Page 60 of Heart Of A Goon II

Snatching the burner from my vest, I looked at the message.

M: Got em. ;)

This nigga had the nerve to send an emoji with a smirk. Just as quick as the message popped up, it disappeared and the screen went black. I tossed the burner and continued ahead. Once we made it towards Canarsie, we all split up.

I headed towards the Caselli safe house, while the Infernos and Delgatos went to theirs.

ZOYA

Recommendation: Listen to “I Stay In Love” by Mariah Carey

That man.

He made it hard to second guess my decision or even be mean to him. Even though I was pregnant with his baby, and couldn’t go a day without thinking about him, it was in my nature to be mean to a man.

Even if it was my man.

Gerald showed me that for me, he would make what I thought was impossible, fucking possible. I’ve never experienced that with any man I dated, only with my brothers. Men had always been such a letdown when it came to proving themselves. Most men liked to let their dicks hang and puff their chests out like they were the one, and in reality, they couldn’t do shit for me. If I asked my brothers for a candy cane, Menace or Don would have taken me to the north pole to track one down.

It was because I knew I could ask my brothers for anything and they would make it happen, that I naturally went the other way when it came to the type of men that I dated. Impossible wasn’t in the Caselli vocabulary. Navy and Stevie learned that first hand when they got with my brothers.

Gerald wasn’t like the others.

I had a taste for edamame in chili oil, called him to just be a brat, and he solved my problem from hours away. Not to mention, he sounded preoccupied with all the whispering he was doing. I missed him, so calling him was less about being a brat and more about hearing his voice. The last thing I expected was for him to do anything about it. I mean, what the hell could he do? I was outrageous with some things, but even I knew he couldn’t get me what I wanted.

Eventually I turned over to get some sleep. That was short lived when I jumped out my sleep to someone beating on my door. When I snatched the door open and Kobe was standing there holding a bowl filled with edamame tossed in chili oil, I could damn near cry.

This wasn’t a pregnancy craving. I’ve always had these moments when I had an intense craving for something. I’d hyper fixate on it for weeks, and then one random day I never picked it up again.

Kobe told me that Goo had one of the staff members leave the island to grab the ingredients from the main island, then sent him a website with the recipe that he found online. Even with all he had going on back home, he made this a priority.

It was a reminder that I wasn’t too much for the right man.

In the past, it was easier to date down because I didn’t love myself. How the hell could I expect any good man to love me when I couldn’t even do it? It was easier to put up with men like Sigel because deep down we both knew he wasn’t shit.

There were many times when I should have walked away. There were moments when I knew I was better than what I was allowing and shouldn’t have been trying to make it work.

Then I heard that bitch in my head.

That voice could convince a snail to open a salt bar. She made me believe that I didn’t deserve the kind of love that bitches like Jahquel J. wrote about in her books.

She forced me to believe that I had to settle for men like Sigel because that was the best that I could get. I believed that nobody would put up with my bad attitude and dramatics. When in reality, there were men out there ready to put it all on the line to love a woman like me.

Gerald Wraithe.

He met me where I was and wanted to heal me all the way to the finish line. Gerald was the kind of man who would say one thing and stand on what he said. As ruthless as Goo was out in those streets, he never brought that side to me.

He had always been soft with me, even when I wasn’t at my softest. He encouraged me to be something I never thought I could be.

Soft.

He was affectionate. Always showing me that he desired me, and my doubt was all in my head. The man was transparent with his feelings, never leaving room for me to second guess his intentions. Every time I felt like he had dismantled a piece of that brick wall, I snatched it back to keep my wall up.

A man like him scared me.

As I sat on this balcony sucking the hell out of this edamame, tears fell down my face and this time I didn’t rush to wipe them away so I could pretend that I was alright. I was allowing myself to feel all the emotions that I kept bottled up.

The fear I had from someone seeing me being down or showing emotion wasn’t normal. I felt weak if I cried or expressed how I felt about something. Affection and emotion weren’t something that us Caselli siblings had done well.