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“Help, Holy Ghost,” I mumbled.
Nesha rolled her eyes and grabbed Lennox’s hand. “You gon’ make us late for our flight. Bye, niggas!”
Jasper slid his lighter in his pocket and hugged her, then slapped Lennox’s hand. When they walked away, Storm followed behind them, finally laughing about what happened yesterday. I swore, he could be so worrisome at times. “And we’re at peace again,” LaKeith said with a slight smile.
I chuckled and snuggled in his arms to fight the weather a little longer, to show all my babies some love.
CHAPTER17
JENAHRA
Iwatched Jessica almost the entire day. However, I knew that now was the time to talk to her, or she would never talk. She was sitting by herself and looked to be in deep thought. I turned to Carter, and he was staring at me. Before I could say a word, he said, “Go talk to her.”
I smiled and kissed his lips. That man knew me just as well as I knew myself. I often thought about how I left him to endure a life of heartache and pain with Joseph. All for the sake of what? Teaching my sisters and daughter to be fake? My daughter knew more about what went on in that house than I probably even knew. I was so happy when she chose to leave. I was happy that she wouldn’t be a woman like me.
Jessica was strong, opinionated, aggressive, and a boss. She was everything I was before suffering through abuse from Joseph. I allowed him to tear me down in front of my children. The blessing in that was that she knew what shedidn’twant in a man and what she wouldn’t put up with from one. We rarely talked about her relationships, and I knew it was because she possibly didn’t think I would give her good advice.
When I got close, she looked up at me and smiled. “Hey, Ma.”
“Hey, baby. Did you get my text the other night?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She didn’t say anything else. I sat next to her and grabbed her hand. “Jess, I love you so much. I can tell when things aren’t great in your life. I also know that you probably feel like you can’t talk to me about relationship matters because of my past with Joseph, but I promise, I’m here to listen and help you sort through things if you need me to.”
“Mama, you are doing great in your relationship. I never thought you were accepting of the way things were because you thought they were right. I knew there was another reason much deeper than that. While I questioned why you were putting up with his bullshit on a few occasions, I knew that you weren’t a fool.” She paused for a moment, then turned to me and said, “I love you too.”
I took a deep breath as I nodded. Pushing her to talk would be the wrong thing to do, because she would shut down on me. I wanted her to know that she could come to me though. We were close, but I felt like our relationship was lacking. “I’m sorry for what my decisions put you through. It wasn’t right, and it’s something I have to live with for the rest of my life. I know you don’t trust me to give you good advice. That’s not what I’m here for right now. I just wanna be here. That’s all.”
Her eyes watered as she stared at me. After leaning against me, she said, “I realized that I’m a lot like you. I internalize quite a bit. In my mind, I promised myself that I would never put up with a man that couldn’t get his shit together… or at least one thatrefusedto get his shit together. I thought that if I stayed with Decklan, I would be following in your footsteps. I’m sorry for that. You are the strongest woman I know. While you endured something you shouldn’t have had to, the point is that you made it through.”
I gave her a slight smile and lifted her hand to my lips and kissed it. She continued. “Decklan and I broke up last week. We’d only been apart for a couple of days when I got here. He wasn’t begging for my attention until he saw me talking to Nate. He was just fine with me walking away until he felt like I would be walking to the arms of another man. I just didn’t want to stick around to find out he isn’t right for me.”
I slowly shook my head. “Trust your gut. You aren’t me, Jess. Thank God. You are your own woman, making your own decisions. You love him. I can feel it.”
She huffed. “He said he refuses to let go. I wonder if he would feel that way if he found out that I didn’t think I wanted to be with Nate. I mean, Nate’s a really nice guy, but I’m not up for a long-distance relationship. He lives in Dallas for most of the year. I have way too many needs to be dealing with loneliness while I’m in a whole ass relationship. Plus, I’m honestly not ready to be in another relationship. I need to properly get over Decklan.”
“I understand, baby. You’ll figure it out. It’s not something you have to decide right now. You have all the time in the world.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I inherited your genes on that one. It feels like my internal clock is ticking. Every woman ain’t blessed to where they can have a child at almost fifty.”
I shoulder bumped her. “And believe me, there are plenty of women that are thankful for that very thing.”
She nodded and watched Tiff, Shana, Kema, and Willina get ready for their relay. When their theme song began playing, I tabled our discussion for another time. However, I knew Jess had gotten the point when she sat up and kissed my cheek and said, “Thank you, Mama.”
CHAPTER18
MARCUS
“Mal always talking shit,” I said to Philly.
He chuckled and said, “Aye, that’s my nigga though. Just watching him with Danica made me wanna step my game up with Kema. The way I was still in the streets, deceiving her, was foul. It took a lot to get here. Nobody knows all the threats on my life I endured for snitching but him. So Mal can talk all the shit he want.”
I slowly shook my head and chuckled. I used to run for Philly at one point. It felt good to be able to link up with him. He knew and understood my past life because he was there for a lot of it. As Malachi got situated on the bull, I could see Philly’s cousin Legend talking to him. Malachi continued to nod, agreeing with whatever he was saying to him. These niggas were acting like this was a real rodeo. It felt like one though. They could probably put one on. Tiffany, Malachi, Legend, Red, Shana, and Zayson had the popularity to make it a huge event.
Syn shifted to her right side as she sat next to me, then let out a sigh of relief. “Baby, you okay?”
“Yeah. This baby is trying to start some shit.”
