came on, and they showed some cute babies on the screen.
Dionne started cooing over the babies, saying how cute they were, and I made a comment to her, telling her how I looked better than all those babies when I was a kid.
Of course, she talked shit back, just fuckin with me, pulling my card, saying how I was probably ugly.
Here I was, defending myself, letting her know that I was adorable.
“I actually want to see your baby pictures,” she responded, taking her eyes off the screen, and she looked over at me.
It was Saturday night, and I just wanted to get Dionne out the house.
We went to the movies this evening, and we were about to head to dinner, but my mom called me, asking me what I was doing, and when I let her know that I was with Dionne, and we were going to dinner, she offered us to come to her crib because she cooked.
I asked Dionne if she was cool with it, and she told me that she didn’t mind, so here we were.
All this shit was new to me. In the past, if I was with a chick, and my mama called me, offering me to come over, I probably would have turned my mama down, or told her that I would come over once I was finished hanging with who I was with.
That shit felt natural for me to pull up to my mama’s crib with Dionne.
The two of them really clicked and got along.
So much so that when we arrived at the house, Dionne had been in the kitchen with my mama for the longest, helping her finish with dinner, talking with her, getting to know each other, while I was in the living room, chilling, watching TV.
“Ma, where the photo album at? I gotta show this girl that I used to be the cutest baby in the world,” I said, standing up from the couch, calling out for my mama, who was in the kitchen still.
She was finishing with the last of the dishes.
Dionne offered to help her plenty times, but she kept telling her that she had it.
“Look in that first drawer of the entertainment center. Pull out the black one,” she let me know.
I walked over to the entertainment center, pulled the first drawer open like she told me, and I found the big photo album.
This shit was so old that it had dust on it.
I had to walk into the kitchen, grab a couple of pieces of paper towel, so that I could wipe it down.
Once it was good, I walked back over to the couch, where Dionne was sitting, and she smiled big, excited to go through the pictures with me.
I was just happy to see her smiling. These past few days have been rough. She still had moments where she would randomly break down in tears but today had been one of her good days. She shed a couple of tears earlier, while we were in the car because she saw a lady on the sidewalk, walking her dog.
I went ahead, and opened the photo album, and the first picture was a baby picture of me, and Dionne cooed when she saw the picture.
“Oh my God. Tankkkk, you were adorable. Look at that hair. You came out with all that hair,” she said in awe, leaning over, so that she could get a better look at the picture. She didn’t let me turn the page for at least two minutes because she kept staring at it.
I kept flipping, showing her the different pictures of me that were in the photo album, and with each picture, you could literally tell that she was falling in love with my baby pictures.
“That’s my pop-pop right there, but you already saw him from the pictures that I have of him, and my grandma at my house.
That’s him teaching me how to ride a horse for the first time,” I let her know, pointing at the 5 x 7 picture, that showcased me on a brown horse, and my pop- pop was standing right on the side of me, and you could see him pointing with his finger, giving me instructions on what to do.
“Your pop- pop was so handsome. Look at the way you were looking at him. I can tell that you loved him so much,” she noted, and I smiled because she was spot on with that.
I kept on flipping through the album, and we were nearing the end of it.
Dionne was cheesing the entire time, and then we finally made it to the end of the album.
Her eyes danced around each picture that was on the page, still holding onto that smile, but when her eyes reached the bottom of the page, I noticed a shift in her.
The smile that she had been wearing, it quickly disappeared, and the life suddenly removed from her face.
I watched her as she picked up her shaky hand, and she pointed at the bottom of the page, putting her finger right on a picture of my dad.
A picture that I forgot was even in this album.
I was two years old in this picture, sitting in my dad’s lap, and he was mugging, just like his ass always was.
“Who’s that to you?” her voice shook as she asked me this question. Dionne didn’t know what my dad looked like because I haven’t taken her to meet that nigga, and I didn’t have pictures of him at my crib, or anything.
“That’s my dad. What happened? You know that nigga?” I wanted to know,
“No. No. No. Nooooo,” she screamed, shooting up from the couch, and her outburst caught my mom’s attention, so she rushed into the living room, where we were, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on.
I was trying to figure out what was going on too, so I tossed the photo album on the couch, and I stood as well.
“Dionne, what’s wrong?” my mom asked her. She was crying. Hard down crying, with her hands over her mouth, as she kept shaking her head no.
“What’s wrong? How the fuck you know my dad?” I asked, standing right in front of her, wanting her to answer me, but with her obnoxiously crying the way that she was, it was hard for her to get a word out.
“No! Noooo. I don’t want to talk about it,” she cried, trying to walk away from me, but I blocked her path, not about to let her move.
“You’re crying, and you’re fuckin shaking, Dionne. Tell me what the fuck happened. Don’t leave me out in the blind like this. How you know my dad?” I wanted to know, demanding her to spill it.
She looked heartbroken as she looked up at me. My mom was standing right here as well, with sympathetic eyes, wanting to know the truth too.
Dionne dropped her head in shame, as if she couldn’t even face me for what she was getting ready to reveal.
“He was dating my mom at one point. Years ago, when I was eleven,” she whispered it.
“Okay, and what?” I pressed, wanting to know the rest because I knew that there was more. With a heart that was truly fuckin broken, she looked me in my eyes, and more tears fell.
She didn’t say it right away, but she took a deep breath before revealing it.
“He raped me,” she confessed, her voice sending chills down my spine.
I looked at her, hoping to God that she was playing a sick ass joke on me, but when she started hysterically crying after she revealed it, showing no signs of this being a joke, I knew that she was dead ass serious.
Those three words rocked at my heart, leaving me with no choice but to pull her into me, as she continued crying.
My blood was boiling, as I listened to her cries.
It made me think about a lot of shit. Just the other night, I asked Dionne why she would get so scared on those nights when I would startle her in the middle of the night, whenever I would get in bed, and she would be sleep.
I thought about the way she quickly dismissed it.
She was still holding onto that. Still holding on to the trauma. Still fuckin scared.
I thought about the rumors that have gone around Miami for years, with people saying that my dad would fuck around with little girls.
Because I didn’t have a tight enough bond with him, I never knew if that shit was true or not.
I hated that I had to find the truth in that shit through my fuckin lady.
A woman that I loved was proof that the shit they were saying about my dad was true, and that angered me.
I’m going to kill that nigga. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. I was killing that nigga.
To be continued!