He smells so good. I want to wrap myself up in him and lay still forever. Especially on nights like this. He wants to lay inside of me so bad I can feel it. My brother is going to have to keep Denzel for the night. It’s only fair. If we were back home he’d have him for the night anyway.
It’s my man’s birthday. He knows the party doesn’t stop here at this dinner table set in the middle of Jazz Kitchen, no matter how tired we are from walking around Disneyland all day.
“I love you.” I whisper against his shoulder. It’s the first time I’ve said it since we’ve been together. I didn’t want to say it just because, and he knows that. Right now feels right.
He pulls my body closer to his, which results in my chair scooting up against his all the way.
“Damn. What y’all got going on?” My brother looks up from watching Cosima color with Denzel.
I laugh and wave him off refocusing on my little cuddle with Paul as we wait for the food.
“Oh yeah? Why are you saying it now? Just cause it’s my birthday? That’s my gift?” He moves his head to look into my eyes.
I shake my head no.
“Because I just felt like saying it. I do. I love you Paul. And I’m happy to have you in my life. This has been a long time coming.” I think about it.
He’s been on me for a minute and it’s finally come true for him. I believe him now when he says this means too much to him.
“It really has been. I’ve liked you since I was 20 years old. And it’s way more than I could’ve hoped for.” He kisses my lips and then rubs on my belly.
“You want a girl or a boy?” I ask curious. I’m hoping for a girl now. Since Denzel’s here.
He shrugs.
“I just want a little me walking this earth. I think that’s every man’s ultimate desire. To make a copy of himself. That’s magic. Like, it’s a mini me in here. He or she, I hope they’re healthy and whole. And I hope they have your beautiful smile, and your sense of humor, and your smart ass mouth. You talk a lot of shit. But I know you can handle your own when I’m not with you. You were handling your own before me, you always will. But now that I’m here, that’s not your job. You have other priorities.” He looks at Denzel and then he turns his head to the side to look back at me.
He raises his eyebrows as if surprised.
“I made eye contact didn’t I?” We both laugh.
Denzel tries to escape from his high chair to climb across the table.
Tommy laughs.
“Oh yeah, Papa Paul… you’re about to be a father of two at 22. How does it feel to have me beat?”
He nods and stretches his arm out for me to rest the back of my neck against.
“Don’t take this the wrong way Tommy, but I couldn’t care less about what you’ve got going on. It feels good to me because I’m important. To her…” he kisses my cheek. “To him.” He points at Denzel. “And now to whoever’s swimming around in here.” When his hand touches my stomach again, there’s a strong sensation moving outward. Similar to the ones I felt when Denzel would kick the hell out of me.
I squint at the sudden shock of it.
“I’m the head of my own family now. And I’ll never do her the way my dad did my mom. Even with Denzel. I may not make up the other half of his DNA, but he’s mine too. And I’ll never let him think or feel otherwise.” He finishes speaking to Tommy before catching on.
“I’m going to hold you to that promise bruh.”
“You’re the sweetest, Paul. Amanda is very blessed to have you.”
“Was that the baby?” Paul bypasses everything the two of them just said to check with me.
I nod.
“I’m pretty sure it was. That means I’m pretty far into this thing… damn. I’m at least 4 months.”
“You sure don’t look it. What is this one of those cryptic pregnancies I read about the other day? Some women never know until they’re delivering. It’s quite bizarre actually.”
Paul’s phone buzzes loudly against the table and then I hear Tommy gasp.
Paul looks up at him and the two just stare at each other.
He locks his phone quickly and then turns back to me as if nothing happened.
“What’s going on? Thomas?” Cosima seems to be concerned. He shakes his head to tell her nothing. “Team stuff.”
Paul doesn’t seem to be as shaken as Tommy. Could they have been looking at the same thing?
“What was that?” My curiosity won’t let it go.
He shakes his head as if to say nothing and then looks back at Tommy.
Denzel starts crying and it’s clear that he wants to get out of his chair. He reaches across the table and Paul gets up to grab him.
“Stop hollering. We’re in a restaurant. It’s never that deep.” He pats his back gently a few times. Denzel quiets down as he clings to Paul’s neck. “He’s sleepy.”
The phone rings and Paul hesitates to grab it.
It’s Res, number 6 on the Kings. He and Paul are close friends and have been since they played together in high school.
I pick the phone up, handing it over. Paul grabs it and totes Denzel outside with him to answer. Something is definitely going on. I can tell by the way both he and Tommy are acting. And now Res is calling late as hell, I don’t think it’s to wish him happy birthday, he did that earlier when we were in Toontown about to get on the Runaway Railway with the baby.
Cosima and I both focus on Tommy who continues to stare at his phone, completely ignoring the looks we’re giving him and then I get a few text messages from Daphne and Jaheim.
It’s screenshots of an NBC 7 breaking news article about Maria Chisel. She got into a fatal car accident on the way to pick Sasha and Shakira up from gymnastics class earlier today. They’re saying she died on impact. The top of her car completely came off according to what’s being reported.
I lose my breath for a moment. Oh shit. What does this mean? The girls just lost their mom? Desmond’s going to come back, for the funeral must be. He has to, right?
“It’s Maria. She died in a car crash Coz.” I state as a matter of fact.
“Oh my goodness. Are the girls alright?”
I nod. “Seems so. That sucks but it’s no need to try and keep things a secret Thomas. I’m not going to freak the fuck out anytime you mention something that has to do with Desmond. I am actually responsible for a living, breathing reminder of him every day for the rest of my life. I’m doing pretty okay. You don’t have to baby me.”
“No one is babying you. It’s just not something I feel is appropriate to be speaking on at the dinner table is all.”
“Not appropriate for who? We’re all grown… you know what? Who cares? Let’s just move on.”
“Yeah, like we do with everything. Moving right along.” He takes a sip of his drink and rolls his eyes.
I let out a little sigh, knowing my brother is on the brink of starting some shit.
“I don’t know what that slick ass comment was supposed to mean, because you’re the one who says it’s “not appropriate to be speaking about at the dinner table”. Come on.” I laugh at my perfect imitation of him.
“Okay. Amanda, let’s just drop it.” Cosima interjects.
“It’s dropped.”
“Be respectful. Someone just lost their life and you’re laughing about it?” He continues to challenge me.
“I’m laughing at you. Not the fact that his bitch died.”
“Woah! Amanda, stop. That’s out of line.” Coz waves a hand to warn me. “Let’s let the shit go, we are not going to unpack this right now.”
Paul comes back in and sits down resting an almost sleeping Denzel against his chest.
I try to keep quiet but I’m fired up now. Tommy keeps giving me this look as if he has something more to say and I dare him to.
There’s a painful silence that threatens to push us all away from the table.
Paul looks at me trying to gauge where I’m at mentally.
“So, I’m assuming everyone at this table is aware o-“
“Yup.” Coz cuts him off signaling he stops talking about it.
“Oh I’m sorry, but no. He’s a grown ass man, he gets to speak his mind. No disrespect to you Coz, but my brother’s sensitivity to the situation is not Paul’s problem.”
“Here she goes. Sorry I’m sensitive to the fact that I knew this woman and had dinner at her table many times. I’m sorry Amanda, for having a heart for the fact that the children you claimed you “babysat” just lost their mother.”
I scoff.
“You’re so fucking petty, it genuinely hurts. Claimed? I claimed to have babysat. So I’m a liar now?”
“You’ve been one. Or have you forgotten how this shit turned to mess in the first place?”
It’s clear that we’re full on beefing right about now. The tension erupted suddenly and is now uncontainable.
“Aye. Aye. What’s going on right now? Let’s not do this, please?” Paul tries to stop this shit from going further.
We get our food and not much else is said. The ride back to the hotel is silent and all I can think about is how in the world Tommy has gone back to blame this shit on me.
“How this shit turned to mess in the first place?” Whispering to myself, I try to make sense of my brother acting like I’m the one responsible for everything that’s led up to the man’s wife dying. I wasn’t driving the car. She was, and she was probably under the influence, being that she had a pill popping problem her own child made me aware of.
Unable to hold my tongue much longer. I open the door that adjoins the two suites and knock on the door that would allow me into Tommy and Cosima’s living room.
Tommy opens the door.
“She was a pill popper. You know that right? So you can’t blame me for this shit. How dare you?”
“Amanda?” I hear Paul getting out of bed to come get me.
“A pill popper? You’re a coroner now? And nobody blamed you for her death. You’re reaching, like you always do.”
He’s trying to gaslight me right now because he did blame me. He may not have thought that it’s what he was doing, but he did.
“You said I was the reason this shit turned to mess. This shit was a mess before I happened and you know that. And to be honest, I don’t appreciate you trying to make me feel bad about what happened to her.”
He laughs in my face and my face gets hot, followed by my body. Rage is swelling, I can feel it and hear it in my voice.
“You know what Thomas? I don’t feel bad. She was a fucked up person. Whatever the hell she said to him as a result of him telling her about me, made him different. She found out when I was 6 months pregnant. You want to know what happened when I was 6 months pregnant with your nephew?”
Paul comes up from behind me and attempts to pull me back into our suite gently.
“No. Let me tell him. Since he wanted to know so badly.” I yank myself free of his grip.
“Go ahead little sister. Tell me what he did. Tell me how the married man you said you loved treated you. Do both of us a favor and tell me the truth.” Thomas taunts me and tears fall, from both of our eyes.
The space around us falls extremely silent, it’s as if only the two of us exist, both of us dressed in an armor of aggression and pent up anger.
“I tried to fucking leave! Okay, I wanted to, and he knew it, and he came home so angry. I’m sure it was night she said whatever she said to him, probably telling him to get rid of our baby. When I thought he was asleep I grabbed my bag with a plan to get far enough to ask for help. But the second I hit the top step, he grabbed me. I moved funny trying to shake him off and woke up at the bottom of the stairs in so much pain, not knowing whether or not my baby was alive. I couldn’t feel him for 33 hours, Thomas. And Desmond was nowhere to be found. He came back a week later acting as if nothing even happened.”
It’s just coming to me that he probably thought I died, that he may have gotten off free. He probably just came back to figure out what to do with my corpse. And it’s killing me quite a bit on the inside.
“I think she wanted him to snap and kill me.” My heart breaks all over again. “I think that’s what she meant by keeping it quiet.” I shrug. “So no, I don’t feel bad for that bitch, or for him.”
“And there it is.” He nods as if satisfied and it’s the sickest thing.
“What?”
“It’s funny how the truth always has a way of coming out when you have no choice but to tell it. And here I thought Desmond was this great guy that was worth fucking up your whole life for.”
“Tommy, stop. This shit has gone too damn far. The baby’s sleep and y’all over here fighting for what?” Paul grabs me away, giving me no choice but to head back toward our room.
“No, cause I’ve been waiting to have this conversation for how fucking long Amanda? All I asked for, was the truth and you couldn’t give it to me. You can trust me enough to live in my house rent free and for me to babysit your kid, but not enough to tell me what really happened all that time you were gone?”
“Why do you care?!” I lose it, screaming so loud my voice cracks. “What does it change now that you know? Nothing? The shit still happened.”
“You left your family for him! The same nigga you were crying over and mad about, actually turned out to be the monster I told you he was. But you kept denying and denying, now look. It changes everything. I knew I had the right to worry the way I did. I knew I wasn’t crazy when I felt like something was wrong.”
I’ve never seen Thomas’ face change colors before. Not even in the sun. He’s completely rouge, there’s murderous look in his eyes, but it’s softened just a smidge by sadness.
“You just came back like shit was all good, and cried like it was such an inconvenience to be away from him. You caused a lot of pain and disruption in your absence and you never even said sorry. I let you talk, for months, about how great of a guy he was and how you were so in love. When that was a lie you had to keep telling yourself to feel better about your fucked up decision.”
“Babe, please come to bed. Let’s revisit this in the morning when you have both calmed down.” Cosima rubs his back gently, trying to hide the tears fleeing down the sides of her face.
“You saw it Coz, you too Paul. The shit hurt me and you never said sorry Amanda. I thought you were dead, for over half a year. How is that okay?” His voice cracks, and then he sniffles.
He raises his shoulders in a half shrug and wipes his nose with his index finger and thumb quickly.
“But I guess you win this one Man Man cause I’m no better than you for lying like I believed that shit for even a second. And for acting like shit has been all good when in reality I haven’t forgiven you for the way you did me when I was the only one who had your back. Mom and dad blamed me for your disappearance and I had to eat that shit. I went through all this and tried to believe in the end you really thought it was worth it. But really, it was a waste of time and tears because he was the piece of shit I knew he was to you.”
A heartless laugh erupts from deep within my chest. I wipe the tears that decorate the lower half of my face.
“Sorry for looking for love in the wrong place brother. Shit parents lead to shit problems, you knew what I was going through and it was nothing you, or anyone else could’ve done to save me. Take that weight off your shoulder. It is what it is.”
“It is what it is.” We just stare at each other and there’s definitely pain lodged somewhere between the two of us. It’s lodged real deep to where either of us can barely reach and stitch the wound causing it.
“This can’t happen right now. Let’s call it a night. I think we’re all just fucking tired and you two need some space from each other.” Cosima pulls him away. “Goodnight.” And then the door closes in front of me. I turn around saying nothing. Left alone to cry myself half-asleep in the shower.
All of these feelings I thought I handled, seem to have reattached themselves to me and are seriously messing with my mind. I’m having the scariest of thoughts and I honestly don’t know how to regain control in this moment.
I really did do a fucked up thing for no worthy reason. And I’m embarrassed.
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