Blindly #2
If it could, her face would be red with embarrassment.
Her mother speaking out in her defense was all she wanted when that horrible news broke about her father.
Instead, she ran and hid, gaining sympathy for her inability to handle it all, while she and her sister stood in the center of their bullshit.
Stephanie couldn’t be her hero anymore. The best thing she could do for her was to sit down and shut the fuck up.
The noise in the hallway began to die down and Jakia rushed to look out the peephole. Reporters and their camera men were disappearing with their mics and other equipment. Twon bent the hallway and she rushed to open the door.
“Thank you.” She hugged him once he was inside her apartment.
“No problem. I got them from in front of your door, but ain’t shit I can do about them in front of the building for real besides whooping ass.”
“It’s fine. Can you walk her to the car?” Jakia asked about the social worker.
“Yeah, no doubt. I got you, he said to Jakia.
Twon was doing everything he could to show Jakia that he was more than the one mistake that she knew about. He was still popping pills, but when he was around her, he was coming down or getting ready for bed.
He’d even come around with her having to raise her nephews since he was about to be a father himself, He was trying. Jakia was taking note but as far as she was concerned, he was merely digging himself out of the hole.
Downstairs, reporters stood around still. Some spoke into cameras thinking that what they had would be all they got. When they saw Twon holding the door for the social worker, they all ran over mid-sentence.
Can you tell us Stephanie Rollins’ current mental state?
What are her plans?
Does she know that her daughter died?
Twon got the social worker to her car without answering a single question.
She thanked him as she pulled out, making them clear the way to not get run over.
They turned the mics on Twon as he tried to head back into the building.
They crowded him, making it hard for him to get back to the building door.
“Channel Two, Channel Five and Channel Eleven.” Nyelle stepped onto the sidewalk with her notepad.
“I want the names of every last camera man and nigga holding a mic. Yes.” She nodded.
“White people can be niggas, too.” She stepped into the center of them.
“Medical information is protected and all of you know that. Furthermore, she has not expressed a desire to interview. If you continue to maintain these sidewalks like the streetlights themselves, I will be forced to seek damages for my clients mental and emotional suffering.”
They dispersed like roaches when the lights came on.
“Who you?” Twon asked.
Once upon a time he and Jakia knew the same people. It was becoming a thing where he had no idea who was coming around. That little time apart from her was seeming larger than life. She didn’t even used to like people.
“Nyelle Peters.” She shook his hand. “I’m here to help Jakia.”
“How you know I know her?”
“Because that nice lady you just helped into that car arrived with Jakia’s mother. She’s leaving alone so I’m only to assume that her mother is inside with her.”
“Who sent you?”
“You sure do ask a lot of questions. Who are you, again?”
“Her baby father,” Twon said with full confidence. “Who sent you?” he asked again, staring at Warlock who sat in the car that Nyelle arrived in.
“You know exactly who sent me. Now, we can walk in here together or I can go without you and let her know how hesitant you were about allowing me to help her.”
“It’s already taken care of. The reporters are gone.”
“All thanks to me. I was referring to her and the boys. Or you think you can help with that too?” Nyelle laughed in his face.
“Ard, you can follow me up, but after you do whatever you going to do, tell that nigga Hussein to back the fuck off. He can’t do shit for our baby behind them bars. He should focus on his sentence.”
“I certainly will,” Nyelle smirked.
Twon let Nyelle follow him up the steps. If it weren’t for the guilt he felt about erasing Keyona’s calls that night, he’d have sent Nyelle away. He had to do the right thing if he ever wanted Jakia to love him again.
“She asked you to walk that bitch to the car, not exchange her out there on the corner. Who the fuck is this?” Stephanie jumped up.
“A Turner affiliate,” Jakia answered, eyes burning a hole into Nyelle. “Why the fuck you in my shit? And Twon, I’ma fuck you up for letting her in here.”
“I’m here on behalf of Hussein not Tina,” Nyelle rushed to explain.
“They the same fucking person.” Jakia stood, passing Carmell off to her mother. “That bitch know you here?”
“No.” Nyelle sighed. “As I stated earlier, Hussein sent me.”
“Behind her fucking back because he’s pussy. Whatever he wants to help me with he can help his auntie instead. I promise she gone need that shit more than I will.
“He told us to pick a side. I picked mine. I can assure you that he is not your enemy. Tina knows that. The plan was for Hussein to get close to you, so that once you won custody, it’d be easier for the Turners to take Khyell and Carmell from you.”
“I will kill that nigga!” Twon roared.
“Hussein didn’t know the plan.” Nyelle twisted her lips up at Twon. “Relax yourself over there. Tina knows that he is not in her corner anymore. So, she’s reached out to Rashida and has sent her the recording of the way you showed your ass at Carmell’s birthday party.”
“So,” Stephanie argued. “The Turners are murderers. Them boys would be better off being raised by Chimps.”
“Be that as it may, it doesn’t look good to be ruining a child’s birthday party by telling their family member you’ll kill them.”
“I will,” Jakia argued.
“And I believe you. That’s the problem. We know they’ll be protected no matter who they end up with but it’s about who will shape them into well grounded, respectable men.
When the judge sees that video, Rashida and her Grand Onyx status will walk all over the dedicated sister that’s trying,” Nyelle reasoned.
“Well, I can’t take it back. What the fuck am I supposed to do?” she threw her arms up.
“I have an idea,” Nyelle assured her with a nod. “But you’re not going to like it.” She shook her head.
Jakia had gotten this far already not liking the journey. She could push herself a little further to ensure that Khyell and Carmell were legally hers.
GBMC | 11:46 A.M.
Prissy discharged her last patient. She headed to the cafeteria to put something on her stomach before Nisha’s first appointment with Teddy.
She thought she was putting space in between them by switching to day shift.
Thought he dedicated time to OBGYN clients, he took a specific liking to Nisha.
Prissy knew it was because she was connected to her.
She needed to be in the room to make sure he didn’t let it slip that they were fucking.
She dug in her purse to pay for the sandwich and drink.
“I got it,” Warlock said passing a twenty to the clerk.
Thanks.” Prissy smiled.
She wasn’t surprised that he paid, she was surprised that he was there at all. Her stomach knotted as they quietly walked into an empty area of the cafeteria.
“So, what’s up?” she asked, unable to fight her curiousness.
“Hussein wanna see you.”
“Ok. He can’t call like a normal person? What he send you for?”
“Because I’m taking you to see him,” War argued cleaning his nails.
“I can’t go right now,” she argued. “I’m working.” Her face scrunched.
“He figured you would say that.” War pulled a burner from his pocket. He dialed Hussein. When it began ringing, he passed the phone to Prissy. “Plan B.” War smiled at her showing all his perfect thirty-two.
“Yo?” Hussein answered. “You find her?”
“I’m here,” Prissy sighed.
“So, Cassidy found Boom’s baby mother?”
“Who told you that?” Prissy asked, mean mugging Warlock as if it were him.
“Do it fucking matter!? Why the fuck you ain’t tell me?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“She just showed up at the house,” Prissy reasoned. “She wasn’t with no damn Cassidy. It was just her and her bags.”
“And Tina just let her move in like that?”
“She said she ain’t have nobody. Her family stopped fucking with her because she loved Boom.”
“That’s all she needed to say,” Hussein settled a little. “She takes interest in any woman that ain’t got nobody. And if they have people, they won’t have them for long. Shit still ain’t answering what happened with Cassidy.”
“What you want me to make some shit up? I don’t know nothing bout that bitch!” Prissy’s uncomfortableness was turning into anger.
“You’re lying to me. She was last seen with you. I’d bet my dick that she found Boom’s other bitch and that’s why she was meeting up with you.”
“Well, you need to start thinking about what you gon’ do without a dick because I don’t know shit. We were supposed to meet up, she didn’t say why and she never showed up.”
“So, you just gon keep lying?” Hussein chuckled.
“You just make everything harder than it needs to be. I told you that I got you for life. If you know what happened to her, Hell if you did it, we gon figure it out. Whatever you do out here falls on me. To the streets, you mine. And I ain’t trippin’ off of it.
That gives you protection. You can do whatever the fuck you want.
But I need to know who you making enemies with because they my enemies, too. ”
Prissy’s eyes watered. Hussein hadn’t forgotten about her.
He didn’t toss her away. He still had her back.
Still, she couldn’t tell him the truth because that would prove her to be the enemy.
There would be no way for her to admit that someone killed Cassidy in front of her and she didn’t tell him. She had to keep the lie going.
“I hear you, but I don’t know shit, Hussein.”
“You better not.” He ended the call.
“Everything, ard?” War asked.