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“We’re not,” my eyes bulged. “I don’t know the specifics of your situation and you don’t know the specifics of mine. I can tell you one thing though, I ain’t texting my baby daddy paragraphs or chasing behind him. I love my baby too much to bring her misery and distress while she’s in my womb.”

“Girllll, you can say anything but who knows what you’re really doing when you’re at home alone.”

“Bitc-,” I was about to go in like our mothers and grandma weren't in the room. Thankfully, my grandma stood up and cut me off.

“Alright, that’s enough. We not about to do all that and definitely not in my house.”

“Chileee,” my mama stressed while staring down at her vibrating phone. She looked directly at me in a way that made my heart skip a beat. “Y’all then talked this man up.”

Before I could respond she answered the phone and put it on speaker.

“Hello?”

“Wassup, Ms. Lucia? How you doing today?”

The sound of Armias’ voice made my heart drop. The last time I heard it was when he was telling me that my pregnancy had nothing to do with him. He was so mean that day but he wanted to be all polite on the phone with my mom. I didn’t understand why he was calling her in the first place. She needed to do like me and block his ass.

“I’m doing good, baby,” she responded nicely, making me turn my face up in disgust. She was too friendly for me. “How are you?”

“I’m finna flash out.”

“Flash out?”

“Yes, because your daughter is on some other stuff. Excuse my French, but she got me fucked up.”

“How so, Armias? What did she do?” She asked with concern but the grin on her face said she was ready to hear him bitch and complain. I was starting to wonder if this was a regular occurrence between them two.

“Last month she told me she was getting an abortion so there was no need for me to be trying to get in contact with her or to be contacting you. She didn’t even give me a chance to respond and tell her that I wasn’t with that because she blocked me again right after she sent the message.”

“I know that, Armias, because you let me know and I told you I’d do my best to convince her not to get an abortion. But I also said that I couldn’t promise anything because it’s her body and decision to make. Did you forget?”

I was floored. She had neglected to mention any of this to me. I lied and told that nigga I was getting an abortion because I didn’t want him going out of his way to talk to me. I had decided it would be best if he wasn’t a part of my pregnancy. I didn’t have to be walking around broken-hearted and sad because he couldn’t be there for me in the way I wanted. Dream had sent me his girlfriend's page and she’d posted him multiple times. She’d already come for me over the phone, so I wasn’t going to give her the space to do it for the remainder of my pregnancy. I was going to call him after I had my daughter so we could get a DNA test and then we'd handle the rest from there. But I wasn’t about to worry myself silly about him or his jailbird anytime soon.

“No Ms. Lucia, I didn’t forget and that’s why I’m finna crash out. I reached out to you twice after that and you told me that she was probably going to get an abortion.”

Although all of this was new information to me, I wasn’t shocked that my mom was lying on my behalf. She stressed that it was important for me to remain positive and drama free. Despite her entertaining Armias, I don’t think she trusted him to do that.

“Well she was considering it heavily at the time, baby. I didn’t lie about that.”

“So why nobody told me that she had a change of heart?”

“How do you know that she had a change of heart?”

“Because she posted pictures of her baby bump in her close friends on Instagram like she don’t have my sister’s in there.”

I cracked a smile because I knew very well that his sisters were in my close friends. I hadn’t talked to Aspen and Aneesah since late June, but we kept each other on social media. They still liked my posts and I did the same with them, so I figured they didn’t hate me. I felt so cute today that I posted a picture showing off my belly for the first time to my close friends. I didn’t care that Aspen and Aneesah could see it because it wasn’t like I was planning on hiding the rest of my pregnancy. I had booked two maternity shoots and I was planning a big baby shower with my mom. All of those things were going to be posted, so Armias was going to find out that I didn’t get an abortion eventually. It made no sense to prolong the inevitable. I didn’t think he’d be this mad, but I was very pleased.

“Well baby, I don’t know what you want me to say. It looks like Lourdes doesn’t want you to be a part of her pregnancy and that’s beyond my control.”

“So y’all lying to me and acting like she got an abortion was the answer? My daughter don’t deserve a daddy because she’s mad at me?!”

“Oh, now he’s claiming my baby?” I had to say something because he was acting like I was keeping him away for no good reason.

“That’s her?!”

“Yup,” she tittered.

“Give her the phone, Ms. Lucia.”