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“Fuck it. I’ll be packed,” Bacardi replied. “But I’m leaving this fuckin’ place with a bang.”
“As long as we leave,” said Chanel.
Bacardi didn’t say it, but she thought it. This was all Charlie’s fault, and her first-born would pay.
Chapter Two
Charlie took repeated pulls from her cigarette and stared off into the distance, looking at nothing but thinking about everything, including everyone who had wronged her. She stood on the gravel rooftop of her project building, aimlessly gazing at the floodlit city from a distance on a breezy, fall night. Charlie wasn’t in any rush to go inside. Instead, she continued to relish the comfort of being alone on the rooftop—contemplating and plotting.
She felt she had nothing left; everything had been taken from her. She seethed and found herself in self-preservation mode.
She had killed a man—not some stranger, but a man that she had once deeply loved. She convinced herself that it had to be done. But why? She really didn’t know. He committed a laundry list of infractions against her in the past. He beat her. He cheated on her. He fucked her sister. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word—to say that her man raped her little sister. She had known that prior to the murder and, evidently, she could live with it. To Charlie, her little sister brought the misery on herself.
So, if none of that made her consider murdering him, what made her snap?
A little voice inside her said it was her ego. Her ego couldn’t take hearing God say that Kym had some good pussy and Chanel had better pussy than hers, even though he uttered those words while heavily influenced by the drug she had given him. How could God say such a vile thing to her—after everything she did for him? She was his ride-or-die bitch for years, and she had even killed for him. She hated the fact that Chanel had fucked her man. God was her man and nobody else’s.
In Charlie’s eyes, everything was Chanel’s fault—why she was forced to kill her man and why she now had nothing. Her day for revenge would come.
But first things first, Charlie had to put all her ducks in a row. What if the police found trace evidence she had overlooked in the apartment and decided to believe Kym’s story? Kym would surely plead her innocence and tell them that she didn’t kill God.
There were so many what-if’s in Charlie’s mind, it was becoming overwhelming. She was becoming paranoid, and if anyone got in her way, she was ready to violently cut them down.
Charlie was determined that her story wasn’t about to end. She wasn’t about to rot in some prison cell while her sister remained free and breathing and living her best life. She didn’t want to fade into obscurity and be forgotten.
After being gone for several days and spending hours on the gravel rooftop, Charlie finally walked through the front door to her parents’ apartment. Her foul mood was matched by Bacardi’s—like mother like daughter. Her mother was seated on the couch smoking a cigarette. Charlie, who was still haunted with hallucinations about murdering God, wasn’t in the mental state for chitchat. But the moment she closed the door, Bacardi got up and hurried over to her, almost looking for a confrontation.
“Where the fuck was you, Charlie? Shit is gettin’ fuckin’ crazy out here and you got time to disappear and not tell anyone where the fuck you were at?” Bacardi chided. “And where the fuck is my rent?”
Charlie cut her eyes at her mother. “What are you hollering ’bout now? I’m not in the fuckin’ mood, Bacardi.”
Charlie begrudgingly tried to push past her mother, but Bacardi was adamant in confronting her. Charlie remained defiant as she stood in the hallway across from the kitchen. A few feet from her bedroom, she noticed them. Padlocks. “What the fuck is this?” she asked.
Bacardi smirked at her daughter’s sudden bewilderment and taunted, “Yeah, bitch, shit done changed up in here. From now on, rent is due on the first of the month, and everyone is to contribute toward food. Ain’t no more free rides in my place.”
Charlie twisted up her face. She felt everyone wanted to take advantage of her and disrespect her while she was down. She wasn’t having it.
“Are you fuckin’ serious?! You really wanna go there and talk ’bout free rides? I carried you and this fuckin’ family for years!”
“You either pay rent or you can get the fuck out!” Bacardi retorted.
“Bitch, I ain’t goin’ no-fuckin’-where!” Charlie screamed back.
They no longer looked like mother and daughter, but two strangers shouting in each other’s faces with erratic hand movements going back and forth.
The loud shouting brought Claire out of her bedroom. She had gone along with the program and started paying her mother rent. She didn’t have a choice since she didn’t have anywhere else to go. While Bacardi was living the lavish life in Manhattan with Chanel all summer, Claire had begun to get her life together. She was working part-time at TJ Maxx and attending community college. Things were copasetic until Charlie’s return brought hell back into the apartment.
“Ma, you trippin’ right now,” Claire said.
“Stay the fuck outta this, Claire,” Bacardi yelled.
“I ain’t payin’ you shit, bitch!” shouted Charlie.
More heated words were exchanged, and Claire desperately tried to play the peacemaker between them. Bacardi wanted $300 a month toward rent from both of them, and she wanted $200 a month for food. However, Charlie didn’t have a dime to her name. She was hungry, tired, and she wanted everyone to get out of her face.
“If you think I’m paying you five hundred a month for a project room, then you a dumb fuckin’ bitch. Like I said, you ain’t gettin’ shit from me. All that money and shit me and God gave you, and this is how you fuckin’ repay me!” Charlie shouted.
Hearing God’s name spew from Charlie’s mouth did something to Bacardi. On top of Charlie’s self-righteous tone, it made her go ape shit. She unexpectedly lunged at her daughter, attacking Charlie like she was a bitch in her prime. Charlie got hit with a series of blows, but her mother attacking her unleashed the beast inside of her. The two were going pound for pound inside the living room, knocking pictures off the walls and sending glasses and ashtrays smashing to the floor.
