AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“As mad as I was when I found out that she wasn’t carrying my grandbaby, I wouldn’t have wished this on her, you know? God has a way of working, though. What if that was my grandbaby and then something like this happened? Whew, I don’t even want to think about that,” I said, not even wanting to dwell on the conversation that much more.
From what it sounded like, I would have given that nursery set along with the clothes and everything that I’d purchased away regardless.
“I get it. We don’t have to talk about it. Where are you? Your background is loud,” she said.
There was loud, rap music playing through the speakers in the gym.
“Here at boxing practice with Miami, ready to go home,” I said, and this time, she laughed.
“How’s that going?”
“Girl, you didn’t just hear me say that I’m ready to go home? I’ve been so mean to Miami all week, and he finally checked me about it. It’s almost one. We’ve been here since like nine this morning,” I told her, and I could hear her chuckling on the other end of the phone.
“That’s what your ass get, and—”
“Fuck is you on the phone with? Every time I walk in the room, you running your damn mouth on the phone,” Jabari’s deep voice boomed in the background.
I laughed because the two of them were a hot ass mess. Any other time, I would have ended the phone call, but I could use a good laugh right now, so I stayed on the line.
“Jabari, are you fuckin’ serious right now? Don’t try to embarrass me when you see me on the phone because I never fuck with you when you’re running your mouth to those ugly ass niggas,” Mahogany snapped at him.
“How the fuck you know if my niggas ugly? You be looking at them?” I heard him ask. I laughed because he was just as sick as Mahogany made him out to be.
“Seriously, Jabari? Get out because you’re trying to start something. What? You trying to fight with me so you can leave and fuck another bitch? You know what? Shae, Ima call you back,” I heard, and there was a bunch of shuffling on the phone until the line finally ended.
Shaking my head, I hung up the phone, and because I had nothing else to do, I logged onto my Instagram page. I wasn’t social media crazy. In fact, now that I was back working and in a relationship, I really didn’t have the time to be on it like I used to. I had a handful of follower requests that I wasn’t even sure how long they’d been sitting there for. I was so personal when it came to my life that I only allowed people to follow me who I actually knew. I declined a lot of the female requests because they were either trying to follow me and be nosey because of my dealings with Miami or my prior dealings with Trip. I knew how this social media shit went.
A woman whose Instagram name was Krystal305 had sent me a friend request. Her page wasn’t private, so I was able to look at her pictures. Instantly, I knew who she was. We’d gone to high school together. We weren’t friends or anything like that, but I definitely remembered her. She used to be so skinny, but now she was thick as hell. She had a nice body on her. She was always pretty, so it wasn’t even shocking to see the nice pictures that she had on her page. Looking at the third picture, I swear it felt like my heart had stopped beating.
“Wowwwww,” was all I could say out loud.
This woman was just as much in a relationship with Trip as much as I used to be in. Pictures of him and her took up the majority of her profile. They took pictures together like they were at a photo shoot at a club. I mean, they looked like the perfect hood couple. At the prison, we were allowed to take pictures, and I have a drawer filled with pictures of myself, Trip, and Vonte. There was a little girl that she was posting on her page as well who looked to be no older than
six. She didn’t post the little girl’s father, and the little girl wasn’t in the prison pictures with Krystal and Trip, so I really didn’t know who she belonged to.
Of course, like any other woman would do, I zoomed in on the pictures of the little girl, just to see if she looked anything like Trip or Vonte, but it was so hard to determine because she was Krystal’s twin. Krystal was like an open book, posting everything. She had screenshots of messages between her and Trip, and this man was telling her a bunch of jailhouse lies, letting her know that he wanted to marry her and whatever other bullshit he felt the need to say.
I was proposed to by Trip on more than one occasion while he’s been incarcerated, and I’m just so glad that my dumb ass didn’t say yes. I almost did, but something in the back of my mind always told me that I deserved better than that. She even went as far as posting the video calls that they had, and on this specific video, he was expressing his love for her. She posted the letters he would send, the drawings, even pictures of himself. Out of curiosity, something told me to check my DM’s. Sure enough, I had a message from her from over two weeks ago.
“Hey Jashae, it’s Krystal. I’m not even sure if you remember me, but we attended the same middle school. I’ve been putting this message on hold for the past five years, but I finally got the courage to send it. I can just bet that you’re going through a lot, especially after losing your son. Whenever you get some free time, can you give me a phone call?”
After the message, she left her number. Remember me saying that her daughter didn’t look any older than six years old? Now, she’s saying that she’s been wanting to contact me for the past five years. That was all I needed to know. That little girl who I was just looking at, definitely belonged to Trip. All this shit made the perfect amount of fuckin’ sense now. There were times when I was supposed to see Trip, and he would change his mind at the last minute. When I said little things like, “You must have another bitch coming to see you,” he would swear on everybody’s grave that he loved that he wasn’t fuckin’ around.
The smirks and the stares that I got from the correctional officers who worked at the prison when I went to see Trip all made sense now. They knew that Trip was playing the fuck out of me. Damn, I felt so stupid! This was the same nigga who made threats to kill any nigga that he heard I talked to, yet he had a whole other bitch while he and I were together. I can’t believe that I held a corny ass nigga like him down.
I didn’t respond to the DM. However, I did go back on her page and finish looking at the pictures. Yes, I was over Trip, but that didn’t take away the fact that I was hurt. That was ten years of my life that I felt like I had just wasted.
“How that shit make you feel?” Miami’s deep voice boomed from behind me.
I jumped because I hadn’t even seen him when he came over. He snatched the phone from my hand, scrolled for a few seconds, and then he threw the phone in my lap. I don’t know why, but I was scared. My eyes even squinted a little bit because I thought that he was going to hit me. I should know better than to believe that Miami would raise a finger toward me.
“We can go now. I’m done,” he called out.
He had the towel wrapped around his neck, a backpack was on him, and this time, he wore a sleeveless shirt with a different pair of gym shorts. I assumed that he must have taken a shower in the back. I had to say something. It would be crazy for me not to.
“I’m just now seeing this. It’s not like I check my page every day. I haven’t been on Instagram in weeks,” I told him, trying to cover my ass.
“You ain’t gotta explain shit to me, shorty. What you want to eat?” he asked, trying to change the subject.
