by Tracy Brown
Jada felt so sick as she looked at him. She knew that she couldn’t even begin to tell him how much she loved him. How many times over the years she had longed for him, and wished that he would come back and get her. Now that he was sitting right across from her, she had no idea where to start. So she was honest, and told him exactly what she was feeling.
“Born, you were the first man to ever love me for me. You knew what I was, and what I had been through. You knew all the mistakes I made, and all the shit I had done. And you still loved me, anyway. You never held my past against me. You made me feel accepted, and beautiful, safe and loved. And I blew it. I messed that up.” Jada sighed deeply. “I fucked up. But I never stopped loving you, Born. Not for one second. You’ve always been my soul mate. I was just too stupid to see that your love should have been enough to keep me from going back to the drugs. But loving you was something I never stopped doing.”
He was the person who had mattered most in her life. She knew that, even after all this time, she owed him an honest explanation. “I never wanted to lie to you. I loved the honesty in our relationship, too. In the beginning it was just me and you. And I was alright then. I was good, and I loved you so much. Then, when you and Dorian started working extra hard, and me and Sunny started spending more time together … I got strung out, Born. I wouldn’t admit it to myself, but I was twisted.” Jada took a deep breath, and she explained how she’d taken her first trip across the white lines with Sunny in the men’s room at his friend’s party. “I came face-to-face with cocaine with no one around who would judge me, and I couldn’t walk away from it. I remember standing there staring at it, and knowing that I wanted it. I pushed the thought of you out of my mind. Told myself that I would only do it that one time. Just to make the party more enjoyable. And that night I felt so guilty. I hadn’t lied to you or stolen from you yet. But I knew I’d let you down. After that, I would get high in order to escape the guilt of what I was doing behind your back. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s the truth. I owe you the truth.” Jada was raw and honest as she described the times she and Sunny had gotten high together, and how she’d resorted to stealing from Born once Sunny disappeared. She looked at Born lovingly. “I’m so sorry that I hurt you. It was the last thing I ever wanted. I wanted to be the woman you wanted me to be. I wanted to be the Jada that you fell in love with. But part of me enjoyed being the Jada that got high behind your back, and was the life of the party.”
“So, Sunny got you caught up in all that? I didn’t know she got high, or I never would have wanted you to be friends with her.”
Jada shook her head. “I can’t blame Sunny. I knew I shouldn’t have done it. But I was having fun when I was high. When I was high, I was happy. I had money, I had love, I had friends, and life was a party. But when I wasn’t high, I was ashamed, because I was a cokehead, and I had betrayed you. I was living a double life. But in the midst of all of that, I didn’t ever want to cause you any pain. I loved you. I never wanted to hurt you, Born. I only wanted to be one thing to you, and another thing the rest of the time. I was selfish.”
Born watched her talk, and listened to what she said. He saw so much growth in her. The fact that she was taking responsibility for her actions was impressive to him. She had been in denial for so long, it was a relief to hear her admit that she’d been wrong. He remembered the lies she used to tell, and was relieved to hear some honesty from her at last.
He thought back to the days when they had walked with their fingers laced at the mall. The days when they had put on their flyest shit, and gone to rap concerts or parties. He missed this woman, his baby girl. And now that she was here, he could barely keep his hands to himself. He reached for her across the table, and she gave him her hand, willingly.
The waitress walked over, prepared to take their orders. Born ordered roasted chicken and mashed potatoes. Jada ordered the same. He smiled, remembering that she had always followed his lead. Except for the one time it mattered.
The waitress took their drink orders, and set out to retrieve them. Born continued stroking Jada’s hand, and she looked into his eyes.
“Well, I have some questions, too,” she said. Born leaned back, and prepared himself for the inquisition. Jada needed answers of her own. “How could you leave me alone like that? And why couldn’t you face me, instead of sending your mother to kick me out of our house?”
Born nodded his head, feeling that these were valid questions. “I reacted like that because I was hurt. I had a whole lotta faith in you, and I was so mad that you lied to me. You made a fool out of me. I just wanted you to go away from me.” He looked at her sincerely. “I could have really hurt you. I wanted you to feel the pain you made me feel. And the only way I knew how to do that was to physically hurt you. Deep down I really didn’t want to do that. So, I just cut you off. I let my moms speak for me. Looking back on that, I can see that wasn’t really a good look. But I didn’t know how I would react to you if I saw you face-to-face.” He recalled gripping Jada’s throat as he tossed her out of his life. He had known that he was angry, and powerful enough to snap her neck with his bare hands. All the love he’d had for her had been replaced by rage, and he was dangerously close to hurting her. “I think it would have ended a lot worse if I would have been there that day instead of my mother.” Born shook his head. “You made me give up on love. I’ll never give another woman my heart. It hurts too bad when you trust somebody, and it turns out that they lied to you. My heart is off-limits.”
He ordered another drink, and decided to ask another question. “What happened to you after we broke up. How did you start fuckin’ with Jamari?”
Jada took a deep breath. She felt herself well up with emotion at the thought of the rocky road of her past. “When you left, Marquis—” Her voice trailed off.
Born wanted to prevent her from having to feel all that pain again. “I know it wasn’t easy.”
“Nah.” Jada sat back, shaking her head. “You have no idea. You cannot imagine what it was like for me. I had a hard time. You know what I’m saying?” She looked at Born directly. “It wasn’t easy for me to live without you. And I had a real hard time at first.”
Born noticed that she looked at him unflinchingly. Her gaze was steady. He remembered that she used to have a hard time maintaining eye contact with him. And he noticed that she had no problem looking him in his eyes now. She was direct, and the tone of her voice was firm. It seemed like she had waited a long time to get this off her chest, and he sensed that she needed to say this to him. Jada took a sip of her drink. Born listened as she told him her story.
“When you threw me away—when you let me go—I felt like nobody else was in my corner, like nobody else had my back. And it was all about me from that point on. I felt like all I had was me. I went through my phase of feeling sorry for myself, being depressed and all that.” Jada paused to sip her drink, remembering how she had kept her outer appearance flashy and classy, while on the inside she felt dirty and unwanted. “And, then I saw you and Anisa in the mall. You grabbed her, and walked away from me. Then I saw you at a party that night. You avoided me the whole night. I was crushed. So, I dealt with Jamari, knowing that for me it was all about his paper, never about any love on my part. I was playing him. I thought that I was in control. But he was playing me, too, because I was always high.” Her eyelashes fluttered daintily, as she blinked away the memory. “And he knew what I was doing. He would give me the shit, buy it for me. He had me right where he wanted me, and he knew it.”
Born frowned, disturbed by what he was hearing. “You’re telling me that he gave you crack, and he knew you were smoking?” His facial expression was one of pure amazement.
Jada nodded. “He did. The first time he gave me drugs was when he told me how you put me down when you and him argued in the barbershop.”
“I didn’t put you down. If anything, I gave you a compliment.” Born chuckled at the memory. “The nigga was in there talking shit about how he was with
you now, and I wasn’t. So I just said, ‘Yeah, she got some good pussy, don’t she?’ I didn’t put you down.”
Jada set her glass back down. “That’s not all you said.”
Born looked her in her eyes. “Yes, it is.” He shook his head, already assuming that Jamari had told her something far worse. “What did he tell you I said?”
Jada shook her head, feeling played once again. “He said you told them about how I sucked your dick—”
“What?” Born’s face was twisted in disbelief. “That nigga was lying. I ain’t never said no bullshit like that about you.”
Jada shook her head. “Well, he said that you were saying some pretty foul shit. And then he gave me crack, and told me that I could smoke if I wanted to. That he wouldn’t judge me, like you did.”
Born laughed, uneasily. “Well, he didn’t love you then. If he cared about you like I did, he wouldn’t have ever let you do that in front of him.”
Jada nodded. “Eventually, I saw that. I realized that he was just too willing to accept my addiction, and it seemed like to him it was no problem. The only time me and him had a problem was when your name came up. At first I thought that he didn’t like you just because you were my ex. But then he told me about you. He told me how he betrayed you, and how you cut him off. He said some really fucked up things about you. And I never saw him the same way after that.” She paused, wondering if she should reveal what else Jamari had said.
Born sensed her hesitation. “What?” he asked. “What else did he say?”
Jada sat back, and looked at Born. “He said you were his half brother.”
Born nearly spit out his drink. “Whose half brother?”
“He said that you were his half brother,” Jada confirmed. “He told me that Leo was messing around with his mother behind Miss Ingrid’s back. They both used crack, so Jamari said they were getting high together, and doing their thing on the low. Anyway, his moms told him that your father was also his father. But apparently Leo denied him, and raised you instead. Jamari had resented you ever since his mother told him that. He was jealous that you had your father there all your life and he never had that.”
Born sat staring at Jada for a long time. “That nigga really was crazy!” Born shook his head, and laughed uneasily. “He wished we had the same father.”
Jada shrugged her shoulders. “Well, he really believed that, and he was so jealous that Leo was there for you and not for him.”
Born got lost in thought for several moments, trying to think of whether this scenario was at all possible, or likely. But he quickly brushed it off, thinking to himself that Jamari was just delusional.
Jada continued. “When he told me that, I started to see things clearly. I realized that he didn’t care about me. It was all about getting back at you. I could tell that he was just using me to make you mad, and I felt like such an idiot. But by then, I was already pregnant.” She paused, and sipped her drink. “I was so mad at that nigga for playing me, and mad at myself for not seeing it from the beginning. So I figured out a way to get revenge—for me, and for you. I stole his package, and I sold it and kept the money.” Jada looked at Born to see if he looked confused. He didn’t. Born knew all about the heist that she had pulled off. His friend Chance had told Born about it when he came home from prison. Plus, his own mother had held the money for Jada until she came back to claim it. Jada wasn’t the least bit surprised that he knew either. Born was always a step ahead of everybody else. He knew about every card game, every dice game, every number runner, every loan shark, and all the angles to get money in the streets. So it didn’t surprise Jada at all that he didn’t flinch as she continued her story.
“He was heated. Elliot—his connect—wanted to kill him and Wizz, and I was on the run. I didn’t know if Elliot might want to kill me, too. I took the money, and got the hell out of dodge. I went back to Brooklyn, and I was getting high again. Then I got arrested, trying to buy crack.” She shook her head, still disturbed by the fact that she had fallen so far down that she had been getting high while she was pregnant with her beloved only child. “I went to jail, and that’s where I had Sheldon. Jamari waited until after I gave birth, and then he snatched him from me. He took custody, and painted me as a horrible person. I guess I was, but I needed help. I didn’t need to have my lifeline taken away from me.” Jada felt that Born had also taken her lifeline away once. But Jamari was the one who had tried desperately to break her spirit. “He took my son when Sheldon was all I had to live for. He kept him from me for the whole time that I was locked up. The nigga dragged my name through the mud, and all that. He made me regret the fact that I got pregnant.” She saw the expression on Born’s face change, and she clarified her statement. “I don’t regret it now. But back then I did. I was so mad, because if I had known the whole story, I never would have gotten in so deep with him.”
Born understood what she meant, and he hated Jamari even more for putting Jada through so much hell. He felt better hearing that Jada had had no clue about Jamari’s beef with Born before she got involved with him. He just wished that she hadn’t gotten involved with him at all. “So how did you get your son back?” Born looked incredibly moved by her story. He loved and adored his son like no one else. To be deprived of being a part of Ethan’s life would have killed Born. He empathized with her situation, wondering how a nigga like Jamari could be so cruel. Then he realized that he, too, had once been just as cruel to Jada.
“It wasn’t easy,” she said. “I had to fight to get him back. Jamari told them that I was using crack during my pregnancy, but he didn’t tell him that he was the one giving it to me! When I mentioned that in court, he called me a liar. He was the worst.” Jada paused. “It wasn’t that I didn’t realize that I had done wrong. Using crack while I was pregnant was like putting a loaded gun to my baby’s head, and I realized that. I knew that I was wrong for that. But I was sick, and Jamari took no responsibility for his role in my addiction. He had never once tried to help me. All he wanted was to control me. Sunny kept me from losing my mind, because she told me that if I crumbled, if I gave up, then Jamari had won. I didn’t want him to win, but he was making it so hard for me to fight. But I got back on my feet one step at a time. I stayed clean, got an apartment, and I started with supervised visitation. The social worker sat and watched how I talked to my son, how I played with him, what my home looked like, how much food was in the fridge, and all that. Then I got unsupervised visits. A social worker would go and pick Sheldon up from Jamari and bring him to my house. I was so glad that they assigned us a go-between. I couldn’t stand the sight of Jamari, and I didn’t want to have to see him every time I wanted to see my son. And then somebody killed the muthafucka.” Her voice was flat as she said this, and both she and Born knew that that had been one of the best days of her life. “I guess he got what his hand called for.” She sipped her drink again.
Born watched her closely. He was looking for a sign that Jada was leaving out part of the story. “You went to see my moms the day that Jamari got killed.” Born watched the surprise on Jada’s face emerge, and then quickly disappear. Jada hadn’t thought Ingrid had told Born about that visit. Ingrid had surely not missed the coincidence in the fact that Jamari was killed within minutes of Jada’s departure from her apartment.
“Yeah. I did.” Jada said it, but didn’t elaborate.
Born smirked. “Did you do it?”
Jada looked away, and wanted to tell Born the truth. But that would mean incriminating her friend. And even though she trusted Born not to tell another soul, Jada couldn’t risk getting Sunny implicated in Jamari’s murder. There was no statute of limitations on homicide. “Nah,” she said. “I didn’t kill him. But I was glad that somebody did.”
Born nodded, and took another swig of his drink. “So you and Sunny gonna take that shit to your graves, huh?” He asked the question, and smiled. Then he sat back in his seat.
Jada looked at him, not blinking for several moments. She did
n’t know how Born had figured out the truth. But she sure wasn’t going to elaborate. “Me and Sunny will take a lot of things to our graves. Death before dishonor, you know what I’m saying?”
Born nodded again. He had taught her well. What Jada didn’t know was that Ingrid had watched the entire episode play out from her apartment window. She had seen Jada and Jamari arguing and she was preparing to go out there and help. Then she had seen a very attractive and well-dressed woman come to Jada’s aid. Ingrid saw the exchange between the three of them, and saw Jamari get shot and the two women make their escape. It didn’t take Born very long to surmise that Sunny had been the woman Ingrid had seen. He smiled, knowing all that Jada wasn’t saying.
Jada directed the conversation to safer territory. “If it wasn’t for Sunny and her mother, Marisol, I don’t know if I would have made it through all that. Sunny helped me out a whole lot. She took pictures of Sheldon, and brought them to me. She was my only hope for a long time. For that, I will always be grateful to Sunny. For real.” She sighed. “I got my GED, and I petitioned for sole custody of my son. But they gave me a hard time about it. I had to live with my mother in order for me to have Sheldon with me. They wanted to be sure that he was living in a stable environment, and I had been unstable for so long. So I lived with her until they said that I could raise him on my own.”
Born nodded. “So that must have been awkward at first. You and her living under the same roof after all those years of not even speaking to each other. What was that like?”
Jada shook her head. “At first, it was real tense. I wouldn’t talk to her. I thought she was wrong for shutting me out. But I realized that she was angry with me, too, and she had every right to be. So once we finally started talking, we both got to say some things that needed to be said. We got to reconnect as a family. And I’m grateful that we got the chance to do that before she died. I’m glad she got a chance to see that I turned my life around.”