AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Come on, lil Quan, give me a minute, son. I just want to talk to you,” he said, coming after me.
He was really pissing me off throwing that son word around. Quay tried to make me keep walking, but I had to turn around and say something.
“Lil Quan? Nigga, don’t call me that shit, and don’t fuckin’ refer to me as your son ever again in your motha fuckin life. I’m your son now because of the level of my success? Where the hell were you when we needed you? When you showed up the last time in my life, I was six years old. Do you know how the fuck that scarred a nigga for life?
“It’s crazy because I never admitted this shit to anybody, not even my damn mama, but I always hoped that your ass would come back for us. I prayed that one day you would come back and fix the hell that you had caused. It’s funny the cards that life deals you because now that you’re standing in front of me, I want nothing more than for you to just get the fuck from out of my face and continue what you been doing for all of these years, staying the fuck away,” I barked at him.
“Come on, Quan, I’m still your father. Where is Monae?” he asked.
That question pissed me off more than I already was.
“Where is Monae? You have no fuckin’ right to ask about her, nigga! Because of you, I lost out on a childhood, busting my ass in the streets, trying to make sure my mama and my little sister was good. I was picking up your slack and being a motha fuckin’ man! I raised Monae! The woman that she is today, I brag on how I played a big role in that transformation. Yeah, we were poor, but I’m rich now and I make sure those two women don’t want for shit! We needed you and you weren’t there, so don’t come around now!” I said and my voice cracked.
I hadn’t even realized I had tears falling from my face until now. I tried to act like certain shit didn’t bother me in life, but it killed me every day that I had to live life not having a father there to take part in my success.
“I made it without you. I taught myself how to be a man. I thank you for one thing, though, and that’s for showing me the way a father is not supposed to be. I got a little girl, man. I don’t get to see her every day, and it’s not by choice either. I call her and I tell her I love her every day because I never in my life want that little girl to grow up and say that I wasn’t there for her! She knows exactly who her father is and she’ll never have to walk around this cold ass world, wondering if I was going to ever come back for her because I’m never leaving!” I wiped my eyes and then walked away.
People were outside recording the whole t
hing and I didn’t care. It took a real man to do the shit that I had just done. So the fuck what if I cried? I have reason to. I’m hurting right now.
7:00 P.M.
When I pulled up to my mother’s house, I noticed Charlie’s car in the driveway. I hadn’t spoken to her ass all day, and she had been ignoring the past three phone calls that I had made to her. I knew Charlie, and I knew that she was fucked up behind those text messages that she had seen in my phone. I’ll admit that the shit did look suspect, like I only married her because I knew that once she found out about Chantel, she would right of the bat leave a nigga, but I promise that wasn’t the case at all. I quickly did that marriage with Charlie because I felt like it was time for me to step up and be a man about the situation. Charlie had proven to me time and time again that it was time to make her my wife, but I kept running away from the responsibility.
I parked my car and headed toward the front door of my mama’s house. When I let myself in, I could hear their voices, and it sounded like they were in the kitchen. I walked inside and made my presence known. Suddenly, all conversation ceased.
“Fuck y’all stop talking for?” I asked, looking from Charlie, to Monae and my mama.
“Boy, I done told your ass time and time again that I am not one of your lil’ friends. Cuss at me again and watch I slap the shit out of your ass,” my mama fussed, and I laughed.
She hated when I used profanity around her, and honestly, I didn’t even do the shit to be disrespectful, I only did it because I knew it pissed her off, and I liked to see her get all riled up.
“And where you coming from, looking all handsome,” my mom said, referring to the three-piece suit that I was wearing.
“I told you that we had that press conference today because of what happened the other night at the hotel.” I walked over to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water.
“Yo’ ass can’t speak? And where the hell you been all day because I called your ass twice.” I approached Charlie as she sat on the barstool in front of the island.
I picked her up, took her spot and sat with her in my lap. I knew she had missed a nigga because if she didn’t, she would have told me to stop touching her.
“Charlie, girl I’m so done with your ass. You were just over here whining about this nigga, and look at your ass now,” Monae said.
“Oh yeah, what you were whining about now? Seems like ever since your ass got pregnant, that’s all you seem to do anymore,” I said it in a teasing way, but lord knows that I was dead ass serious.
“I wasn’t whining about anything. I was just telling them what was going on between us. How did the press conference go?” she asked me.
“That shit was straight. I just had to give a bullshit ass apology for the shit, which I don’t understand why it was me who had to do it because I damn sure didn’t crack a bitch upside the head with a bottle, but since the shit happened in our room, Dre and I had to apologize for it. But that’s not even the shit that got me all heated. Excuse my language, Ma, but guess who had the fuckin’ nerve to show up in the middle of the damn press conference?” I said.
I was still in a state of shock about that shit, and I was still livid that his ass referred to me as his son. Not once, but twice. He wasn’t there for the fuckin’ hard times, so don’t be there now in my time of success. It kind of had me thinking, though, was he looking at me now and seeing dollar signs, or was he coming back after all of these years, trying to rekindle a relationship that never even existed. Damn near fifteen years ago, I would have died to hear that man call me his son and be so anxious to see and talk to me, but it’s crazy how the times have changed.
“Who?” all three women asked at the same time.
“Keith, that’s who,” I said. That was his name to me. It wasn’t dad, father, none of that shit, just plain ole Keith.
“Are you fuckin’ serious, Jaquan? What the hell did he want?” my mom asked me.
I could see in her eyes how shocked she was about the situation. I’m pretty sure my face resembled hers when he brought his ass in the room earlier.
