Niya

by Fabiola Joseph

  At that moment, I really wasn’t even sure about moving anymore. Things between us were off and on, my granny would be alone, and I, well, I just felt like I . . . Hell, I didn’t know. Maybe I was scared, maybe I was just in a messed-up state, or maybe I thought that I would fail. I just didn’t know why I was having a change of heart.

  “Niya, we have to go. There is nothing for us here but crime and too many bad memories. Granny could come with us, but you and I, we have to leave.”

  I looked at her and knew that she was right, but I just wasn’t sure. I told her that I would give it more thought, and once I had an answer, I would give her one. I knew that I should go, but whether I would go was the question.

  Chapter 61

  Jamilla

  Leaving her was torture. The space between us was too damn wide, my need for her was even bigger, and I wanted to tell her so. It just didn’t seem like the right time, so I just spoke about the book and about her show and how well she’d done. When she asked me what else I had been up to, I couldn’t really answer, because most of my free time had been spent with Rodney. So as I turned to walk out her door, my heart was heavy. I felt as if I was hiding so much from her, and it hurt.

  “Happy birthday, Niya. I really hope that you enjoyed it.”

  “I did because of you. I have missed you, and getting this book as a gift that has made my night.”

  I turned back around and stood there, wanting to run into her arms and have her kiss me and hug me.

  “You want me to walk you to your side of the building?” she asked as I stared at her.

  “No, I can make it. You should get some rest.”

  I turned to walk out, but she took my hand and pulled me to her. When her arms reached around my waist, I melted inside.

  “I’m proud of you, Jamilla boo. I really am.”

  * * *

  The walk to my apartment was harder than I thought it would be. Thinking of her, for some reason, made me emotional. Seeing Marlo leaving her place and then being able to see my book for the first time with her right next to me made me feel an array of emotions. I stood in front of my front door and tried to get myself together, but it just wasn’t working.

  “Where’d you go this time of night?” said a male voice.

  My front door had flung open, and my stepdad was standing there. I rolled my eyes and tried to get past him, but he was blocking me.

  “I went to take someone their birthday gift.”

  “Oh, you go see your girlfriend or you go see the boy? You have so many people, I cannot count.”

  Once he said that, I used all my strength and pushed him out of the way. This time it worked, as I knocked both him and the beer that was in his hand down.

  “You don’t hear me?”

  Once I was in front of my bedroom door, I turned to him and told him how I really felt.

  “Why don’t you go and question your fucking wife, you sick fuck?”

  “Ay, you don’t talk to me like that. They called your mother to go work. So now I question you.”

  My face twisted with disgust as I answered him. “Go fuck yourself. You don’t get to question me. You have a wife and a daughter. Do this stupid shit with them.”

  With that, I went into my bedroom and locked my door. I didn’t even bother to take off my clothes. I just lay across my bed, went through old text messages from Niya, and cried. I missed her with all of me, and I needed to have her the way I used to have her. I needed her love.

  * * *

  When I opened my eyes, I just lay there for a minute. I almost didn’t believe what had happened. It had been so long that I was shocked. I sat up and looked down. Shit. I really was wet. The cold had woken me up, and the disbelief brought me to reality. Damn. I had wet the bed. Instantly, I felt embarrassed. I slid off the bed, with my head hanging low, and wondered how this could have happened. I had been doing so well, and boom, look at me. Was it the stress of the situation with Niya? Was it my stepfather? Or maybe the secret I was hiding with Rodney was eating away at me. I just couldn’t put my finger on it, but one thing was for sure. I felt so low and dirty.

  I got out of my clothes, threw on my robe, and took all the sheets off of my bed and threw them in the corner with my wet clothes. Thankfully, I had never taken the plastic cover off my mattress, so I just had to wipe it off with a mixture of bleach and water and put on new sheets. I picked up the pile of sheets and clothes and headed for the washing machine in the kitchen. Once in there, I could see the light from the television, which meant that my stepdad was in the living room. I hurried and started the washer and headed to the bathroom. I made my mixture to sanitize the plastic that covered my bed and headed back into my room. I closed my door, and with tears in my eyes, I wiped the urine off my bed, dried the plastic cover, and started to put on new sheets.

  “You pee in the bed again?”

  My stepfather’s voice scared me and caused me to jump up and let out a low scream.

  “Get the hell out of my room.”

  He was clearly drunk. I could tell by the way he slowly blinked and leaned against the wall.

  “Oh, so, you take it away from me, like you a big girl, you give it to him, her, and you still pee pee in the bed. Oh no, you not grown up. You still my little girl.”

  My heart started to race. I hadn’t felt this way since before Niya held the gun up to his head.

  “Get out of my room, or I will scream,” I said as I looked around the room for something that could be used as a weapon.

  “Go. Okay, scream. You think I don’t know you make my Marie scream? Yes, I know it’s you.”

  Once he said that, the fight to leave my bedroom was on. I clawed and slapped him as he tried to hold me in the room. I made it all the way to the front door, opened it halfway, only to have him slam it shut.

  “Get away from me!” I screamed as I ran back to my room and pushed the door closed. I tried to lock it, but he was against it, pushing to open it, as I stood behind it, trying to keep it shut.

  “I am going to hurt you, you hear me?”

  I was so terrified because he was winning the door battle. Finally, he pushed so hard that I went flying back and fell, hitting the back of my head on the corner of my dresser. I tried to shake it off, but my head was spinning and hurting. When I reached back to rub it, my hand felt wet and came back in front of me decorated with the color scarlet. I struggled to get up and couldn’t. I held on to my nightstand for support, but it leaned forward, making everything that was on it fall. I thanked God for that, because my phone fell within arm’s reach.

  “Yes, show me my stuff. Yes, that is mine, and tonight I am going to feel it with this.”

  The room was still spinning, but I could see what “this” was. It was his penis, and it was hard and ready to enter my body. As the blood from my head warmed my back, I pushed CALL next to Niya’s name and prayed that she picked up. As soon as I heard her voice, my stepdad knocked the phone out of my hand. He grabbed a handful of my hair and stood me up and threw me on my bed.

  “Niya, Niya, help me. My stepdad, Niya. Please, Niyaaa.”

  I kicked, punched, and did all that I could to keep him from entering my body. I just couldn’t let that happen.

  Chapter 62

  Niya

  I was in a deep drunken sleep. I could still remember the dream that I was having when my phone woke me up. I was in a big house, a big, beautiful home that was empty. I kept looking for my granny, but I couldn’t find her. I kept yelling for her, asking her if she liked the house that I had just bought her, but I just could not find her. So when my phone rang, it made me jump out of my sleep and sit up. I looked at the name that flashed across my screen and wondered why Jamilla was calling me at six in the morning.

  “Hello?”

  All I heard was her voice screaming my name and asking for help. At first, I just sat there, wondering if I was still in a dream, but when she shouted my name again, followed by the words help and stepdad, I hopped out
of bed and took off running. I didn’t stop for my shoes or shirt. I ran out with just some red-and-white boy-cut undies and a wife beater on. I took the steps two at a time and made it to Jamilla’s side of the building in record time. The front door was unlocked, so I burst in. As I stood in her entryway, I listened for her cries. Once I realized they were coming from her room, I ran in and saw red. He, her stepfather, was on top of her as she fought to push him off. I didn’t really know what happened next, and I wouldn’t know until the day Jamilla told me.

  Chapter 63

  Jamilla

  When I saw Niya behind him, I was able to breathe. She yanked him off of me and slammed him to the floor. I wasn’t sure where she found the strength, but I was grateful that she had it in her. She jumped on top of him and delivered a barrage of punches into my stepdad’s face. I sat there, trying to catch my breath, and watched the beating he was enduring and wished he was dead.

  “Jamilla. Oh my God! She is going to kill my dad.”

  I turned and saw Marie, and then I looked back at Niya. I couldn’t tell if the blood on her fists was hers or his.

  “Niya, that’s enough,” I said between deep breaths. “Niya. No, Niya. Don’t.”

  Niya had moved on from her fists to the buckle of a belt that she had picked up off my floor. She had wrapped the belt around one of her fists and had made sure the buckle stuck out. Over and over again her fist met my stepdad’s face. He was screaming, and in his drunken state, he was no match for her. I screamed her name over and over again, but nothing would stop her. I even tried to pull her off of him, but she pushed me away with her left hand as her right one continued to do damage. There was only one person who I knew could stop her, so I ran to Niya’s apartment and woke her grandmother up.

  “You have to come to my house. Niya is going to kill my stepdad.”

  She was out of bed and standing in my apartment within a minute.

  “Niya, Niya, mi amor. Ay, Dios mio. Niya, stop.”

  I thought that hearing her grandmother’s voice would bring her back to us, like it had with her mother, but it didn’t. It took me, her granny, and Marie to pull her off of him. Her white wife beater was covered with blood, and sweat made it cling to her body.

  “Ay, what is this? Oh no! Call the police now,” cried my mother, who had just walked into my room, holding her chest.

  Marie walked over to the house phone, but Niya’s granny backhanded her so hard that she flew into the wall.

  “You think you call the nine-one-one on my Niya? No. I know everything you and your crazy husband do to Jamilla. You call them, I tell them everything. We all go to jail. Now, tell that little puta to lock your door and come back. We all sit and talk, and we fix this. You tell me your choice.”

  Time seemed to stand still. All this time, I had looked at Granny as if she was just that—Niya’s elderly grandmother, who stayed quiet and smoked her weed. But the lady before me . . . There was nothing elderly about her. She stood with power and made the air in my room so thick that I had to take deep breaths to feel as if I was getting air in my lungs.

  “Oh my God! Your lesbian come here and kill my husband, and I will call the police. She kill him!”

  With just two steps, Granny was in my mother’s face, and my mother was dealt the same fate Marie had been handed just a few seconds ago. My mother flew into the wall and held her face. Granny was right back in her face as soon as she hit the wall.

  “Estás loca? I say no police. He no dead. Comprende? You let him touch Jamilla. You touch Jamilla, I make cops take you to jail. Okay?”

  My mother sat there and had the nerve to turn to me and ask why I was telling people outside the house about what happened inside the house. Thank God Granny was there to yank her up.

  “You have one minute, uno minuto, understand? Tell her lock the door and come back,” Granny growled.

  My mother had no choice. Marie did as she was told and, afterward, she came back to the bedroom.

  “How you let this man touch you daughter? You so sick. I know my Niya is wrong, but this is what we do. I take Jamilla to my house. She no stay here no more,” Granny said.

  “You crazy. You no take my child,” my mother said, as if she had ever really cared for me.

  “You child, you child? What you do for her, huh? She tell you what he do, you do nothing,” Granny said in her thick Dominican accent.

  “He not do that to her. She go with her boyfriend. She go with your lesbian and do sex.”

  I watched as Granny took a deep breath and tried to hold her composure. “Okay, you no call Niya lesbian again, okay? And yes, I take her. She no safe. Make him tell you what he do to her.”

  We all seemed to look at my stepfather, who was still on the floor, moaning and groaning. No, he wasn’t dead, but he was about to answer for all his wrongdoings when it came to me.

  “Yes, ask him what he do to you daughter. Ask him,” Granny insisted.

  We waited for my mother finally to pop the question. She walked over to her husband, kneeled down, and picked his head up and placed it in her lap. Never mind her daughter, who had a gash on the back of her head and still had blood running down her back.

  “Jackson, you not do nothing to Jamilla. I know, yes?”

  I held my breath and took Niya’s hand, her left hand. I squeezed it until my fingers started to go numb. I waited and waited and waited.

  “You better speak up, motherfucker, or I am going to finish your ass off.” Niya’s voice was steady and straight to the point. There was no wavering. When her words graced the air, she meant every part of what she said.

  “Yes, Nicole, I touch her.”

  Again, my mother grabbed her chest, but his head was still in her lap.

  “Poukisa ou fè sa?” My mother, Nicole Jean, had the nerve to act shocked and ask why he would do that. She had known the truth for so damn long, because I had told her, but she was in denial.

  “Mwen pa konnen, Nicole. Okay? I don’t know the answer. This is what I know. They touch me when I go to school, the teacher.... She make me touch another girl that go to that school. I don’t know, okay? I don’t know.”

  The room was silent.

  “So you do that to my Jamilla? You tell me she lie, and you in this house . . . you sex her?”

  “No, no sex. I touch. No sex.”

  “Until tonight. You said that you were going to rape me with your dick tonight, remember that?” Jamilla interjected.

  Niya took her foot and kicked him in the thigh. She would have done it again if her Granny didn’t tell her to stop.

  “Mwen pa ka kwè bagay sa. You, Jackson, you?”

  “Oh yes. You better believe that now,” Granny answered, to my mother’s surprise. “Oh, I am Dominican, but I learn to speak it there, because there so lot of you there, and Niya’s papi come from Haiti. So yes, he do that. You have to believe it now. He tell you.”

  “Nicole, it’s not my fault. I grow up that way. That’s what I know.”

  “Oh no. He no do that to his daughter. He know he wrong. He no touch his daughter,” Granny observed.

  “Has he?” I asked Marie, and she shook her head no.

  Again, Niya was on the attack.

  “Jamilla, take her home. I finish with you mommy,” Granny said.

  I am not sure what happened in that apartment after I left. All I knew was that my mother and Marie started to bring my things over to Niya’s house. Within two hours, the only thing that once belonged to me that was in that apartment was my furniture.

  Once they were done bringing my things over, Niya’s granny sat in the kitchen, smoking, as Niya showered in her bathroom. Before I went in and took my own hot bath, I had only one question.

  “Did my mother kick him out?”

  Granny took one long pull of her blunt and looked out the window. “No. She say she keep him. She can’t pay bills if he leave.”

  I thanked her for everything she had done that day, turned around, walked into the hallway bathro
om, jumped in the tub, turned on the water, and cried under the running faucet. They were a mixed basket of tears. Some from joy, some from pain, and some from that deep down feeling I got when I thought about being out of that house. I was free. I, Jamilla Jean, was free.

  Chapter 64

  Niya

  When I got out of the shower, Jamilla was still taking her bath. I joined my granny in the kitchen and pulled the joint from her fingers. I took a few pulls, scrunched up my face, and headed to my room for my blunts.

  “You have got to stop smoking that paper, Granny. Blunts, that’s where it’s at,” I said as I kissed her forehead and sat back down beside her. As I split the blunt, my grandmother asked me a question that I was not expecting.

  “So, now you and Jamilla move to Atlanta?”

  My hands stopped moving, and I just stared at her. “How did you know that?”

  She didn’t answer my question. Instead, she nodded her head at the blunt and asked me to finish rolling.

  “You know what, Niya? You will go with her. You no good here. You go.”

  I sealed the blunt, lit it, took a few long pulls, and handed it to her. “Did Jamilla tell you about Atlanta?”

  “No, she no tell me nothing. I hear the night she come when Marlo here,” she answered through the smoke. “You go, you hear me? You no stay in Brooklyn. You will die here, mi amor, and I no live if you die.”

  “Come on, Granny. No one said that I would be dying anytime soon.” I tried to hold her hand, but she pulled it away.

  “Yes, Niya, you will die, or you turn out like you mommy or papi. You sell the drugs. I watch you beat a man today like you will kill him, and yes, you kill before. Niya, your road no good, and now you get off. You leave with Jamilla soon, okay?”

  “I am not leaving you, Granny. I just can’t.”

  She started to laugh, and finally, she held my hand. “You no worry about me, Niya. I am gangster like you and like you parents. You see me slap Jamilla’s mommy?”

  We both started to laugh, but to me, leaving her just wasn’t an option.