Curtis started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“You. A blind man could see that what you feel for that girl is more than some best friend shit. Look at how you are over her. You will rip somebody’s head off over her, even now when you claim that you can’t stand her. The anger that I saw in you just now isn’t what you see in someone who only loves someone as a best friend.”
“Yes, it is. I mean how else was I supposed to react?”
“You should definitely be mad but not like how you were.”
“I have a girl, Pops, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Humph. Yeah, one that I hope you are using protection with.” Curtis raised an eyebrow at him and King dropped his head. “Son, girls like Vita come and go but girls like Breezy will be there when the world turns its back on you. Vita is one of those people who are only in your life for a season.”
“Huh?”
“I mean that she ain’t the type a man would settle down with but at your age that doesn’t matter. You are only seventeen. You have awhile before you even think about settling down.” He stood up and brushed the dirt from his pants. “Word of advice. Put your pride to the side and be there for Breezy. She needs you and if you don’t stop acting like an ass you may push her away. I mean, imagine how she feels having to carry a child by a man who sexually abused her. This baby will be a daily reminder of what she has been through. If you ask me she is a strong-ass woman already and is going to make some man very happy one day.” He winked his eye at King and patted him on the head. “If you play your cards right it could be you.”
After Curtis had gone inside, King sat outside for a while just thinking. He wasn’t ready to go back in yet. His phone rang; it was Vita. He ignored it because he didn’t feel like talking at the moment.
When he finally did decide to go inside the house it had gotten dark outside. He didn’t see Breezy on the sofa so he walked down the hall toward his room. She was coming out of the bathroom drying her hands. When she saw him she jumped. That made him feel like shit.
“I ain’t gonna hit you. I’m sorry about earlier. I just need some time that’s all. I’m hurt, Breezy,” he admitted. “I’ve always been protective over you. When no one else was there I was. Holding you when you cry, fighting anybody who looked at you wrong. Your problems have always been mine because I made them mine.
“When you left that day with your ma that cut me deep because I was thinking that you were going to stay here so that you wouldn’t have to go through that stuff no more. Then you went back and look what happens. You are carrying his child. I can’t describe to you how that makes me feel knowing that nigga was touching you, hurting you, and taking advantage of you. Not only that but that sorry-ass faggot had the nerve to plant his seed inside of you.” He was mad all over again. “I just need time, Breezy.” He walked off shaking his head.
He went in his room and lay down on the bed in the dark. As he lay there, Breezy’s voice started to play in his head again singing that song and only one part kept playing over and over. “Boy, you said you would be here for me . . .”
He jumped to his feet and turned on the light, walking over to the dresser. He rummaged through his drawers and pulled out a dark pair of sweats and a dark shirt. He hurriedly changed and left his room. He needed to take care of something. As he passed through the living room, he looked at Breezy who was sitting on the sofa eating some crackers. “You’re right. I did say that and I meant it.”
She looked at him confused but he didn’t bother to give her any explanation. He pulled his hoodie over his head and walked out the door. Every step he took toward his destination his anger grew. When he reached the house the porch light was on. He walked up to the door and knocked.
Teresa was laid back on the sofa when she heard a knock at the door. “Who is it?” she yelled.
“It’s King.”
What in the fuck does he want? she wondered, making her way to the door. She snatched it open. “Hey, Breezy ain’t—”
King pushed her so hard that she went sliding across the floor and he stepped over her. “I’m not here to see you,” he growled and headed down the hallway in search of Terry.
“Yo, who that at the door, Teresa?” Terry yelled, laid back on the bed propped up on a pillow in only a pair of boxers.
“I’m who was at the door, you nasty-ass piece of shit!” King announced as he barged into the room.
Terry tried to get up off the bed but he wasn’t quick enough. King jumped on the bed and started wearing his ass out. He beat him until he was unconscious. The next thing he knew two police officers were there dragging him off of Terry and cuffing him.
Chapter Twelve
Breezy was curled up under the covers, knocked out when a sharp pain in her stomach woke her up. She tried to get up but the pain was nearly unbearable. She waited for a few minutes and then tried to stand again. This time she stood up but the cramping was so bad that she couldn’t walk. She screamed for Annette and kept screaming until she heard her coming down the hallway.
“What is it?” Annette asked, her heart beating rapidly in her chest.
“My stomach hurts really bad.”
Annette saw dark liquid running down Breezy’s legs. A strange look covered her face. “Is that blood running down your leg? Oh my goodness, we have to get you to the hospital.” She ran to her room and threw on some clothes.
Breezy grabbed the blanket from the sofa and wrapped it around herself. She felt sort of embarrassed but was in so much pain that the embarrassment quickly disappeared.
Annette came back with the phone pressed against her ear. “Yes, sir, apartment 117G. Please get someone out here as quickly as possible, please.”
Curtis came down the hall carrying a foldout chair. “Here you go. Keep that blanket wrapped around you and sit down right here,” he told Breezy.
“Thank you.” She was scared to death. She’d never been through anything like this and didn’t know what to expect. She knew that bleeding couldn’t be a sign of anything good. So she began to pray silently. Lord, I have a feeling that I am about to lose my baby or I already have. I know that you don’t make any mistakes and so I won’t question why. All I ask is that you help to ease the pain that I am feeling for losing someone I never had a chance to meet. I know that I should probably be happy right now because it was Terry’s baby but I’m not because it was also my baby. I know that if no one else understands how I feel you do. So as you have helped me through so many things before, I ask that you will please wrap your loving arms around me and also bring me through this. Oh and please take care of my baby until I join him or her in your Kingdom. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.
The phone rang. “Maybe that’s the ambulance, baby.” Annette told Breezy, touching her on her leg. She pressed the send button to answer the phone. On the other end, an officer explained to her that they had King in custody for assault and battery. She went down the hall and checked King’s bedroom to be sure that they had the right person because to her understanding King was in his room asleep. She opened the door and turned on the light. Hurt was what she felt as she stood there staring at her son’s empty bed. “I will be there as soon as I can,” she told the officer, feeling defeated. She felt like between Breezy and King she couldn’t catch a break for nothing.
Breezy was in a lot of pain but she could tell by the sound of Annette’s voice that something was really wrong. Annette walked back into the room with tears in her eyes. “Lord, I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
“What’s wrong with King?” Breezy fought through her pain to ask.
“Lord, have mercy; help me.” Annette paced back and forth. “Lord, I can’t handle all of this at once. I am only one person.”
Curtis stood up and crossed the room to where Annette was. He stopped her from pacing and held on to her. “Baby, what’s going on?”
“I just got a call that King is in jail for assault and battery!”
“I don’t even know if I have the money to get him out with.” Annette ran her fingers through her hair.
“How much is his bond?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well it doesn’t matter what it is. Get it from our joint account.”
“I’ll pay—”
“Annette, that’s my son too. Now go and get our baby and bring him home.” He kissed her. “Calm down, baby. Everything is going to be okay. I got you, like always.”
Annette kissed him again. “I love you.”
“I love you too. Now go and get our boy.”
Annette couldn’t describe how thankful she was to have Curtis. He was a good man. She let Breezy know that she would come to check on her as soon as she got King, and then left.
A few minutes later the ambulance arrived. Curtis was right by Breezy’s side. When they arrived at the hospital the doctors asked a million questions. They tried to reach Teresa but no one was answering the house phone. They went ahead and gave Breezy the medical attention that she needed. She had to have a D&C done and they admitted her.
Two days later, Annette picked Breezy up from the hospital. She was more than glad to be out of there. “Where is King?” she asked as soon as they were inside the car.
“His ass is at the house after costing me fifteen hundred dollars to get him out of jail. Damn fool went over there and beat the hell out of Terry!” She cut her eyes at Breezy. “Tell me the truth; did you know he was going over there?”
“No, ma’am, I sure didn’t. Right before he left he said something about him saying something and meaning it. I didn’t know what he was talking about and he left before I could ask.”
“I just hope that when they go to court Terry’s sorry ass will drop the charges.” She looked worried.
“Yeah, I hope so too. I sure hate that he did that. I just want to move on and forget about my ma and Terry. They have caused me enough pain to last a lifetime.”
“I know what you mean.”
The two of them continued to talk until they got home. When they walked through the door, Vita and King were hugged up on the sofa.
“Hey, Ms. Annette,” Vita spoke.
“Hey,” Annette replied before going into the kitchen. She wasn’t crazy about Vita at all and to be honest she was getting quite sick of looking at her.
Breezy noticed that Vita hadn’t spoken to her but didn’t care. She was tired and all she wanted to do was rest. Her body had been through a lot. She sat down on the loveseat since they were on the long sofa where she slept.
“Hey, Breezy, how are you feeling?” King asked taking her completely by surprise.
“Hey. I’m feeling okay, just a little bit tired.” She let out a sigh and tried to get comfortable on the loveseat.
“If you want, you can go back there and get in my bed.”
“Huh?” She lifted her head and looked over at him, taking notice of what he was wearing.
Today he had on a pair of red Nike sweats and a black tee with a red/black durag. The diamond in his left ear shined like a miniature light bulb. He sat next to Vita looking like a young Memphis Hitz.
“I said that you can go back there and get in my bed if you want,” he repeated.
“Yeah, I think that I will.” She accepted his offer knowing that she’d rest a lot better in his bed versus the sofa. She glanced at Vita, who rolled her eyes. She ignored her and got up to leave the room.
On her way out she heard Vita tell King, “I love you, bae.”
“I love you too, li’l mama,” he responded.
Breezy went ahead in the room, changed her clothes, took her pain medicine, and then crawled into bed. Before she knew it, she was out like a light. King invaded her dreams.
He was standing over the bed shirtless staring down at her. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
He leaned down and covered her lips with his. Getting in bed with her, he positioned himself between her legs never breaking their kiss. She wrapped her legs around his waist as his kisses continued down her neck and then back up to her lips again. “I love you, Breezy. I always have.”
“King, I love you too.”
“Breezy, Breezy! Wake up!”
She opened her eyes and looked around. It had gotten dark outside. King had turned on the lamp next to the bed. “Are you okay?”
His eyes were glued to her chest, which caused her to look down too. Her nipples were hard as little pebbles straining against the thin fabric of the shirt that she wore. Feeling embarrassed, she crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m okay. How long have I been asleep?”
“Just a couple of hours,” he said with a smirk and decided to mess with her. “That must’ve been some dream that you were having. You were moaning ‘I love you’ and shit. Let me find out you lying in my bed having freaky dreams about some nigga.”
“Huh? Boy, be quiet. You just making up stuff.” She knew that she’d said his name in her dream and was praying that she hadn’t said it aloud.
“I ain’t making nothing up. When I walked in you were saying ‘I love you too.’ I wish Ma had told me to come wake you up a few minutes earlier. I probably would’ve heard more than that.” He laughed.
“Shut up!” She picked up a pillow and threw it at him. “What does your ma want?”
“For you and your dream man to come and eat!” he continued to tease.
She got up from the bed and pushed him. “You make me sick.”
“Is that any way to talk to your best friend who just caught a charge for you?”
The mood changed some. “About that . . . King, I really wish that you hadn’t done that. I don’t want you in any trouble.”
“He deserved more than what I did to him. He deserved to die! You just concentrate on getting yourself right and not going back there. Don’t worry about me.” He pulled her to him and gave her a big hug.
She melted against his chest and in those strong arms. He smelled so good.
“And for the answer to your question: I’m right here and that’s where I’ll always be.”
She was confused. “What question?”
“When you was singing the other night.”
She thought back to the other night when she was singing Jennifer Hudson’s “Where You At” and smiled enjoying the feel of his arms around her.
Chapter Thirteen
Two months later ...
Breezy kept her word and didn’t go back home and things in her life were finally looking up. She was holding down her job at Angel’s Salon, after school and on the weekends. Her appearance had changed drastically as well. She now kept her hair and nails done and her gear stayed fresh. All of a sudden every nigga in school was trying to holla at her. Even Sean and Jalen were seeing her differently. She’d also put on a few pounds, which made her look a lot healthier. She still didn’t have a banging body like Vita’s but she was holding her own. The thing that made her even more beautiful than she’d become over the past few months, was that with all the attention she was getting now she still stayed to herself. The only two people she dealt with were King and her new boyfriend, Montez.
Montez went to school with them. He was a nice-looking guy, five feet nine inches, about 198 pounds, brown skin, with dreads and an iced-out grill. He drove a money green Range Rover with twenty-sixes on it and played football for their school. He was one of the starting quarterbacks.
King didn’t care for Breezy dealing with Montez because he felt like Montez wouldn’t have taken a second look at her a few months ago and he was right. Montez only noticed Breezy now because she looked different but he really was feeling her and she was feeling him as well.
As for King, he’d recently gotten a job working at McDonald’s after school and Vita and him were still together. She’d dropped a b
omb on him a little over a week ago, informing him that she was four and a half weeks pregnant. He’d been pissed but had no one to blame but himself for believing that she was on the shot.
Annette was so upset when he told her that she hadn’t had much to say to him since then. Curtis had seen it coming a mile away. Instead of fussing, getting upset, or not speaking to him, he simply sat him down and talked to him, letting him know that he needed to work and save up his money so that he could take care of his responsibility once the baby was born.
King walked in the house around 3:30 on Tuesday to get something to eat before it was time for him to head to work. Breezy was sitting at the table eating a bowl of Lucky Charms and talking on the phone. “Are you gonna take me to work . . . I ain’t gonna give you nothing . . . Oh it’s like that? I gotta pay you to take me to work now?” She giggled into the phone. King could tell that she was talking to Montez by all the giggling she was doing. “Tez, you are so silly.” Giggle. “Bae, stop playing.” Giggle.
“Ain’t shit that damn funny,” King mumbled as he took a bowl from the cabinet to make some cereal and then walked over and got the milk out of the refrigerator.
Breezy didn’t hear him because she was too busy giggling at everything Montez said. “I have to be there by four. You know if I’m late Kendra and Tamara are gon’ get in my ass. They cool but they don’t be playing that late shit.”
King sat down at the table to eat his cereal. There was a magazine lying on the table. It was an Urban Lit magazine. He picked it up and started flipping through it. There were a bunch of authors in it and poets. He knew that Breezy loved that magazine so much because she wanted to be an author one day. For the past two months, she’d been writing short stories sending them into the magazine hoping that one of them would get picked to be featured in the magazine. He thumbed through the pages and could imagine flipping through it and seeing an article written by her one day or one of her short stories, or even her face gracing the cover as the featured author of the month. He smiled as he envisioned her on the front of the magazine. He placed the magazine back down on the table and noticed the notebook that she wrote in lying next to it. He slid it over and began reading a poem that she’d been working on:
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