Fictitious Love

by Charmanie Saquea

  I snatched the blunt from him and flicked the ashes off. “What do you know? I’m the big brother. I should be the one giving the advice, not getting it,” I said before taking a toke. “Anyways, what’s up with you and Hani?”

  “Her ass is on some other stuff right now. Ever since her nigga been in town, I haven’t heard from her or my son,” he sighed.

  “That’s normal, Mega.” I waved him off.

  “What’s normal?” he asked.

  “Nobody ever hears from Tahani when that nigga is around. Tahti used to always say she thought the nigga was over there beating on her sister but we never had the proof and she always denied it. She claims he likes to have her and Juanie to himself whenever he’s around. Me personally, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that he’s beating on her, but I do think he is controlling,” I explained to him.

  “Stop lying,” he said.

  “I lie to you not. Ask ma or Tahti. He never lets anybody watch Juanie but him, he never lets Hani out of the house, she never answers her calls and if she does, she makes the conversation quick.”

  I hated to be the bearer of bad news, but my brother deserved the right to know what was going on over there with the mother of his child and son. If it was me, I would want somebody to tell me.

  “So that’s why Tahti don’t like him?” he asked.

  “Yea, plus she’s not allowed over there when he’s there. Ever since Tahani and that nigga got together, their sisterly relationship has changed. Tahti be trying to help Hani open her eyes and realize it, but you know how your girl can be.”

  I knew he would have no problems finding out what was going on over there at that house. Omega had never been the type to just sit on his ass and wait for something to happen. He was going to put an end to it before it could even begin.

  11: Tahani

  For the past hour, I had been getting cussed out for something that I had no control over. Apparently, Omega took it upon himself to check Juanie out of school early and take him somewhere and Tristan is pissed about it. He’d been having a damn fit for the past hour and it didn’t look as if he was going to slow down anytime soon.

  “What the hell do you want me to do, Tristan? I can’t stop him, he’s his father!”

  “No, wrong. I’m Juanie’s father. That nigga had no right to take him from school and take him anywhere!” he yelled back.

  “Tristan, listen at how you fucking sound right now! DeJuan is his FATHER! He has every right and there’s nothing I can do about it. Juanie called me and told me he was with his dad and they were out having fun. That’s all the information I need,” I told him.

  “Are you serious right now?” he asked.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” I retorted.

  “You shouldn’t be because this nigga took Juanie from school without your permission, that’s why!”

  I had to take a deep breath to calm my nerves because this nigga was giving me a serious headache. Ever since I introduced him to Omega, he had been on some other stuff; screening my calls, wanna know where I was going, who I was going to be with, how long I was going to be gone. I couldn’t and I wouldn’t live like that. I was tired of this foolishness.

  “You still want him, don’t you?” he asked.

  And that’s another thing I was tired of. I shouldn’t have to reassure him every five seconds that I didn’t have feelings for my damn ex who I haven’t been with for seven years.

  “Don’t you think if I wanted him, I would be with him, Tristan? I haven’t had any feelings for Omega in seven years!” I yelled.

  “Watch your mouth, alright? Just because you don’t want him doesn’t mean he don’t want you.”

  “I’m a grown woman who knows how to handle herself. Omega can’t and won’t do anything to me that I don’t want him to do.”

  As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized how crazy that sounded. It sounded as if I was basically saying that Omega could do whatever he wanted to do as long as I wanted him to do it.

  “What?” Tristan yelled.

  “Trist, that didn’t come out the way that I meant it.”

  “You know what, I’m going to go out and get some air,” he said before walking out the door.

  As soon as I heard the front door close, I released a breath that I didn’t even know that I was holding. All of a sudden Tristan was acting insecure, and that wasn’t him. We never had these problems in the two years that we had been together.

  I sat there a few before I decided to go out and get my son. Omega knew exactly what he was doing when he took Juanie out of school today. He called himself trying to prove a point to Tristan, but all he was doing was pissing me off.

  When I pulled up to Omega’s house, he and Juanie were in the front yard playing football. I jumped out of the car and marched up to Omega.

  “Uh oh, dad. It looks like she’s mad at you,” Juanie said.

  “Juanie, go get in the car,” I told him.

  “Nah, go in the house and get ready to eat,” Omega told him.

  Juanie acted as if he didn’t hear a word that came out of my mouth and ran into the house. That further pissed me off.

  “I don’t know what point you think you’re trying to prove, but please don’t play with me, Omega. I will make it so you will never see Juanie again,” I told him.

  “Are you done?” he asked.

  “No, I’m far from done. You are supposed to call me before you decided to take my son—”

  I didn’t even get a chance to finish what I was saying because I was pulled into him by my belt loop and his lips were crushed into mine. I felt myself pushing him back, or at least I thought I was. Dammit, I thought to myself as I let out a low moan when he parted my lips with his tongue. There were so many emotions I felt in this kiss, from passion, to anger, to yearning and confusion. Just when I was getting into it, Omega pulled back and broke the kiss.

  “Are you done now?” he asked.

  All I could do was nod my head up and down.

  “Good, now I’m about to go in the house and feed my son. You can join us, or not. It’s your choice,” he said before walking away.

  My little dumb ass followed behind him like a lost puppy. That damn Omega.

  “I thought you would see things my way,” he said without even turning around.

  See, this was exactly why I tried to stay away from his cocky ass. Just like my sister said, I had always been weak when it came to Omega and it didn’t seem like things had changed in the past seven years.

  ___

  Three hours later, Juanie and I were pulling up to the house. Thanks to Omega taking my phone and keeping it in his pocket until it was time to leave, I had a total of five missed calls from Tristan. I thought about calling him back but didn’t see the point when I was on my way home to him anyways.

  “Come on, Juanie,” I said as we got out of the car.

  When we walked in the house, Tristan was sitting on the couch smoking a blunt. He knew I hated when he smoked in the house, especially when Juanie was around.

  “Hey, Trist,” Juanie spoke.

  “What’s up, little man? Why don’t you go get ready for bed while me and your mom have a talk,” Tristan said.

  “Night, mom,” Juanie said before he ran up the stairs.

  “Where you been?” Tristan asked me.

  “I went to go get my son since you were having a temper tantrum,” I said.

  “It took you three hours to get him?” he inquired.

  “Juanie wasn’t ready to go and I wasn’t about to just force him to leave. He wanted to be with his dad so I was—”

  WHAP!

  My head snapped back so hard, I thought it was going to detach from my body. He moved so fast that I didn’t even see him coming. Before I could even put my hand up to my lip to see if I was bleeding, I was being dragged to the couch by my hair.

  “GET OFF ME!” I screamed.

  “You think I’m stupid, don’t you? I told your ass not to fucking play with me!”


  One hand was holding my hair while he used the other hand to unbutton and pull my pants down. Every time I twisted to get away, his grip on my hair would get tighter. I was praying to God that Tristan was not about to rape me.

  “TRISTAN, STOP!” I yelled with tears in my eyes.

  Ignoring my screams and protests, he pulled my pants down and pushed my panties to the side before ramming three fingers into me. Due to the force and me being dry, it hurt like hell and I couldn’t help but to let out a yelp.

  After bringing his fingers to his nose, Tristan finally decided to let me go. He stood there glaring at me while I cried. I couldn’t even look him in his face because I was so humiliated.

  “You better not have fucked that nigga. If you ever, and I do mean ever, think about cheating on me with that nigga, I will kill him,” Tristan spat before leaving out of the house again.

  I laid there for about an hour trying to wrap my mind around everything that had just happened. I don’t know what hurt more, the fact that Tristan hit me and roughed me up, or the fact that he didn’t believe me and felt the need to check my body. The realization that Juanie could hear everything shot a pain through my heart. I just prayed to God that he didn’t call Omega and tell him.

  I didn’t need this situation getting any worse than it already was. This wasn’t the first time that Tristan thought that it was okay to put his hands on me. Usually it would be a choke here and there, but this was totally out of the ordinary.

  12: Tristan

  I stood there knocking on the door for a whole two minutes before it finally opened.

  “Nigga, you could get shot banging on my damn door like that. What the hell is wrong with you?” Kelvin, Tahani’s dad, barked.

  “I fucked up,” I told him.

  “When don’t you? What did you do now?” he asked as he let me in.

  “I hit Tahani. I didn’t mean—”

  WHAP!

  Just like I had just done Tahani, Kelvin cut my sentence off with a blow to my jaw.

  “Little nigga, I like you and all, but don’t ever put your hands on my daughter again. Do you understand me?” he asked.

  “Yea, I hear you,” I mumbled.

  “Nah, nigga. I know you can hear. I asked you did you understand what I just told you?” he yelled.

  “Yea, man. Damn,” I groaned.

  “Now why the hell are you here?” Kelvin asked as we walked to his office.

  “I’m pretty sure you got my text last week. I need to talk to you,” I told him.

  “About?”

  “Omega,” I said simply.

  He grumbled and rubbed his temples. That gesture right there let me know that he was aware of the problem.

  “What he do now?” he probed.

  “I think he’s trying to get Tahani back and I’m not going to let that happen,” I told him straight up.

  “Keep putting your damn hands on her and that’s exactly what’s going to happen. She’s going to run right back into his arms and they’ll be the perfect little family while you’re sitting there looking stupid,” he laughed.

  “I don’t see shit funny about this. I’m still trying to figure out why he’s still alive. Why did he even last long enough in prison to get released?” I fired off question after question.

  “See, I did what I was supposed to do and locked the little bastard up. I can’t help it if your hoodlum ass friends couldn’t handle him while he was in there. Now, I should be asking you why he’s still alive. He’s been home a month now but he’s still breathing, so you tell me, whose fault is that?” he threw back at me. “That nigga killed your brother but you’re allowing him to walk around freely.”

  Just being reminded of the fact that Omega was responsible for killing my brother made me shift in my seat. Had I not been in LA when this nigga got home and I was made aware of his release, he would have had a damn bullet in his head as soon as he walked out of prison.

  “How the hell did he get out, anyways? I thought he was looking at twenty years.”

  Kelvin shook his head and sighed. “Tahani,” he shrugged.

  “Tahani? How the hell did she get him out?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Nigga, do you know anything? That damn man her mother decided to marry is a lawyer. She asked him to be Omega’s lawyer and someway, somehow, he got him off,” he spat.

  I sat there and rubbed my jaw. This was all new information to me. I had only been gone a damn month and Tahani was on some sneaky shit. I didn’t know how to feel knowing she helped the nigga that killed my brother get out of prison.

  I asked her multiple times did she still have feelings for this nigga and she looked me dead in my face and told me no. Now I’m beginning to think otherwise. I sat here thinking of a plan to see if shit got real, who would Tahani pick, me or Omega. I wasn’t an insecure nigga by any means, but I had to make sure my bitch was riding for the right team.

  ___

  When I got home, it was only nine o’clock. All the lights were off in the house so I headed for the stairs in search of Tahani. I looked in our room and she wasn’t there, nor was she in the bathroom. I knew she was home because her car was still there. I went to Juanie’s room to check on him and there she was, lying in bed with him sleep.

  I walked over to the bed and rubbed her face. She had a little cut under her eye, and on top of that, her lip was busted and swollen. Damn, I kind of feel bad.

  “Hani, baby, wake up,” I said as I shook her softly.

  She jumped up with a deer in the headlights look on her face. She looked from me to Juanie to see if he was still sleeping.

  “I need you to do me a favor,” I told her.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “Can you drop Juanie off at Omega’s house? I have a lot of making up to do and I think we need the house to ourselves for what I have planned.”

  She sighed and scratched her head. “Trist, he’s sleep and he has school tomorrow.”

  “I know, baby, but do this for me, please?” I begged.

  “Yea, sure,” she said before getting out of the bed and trying to wake Juanie.

  I walked into our bedroom with a smirk on my face. If I knew anything, we wouldn’t get too far into our making up because Omega would be trying to kick our damn door in. This was just the beginning of my plan. Omega was talking all that hot shit about him having Tahani’s heart, but we’ll see just how true that is starting tonight.

  13: Omega

  I had just gotten out of the shower when I heard someone banging on my door. Grabbing my gun just to be safe, I threw on some basketball shorts to see who the hell was banging on my damn door. When I looked threw the peephole and noticed it was Tahani and Juanie, I put my gun under the cushion of the couch and went back to open the door.

  When I open the door and saw Tahani’s face, I saw red. Before I could even question her, Juanie spoke up.

  “Hey, dad,” he said as he walked in the house.

  “What’s up, little man?” I could tell from the look on his face that he was tired, so I let him go on to bed.

  When I was sure he was all the way upstairs, I went off. “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOUR FACE?” I roared.

  Tahani jumped before putting her head down. “Nothing, Omega. I ran into the wall. Can you please keep Juanie for me tonight? I’ll come get him tomorrow,” she said before taking off and running back to her car without even giving me the chance to respond.

  The conversation that I’d had with Moni the other day popped back in my head.

  Tahti used to always say she thought the nigga was over there beating on her sister but we never had the proof.

  Seeing Tahani with a damn cut under her eye along with a busted and swollen lip was all the damn proof I needed. I went up to Juanie’s room and he was already knocked out so I was going to let him sleep. I rushed to my room and grabbed my phone, calling Tahti in the process.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, already on alert.

  “I’ll
explain everything when you get here. I need you to come and keep an eye on Juanie while he’s sleep,” I told her.

  “I’m on my way,” she said before hanging up.

  That is exactly why I loved Tahtiana, she was always down for whatever. If she wasn’t pregnant, I would have taken her on this little ride with me, but knowing her, she would want in on a piece of the action and I couldn’t put my niece or nephew in jeopardy.

  Twenty minutes later I was dressed and heading down the stairs when Tahti sent me a text telling me that she was pulling up. I went to the front porch and stood there, waiting for her to get out of the car. I had laugh a little because when she stepped into the light, I noticed her outfit.

  “Why you laughing?” she asked.

  “Why are you dressed like you’re ready for war?” I asked.

  This crazy ass girl had on a black t-shirt, camo pants, all-black Forces and a camo headband, and her hair was in a messy ponytail.

  “I never know with you, Omega. This brings back too many memories of when you used to call me in the middle of the night because some bitch was showing her ass and I had to come through,” she said.

  I laughed even harder as the memories came rushing back. Whenever me and Moni would go out somewhere and a bitch overstepped her boundaries, I would call her up. I loved seeing Moni sweat when he knew his ass was caught. Since me and Tahti are the same age, she’s the sister I never had and would always come whenever I called her.

  “I need you to sit this one out. You’re pregnant,” I told her.

  She rolled her eyes and let out a breath. “Okay, tell me what’s up anyway.”

  I told her what I saw when Tahani came to drop Juanie off, and like I knew she would be, she was ready to go off.

  “See, I told Moni’s dumb ass that nigga was putting his hands on my sister but he never believed me. I’m going to kill his ass,” she said as she paced back and forth.

  “You’re not going to do anything. I’m on my way over there now and I can already tell shit is about to get ugly just based off the conversation I had with this nigga at Juanie’s party,” I told her.