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“You’re a senior right? I’m only assuming because you said you were about to be eighteen,” my mom asked.
“Yes, I’m a senior,” she told her.
“So, what next? You have plans on going to college?” my mom asked. Damn, it was like her ass was playing damn twenty-one questions.
“Yes, ma’am. Hopefully I’ll get into the University of Miami,” Antonia said. For the first time, I could see where she was actually proud of something. Seems like every time I asked her a question, she just had a blank expression on her face.
“Okay, that’s great. What about your parents? Are they okay with you hanging with my son, since he’s six years older than you? I know when I got with their father, my parents had a fit and almost tried to have him arrested,” my mom said.
“I don’t stay with my parents. My mom died and I don’t know my dad. I live with my aunt and her four other children,” Antonia said.
I didn’t even know that because all she had told me was that she didn’t stay with her parents, and I never finished the conversation because I could tell that it was a touchy subject for her.
My mom stopped with all of the questions, and ten minutes later, we were all at the table eating dinner together. All the women sat, talking amongst themselves, while I just ate my food and listened. I could tell that Antonia was slowly opening up to my family because she really wasn’t acting shy anymore, which was a good sign. After we finished eating, the women went and cleaned up the kitchen, while I went into the den to watch some TV. I guess that I would just chill over here until it was time for me to take Antonia back home. About ten minutes into the show, Antonia came and took a spot next to me on the couch.
“You’re so lucky,” she said after two minutes of us sitting in silence.
“Why you say that?” I asked, looking at her.
“Look around you. Your luck speaks for itself,” she said.
Her lil ass always talked in code and I always had to guess what the hell it was that she was talking about. I just nodded my head and continued to watch TV with her next to me.
We were about thirty minutes into the show, Scandal and I looked down and lil mama was knocked out, with her head resting on the back of the couch. She looked uncomfortable as hell, so I picked her up and laid her out on her stomach on the couch. I stood up and went back into the kitchen, so I could get some more of my mother’s cornbread. When I was eating, both my sister and mother walked past me, so I assumed that they were about to go into the living room as well to watch TV.
I finished up my cornbread and then went and grabbed a bottle of water before I went back into the living room. When I walked back in, Shaniqua and my mom were looking at me with shocked expressions on their faces.
“Why the hell y’all looking like that? Ma, if you mad about her sleeping on the couch, I’ll take her upstairs,” I said and my mom shook her head no.
“Jah, look at her back,” my mom said, pointing over to Antonia.
I set the water bottle down on the table and noticed that Antonia’s shirt had raised up, exposing the bottom of her back. I walked over to her and could see where she had big welts on her body. She was knocked out cold, so I raised her shirt up a little bit more and she had a big, blackish purplish bruise on the upper part of her body, along with other small bruises.
Both my mom and Shaniqua got a glimpse of it and they covered their mouth with their hands. I quickly pulled down her shirt and I swear I wanted to kill whoever the fuck had done this do her. Antonia was probably about one hundred and ten pounds soaking wet, and it looked like a grown man was beating her ass. How she was able to survive these whoopings was crazy to me. The crazy part is that half of the bruises looked like they were fairly knew. I ain’t the smartest nigga out there, but something told me that when I saw her coming from out of her building today crying and walking with a limp, she had just suffered a whooping.
“Put her in my room and lay her on the bed,” Shaniqua said, referring to the bedroom that she had over at my mom’s house.
I picked Antonia up off the couch and carried her up the stairs. She didn’t even flinch. I turned the light on in Shaniqua’s room and laid her on the bed. I grabbed a nearby blanket and placed it over her and then I turned the light out and exited the room. When I came back downstairs, Shaniqua and my mother were still in the same spot that I had left them.
“I never would have guessed that. I didn’t even think anything of it when I saw the bandage under her eye,” my mom said as I took a seat on the couch.
“Who you think could be doing that? She said she stayed with her auntie and cousins,” Shaniqua added.
“I don’t know, but I got a feeling that it could be her aunt. The other night I took her out to dinner and she wouldn’t even let me walk her up the stairs because she was scared that somebody would tell her aunt that she was with me. Like, she wasn’t scared on some ‘I might get grounded’ type of shit. Like, she was looking at me like, ‘if my aunt finds out, I might get the shit beat out of me,’” I confessed because it was the truth.
“Wow. My motherly instincts are kicking in, making me want to handle the situation for her. I just can’t imagine somebody going through shit like that at home. What you think we should do about it? Do we say something to her about it?” my mom asked.
“Don’t say nothing to her because from being around her, I know that she gets embarrassed really easily. She was supposed to be at work tonight but they sent her home because of the bandage. Something about the manager didn’t want to take that risk or something,” I said, and they nodded their heads.
For the remainder of the time, we sat there and watched TV. I couldn’t even focus on the TV because I couldn’t help but to think about Antonia. I could tell that she tried to be so hard body, and she wouldn’t want us having any sympathy for her, but it was something in me that just wouldn’t allow me to turn a blind eye. It was after eleven now, so I went and upstairs and got Antonia, so that I could take her back home. She was knocked out in the bed so peacefully, almost making me not want to wake her up, but I knew I had to.
I walked over to her on the bed and shook her shoulder. Her eyes popped open and she looked around the room and then her eyes landed on me.
“Oh my God! What time is it?” she asked and panic was written all over her face as she jumped out of the bed.
“Chill, it’s only eleven. I’m going to take you home now,” I said, and she calmed down a little bit.
I watched as she fixed up the bed and then folded the blanket and placed it back on top of the bed. When she was finished, we walked out of the room and took the stairs.
