Child Support (Urban Books)

by Amour

  He stopped fucking me. “What the fuck so funny?” he asked.

  “You and this little-ass dick.” I laughed even harder.

  He put his hand around my neck and began choking me. I grabbed his hand, trying to get him to let go, but it wasn’t working.

  “Laugh now, bitch,” he said as he gripped my neck tighter. I couldn’t get a word out, and I could barely breathe. Davon was still fucking me, and now it was rougher. It started to hurt, and there was nothing that I could do about it. I could see that the dragons were still flying in the room, and then suddenly the room got pitch-dark.

  When I woke up, I heard my mother going off about why she didn’t like me going places. She complained that she didn’t understand the choices I’d made in my life. She said if I kept it up, I would be a strung-out junkie. I looked around and realized that I was at home in my bed. I sat up and rubbed my eyes so that I could see things more clearly.

  My mom was on the phone when she saw that I had woken up, and she quickly hung up with whomever it was she was talking to.

  “I should really beat your ass, Angel,” she said, giving me an attitude.

  I rolled my eyes. My body was in too much pain to hear any nagging, and I was not about to listen to it.

  “Don’t roll ya damn eyes at me, girl. You know you done got slipped a Mickey and choked the fuck up with yo’ dumb ass,” she spat. I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about, and I assumed she didn’t know, either.

  I rolled my eyes again and got up out of bed. I went straight across the hall to the bathroom. I stood in the mirror and saw purple handprints on my neck. I put my hand on my neck, touching one of the handprints lightly. It hurt a bit. My mom was standing in the doorway, talking even more shit.

  “You don’t remember that, do you? Nasty little bitch,” she stated while she started walking away.

  I poked my head through the doorway and looked at the back side of her in disgust. My mom never talked to me like this, and it hurt me to hear her speak to me this way. I walked back to my room with my head down. I didn’t see why she was treating me like that. I decided to call Mike, because I missed him and hadn’t seen him in a few days. I listened to the phone ring three times before he picked up.

  “You cool?” Mike asked when he picked up.

  “What? Yeah, I’m cool. What do you mean?” I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “You know, the weed thing? Davon? The whole ordeal at the party?” he said, trying to remind me.

  Honestly, I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Mike, what are you talking about?” I was completely puzzled. I played with the telephone cord. I was clueless and was dying to know what the fuck everybody was talking about.

  “Angel, nothing. I’ll talk to you in school tomorrow,” he said, rushing me off the phone.

  Before I could even respond, I heard the dial tone. I put the phone back on the receiver. I placed my head back on the pillow. I closed my eyes tightly, and then I opened them. When I opened them back up, I saw dragons flying around. I quickly shut my eyes again.

  My hands started losing feeling, and my head started spinning. I tried sitting up, but I couldn’t. I wanted to scream for my mom, but I couldn’t get the words to come out. Tears started falling from my eyes. What was happening to me?

  The next day in school, all I saw was funny faces. Everybody was looking at me sideways, and I didn’t like the shit one bit. I didn’t say anything, though. I saw Tiffany at her locker and decided to approach her. I walked up behind her.

  “What’s up, Tiff?”

  She turned around with a look of concern on her face and put her hand on my shoulder. “Are you cool, chica?” she asked.

  “Why does everybody keep asking me that shit? Yes, I’m cool,” I said. I was starting to become annoyed. I was irritated as hell.

  Tiffany grabbed her books from her locker, and then we walked to our drama class together. She sat down in a front seat, and I made my way to the back, where my assigned seat was. Everyone was looking at me crazy. Some were grinning and whispering, while others were just looking at me.

  I didn’t get what the big deal was, and I was beyond tired of the glares, so I spoke up. “What the fuck is y’all staring at?” I spat. I stared down the whole class.

  Nobody uttered a word. They all turned to face the front of the class. Our drama teacher, Mrs. Kyle, walked in moments later and began our lecture.

  Thirty minutes into the class, I started seeing dragons flying. This time they looked like they were trying to attack me. I kept scooting my chair farther and farther back, until I was up against the wall. I didn’t know where everyone in class went, but I was in a dungeon alone . . . or so I thought. The biggest green dragon stood right in front of me. I covered my eyes and screamed. I heard giggles but saw no one. I could feel its hot breath on my leg. I was so scared. I got out of my seat and ran for the door.

  I turned to look back, and the dragon was right on my heels.

  “Please, don’t kill me,” I cried while trying to open the door. The dragon spat fire, making the doorknob hot. I quickly moved my hand and blew on it. I was sure it had burnt me. I heard Mrs. Kyle calling my name, but I couldn’t see anyone.

  I backed up into a corner as the dragon walked up to me, and sat down there with my hands guarding me. The dragon’s breath was so hot on me that I began to sweat. I heard my name again but still saw no one. I felt hands on my shoulders and someone shaking me.

  “Angel, what’s wrong?” Mrs. Kyle’s voice said.

  I couldn’t talk. My mouth wouldn’t move.

  “Honey, are you okay?” she asked.

  Finally, I could see her. Now I could see the entire class, and everyone was looking at me like I was crazy. I was so embarrassed. The dragons were gone, and I was back in my classroom. Mrs. Kyle and I decided that it was best that I go see the nurse. The walk to the nurse was longer than usual. Every step I took, it seemed like the hall got longer and longer. I stopped walking and closed my eyes tightly, thinking that things would go back to normal when I opened them. When I opened my eyes, there was the dragon staring in my face. I quickly started running down the hall. People were looking at me, wondering why I was running full speed.

  When I finally made it to the nurse’s room, I saw Tiffany sitting in there, talking to the nurse. When they saw that I was in the doorway, they stopped talking. I already knew they were talking about me. They were way too obvious. Tiffany got up from the wooden chair and told me to call her as she walked past me and out the door. The nurse, Mrs. Laurel, told me to take a seat where Tiffany had sat. I sat down and looked around.

  She sat down across from me and grabbed my hand. She held it gently and stared me in the eyes. I stared back at her, wondering when she was going to get this show on the road. I didn’t want to be here all day. She let go of my hand. Her cheeks got red. She placed her long blond hair behind her ears and began her speech.

  “Well, Angel, Tiffany has told me that you had an incident at a party recently.”

  I rolled my eyes. What was Tiffany doing coming in here, talking about me with this bitch? I sighed and turned my body so that I was no longer facing the nurse. Since she thought she knew everything, what did she need my input for?

  “Okay, I see you don’t want to talk, which is fine, but I do think you need to see a psychologist,” she said as she stood up to find the referral paper. When she retrieved it, she handed it to me. She told me she had called my mother and that I had to wait in her office until my mother came to get me. I was beyond irritated.

  My mother came in twenty minutes later. It looked like she had been crying. I wondered why. She told me to grab my stuff, and I did. I handed her the referral paper. She looked at it and sniffed the snot that had formed in her nose from crying. She hugged me, and then we left.

  Chapter 7

  “So tell me a little about yourself,” the doctor said. I was lying on a leather chaise in a calm room. There was the sound of water an
d a cool breeze flowing through the room. I felt at ease.

  “My name is Angel Jacobs. I’m fourteen, and I go to Lincoln Park High School. I’m a freshman there. I’m an only child, and I live at home with my mom,” was all I said. He was writing everything I told him down on a notepad.

  “Okay, Angel. Do you remember the party you went to a few weeks ago?” he asked me while he pushed his glasses back, closer to his face. He was a black man who appeared to be in his forties.

  “All I remember is . . . going to the party with my two friends. I know there were a lot of people there. I remember having sex with Mike and that’s it.” I tried my hardest to remember the party, but it had become a blur to me. I couldn’t get my mind to recap the events.

  “You slept with Mike? Is that what you said?” he asked. It sounded like he was giving me a second chance to get it right. I couldn’t think of me doing it with anyone else. It had to be Mike.

  We sat there in complete silence. I kept trying to replay the party, but bits and pieces were missing. Davon suddenly popped up in my head, but I didn’t know what he had to do with anything.

  “Miss Jacobs, who all do you remember being at the party besides you, Mike, and the friends you went with?”

  “Well, it was Octavia’s party, so she was there. Um . . . Davon was there, and . . . I can’t really think of anyone else.” I covered my eyes. I wanted to cry. My memory was out the window. “I’m sorry. I just can’t remember anything,” I cried.

  He looked at me and smiled a little. He took his glasses off and got out of his seat. He told me he had to discuss a few things with my mother. I cried, wondering when and why all of this was happening to me.

  On the way home, my mom drove with both hands on the steering wheel, sniffling and wiping the tears from her eyes every so often. We didn’t speak. We didn’t say anything to each other. I just looked out the window and listened to the music that sang through the radio.

  When we got in the house, my mother told me to take a seat on the couch. She wanted to discuss a few things with me. I sat down as I’d been told. I was eager to know what it was that she wanted to discuss. I needed as many answers as I could get. She sat down next to me, facing me. She put her hand on my leg and shook it a little.

  “Baby, now there’s a lot going on with you right now. They think someone slipped some Mickey Finn to you at Octavia’s party. They aren’t sure if it was ecstasy or crystals, but they’re sure it was something. Whatever it might have been, it can cause you to hallucinate and have behavioral problems.” She started welling up with tears. “This is something you’ll have to deal with for the rest of your life. I scheduled you a doctor’s appointment next week so we can find out exactly what’s wrong with you and what’s in your system,” she sighed. “I’ve told your ass time and time again not to smoke with those little boys. Angel, them ma’fuckas don’t give a damn about you! You need to start making wiser decisions.” She got up and left me looking dumb.

  I just sat there, soaking in everything she had just told me. I wondered who slipped me a Mickey. I didn’t even remember smoking anything. I decided to call Tiffany. I got up and went to the kitchen, where the house phone hung on the wall.

  “Hey, Angel,” she said cheerfully.

  “Hey. Um . . . do you remember who I smoked with at that party?” I asked, hoping she knew. I rested my arms on the counter. I could tell she was debating if she wanted to tell me or not, because it took her a while to respond.

  “I think they said it was Davon and his boys. I’m not certain,” she answered, trying to clear things up.

  “Oh, all right.”

  “You coming back to school?” she asked me. Ever since the day I was sent to the nurse’s office I hadn’t been in school. They said they wanted to know exactly what was wrong with me first before they allowed me to come back. They said I was a disturbance and that I was dangerous to the other students.

  That was a bunch of bullshit. They were a danger to me. Were it not for one of their students, I wouldn’t be having all these problems. I decided not to even answer her question. I just hung up the phone. I figured if she saw me in class, she’d know I was back. If not, then I wasn’t.

  My mother was behind me when I turned around from hanging up the phone. I jumped because I wasn’t expecting her to be there. “You scared me,” I said.

  “Whatever. Don’t call that bitch again,” she demanded as she walked away from me.

  “So the weed was definitely laced with ecstasy. What this means for Angel is that she now has a disorder. It’s what we call bipolar disorder,” the female doctor told my mom. “I’m going to have to place her on medication for this.” She handed my mother the prescription paperwork. “Be sure she takes it as directed. If she doesn’t, things could get a little rocky,” she added. “She will be a force to be reckoned with, and she can begin hallucinating. So you see how severe this thing can be.”

  My mom sat still in the chair, only nodding her head. You could tell from the look on her face that she was hurt by the situation. I was too. I just didn’t see anything wrong with me; except for the fact that I saw dragons here and there, I felt normal.

  I knew that once I left the doctor’s office, I wasn’t taking no damn pills and that was final! That doctor clearly didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. Bipolar people were crazy, and I was nowhere near crazy. I sat on the table quietly, shaking, ready to slap the spit out of that doctor’s mouth. That bitch was the crazy one.

  After the doctor said all she had to say, she left the room.

  My mother stood up and walked over to me “You heard what she said, Angel,” she said, seeing if I was paying attention.

  “Yeah, but I ain’t buying that. Ain’t nothing wrong with me.” I just knew my mother didn’t believe that shit.

  She gave me the look that told me she did.

  “You think I have a problem, Ma?” I asked.

  “Angel, you’re not the same. That’s all I’m going to say.” She told me to put my clothes back on so that we could leave.

  That hurt bad. My own mother thought I was crazy. How could she? Why would she? I slowly put my clothes back on and started to walk out of the examination room with my head hung low.

  As my mother grabbed the doorknob to open the door, the doctor came in. “Angel, there’s a little more information that I need to give you,” she said while looking at a chart. “After running through all the tests, I also found that Angel is five weeks pregnant.”

  “Excuse me?” was my mother’s response. She was at a loss for words, and so was I. I didn’t even remember having sex with anybody except for Mike.

  “Yes, she’s pregnant. The dates match up to the time of the party,” the doctor added while looking at me with concern all over her face. I really couldn’t register the things that she was saying.

  I honestly didn’t believe shit the doctor had to say. I didn’t even think she was a real doctor. My mother stood there teary-eyed. Obviously, she believed everything the bitch had to say, but why? Because she had a degree? That didn’t mean shit.

  “It looks like Angel is getting agitated,” she said while looking at me.

  My mother looked at me, puzzled. She grabbed my hand and held it tight. I stared at her. Who was she? She didn’t look like my mom. I got paranoid.

  My thoughts told me that they were going to try to hurt me. I tried to free my hand, but the more I tried, the tighter her grip got. I looked around the room, and there I was, in that same dungeon I was in when I was at school. I knew this shit wasn’t right. I wasn’t supposed to think like this, but I couldn’t help it.

  I tried my hardest to get loose from her grip, but it was damn near impossible. She grabbed a hold of me, and I just started to scream. I heard the doctor say, “We need help!” but I didn’t know if it was to help attack me or to prevent me from being attacked. Tears welled up in my eyes when I saw the dragons coming toward me.

  “Please don’t kill me,” I cried as I co
ntinued to try to break free of my mother’s grasp. I heard my mother’s voice, but the lady didn’t look anything like her. She was a dragon with a human body. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, I was sitting in the corner of the doctor’s office.

  People were staring at me and whispering. Kids were all over the place. Some were crying, while others were laughing. My mom’s face told me she was embarrassed and worried. I didn’t know what had come over me. From that day on, I had to take two different kinds of pills every day. I hated it. I used to spit them out in the garbage or act as if I was taking them, but my mother picked up on that early in the game. After she discovered I wasn’t really taking my pills, she would make me take them in front of her and she wouldn’t leave until they were down my throat.

  I had so many doctor appointments a week; plus, I had to see a psychiatrist twice a week. I was banned from my school and now had to be homeschooled. The whole bipolar lifestyle pissed me off. I couldn’t do anything without my mother being there.

  At one particular doctor’s appointment, I had to get a pap smear. My mother stayed in there with me the entire time. I grew uncomfortable. After the procedure, my primary physician, Dr. Gunner, came in and asked me if I was aware that I was eight weeks pregnant.

  “Do you know who the father is?” Dr. Gunner asked me.

  “I don’t even recall sleeping with anybody,” I told her. I was being totally honest, and I needed her to believe me. She nodded her head and wrote some things down.

  “Now, Gunner, don’t mistake me for no ho! ’Cause I’m not one,” I said, rolling my eyes. For all I knew, she could’ve written “Patient is a ho” on that pad of hers.

  “No, no, Angel. I just put down that you didn’t remember who it could be,” she tried to explain, as if that wasn’t describing a ho in a nice way.

  “Never did I tell you that I didn’t remember who it was. I told yo’ ass I didn’t remember doing it at all. Don’t twist my fucking words up!” I yelled. I hopped down from the table, ready to whup her judgmental ass.