Niq’ just looked at me. “She was really into me, Kourtney, even though I told her from jump that I didn’t want a girlfriend. We’d only had sex a few times. She came to me that week of Christmas, telling me that she was a few weeks pregnant. What was I supposed to do? I didn’t wanna hurt the girl. She was pregnant!”
“Yeah? Well, so was I!” I pushed Niq, about to get up from the porch, when he yanked me back down by my arm.
He looked into my face, brown eyes glistening. “What? You had my baby? Where’s my baby?”
“What baby?” I snapped at him, snatching my arm from his grasp.
Niq’ just looked at me, his temples twitching.
“You didn’t want me. You couldn’t want me if you wanted her!” I whispered as softly as I could, and as loudly as I could at the same time, so he could hear the rage in my voice.
“I didn’t want her; I just wanted you! You never once told me that you gave a fuck about me, Kourtney! All those niggas you were rollin’ with at that time? You really have no right to be mad at a nigga!” Niq’ scoffed.
I shoved him in his shoulder. “Nigga, I never once lied to you! You can say a lot of things about me, but what you can’t call me is fake! I’m the realeast bitch you’ll ever meet! I keep it fuckin’ one hundred! Once you and I started kickin’ it together, I totally dissed everybody for you, and you know that shit!”
Niq just looked at me. “Kourtney, I didn’t know she was pregnant. That girl sprung that shit on me out of nowhere, and now, she barely lets me see my kids.”
“Well, good, muthafucka. That’s what you get. You should have kept your dick in your pants! You know I cared about you! You and I took baths together! You painted my toenails! You combed my hair! Nigga, you’d rub my back, legs, and feet after cheerleading practice! You got to my heart when I never let anyone else in! Do you have any fuckin’ idea what I’ve been through, Niq?” I pushed him again. “I thought I found my light at the end of that long, dark tunnel I was living in! I was living in hell on Earth, and you saved me! Just when I thought my life was getting better, you let me know that nothing had changed. That you were just a smoke screen. That my life was still fucked-up. That I still had nothing to live for. And I will always hate you for that, Niq.”
Niq’ looked into my face. “Kourtney Love.” I loved it when he called me that.
“Baby, I’m sorry.”
I looked at him, fighting back the tears. “I made the mistake of looking at the sonogram monitor when the doctors were examining me before the abortion. The baby was so tiny, but my baby had the strongest heartbeat. It was hard to tell his or her heartbeat from mine because,” I laughed off the pain, “our heartbeats were in sync. I was thirteen and scared out of my mind. I didn’t tell anyone but God about what I did.”
Niq’ held my hand in his.
“I really wanted your baby, Niq. And I really wanted you, but you were with her.” I cried out, finally crying after not shedding a tear once since the day he’d broken my heart.
“Let’s roll out, Ma.” Niq’ whispered to me.
I looked up at him and then over at the pool where Ernesto sat at the glass umbrella table, drinking a beer, already looking back at us talking on the porch.
I looked back at Niq’, sliding my hand from his.
Niq’ stood from the porch.
And I stood up with him, facing him. I hesitated, looking back over at Ernesto, who looked like he was ready to pull out the 9mm he kept tucked in his pants.
Niq’ grabbed my face, turning my face back to his. “You wanna stay here with him, or you wanna go home with me?”
I just looked into Niq’s face. “I can’t just leave Ernesto’s party. He’s done so much for me.”
“Then why aren’t you over there with him?” Niq’ grinned a little. “Why you over here missin’ me? Thinkin’ about me? You still love me; you can’t tell me that you don’t. You don’t love that nigga. You think he doesn’t know that?”
I sighed, shaking my head. “I’m not trying to hear you, Niq’. You be with that shit. He’s supposed to be your friend, and you’re tryin’ to take the girl he’s crushin’ on home. You’re wrong.”
“Do you belong to him? Are you claimin’ him? Is that your nigga?” Niq’ asked.
I hesitated, about to look over at Ernesto.
Niq’ grabbed my face, turning it towards him again. “If you have to think about it, then the answer is no, Ma. Baby, I miss you. I’m not seeing anybody, Ma, I swear. It’s over with Peanut. C’mon, Love. Come home with me.” And I did.
***
Needless to say, I continued to see Niq’. I didn’t mean to break Ernesto’s heart, but when Niq’ wanted me, no one else mattered. Ernesto didn’t even fight for me, and I think it was because he knew before Niq’ came around that my heart was off limits. Nina helped keep my secret; she never told Peanut that I was dating her baby’s daddy. The day before Nina’s fifteenth birthday, we went and got tattoos. I got “Niq” tatted across my thigh, and Nina got a trail of cookies tumbling down her torso to what our mama’s called our cookie jar. That summer was awesome all the way up until the day after we got the tattoos, when Nina found out that she was pregnant and threw up all over my mother at their (my mom shared the same birth date) birthday party.
Of course, Aunt Rayna flipped. She tried to keep Nina away from Ricque. Ricque was only going to be in San Diego for a few months, which was why Nina was so skeptical about falling for that boy when she first met him. He lived a very hectic life and endured a lot that Nina had no idea about. She’d lived a sheltered life compared to his. His own mother had a hit out on him after his testimony of her killing his father landed her years in prison. Nina watched that boy leave her, on his way back to stay with his foster parents in New York, knowing that she was pregnant with his baby. Despite the fact that Ricque’s aunt asked to keep Nina’s baby once the baby was born, Aunt Rayna made Nina have an abortion. I’ll never forget that bus ride home from the abortion clinic. Nina cried until she went numb. And I cried with her, telling her about the abortion that I had the year before. The saddest part about that day was that Nina’s abortion was done on the same day that my baby would have turned one. Just when I thought life couldn’t get any worse for the both of us, it did.
Nina’s abortion turned out to be incomplete, meaning the dumb-ass doctors didn’t see the other fetus inside of Nina. Nina was pregnant with twins. Of course, Aunt Rayna tried to force her daughter into having another abortion, but Nina refused, her soul already tormented by the first abortion she barely made it through. So, being the cold bitch Aunt Rayna was, she told Nina that, as soon as that baby was born, she would have to give the baby up. And worse of all, she’d be giving birth to her baby in London, England, half-way around the world. And the both of us were devastated. I had spent the first fifteen years of my life with Nina. She was the only person in my life who gave me hope. She was my crutch, and I was hers. We were complete opposites, but it worked for us. There was no shade between us. There was never any hate. There was only love. And I didn’t want to live without that girl, and vice versa.
Nina tested out of tenth grade before even moving to England. Her ass was going to the eleventh grade at the age of fifteen. Her momma tried to make it so we never talked to one another, but we kept in touch. My boo called me just about everyday, in pain. Not only from her pregnancy complications but from missing me and Ricque. She was going crazy with guilt. She had no idea how she as going to be able to give up her daughter, the twin that was left after the incomplete abortion.
Life in San Diego was no better. Mama was going through an array of emotions when her sister moved to London. Mama had lost her baby and her so-called fiancé, too. I will never forget that cold January night—the 25th to be exact, that Mama came home with a baby. I was sitting at the dinner table, doing my homework, when I looked up to see Mama coming in the house with an infant car seat.
I stood from the table, looking down at my watch. “Hey, Mama.
” I hadn’t seen my mama in about a week. She was supposed to be going to visit one of her sisters who lived in Hawaii. It was 11:30 at night, and according to her flight itinerary, her flight had landed at 5:00. “How was your trip to Hawaii?” I asked her as she sat the car seat on the floor.
Mama was paying me no attention. She uncovered the blanket from the car seat. Mama cooed down at the baby, removing her Prada jacket, tossing it over on the coat tree.
I sighed, walking over to my mother as she bent over to unbuckle the baby from the car seat. “Mama, whose baby is this? Since when do you baby-sit? When was the last time you burped a baby or changed a diaper?” I shook my head at her.
Mama glanced at me before taking the baby from the car seat.
I stood alongside my mama, eyeing the baby. The baby was so beautiful. She had the prettiest hazelnut complexion. She had thick, curly hair sitting on her little, round head. She was wide-awake, staring up into my mother’s face. Those dimples, those bright hazel eyes; she looked vaguely familiar.
“This is London,” Mama whispered, kissing the baby’s forehead.
“She’s so cute!” I looked her over. “But…why does she look so familiar?”
Mama looked at me. She hesitated. “Because she’s Nina’s baby.”
I don’t know why Mama wanting to raise Nina’s baby surprised me. Mama always cared more about Nina than she did about me. My mama didn’t spend all that much time with me, but when she did, she’d make sure to bring Nina along with us. Every time I turned around, I was getting the “why can’t you be more like Nina” lecture. Nina was the daughter she always wanted. Mama showed her off like she was her own. Couldn’t stop bragging about how smart and mature for her age that she was. I was too much like my mama, which is why we barely got along. I never resented Nina for my mother favoring her. I only resented my mother for never accepting me for who I was.
I gasped. I pushed my mama’s shoulder when I really wanted to push her got-damn face into the wall. “Mama! What? Why do you have Nina’s baby?” I looked back at the baby.
“I didn’t go to Hawaii; I went to England.” Mama looked into my face, watching my nostrils flaring. “This is for the best, Kourtney. You already know Rayna wasn’t trying to help that girl raise this baby.”
“Mama, and you are?” I scoffed. “You barely raised me! The streets raised me a hell of a lot better than your ass ever did. And you have the nerve to take the only piece of Ricque that my cousin had left? You and Aunt Rayna ain’t shit! I can only imagine how Nina is feeling right now, knowing that her aunt is raising her baby halfway around the world! She must be devastated!”
Any other mother would have slapped the shit out of me for cursing her out, but not Mama. She was that express-yourself-but-you-better-not-put-your-got-damn-hands-on-me kind of mom. I wished she was more of a mama than a friend. She acted my age, and I think I acted more like I was her age. Shit, as reckless as I lived, I was still more responsible than that woman was. If you even wanted to call her that.
Mama sighed, shaking her head at me. “Yes, Nina is devastated after giving her baby up. And I don’t want you calling her about it. Don’t bring it up to her at all. She has to go on with her life. You have no idea of the chaos going on in Ricque’s life! It won’t be long before the muthafuckas who are after him come for Nina. His own aunt even offered to keep the baby - just to keep trouble away from Nina.”
I shook my head. “I need to at least call her and see how she’s doing.”
“She’s in the psychiatric ward!” Mama exclaimed to my back before I could make it across the living room to where the cordless phone sat on the end table.
I stopped in my tracks. No wonder why I hadn’t heard from my boo in over three weeks. I turned around, facing Mama. “What?”
“Well, at least she was in the psych ward. Keith’s sister, Toni, came and picked her up from the hospital a few days ago. We had London moved to the children’s hospital out here after she had a few surgeries.” Mama watched the irritated expression on my face. “I just wanted the baby closer to me so that I could see her every day. There was no point in Nina seeing that baby every day when Rayna planned on giving her up. I didn’t hesitate to get rights of this beautiful baby so that at least one day my niece can see her mother again. This child has extensive health problems, Kourtney - health problems that Nina will only blame herself for. Rayna said that the day that Nina woke up to an empty incubator in the NICU, she went crazy. And cut all of her hair off.”
My eyes widened. I shook my head and burst out crying. “Mama, she needs me!” I cried out. “Where is my boo? Where does her Aunt Toni live?”
“In Goldsboro, North Carolina.” Mama’s eyes glistened.
You already knew that I took the first available flight to Raleigh, North Carolina. I’d gotten Toni’s address from Nina’s father (or the man she’d been told damn near all of her life was her biological father when in fact he wasn’t). I was going to surprise my cousin. I took a cab to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base where her aunt was staying. Toni remembered me though she’d only seen me a couple of times. She was pretty happy to see me. She was headed out to work the mid-shift at her job when I showed up that afternoon to her house. She told me that Nina wasn’t doing so well and that she hadn’t left the bed in days.
I crept my way up to Nina’s room. I almost had a heart attack at the sight of my cousin, sitting up in her bed, with an inch of curly hair on her head, staring outside of her bedroom window.
“Boo?” I called out to her, walking into her room, closing the door behind me.
Nina turned her head, looking at me. Her eyes lit up, and she sat all the way up in the bed. “Kourtney!” She cried out as I made my way over to her.
I threw my arms around my cousin, running my fingers through her curls. I kissed the top of her head, looking down at her short hair. She had always had so much hair on her head. Damn near three-feet of hair when her curls were straightened. But at that point, she sat there looking like a chocolate Betty Boop. I wanted to punch the shit out of our parents for what they were doing to her.
“They took my baby!” Nina cried out.
I just looked at her, lips trembling, not even sure what to say to my cousin. I assumed by that statement that my mother was telling the truth, that Nina really knew that Aunt Rayna had given London to her willingly. It wasn’t until I was fuckin’ thirty-one that I found out that Nina had no idea where her daughter was.
***
“Ummm, Nina, how long has Aunt Toni been putting comet in the fridge?” I asked, watching Aunt Toni taking a tube of Comet out of the refrigerator and sprinkling the shit on top of her plate of spaghetti like it was parmesan cheese or some shit.
Nina glanced at Aunt Toni and then looked back at me, trying her best not to laugh at her aunt. “Girl, don’t pay her any mind.” Nina leaned forward, whispering, “She’s been doing this shit for three got-damn years. I had to empty out every tube of Comet in the house and actually put parmesan cheese in them, so she won’t kill herself!”
I shook my head.
When Nina moved to North Carolina, I went to visit my boo every year for three years. When I graduated high school in 2002, I moved to North Carolina to help her take care of Aunt Toni. I was there a year before I saw any signs of Toni’s mental illness. They had just switched her medication, and that was probably what got her going that day. Or maybe she sensed something crazy was about to happen.
Uncle Timothy Mack was staying with them then. That bastard hated the fuck out of me. He said I was too sassy and had too much mouth. He hated the way I dressed. Hated the way I went out every night. Hated the fact that, as soon as I stepped on Goldsboro’s scene, I jumped straight into the dating scene. He said I was a bad influence on Nina. Said she’d been doing good those three years that I wasn’t around. I ran out of fucks to give about that nigga’s opinion after a few months. And long as Aunt Toni loved me, I could give a fuck about her husband. She knew her niece needed me aroun
d.
“Okay, Aunt Toni,” I sighed, getting up from the table, going over to where Aunt Toni stood at the counter top, eating her spaghetti. “I have some fried chicken in the refrigerator. Do you want me to warm it up for you?”
Aunt Toni grinned. “Sure, baby.”
I looked down at her mismatched house slippers and then back up into that pretty face of hers. She walked back over to the table where Nina was sitting and sat down across from her, flipping through the newspaper. She needed help, but Uncle Timothy’s punk ass refused to admit that his wife had a problem.
Both Nina and I were enrolled at East Carolina University, both majoring in Business Administration. Nina had a concentration in Entrepreneurship, and I minored in Marketing. We planned on opening our own tattoo shop and were saving up to do so upon graduation. Nina was a year ahead of me in college; ya know, since she graduated high school a year before I did. I had to take classes during the summer just to catch up with my boo. She was doing the damn thing, dealing with her own mental issues, as well as her aunt’s, and maintaining straight-A’s in school. To celebrate Nina passing her Finance midterm, I surprised her with dinner that night. I went all out; I’d made barbequed chicken, fried chicken, spaghetti, meatballs, deviled eggs, garlic bread, house salad, strawberry lemonade pound cake, and sock-it-to-me cinnamon streusel cake. Yeah, a bitch could cook. And no, I didn’t learn it from Mama. I learned it from practicing with Nina. When you’re a young girl left home at night while your mama is out dating, you have to teach yourself to take care of yourself.
My cell phone rang on my hip. I unclipped it from my shorts and looked at the display. It was Niq’s ass. I rolled my eyes, silencing my phone, clipping the phone back to my shorts. “This muthafucka.” I mumbled to myself.
Nina laughed a little, taking a sip of her iced tea. “Niq’ calling again?”
“Yes, and it’s the fifth got-damn time today!” I exclaimed. “The nigga needs to get a life and leave me the fuck alone.”
I Gave Him My Heart Page 5