by Prenisha Aja
“Alright, let me help you,” he offered, helping me off the bed.
I then slowly eased down into the wheelchair and grabbed the bear that Ace had gotten me and held it, right along with the crutches that I was going to be using in order for me to get around for the next six to eight weeks.
Nevertheless, I was happy. I was ecstatic. I sat calmly as my brother wheeled me out of the hospital and into his car.
“Where are we?” I asked, confused as to why we were pulling up to a big ass house instead of my grandma’s house.
The house was beautiful though. It was a reddish brick home that had an all-white door and grass that was greener than any grass I had ever seen in the hood.
“Our new home,” he beamed as he pulled up farther and parked.
“Huh?” I was stunned but also excited.
“Yeah man, this our shit. I was trying to surprise you before all that shit went down,” he explained.
His words had caused a dark cloud to hover over my head and reminded me of my poor fucking decision making. Just that fast I was sulking and in a depressed mood. All I could do was hold my head down and stare at the floor and allow my own thoughts to tear me down.
Jaxsyn must have felt my bad energy. I felt his light taps on my shoulder, so I picked my head up to see what he wanted.
“Listen sis, that shit happened and it’s dead. Okay? I ain’t mad at you or nothin’ like that. A nigga really glad you here. I was scared as fuck that something worse had happened to you,” he confessed as he ran his hands down his face and leaned farther back in his seat.
“I’m sorry. I wish I would have listened to you about Whoodie.” I sighed.
“Did he hurt you?” Jaxsyn questioned as he sat up. He had a mug on his face and was defensive.
“Keisha, did his bitch ass hurt you?” His loud, demanding voice shook me out of the daze that I was in.
I had heard my brother perfectly clear, but this felt like that moment when I got my period for the first time. I felt too embarrassed to even let my grandma know when it first happened. Why, I don’t know. Even though it wasn’t something that I could control, I never wanted to talk about it.
Even though me being raped was not in the same sense, it still gave me the same feeling of embarrassment and not wanting to talk about it.
All I could do was cry. This time, I didn’t have to tell my brother something bad had happened to me. The tears in my eyes told him most of everything that he needed to know.
“Man, what the fuck did he do?” he asked sternly as he blew out a frustrated breath.
As he waited for me to answer, he ran his hands over his head, frustrated, and rubbed the sides of his temples. I could tell he was on the edge as he waited for my answer. I knew my brother and I knew once I confessed to him what happened, he was going to really kill Whoodie, but this time I wanted him to. All the feelings that I had for him left my body the day that he believed Sims over me.
“Uhm...” I spoke lowly as I fiddled with my fingers and nervously bit down on my lip.
“Keisha come on, you know we don’t rock like this and that I will kill behind you,” Jaxsyn expressed as he stared at me.
“Ok, so everything was cool with me and Whoodie until I tried to tell him about what Sims had did to me,” I explained, not really going into full detail because I was too scared to.
Like, how do you tell your older brother that you were raped and beaten?
“Okay and…” Jaxsyn scrunched up his face and waved for me to continue.
Inhaling and slowly exhaling, I looked out the window. I couldn’t for the life of me stare him in the face as I told him this.
“So, what happened was… Whoodie left me to see another bitch, which left me there alone with Sims. The one you beat up,” I explained, turning and looking at him just to make sure he was following along, and he was.
“Well, he raped me…” I turned back towards the window as I gulped down the biggest knot that had formed in my throat.
I could hear my brother moving around in his seat and then it fell silent. Next thing I knew, I could hear sniffling.
“What bro?” his voice cracked when he asked me that shit.
“Yes, and Whoodie didn’t believe me. He took his side. That’s when I stole Whoodie’s gun away from him and shot Sims because he wouldn’t tell the truth. Somehow, one thing led to another and I turned the gun on Whoodie and after that, he beat me.” I laid it all out. I told him everything, even about Chyna and how I had also stabbed Sims in the neck.
“Man, please don’t tell me shit else.” He put his hands up and got of the car. “I can’t stomach this shit,” I heard him say as he paced back and forth angrily. He had his hands on top of his head as he looked up at the blue and white clouds.
After watching him pace back and forth for a good five minutes, he finally headed over to my side of the car to help me out and get me in the house. Once he opened the car door, he leaned in and gave me the biggest hug ever.
“I’m sorry Keisha. I was supposed to protect you from shit like this. I swear that shit will never happen again and them niggas’ days are numbered,” he expressed. I knew he would want to kill them and crazily, it made me feel safe.
I was happy that I had told him because it made me feel ten times better. I felt like a weight had been lifted up off my shoulders but deep down, I was still feeling wounded. But I was willing to go through the process in order for me to heal.
4
Whoodie
To say I had fucked up would have been an understatement. I was now doubting myself. I didn’t even know if I had the ability to even lead. Hell, truth was I didn’t even have any more members on my team. They were all getting gunned down by that punk ass nigga Jaxsyn.
Shaking my head, I twirled one of my dreads as I thought deeply about everything. Maybe it was time for me to hang this shit up. It was obvious this shit was way too deep for me. I had stood here and allowed too many of my soldiers to fall.
Sims was now home, and his mother wasn’t allowing that nigga to fuck with me. After he got discharged from the hospital, she had been holding him near and dear. She had been harping on about how she wasn’t going to lose him to the streets and a whole bunch of other bullshit.
Leaning my head back against the sofa of the suite I was in, I ran my hands down my face as I blew off steam. I was stressed. I wasn’t even able to go home because I feared that nigga Jaxsyn was going to come for my fucking head. Well, I knew he was.
I had attempted to kill that nigga and fucked up. Then on top of that, I left my nigga behind. That was fucking with my head like a mothafucka. It wasn’t supposed to go down like that. If anything, it should have been Jaxsyn’s body slumped over in that car, not Dex.
“Fuck man.” I swung at the air, pissed off.
Jumping to my feet, I pulled my pants up and grabbed my phone off of the wooden table. I was going to call my uncle and talk to him with hopes that he could help me.
“Say Unc, I need to talk to you,” I said into the phone once he answered.
“You know where to find me,” he replied, and I could hear light music playing in the background and I already knew he was at his club.
“Bet.” I hung up the phone and finished getting ready. I quickly threw on all black. I needed to be invisible when I stepped outside.
Taking in a deep breath, I grabbed my gun off of the bed and walked to the front door. Before opening the front door to my hotel room, I tucked the gun in the back of my pants and rushed out the door. I didn’t need anyone seeing me. The whole time I walked down the hallway, I walked with my head down. I even took the stairs instead of the elevator.
Once I got to the stairs, I ran down the stairs and rushed out of the exit doors. The way I was looking over my shoulders you would think that the police was after my ass or something. But shit, death was, and that was just as scary.
When I made it to my car, I paused. I didn’t even want to ride in this bitch just because I knew Jaxsyn knew what
type of car I had.
Shit man. I huffed but I jumped into my car anyways and quickly burned out of the parking lot and headed to my uncle’s spot. I knew for a fact that nobody would fuck with me there and plus, I needed his insight, his game, his truths.
Speeding through the back streets that led to my uncle Ted’s club, I was now pulling into the parking lot. There were about three cars in the parking lot, and I was pretty sure they belonged to the people that were inside working early before the club got jumping.
I examined my surroundings before I got out the car. I felt like I was a walking target and that Jaxsyn would pop up out of nowhere to take me out.
Exhaling once I reached the front door of the club, I rushed in and the first place I had a seat was the bar. I needed me a good, strong ass drink to help ease the stress that was on me.
“What can I get you to the drink?” this light-skin chick asked as she showed off her pretty ass smile and her dimples. She wasn’t Londyn, which I kind of figured that she wouldn’t be here after what happened between her and Chyna.
I mean, I hated that shit went down but shit, it wasn’t my fault either. Like how the fuck was I supposed to know that she was pregnant.
“Yeah, give me whatever you got back there, straight. Double it,” I replied as I held my head down causing my dreads to fly forward and cover my face. I was drowning in my own thoughts.
“Damn young cat, you must’ve really fucked up.” My uncle Ted chuckled as he patted me on my back.
He was smoothly dressed, in a button-down and some slacks. He had on some type of cologne that I could smell at the door and he wore a few rings on his fingers. That nigga had been paid ever since I was a young boy. I knew that if nobody else could, he would give it me straight and he wouldn’t beat around the bush.
“Man…” I sighed as the new chick walked up and slid me my drink.
“If you need anything else just let me know.” She winked at me and walked off.
I couldn’t help but to eye her fat ass in the little bitty jean shorts that were so tight that the bottom of her ass cheeks was poking from underneath them.
“Talk to me but don’t talk to me too fast.” My uncle Ted sat down next me as he looked down at his ringing cell. He ignored the call, then gave me his attention.
“It’s the same fucking problem as last time, it’s just this time I’m in deeper shit.” I shook my head and tossed my dreads to the back to look into my uncle’s eyes.
“What you do?” he asked calmly.
“Alright, so you know I wanted to take that nigga out, you know, get rid of his ass like you had said?” I paused and he nodded.
“Well me and Dex thought that we were one upping him and was ahead of the game but when we shot that nigga’s car up, we thought that we had finally got him. So Dex got out the car to double check. But…” I held my head down as I thought about how Dex’s body had slumped over and my ass had taken off, leaving his dead body there.
“And what else?” he asked as he fixed the gold watch that was around his wrist.
“The nigga wasn’t dead. He killed Dex and I took off.” I took the drink to the head then slammed it down on the bar, damn near shattering the glass.
“You what?” My uncle stood to his feet and looked at me as if I had said something crazy.
“How the fuck did you know if your homie was dead? You didn’t stay to fucking find out. You don’t ever do no bitch ass shit like that. Who the fuck taught you this shit?” he bitched at me.
“You were supposed to stay there and if you had to go wild wild west with that nigga, then so fucking be it. But you weren’t supposed to leave. You had a fucking purpose.” He frowned upon me and now I felt like even more shit.
I had already been beating myself up for leaving Dex, and not even knowing what they had done to his body. Now my uncle was only putting the nail in the coffin to confirm that I had done some fucked up shit.
“Damn Uncle, I know. I know,” I admitted.
Listening to my uncle, someone who I considered to be an OG, tell me the shit I already knew, had me wanting to just go ahead and leave Houston and go back to my home town. I had fucked up here enough and if I wanted to actually see another day, that actually wasn’t too bad of a thought.
“So, what the fuck are you going to do, boy?” my uncle Ted asked, and I shrugged my shoulders.
“The fuck you shrug your shoulders for? You can’t talk now, huh? The truth hurts?” He chuckled and then sat back down but not before calling ol’ girl to fix him up a drink.
While in the midst of him putting his drink order in, his phone began to ring again and this time he answered.
“What do you want?” he asked who ever was on the phone.
“You think I give a fuck about all of that? I never wanted the baby,” he roared.
“Nah, you don’t get that many days off. Be here tomorrow,” he spat then hung up the phone as a beautiful older lady walked inside of the club holding a plate of food.
I looked from her to my uncle and he had this smirk on his face. I had no clue who he was on the phone with, but I knew whoever this lady was, she had to be the one that he really had his eyes set on.
“Listen here nephew, you either gon’ get even or wrap that shit up. No point in steady playing in these streets. Now I’ll talk you later about all this shit. Just lay low. I gotta go, there goes my baby.” He winked as he gulped down the drink and walked over to where she was.
I laughed a little as I watched him wrap his arms around her and whisper in her ear. She was blushing and full of giggles. That ol’ nigga was in love all over again. I didn’t think he would hop into another relationship after the death of his last girl, but I guess I was wrong.
Shit, I wonder if that nigga really murdered her? I pondered as I got up from the bar stool and got ready to head out of the door.
“Alright ol’ man, I’ll catch up with later.” I nodded towards him and he waved me off as he guided the women to the back where his office was.
Exiting the club, I looked around and jogged to my car. Once I cranked the car up, the fucking gas light came on and I wanted to fucking spazz, but I knew I was going to have to get gas sooner or later. Shit, if it was my time to go then that was just what it was going to be. Fuck it.
I was still feeling like shit after talking to my uncle but there was one thing that kept lingering in my mind, you’re either gon’ get even or wrap that shit up. No point in steady playing in these streets. He was right, there was no point in steady playing. No point in steady adding people to the puzzle, only for them to lose their life when they didn’t have shit to do with this. The beef was between me and him and I was going to handle it on my own this time.
Satisfied with my decision, I turned the music up and pulled up to the nearest gas station. When I arrived, there was nobody there so a nigga felt blessed. I pulled out the money I had in my pocket, counted a quick forty dollars then went inside and paid for some gas and got a few snacks and shit.
Now on my way out of the store, there stood Chyna bent over in her car, I guess getting something out. I knew that body from anywhere and I lowkey missed her crybaby ass. Yeah, it was fucked up how I did her but shit, hopefully she was over that shit and would let a nigga fuck so I could release some of this stress.
“What’s good Chyna?” I asked her, and it was like my voice caused her to stand straight up.
She didn’t move or turn around, so I walked over to her and placed my hand at the small of her back.
“So, you didn’t hear me?” I asked her.
“Yeah, I did, but I don’t fuck with you no more. Well you don’t fuck with me, remember?” She mugged me and crossed her arms with the nastiest attitude.
“Man chill out with all of that. That shit is dead now,” I let her know as I looked behind me, to make sure I wasn’t getting snuck up on or nothing.
“Oh, she doesn’t fuck with you no more after I whooped her ass?” she chuckled.
“W
hoodie, look, go be with your baby mama and get up out my face.” She rolled her eyes and walked off, but I grabbed her.
“Look, don’t forget who the fuck I am,” I warned her as I gripped her arm tight.
Chyna looked at me and I could see the fright in her eyes, but that didn’t stop her from snatching away from me.
“Whoodie, I didn’t stop fucking with you. You stopped fucking with me. So please leave me alone.” She turned and walked inside of the store.
Tossing my dreads out of my face, I nodded my head as I watched her walk away from me. I then went over to my car and pumped my gas. Fuck Chyna, it was plenty more bitches where she came from and I was going to find me some hoes to fuck with tonight.
5
Chyna
Looking down at my phone, I continued texting Bjay. I was in the middle of texting him back, but I had bent down in my car to get cash and head into the store. That was until I heard Whoodie’s voice. A couple of weeks ago I would have jumped for joy at the sound of him calling my name, but this time was way different. It caused my skin to crawl. I was done with him, especially after the way things went down the last time I was at his house.
Running my fingers through my hair nervously, I didn’t even want to look out the window out of fear that his ass would still be out there waiting for me.
Ugh, I huffed as I walked around the store and discreetly looked out the window to see if he had left yet.
“Fuck,” I mumbled to myself. His ass was still out there, and I wished that he’d stop stalling and just drive away already.
Looking down at the time, I didn’t have much time to spare. I had a date with Bjay, and I didn’t want to be late.
Me and him had been texting and talking on the phone and I had told him that we could meet up, but only if he took me out somewhere. This time I was going to try a different approach when it came to guys.
I didn’t want to make the same mistake that I had been making when it came to moving too fast with guys. I also wanted to make them put forth effort. I was done settling for less. I also had been going to school and catching up on everything that I had missed.