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I looked over at Rylo, and this time, she had her air pods in her ear and nodding her head as she finished doing her work. I took this time to look down at Denim, and I won’t lie, the shit fucked me up. As angry as I was at this woman, as disappointed as I was in her, this shit right here wasn’t right. The shit she did was disrespectful to both me and that nigga, but this right here just wasn’t it. I thought about Sidnesha telling me how Denim could hear us when we talked to her, so I wanted to get a few words off my chest.
“The last time I saw you, I just knew that that was going to be my last time seeing you for a while. You already know how a nigga gets when he’s on ten, and that night, I want to say that you had me on twenty. It wasn’t in my list of plans to keep Khari away from you, but I did want to soak up as much time with her as I possibly could because I didn’t know how this shit was going to end. I knew one thing, I was ready to go to war with that nigga over her because his or not, I wasn’t giving my daughter to that nigga.
“All I keep thinking is what if I had decided to leave the party that night on my own, and I didn’t bring my kids home with me? What if Khari hadn’t been living with me this whole time? Ain’t no telling the fucked-up shit that nigga would have been doing to Khari as he’s somewhere hiding like the little bitch he is. I don’t know what you think of me after all this shit, but what I can say is that you ain’t ever got to worry about me ever in my fuckin’ life raising no gun and beating you with it. That’s some real coward ass shit. I’ll walk away and pretend like you never existed before I ever stoop that low. I’m saying all this to tell you to wake yo’ ass up,” I joked.
I swear I saw her eyes twitch when I said that.
“I don’t know if you think Ima lay hands on you when you wake up, but that ain’t the case at all. You ain’t gotta be scared to open your eyes, Denim. You got two of the most beautiful little girls in the world waiting for you to make your grand appearance. This shit is going to fuck with Khari until she finds out that you are doing better, and to tell you the truth, I don’t know how long a nigga can hold shit down in your absence because I know she needs you.
“I’m sure your sleep right now is lovely, but you need to wake up for these girls. They need you. When you wake up, you gotta get better, and then we’ll come up with some type of arrangement as far as Khari. Whatever you do, don’t leave these girls out in the cold like this. They got too many more milestones that they gotta experience, and you need to be here for this shit,” I said.
I squeezed her hand for a few seconds and let it go. After standing over her for a few more moments, I took a seat in the chair that was right at her bedside. Ten minutes after I sat down, I heard the hospital door open. Khari and Denim’s mother came back into the room. Khari was much calmer now, and that’s probably because she had a lollipop in her hands, but I sti
ll saw the sadness in her eyes. The moment she was further into the room and saw me, she came and took a seat in my lap.
Because we were close enough to Denim’s bed, she grabbed her mother’s hand and placed it in her lap.
“Grandma told me that she’s sleeping,” Khari said, and I nodded, letting her know that she was right. “I don’t want to go to Disney World anymore. I want to stay here with Mommy for my spring break because I want to be here, just in case she wakes up,” Khari told me.
That shit made me smile because most five-year-olds wouldn’t have turned down Disney World for anything in the world.
“That’s cool. We can do that. We’ll just take you to Disney World once she wakes up,” I told her.
“She will wake up, right?” Khari turned around and looked up at me with those big, glossy eyes.
I wiped her eyes before a tear could even fall. It fucked me up to see my daughter like that.
“She’s going to wake up. I can hear her big ass mouth already,” I joked, and Khari laughed.
She never let go of her mother’s hand as she leaned her head back on my chest. My baby was asleep within ten minutes. Even Rylo had finished her homework and had gone over to the couch and laid down for a nap. Denim’s mother was straightening up the room a little bit, throwing away some of the leftover food bags and shit.
I had a good relationship with Denim’s mother. She ain’t ever give a nigga any problems, and I’d like to say I stayed on her good side as well. I was about to spark up a conversation with her, but the shit that flashed across the screen on the news silenced me from saying anything.
“After being on the run for over a week, officers have finally caught Mr. Reginald Cooper. He’s responsible for a vicious assault on Denim McCloud, who is currently in critical condition at Memorial Hospital. Ms. McCloud was six weeks pregnant when the attack happened. Mr. Cooper was found hiding at a friend’s house in Tampa, Florida. We’ll have more details for you at 7:00 P.M.,” the news anchor said.
They were showing footage of Reggie being led out of the apartment in handcuffs. That nigga was going to jail with just his boxers on. It ain’t even in me to wish prison on no nigga because I just did five years of that shit, but I wanted some foul shit to happen to his ass. My eyes left the TV screen and landed on Denim’s mother, who was next to the bed with her hands over her mouth and tears running down her face. I knew they were happy tears because justice would be served for her daughter.
“She pregnant by that nigga again?” I asked.
I watched Denim’s mother wipe her face as she walked over to me.
“Yes. I actually found out the morning of the attack. She told me. She also told me that she was going to keep it. When she got to the hospital, I let the nurses and the doctor know that she was pregnant. Out of all the crazy shit that has happened with all this, the baby is fine, surprisingly. She made seven weeks today. Billion, I know you have some people in prison who will kill this nigga. I want him dead for what he did to my daughter,” she told me.
She was a mother, so I ain’t expect her to say anything less. On top of that, she was hurting and hurt people wanted to hurt people.
“It’s going to get handled,” I told her, and she nodded.
“I appreciate you for coming down here because I know it wasn’t easy for you to come. I know that you’re upset with Denim for what happened, so I thank you for coming,” she told me, and I waved what she said off like the shit wasn’t a big deal.
“It’s cool. It ain’t about me and how I feel right now. It’s about my daughter needing to see her mama and her mama needing to hear her daughter’s voice, so she can wake up from this shit,” I told her.
I sat around in the room for at least another hour, and then I stood up, so we could head out. I would bring Khari back whenever she wanted to come. If she wanted to sit up in there with her mama next week for her entire spring break, I would let her do that because I knew that Denim’s mother was there every day. I knew the fighter that Denim was, so her ass would be up in no time, working a nigga’s fuckin’ nerves with her smart-ass mouth.
I was at the nail salon, and the final coat of cocaine white was being painted on my toes. I was glad for that because I was ready to get the hell up out of there. In ten more minutes, it would make four damn hours that I had been there. I loved pampering myself, but I just wished that I could snap my fingers, and everything would be done.
I went to one of the most talked about and popular nail salons in downtown Miami, so whenever I went, there was a long wait. My girl, who did my nails and my toes was the owner, Kim, and everyone came to see her. You had to book with Kim weeks in advance because she stayed booked. I’d gotten my wax this morning and my facial, so this would be my final pamper of the day. From there, I would stop at the grocery store because I didn’t have anything at home worthy of cooking.
It was a Friday afternoon, and Dream was in school. Because I was no longer working at the doctor’s office, I could hang out and pamper myself during most people’s work hours. Don’t get me wrong, working at the doctor’s office was a good experience for me. After the miscarriage, I took some time off and started giving my online boutique more attention. I knew it was what I’d rather be doing with my life.
