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The second she made it over to me, she wrapped me up in her arms, and placed kisses on my cheeks, telling me how good of a job I’d done, and how proud of me she was.

“Thank you auntie. Did you get a good video?” I asked, once we pulled away.

“I did. Ima send it to you. You did so good. Girl, I cried like a baby when you finished,” she told me. I laughed, already knowing that she was telling the truth.

We headed inside my room, and once inside, I walked over to a stool, taking a seat. I was exhausted. I’ve been up since four this morning. We had to be here at the arena super early to do a sound check. I also needed to practice my routine. Here it was, almost one in the morning.

“Here. Throw this back on,” my aunt said, after she went into my duffle bag, and handed me the sweat suit that I arrived in. She had to know how tired I was.

I took the items from her, thanking her for it, and quickly stood out of the chair.

“Ima send the video to Meka too. She gotta see this shit,” my aunt said, as she sat down on one of the couches.

I didn’t respond to her bringing up my mom. I continued to get dressed in silence.

We didn’t end up leaving the arena until about an hour later. We stuck around to take pictures with Amaya and her team. Once that was over and done with, we were escorted out through a side door of the arena, so we wouldn’t have to take the same exit as everyone else. There was a black truck, with a driver already parked back here, waiting for us. I damn near sprinted to the truck, ready to get inside, so I could doze off during the thirty-minute ride back to the hotel.

A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER

“I love it out here. This the kind of place I’ll move to once I’m older,” I said out loud to my aunt.

We were back in our hotel suite. We had a beautiful room, with a view that was sickening. Prior to this trip, I’ve never been to London, so of course, I didn’t know anything about the River Thames with the London Eye. As we were in bed, that’s what was to the right of us. Since it was dark out, everything was lit up and reflecting off the water. It was a romantic kind of view. Very expensive. Something that made me crave my man. Me and Wolf had a thing for fuckin outside on the balcony, so I could only imagine what would have taken place out there on the balcony.

“Girl, your ass won’t leave Miami,” my aunt said to me, and I laughed because she was telling the truth.

I was a Miami girl at heart. I love my city. I love the food. The culture. I loved pulling up to the hood, going to all the southern soul food spots. I liked that I was hood famous out there. People stopped me, wanting to take pictures with me all the time. I couldn’t see me walking away from the place that made me. Miami was deep rooted into me. I was a product of Miami, Florida.

It was a little after three in the morning, and you would think that after the long day we had, we would be resting. My aunt was a foodie just like me, so we were sharing the same bed right now, with a spread of food in front of us. We both had on long sleeved, silk pajamas. I had big flexi rods in my hair, preserving my curls. My aunt still had her long ponytail in her hair, so only the front of her hair was tied down.

We ordered a bunch of room service to the room. One would think that we had the munchies. I’m talking cheeseburgers and fries, pizza, chicken tenders, chicken wings, the whole nine. There was even a few slices of cake for desert.

“You’re trending on Instagram. The people loved your performance,” my aunt said, handing me her phone, so I could see what was going on.

I dried my hands off on the cloth that was resting in my lap before grabbing her phone. The blogger page was called The Social District. You had to be somebody to get posted on this page. They didn’t just post little, small-time creators. This was the kind of blog pages that posted the big steppers like Beyoncé, Cardi B, and anyone else with a big status and following. I’ve been posted on this page quite a few times in the past for some of my viral moments on stage.

They posted an entire thread of my performance tonight. Different angles of me on stage. The caption read, ‘Poison Takes London’. The post hasn’t been up for longer than an hour, yet it was reaching one million likes. So many comments, and the post was shared over fifty thousand times.

I sat here with this smile on my face, skimming through all the comments.

Everyone was telling me how I killed it on stage tonight. This was a secret I kept from my fans. No one knew I was getting on stage with Amaya tonight. Only close friends and family knew about it.

After reading most of the comments, I went ahead and passed the phone back to my aunt.

“When you sent the video to my mama, did she reply?” I asked a question that I’ve been dying to know the answer to but was being protective of my feelings. Also, lowkey afraid that I might get an answer that I didn’t want to hear, so I didn’t ask it right away.

Instead of my aunt responding to my question, she skimmed through on her phone, as if she was looking for something. She went for the message thread between her, and my mom. Not only did she send my mom the videos of me performing on stage, but she also sent her some of the backstage pictures that I took alone, and some with Amaya and her crew. In total, it was eleven photos, and videos that my aunt sent her. My mom reacted to each photo and video, hearting them. She replied too.

Twin

I’m proud of her.

That’s what the message said. Probably the nicest thing that her ass has said about me in over fifteen years. I wasn’t sure when I would see something nice like that again coming from her, so I stared at the message for at least one minute. After letting it all sink in, that’s when I handed my aunt her phone back.

“She’ll probably say something nice like that again to me in the next fifteen years,” I blurted, picking up a fry, dipping it inside the ketchup, and eating it.

“Meka used to be so sweet. Every time I tell you that, I know you think I’m lying, but it’s true. You like to think that you get your soft side from me, but I’m telling you that you inherited that from your mama. I was always known as the mean twin. Your mama was the nice one. Well, she wasn’t sweetheart nice, but she was nicer than me. Life changed her. Life fucked her up and made her evil,” my aunt said, pushing the food away from her, and she laid down on her back.

She placed her arms behind her head, and I used this time to turn a little bit, so I could face her.