by Shan
She knew what I did and took the time to understand it, rather than to judge me on it. I respected her for that. She never whined about me being in the streets for too long or not spending enough time with her. She was always on her wifey duties, cooking and cleaning for a nigga. I had a prize in Rain; she was the perfect trophy wife until it all went wrong.
Everything had started to fall apart. She was no longer keeping herself up, home cooked meals were becoming rare, and my money stash just kept getting lighter and lighter. I had never questioned her about any of it, thinking she was just stressing and wasn’t ready to talk to me about any of it. When I found out it was drugs, I was completely crushed.
Rain had turned into a mean hateful ass person that I had never seen before when I confronted her about it. She acted like what she was doing was cute and like I should’ve been honored to have a crack head on my arm. She was boasting about how she’d been stealing money and drugs from me for months and how stupid I was for not even noticing. After that, I couldn’t wait to get rid of her, but the aftermath of what she had done to me was long lasting. I only dated women here and there after she ran off. It wasn’t until I ran into Jahzara that I was ready to get over the heart break that Rain caused me and become serious again. Sadly, it had been another mistake.
The driver of the SUV finally backed away from Rain with his eyes going from me to her and back again. He jogged to the driver’s side door and jumped his big ass in, peeling quickly out of the lot. As they drove passed by where I was, he turned his head and our eyes met. I nodded my head, inviting him over to me. Instead, he smashed the gas and sped off down the street.
Follow the money or help Rain? What to do? What to do?
I looked to see which way they were going and noted that they’d taken a right at the stop light. Putting the car in reverse, I backed out of the spot I was in and rushed across the street. I shook my head and placed the car in park, and then jumped out. Rain was bleeding all over and lightly whimpering. I knelt down and picked her up and placed her in the passenger side seat. I hurried around to the other side, hoping that I could catch up to them cats before they got too far away, but I knew it was useless. They knew these streets far better than me and would be long gone by time I even made it out of this lot and to the light.
“Fuck!” I cursed, wondering why I always had to be the good guy.
19: Rain
“Rain, where is that pistol that you took from me?” Imran asked me as I slowly opened my eyes.
“Can you take me to a hospital? I’m just in so much pain, Imran,” I said slowly.
“Man, I’m trying to catch up to these fools you were with. I’m naked out here,” Imran said and reached over and grabbed my hand. “I’ll take you to the hospital later after I get my money back.”
“They’re gonna kill me Imran. I’m so sorry,” I cried.
I covered my face with my hands and cried like a little baby. I was so hurt by the way that Chino had done me and couldn’t believe that I didn’t see it coming. It was like I just couldn’t seem to do anything right in my damn life.
Ever since my early teens, I’d always been a damn fuck up, making all the wrong decisions. Imran didn’t deserve for me to do him like this. He’d always been there for me. Even when I came to him on some set up shit, he took me in and tried to help me and he didn’t even have to do that. He had reached out because he thought I was sick from drugs and all I wanted to do was destroy him.
I was I was so bitter about the way he’d abandoned me at the rehab center years ago that I couldn’t even see past that. I couldn’t even see that it was for my own good and that he was only trying to help me. He’d paid for the entire thing and dropped me off and told me to get the help that I needed.
Instead of seeing that as a good thing, I only saw the bad in it all. I saw it as being the worst thing that ever happened to me and instead of me loving him for that, I hated Imran. I wanted him to suffer so badly and it ended up being the worse mistake of my life. After all that shit I had done to him, trying to bring him down, he ends up being the one to help me out of this situation.
Why did I do this to him?
“Nah, I’m not gonna let them kill you Rain. I just need you to help me get up with them and I need that pistol. You still have it or not?”
“No, Ray took it from me. Can we just go to the hospital? I promise, I will give you all the information you need on Chino and Ray. I promise if you get me some help, I will help you get your money back and help you bring them niggas down. That’s my word. I’m in so much agony right now. My body feels like it’s on fire and if I can’t get no help, then just please kill me right now. I rather be dead then to continue to feel like this.”
“You need to get off them fucking drugs and stay off that shit, Rain. You’re not the same person when you’re on that shit. You might not see that, but the people around you that know better, know that ain’t you,” Imran said to me.
“Imran, I haven’t done drugs in three years. I’ve been clean since you dropped me off at rehab.”
“Don’t start that lying shit. When I picked you up, your ass was sick as hell going through withdrawals.”
I decided to take this opportunity to be completely honest with Imran. The way I see it, he could either kill me knowing that I haven’t been telling him the truth or he could keep me around. I was hoping that he would let me make it since he needed me to get back at Chino.
It would be risky as hell, but I felt it was the right thing to do. Imran didn’t have to pick me up out of that parking lot. He could’ve chased behind his money and said fuck me, but and he didn’t do that so it was only right that I kept it one-hundred with him from here on out.
“Imran, when you dropped me off at that rehab place, I don’t think you know how hurt I was. I was devastated. I felt like somebody else I loved was doing me wrong, was leaving me, or abandoning me as if I was nothing. I stayed at the rehab long enough for me to get that shit out my system and I left there with so much hate in my heart for you.
I vowed that that would be the last time I touched drugs and I promised myself that I would make you pay for doing me like that. I didn’t wanna look at what you did as a good thing, I just felt neglected, and I felt like you needed to pay for doing me like that.
When I got to Maryland, I hooked up with my dude, Yurie, and chilled with him for a while whenever I wasn’t at my aunt’s. He was a hustler and he wasn’t really getting no money. I had got so accustomed to you that I felt like I had downgraded.” I explained to him.
“Anyway, one day he introduced me to his connect Chino and that’s when everything all started. I wanted to be with Chino so bad cause I felt like it was the perfect one to replace you in my heart. He was getting money on a major scale and he had his shit together unlike Yurie.
I had approached Chino and told him that his shit was all the way wrong and that he could be getting more money if he changed up the whole way he was doing things. I told him that I felt like his right hand man was dirty and that a few other niggas in his camp was shady too. He didn’t listen to me until he got knocked by the Feds due to his right hand Stash doing some snitching to avoid jail time. You know, just like I had suspected. Some foul shit was going on.
Well, while he was locked up his hustle was fucked up ‘cause niggas was out here lost. They didn’t know what to do without him. He was losing customers and workers to the competition. I saw that as my time to get back at you and to come up in Chino’s life so I murked Stash,” I explained.
Imran shot me an unknowing look. I could tell that he was shocked by my admission and how desperate I had been to commit murder for a nigga that wasn’t even mine.
“You killed a dude for what, Rain?” Imran asked trying to understand, but there was nothing I could explain to him that he would get. No one would understand why I did what I did, but me.
“I killed him because I had to. I had to be with Chino, I just had to. If it wasn’t gonna be him, then it w
ould be someone just like him. I killed his right hand and I told his boy, Ray, to get word to him that I handled it and that I wanted him when he came home. And when Chino came home, he came right for me. He thanked me for it and told me that he wanted me to be his lady.
I told him that first I wanted to help him get his shit together and that we should wait before we got into a relationship so soon. I explained to him about my situation with you, but I never told him it was behind drugs. I just told him that you left me to be homeless and that I came to Maryland and that I wanted revenge.
I gave him everything that I had on you, telling him all about the money you was getting in Dallas. And I told him about your safe house out in Lubbock.”
Imran sighed. He took his right hand off the steering wheel and replaced it with the left. He went into his pocket and pulled out a pack of Newports and then a lighter. I waited for him to light it and take a few puffs before I continued. I could tell that this was pissing him off by the way he was breathing, but I hadn’t expected anything less.
“First we had planned to come to Dallas to rob you for everything that you had, but we didn’t know that Jahzara’s husband, Quin, was gonna be in the way. That night he’d burned your house down, I had called Chino over the same night and told him that there was a little mini safe that I had found in your closet.
That shit went all wrong. Quin caught me off guard, burned your shit down and Chino was stuck on the damn freeway with a flat tire. He had even took down some of your corner boys, robbing them for their shit, and then Quin ended up doing the same thing so it ended up being perfect. But him and Honey kept getting in the damn way and just had us all over the place. Nothing was going right because of them.
We had Yurie working with us too, but he didn’t know that Chino and I was working against him. Shit just got so out of hand,” I said feeling so much remorse.
I left out the part about me killing Yurie. After the way Imran had looked at me after I admitted killing Stash, he probably would think I was this cold heartless bitch and toss me out of the car. I wasn’t cold or heartless at all, just determined to get where I wanted to be in life without anything stopping me. Nobody could fault me for my determination. It was just in me to never go back to where I came from. That shit had to be understandable.
“I’ma be real one hundred with you, Rain. I wanna murk your ass for what you did to Kira, but I also want to get my money back from them niggas. If I can’t get that, then I at least want to kill them niggas. I’m gnna need your help on that so for now, you’re safe. I’ll take you to the hospital, but it’s gonna have to be in Dallas. I need to see about my wounds and I need to get up with a few of my niggas. I need to be all the way prepared for when I come back this way.”
I nodded my head in agreement. I closed my eyes and tried to relax for the ride. Hopefully by the time I opened my eyes, I would be experiencing some kind of relief.
20: Imran
By time we’d made it back to Dallas, I was tired as fuck and ready to lay down somewhere. I headed straight toward Methodist hospital so that Rain and I could get some help. Also, I wanted to be there for Jahzara’s surgery. I figured that if I could fuck with Rain when I knew she was grimy and could turn on me at any moment, then the least I could do was show Jahzara some kind love.
I wasn’t gonna rush going after Rain’s fuck ass boyfriend because we both needed to be all the way one-hundred. When it was all said and done, I planned to murder each and every last one of them, including Rain. I just can’t let her live. I’m glad she finally came clean about everything, but I was still mad over Kira. Not only that, I didn’t wanna give her the chance to ever fuck me over again.
“Alright, we gonna have to walk to the hospital. I don’t wanna park the car too close to it ‘cause I know the cameras will be all over our asses. They track that shit back to Maryland and we’re both fucked,” I said to Rain.
“Okay, how far do we have to walk?” she asked barely able to open her eyes.
“At least a mile. Come on. I’ll carry you most of the way.”
I jumped out of the car and walked around to the passenger side. Rain pushed the door open. I grabbed her up in my arms and began walking in the direction of the hospital. She felt so limp in my arms and I could feel her entire body trembling. I was able to keep a steady pace there and took in deep breaths and slowly letting them out.
The walk to the hospital took about twenty minutes and when we’d made it on the inside, I went straight to the check in desk.
“Does she need to see a doctor?”
I hate when they ask stupid questions such as those. Why else would I be carrying her into a hospital if she didn’t need to see a damn doctor? I nodded my head and placed Rain on the floor. She gripped her arms around mine and did her best to stay on her feet.
“Yea, she’s been shot and beat up pretty badly,” I told the lady.
“Let me get her a wheelchair and a doctor,” she said.
She rushed from behind the counter over to area where the wheelchairs were and quickly rolled one over to Rain. She sat down in the chair and looked up at me.
“Thank you Imran. I won’t let you down this time, I promise,” Rain told me and released her grip on my arm.
“I gotta go check on somebody. I’ll come back and see how you’re doing.”
“Make sure you get some help too. You don’t sound too good,” Rain said to me and I shot her a sympathetic smile.
“Sir we need to get some information from you so if you can just stick around for a few moments,” the worker said as she began to wheel Rain away.
“Sure, I’ll stay and wait right here,” I told her.
Soon as she pushed Rain through the double doors, I turned around and headed for the elevators, pressing the up button when I’d got there. The doors opened and I stepped on and pressed the number five to go to the fifth floor.
Soon as I checked on Jahzara, I was gonna see about my wounds to be sure they were healing correctly and then go and see my family. I needed to make sure everyone was doing okay and that they knew everything that was needed to know about Kira’s death.
I stepped into Jahzara’s room and noticed that there was someone else there besides her. A white lady with brown hair was sleeping peacefully in her place and a man sat on the chair beside her watching her and holding her hand. I scratched my head and then quickly stepped out going to the nurse’s desk.
“Excuse me, do you know where I can find Jahzara Simmons?” I asked the first nurse that I saw.
She sat down in front of the computer and began typing. I noticed her eyes roam up and down the screen before she looked at me and shook her head,
“She’s no longer on this floor.”
“Can you tell me what floor she’s on?” I asked raising my brow.
“Sir, what’s your relationship to her?”
“Never mind. Thank you.”
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and began to walk away from the desk. Looking at my screen, there were two missed calls from Jahzara and a voice mail. I unlocked my phone and started listening to the message.
“Hello, Mr. Jackson, this is James, Jahzara’s father. Jahzara asked me to call you. Something has gone wrong and we don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t look good. Please give me a call, son,” James said.
I immediately went to my call log and dialed Jahzara’s number, hoping that someone would pick up. I hated that I ignored her call and felt bad as hell that something had happened to her. The line rung several times before finally someone had answered.
“Hello Imran,” a female voice said.
“Hey, I was at the hospital trying to check on Jahzara. I came to her the room, but she wasn’t there.”
“She’s currently in the Intensive care Unit. Just come down to the ICU and I will meet you at the door.”
The phone went dead and I rushed over to the elevators. My mind running wild with all the things that could be wrong. I tried to think back to our
last conversation to see if I missed anything that would have let me know that this was coming.
As soon as the elevator’s doors opened, I rushed inside and repeatedly pressed the floor I needed. It seemed like the ride down took forever. I kept on pressing the button as if it was gonna make me get there any faster.
I couldn’t believe I was even feeling this way. The thought that something bad had happened to Jahzara caused me to rethink every negative thing I had said about her. I started hoping and praying that she was good and that I wouldn’t walk into any bullshit. I had to admit, no matter what we had gone through, I was still deeply in love with her.
The elevators doors slid open and I took off in a light jog down the hall until I reached the secure doors that led to the ICU. I pressed down on the bell to alert someone that I was there. My heart was racing with anticipation of what I was going to find when I walked on the other side.
Beep! Beep!
The door opened and standing right on the other side was Jahzara’s mother, Evelyn. She was dressed in comfy jogging pants, a t-shirt, and her hair was pinned up in a messy bun. She looked as if she had been here a long time and the bags under her red eyes showed that she was stressed out. Looking at her, I could tell that this wasn’t gonna be good. She looked so weary; as if her life had been snatched away from her.
I followed her as we passed by several rooms before we finally came to where Jahzara was lying. Her father was right by her side with her hand in his. His head was down, like he was praying. Jahzara had a huge mask over her face with several tubes coming from it. There was a machine next to her that looked like an oversized air pump that was used to pump tires or some shit. Her eyes were covered with gauze. I couldn’t tell what all the other shit that was connected to her was even for.