Chapter six
Dimitri
Me and Jordan had been friends for years, so I knew his whole family. Gianna was right when she said she didn’t know me because she didn’t. But she didn’t have to know me for me to be sitting here with her right now. Hell, I was devastated by her grandmother’s passing.
Ms. Corinne was a wonderful woman and had been a huge part of my life over the years.
When no one was there for me, Jordan and his family were.
So, when I heard that his grandmother had been rushed to the hospital, of course, I felt the need to be here.
I had to wait until I got off work at the oil company, but I made sure to get here.
Once inside the hospital, me and my boy Malcolm made our way toward the elevators.
We were almost there when this chick who wasn’t watching where she was going bumped right into me.
I didn’t mind though because she was fine as hell.
She almost hit the damn floor, but luckily for her, I managed to prevent that shit from happening.
She was a cute chick, and you could imagine how surprised when I realized she was the girl in the pictures at Ms. Corrine’s house.
This was the female that Jordan’s grandmother had been telling me about all this time.
She was even more beautiful in person than she was in her pictures.
I felt drawn to her beauty and found myself chasing after her when I saw her running pass the waiting room toward the elevators.
I knew she was upset about her grandmother, and for a reason I couldn’t understand, I wanted to comfort her.
Now, here I was, with my arms wrapped around her while she grieved for her grandmother.
Her phone kept ringing in her pocket, but she didn’t check to see who it was after she hung up with her aunt.
“Would you like me to drive you to your grandmother’s house?” I offered.
“No, thank you. I have my own car.”
“Okay, cool.”
My phone started ringing so I pulled it from my pocket and checked to see who it was. “What up?”
“Aye, where you at?” Malcolm asked.
“Outside on that bench under that oak tree,” I said.
“Aight, I’m finna come out there.”
“Aight.”
Soon after, we saw Malcolm headed towards us. He looked down at Gianna and said, “Sorry about your grandmother.”
“Thanks,” she said as she looked up.
“You finna go over to Jordan’s grandma house?” Malcolm questioned.
“Yea.”
“Y’all don’t have to do that,” Gianna said.
“I know we don’t, but Jordan is like a brother to us, and Ms. Corinne like my grandmother. If we can be there to offer any kind of assistance, that’s what we’re gonna do,” I said.
“Yea, my grandmother mentioned you a few times,” she said.
“She mentioned you to me a lot!” I said.
“Yea, I heard she was trying to play Cupid with y’all,” Malcolm joked.
“I guess,” Gianna said as she shrugged her shoulders.
“Come, let me drive you to your grandmother’s house,” I said.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know, but you aren’t in any condition to drive yourself right now. Plus, your grandmother would never forgive me if something happened to you that could have been prevented,” I explained.
She shrugged her shoulders again. I turned to Malcolm and handed him my keys. “Can you follow us over to her house?”
“Yea, sure.”
Me and Gianna walked towards a blue Honda Accord. She handed me the keys and I unlocked the doors. She opened the passenger door and slid into the seat. I got behind the wheel and started the car. Once we had secured ourselves with the seatbelts, I backed out of the parking spot.
As I drove out of the hospital parking lot, I took a right and merged onto the street. I heard Gianna sniffling while she stared out the window. I knew she was taking her grandmother’s death hard. I could only imagine what she was thinking about.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“No.”
“You wanna talk?”
“No.” There was a slight pause before she asked, “Why are you really here?”
“Because I wanna make sure you good.”
She didn’t respond. She just went back to looking out the window.
I decided to leave her with her thoughts.
Her phone started ringing again, but she continued to ignore it.
I pulled into the driveway of her grandmother’s home twenty minutes later.
I shut the car off and handed her the keys before we exited.
“Thanks,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
We made our way inside the house to join her family. Malcom joined us a few minutes later.
“I’m not here to intrude on y’all family, especially not at a time like this. I just wanna say sorry about Ms. Corinne. She will definitely be missed around here,” I said.
“Thank you, Dimitri,” Trudy said as she embraced me. “And thanks for driving Gigi over.”
“No thanks needed, Ms. Trudy. I just didn’t want her driving herself in her current state of mind. Do any of you need anything before me and Malcolm head out?”
“No, thank you, Dimitri. I appreciate you for making sure Gigi got here safe,” Trudy said.
“Yea, thanks bro,” Jordan stated as he dapped me up and gave me and Malcolm brotherly hugs.
“Y’all let me know if y’all need anything. Again, I am so sorry for what happened to Ms. Corinne,” I said.
“Thank you, Dimitri,” Trudy said as she hugged me again. I hugged Deidre and dapped up their uncle before heading out.
Once we were in the truck, Malcolm looked at me and asked, “What the hell was up with that?”
“What you mean?”
“I mean, you running behind that chick at the hospital,” he explained. “Since when you go around chasing chicks?”
“I don’t know what you talking about dude. I wasn’t running behind nobody!”
“Ssshhhiiid! You a lie! You was chasing behind that chick at the hospital like she owed yo ass some money!” Malcolm clowned.
“Nigga, her grandma just died! I just wanted to make sure she was good.”
“Yea, aight. You better not let Renee find out you was up her ass making sure she good.”
“The fuck! Renee ain’t my mama, nigga! She don’t control me!” I stressed.
“She ain’t yo mama, but she yo baby mama,” he teased.
“And! We ain’t together no more! I can do what the fuck I want, with who I want, and she can’t do or say shit about it,” I said. “I’on know what the fuck you thought!”
“Aight. Keep on! Renee gon fuck you up!”
“Renee ain’t gon do shit!”
“She will once she finds out about you and Jordan’s cousin,” he teased.
“Finds out what? I ain’t did shit but make sure the girl got home okay. And ain’t nobody scared of Renee’s ass! You the one scared of Cammie’s mean ass!” I countered.
“Whatever!” he scoffed as he waved me off.
I dropped him off at his house and headed home. My phone started ringing and seeing that it was my baby mama, I picked up.
“What up?”
“Why the hell weren’t you answering my calls before?” Renee barked angrily.
“Aye don’t be coming at me like I’m ya man! If you ain’t finna tell me something about Avrianna, get off my line!” I stated.
“I need some money…”
“For what?”
“Avrianna needs…”
“Uh uh, don’t bring my child into this shit! Avrianna don’t need shit because they take child support out of my check every two weeks. Anything Avrianna needs comes out of that money. But you been using the child support to buy your damn hair and nails and shit!”
“I just need a couple of hundred dollars D!” she whined.
“Not my problem. Where ya man at? Call his ass and ask him for some money,” I said.
“Damn! I hate when you act like this?”
“I ain’t acting like shit! I’m tired shelling out money for yo ass when you got another nigga sleeping in yo bed!”
“So, you’re jealous? Is that it?”
“Hell no! What the hell I got to be jealous of? That nigga you fuckin’ with obviously ain’t taking care of you if you on my line begging me for money!” I argued.
“Do you want your daughter in the dark?” Renee asked.
“Want my daughter in the dark? What you mean?”
“I mean, if I don’t pay Entergy by five o’clock tomorrow, they are gonna cut off my electricity!”
Damn! This baby mama of mine was the most irresponsible muthafucka in life!
I paid fifteen hundred dollars in child support on time every fucking month, so how the fuck did she get behind on her damn electricity bill?
I sure couldn’t have my baby girl in the dark, so I guess I’d have to pay the bill.
But I’d be damn if I was putting any money in Renee’s hands.
“Okay, how much is the bill?” I asked.
“Two hundred thirty dollars,” she said.
“Damn! You just been lighting the city up huh?”
“Boy please! For two hundred and thirty dollars!” she scoffed.
“Well, send me your billing information and I’ll pay it over the phone,” I said.
“What?”
“You heard me. Send me your information and I’ll call the electric company and pay the bill over the phone,” I repeated.
“No! I can pay my bill myself.”
“Well, if that was the case you wouldn’t be asking me for money,” I said.
“What I mean is you can just bring me the money or send it to my cash app.”
“Nah, I ain’t putting no money in yo hand or yo account girl! What part of that shit you don’t understand? You said your electricity was gon get shut off, so if you don’t want that to happen, send me the information and I’ll pay for it!”
“Oh, so you don’t trust me now?” she inquired.
“I ain’t trusted yo ass in a minute and you know this!” I replied. “Now, send me the information and I’ll pay your bill over the phone. Otherwise, you better ask somebody else to pay it.”
“You know what? Never mind!” she said before she hung the phone up.
I couldn’t help but laugh at her dumb ass.
I knew that bitch was lying! Every single day, Renee gave me a reason to regret getting involved with her trifling ass.
I should have broken up with her long before she got pregnant with our first child, but I wouldn’t make the mistake of having another baby with her ass though! One and done!
I tried to make the relationship work for Avrianna’s sake, but I couldn’t do it. No matter how much I loved my little girl, her mama was too damn much! I knew she wanted our child to have a two- parent household, but that wasn’t going to happen with me.
Two months after my daughter was born, I was gone. The constant arguments and bickering in the presence of our child wasn’t a healthy way to bring her up, so I made the decision to move out of the apartment.
After she threatened to put me on child support for months to squeeze money out of me, I went to the office and put myself on it. I was tired of that shit. No amount of money I gave her was ever enough. She literally was trying to bleed me dry.
The district attorney ordered a paternity test be done before they even placed me on child support.
Once the child was proven to be mine, we went back to court, and I was ordered to pay fifteen hundred dollars a month.
Since I was paid bi-weekly, seven hundred and fifty dollars was deducted from my check every payday.
So, if she thought that I was about to put more money in her hand, she could forget it. Let her get it from that nigga she was smashing. Once I got home, I hit up Jordan to see how the family was holding up.
“Bro, this shit is hard! It would’ve been one thing if Maw Maw was sick, but she wasn’t. The shit just happened unexpectedly, out of the blue, ya know,” he said.
“Yea, I know,” I agreed.
“I should’ve slept there, bro. I should’ve stayed with my grandmother last night, then I would’ve been there when she had the stroke! I would’ve been able to get her to the hospital in time!”
“You don’t know that bro. Your mom said she found her lying in bed unresponsive. She said she looked like she was asleep, so you can’t blame yourself for not being there. You still wouldn’t have known ‘til morning.”
“I still should’ve stayed. At least if I had stayed…”
“Please stop beating yourself up about things you can’t change bro. You’re gonna make yourself sick thinking about you should’ve, would’ve or could have done,” I said.
“It’s just so fuckin’ hard.”
“I know. Losing someone you love is never easy. Just pray for peace, bro. That’s what my grandfather used to always tell me. It ain’t gon be easy, but it’ll come. How’s your cousin doing?” I asked.
“Which one?”
“Both of ‘em,” I said.
“Yea, aight. They’re both taking it just as hard as I am. Deidre is pissed at herself for not going by to check on Maw Maw yesterday. Even though she should’ve gone, she couldn’t predict this would have happened,” Jordan said.
“You’re right. Nobody knew this was gonna happen, so it’s nobody’s fault. It was just her time,” I said.
“I guess.”
“You think I can get your cousin, Gianna’s number? I just wanna hit her up to see how she’s doing.”
“Yea, sure.” He gave me his cousin’s number and we ended the call.
I didn’t know why, but I was hella excited as I punched Gianna’s digits in my phone. The phone rang several times, and I was about to hang up when she finally did on the fourth ring.
“Hello.”
“Hey, Gianna, it’s Dimitri, Jordan’s friend.”
“I remember who you are. It ain’t been that long since we saw each other. How did you get this number?” she asked in a very unfriendly tone.
“Well, I hope you don’t mind that I got it from Jordan,” I said.
“Well, I kinda do mind! I don’t even know you, so he should’ve asked before he decided to give you my number!”
“Sorry. I only asked for it so I could call and check on you. I know how hard you took your grandmother’s death.”
“Thanks, Dimitri. While I appreciate you for calling to check on me, know that I am not your responsibility…”
Damn! What the fuck was her problem?
“I know you aren’t.”
“Cool, so you don’t have to call and check on me. Take care,” she said before she ended the call.
Well damn! What kind of shit was that? All I was trying to do was make sure she was good.
She didn’t have to be so damn rude about it.
Ms. Corrine had told me how special Gianna was to her.
She never once mentioned that she had such a rude and feisty side.
Because of everything that Ms. Corrine had told me about her granddaughter, I just assumed she was as sweet as her grandmother.
She was grieving though, so I guess if I put myself in her shoes, I might feel the same way.
Maybe now wasn’t a good time for her to make new friends.
I was just going to take a step back and give her the space that she needed to deal with the loss of her grandmother.
Hopefully, we would get to spend some time together so we could get to know each other while she was here.
I hope that will be the case, but who knows?