Niya

by Fabiola Joseph

  As I sat there, I took the time to really look at her. The fine lines on her face showed the years that had been good and bad to her. The calluses on her hands proved that her life might not have been easy, but knowing her showed that it all had been worth it. I marveled at her salt-and-pepper hair and remembered when there was more pepper than salt. I looked at the heavy folds around her beautiful eyes and knew that I had to be near her until the very end.

  I loved the woman who sat before me, even more than my very own mother. She was the one who had bathed me, who had fed me, who had kissed my boo-boos. She was the one who had made me love me, and that was priceless. When a teacher gave me shit at school, she was the one who would go there and set them straight. And when the world became too heavy, her arms lifted the weight. Her arms sheltered me from the pain and the ugliness the world housed. Her arms were the only place I had to go to so I could experience everlasting love. No, I could never leave her. I just couldn’t.

  Like the mind reader she always seemed to be, she spoke up and left me without a choice.

  “Mi amor, you must go. No questions. Entendido?”

  We sat and smoked in silence. From time to time, I would reach over to her, kiss her face, and she would smile. I moved closer to her, ran my hands through her long, thick hair and kissed her. I loved her, and as I sat there, I tried to picture a day without hearing her call me mi amor. . . . And I couldn’t.

  Granny and I smoked heavily, and by the end of our sack of weed, she went in to take a nap. I planned on going into my room to join Jamilla, but first, I just needed a few minutes to gather my thoughts. So as I stood on the other side of my bedroom door, I thought of her. There she was, in my bed, in my home, and in my heart. I had dreamed of the day that she would go to bed with me and wake up right next to me. I had longed for the day when I could just hold her close for hours on end and not have to worry about her having to go home. But with her so damn close came so damn much. We were in a weird place, and we both knew it. We loved one another, yet we both pushed and pulled. I loved her, she loved me, she needed me, and I needed her more. Damn. Shit was so funny.

  There she was, in my bed, the same bed that I would lie in some nights and wonder if I crossed her mind. I always tried to will her into thinking of me in the very same moment that I was thinking of her. I would say to myself, God, please, just help her feel my thoughts. Just help her feel my love. I needed her to know that what I felt was the realest shit the world had to offer. Damn. I just needed her to know that I would give her the world, but not only that. I would also give it up just for her. She was just so damn . . . At times, it was hard for me to find the right words.

  Just the sight of that smile crushed me. Crushed me because it would cause me to stop breathing. It would almost cause my heart to stop beating, or so it seemed. And the more I fought to rid myself of this unhealthy infatuation, of this lovesick illness that would be cured only by her love, the more I fell. I would fall deeper into the vast abyss known to me as Jamilla’s heart, and it was impossible for me to find my way out. And it wasn’t that her heart was evil, but her inability to give herself to me fully was cruel. Even with the facts that should have stopped me in my tracks, I let my heart lead me to her waiting warmth.

  I turned the doorknob to my bedroom door, fully knowing that I would have to settle for only half of her, but to me, just having half of her was worth it for the moment. I slid into bed next to her and pulled her close. I breathed her in, experiencing a cloud nine overload that came only with her being so close. Everything about her awoke all my senses. She smelled like ripe peaches, and I wanted to bite into her. As I looked down at her, she truly was the most beautiful girl that I had ever laid eyes on. Her breathing was soft but seemed to pound a romantic rhythm into my soul, and her lips . . . her lips were sweet enough to send a diabetic into a coma. My kiss didn’t linger long; I just wanted to taste her lips. She was still half asleep when she turned and faced me. She smiled with her eyes closed, leaned into my lips for another short kiss, and wrapped her arms around me. We fell asleep holding onto each other, as if we never wanted to let go.

  * * *

  “Niya, wake up. It’s time.” My granny woke me up without waking Jamilla and asked me to follow her out to the hallway.

  “What is it, Granny? I’m tired.” I stood there rubbing my eyes like the little girl I really was as I whined about not wanting to get up.

  “Your papi is on the phone. He send his friend for you.”

  The childish shit was over. I walked into the kitchen and took the phone from my granny, who had walked ahead of me.

  “Dad?”

  “Don’t talk. Just listen. I don’t have much time.”

  I stood there for ten minutes and listened to my father’s instructions. By the end of the conversation, he had only one warning for me.

  “There’s no going back after this.”

  I took in a deep breath before I replied, “I am my parents’ child, so I have been on this road before.”

  I hung up, threw on some clothes, and told my grandmother that I was leaving. She came over to me, prayed for me, and told me to make sure that I tied up all my loose ends.

  * * *

  I walked out of my building with Get-It-Done man and jumped into a car that appeared to be stolen, with its popped locks and busted steering wheel. I stayed quiet until he spoke about my granny.

  “After you came to me and before I called your dad, I wondered if you would have the heart for this shit. But then I took a look at your bloodline, starting from your grandparents.”

  I sat up a bit when I heard the word grandparents. I knew a lot about my mother’s parents, but I really knew nothing about the people who had birthed my pops.

  “Your dad was always a crazy nigga, but that’s who he was destined to be.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked as I stared him down.

  “What? Don’t tell me that you don’t know about your father’s parents.” Get-It-Done man looked at me as if I was crazy. “Man, they were running a kidnapping ring that branded them two of the most ruthless criminals New York had ever seen.”

  I didn’t answer, mostly because I was shocked.

  “And that lady you live with, your mother’s mom, shit, that lady never took no shit.”

  “Yeah, Granny thinks she’s hard,” I said while laughing.

  “Nay, she don’t just think she is. She’s proved that shit time and time again. She used to hold your dad’s money for him. Well, one day, some little nigga thought that he could run up in her spot for that shit.”

  My heart was racing. Just the thought of Granny in danger raised my blood pressure.

  “So, what happened?”

  “That little nigga went in breathing but came out dead.”

  For the rest of the ride, I thought of the origins of the blood that ran through my veins, and it scared me.

  * * *

  “Well, there they are. Two dead and one still breathing just for you,” Get-It-Done man announced.

  I stood in the basement of a seedy bar, face-to-face with the man who had taken so much from me without even knowing. Flashes of Jamilla’s face snapped in front of me, as if I was watching a slide show from that night with the cops. White Boy sat between his two henchmen, with his hands tied behind him. He didn’t look like he had a scratch on him.

  “How did you get them here?” I said.

  Get-It-Done man nodded to a needle that sat on a side table. I walked over to it, made sure it was empty, and walked back over to White Boy.

  “This is some crazy shit, huh? Not too long ago, you were on the other side of them ropes,” I told him.

  “Fuck you, bitch.”

  I smiled. “This shit ain’t gonna take too long. I just want their names.”

  White Boy spit at my feet before asking, “What names?” I took the needle and stabbed him a few times through the cheek. “You know what the fuck I’m talking about. The cops. I want their names and their
precincts.”

  White Boy was soft at the core. A few more jabs to the face with the needle, and he gave up all the information that I needed to know.

  “So . . . what now?” he muttered.

  I stood there and thought about what my father had said. He had made it clear that I was not to kill White Boy. He had told me that killing one person and allowing the other to die was enough blood on my hands. I thought about the family members who had most likely stood in my shoes years before, and about how I was sure that I was cut from the same cloth as them. Lastly, I thought of that night. The cops, Jamilla, him, her, him on top of her. . . Man, fuck that!

  I didn’t thug out and pump bullets into him. I didn’t go crazy and stab him forty, fifty times. No, this was more personal. I wanted to feel death take over his body; I wanted to feel life leave his body. I kept eye contact with him as my hand wrapped around his neck. I smiled as his eyes seemed to pop out of his head. I breathed easy as his body went limp, and I continued to squeeze the life out of him. Choking him just seemed so damn right, and it allowed me to feel as if his soul now belonged to me.

  “Damn, girl. That was some cold-ass shit you just did. Looks like that killer instinct didn’t skip a generation, huh?” Get-It-Done man said.

  I didn’t answer him. I just repeated the names of the officers to him and where they worked and asked for the price.

  “What kind of shit you talking about?”

  It didn’t take me long to spit out what I wanted. “Cut off their dicks. If they live, they live. If not, I won’t lose sleep over it.”

  “Fifty Gs. Twenty-five for each,” he shot back.

  I asked him to drop me off back at home so that I could get in my own car and get his money. Two hours later, I was meeting back up with him and making the exchange.

  “You want me to come and get you for this one too?” he asked as he counted his money. As I sat in the very same basement of the bar in which I had killed White Boy, I thought about his question.

  “Nah, I don’t need to be there. Just cut their dicks off and send them to a news channel, any station, with a note that says, Even cops have to pay for their sins. Raping young girls never goes unpunished. And with that note, send in their badges. That way when I see it all over the news, I’ll know that the job is done. I am giving you three days.”

  With that, I walked out of the bar and never looked back.

  Chapter 65

  Jamilla

  Darkness filled the room, and I wondered if it all was just a dream. I sat up quickly and searched for the light. I had to fill the room with clarity, and the light was the only way that I would get any. My heart raced as the thought of still being in my mother’s house filled my mind. If I was still there and the thought of being free was just a dream, at that point, I would have jumped out the window. I stumbled around the room and finally flicked the light on. As I looked around the room, it hit me that I was in dire need of a bathroom. I opened Niya’s bedroom door and almost made it. Tears filled my eyes as the warm urine leaked out of me and flowed down my legs.

  By the time I made it to the bathroom, my bladder was half empty. I sat on the toilet and emptied my bladder of the other half. I couldn’t stop the tears as I thought of the embarrassment I would face if either Niya or her grandmother found out. Once I was done, I wiped myself and instantly started looking for the cleaning supplies. I had left behind a trail of pee and wanted to get it cleaned up right away. As I headed out of the bathroom with the supplies, Granny’s door opened, and as her foot stepped on the urine, she looked at me as I stood at the end of the hallway and then back down at her foot.

  “I’m so sorry, Granny. I will clean it all up. I’m so sorry.”

  Before she could even answer, I was on my knees, spraying and cleaning every drop of pee that I saw. My tears merged with the pain that inhabited my soul and showed itself on my face. My soft whimpers were transformed and became loud sobs, and all I could do was repeat how sorry I was.

  “Okay, okay. Jamilla, stop. You no need to say sorry.”

  Granny had come over to me and was trying to help me, but my hands were moving too fast. As my bare knees dug into the wood floor, my hands moved the rag and the spray vigorously. I needed to clean it all up as fast as I could, as if I was wiping away the memory of it ever happening.

  “Stop, Jamilla. Please, baby, you no need to do this. Cálmate, Jamilla. Cálmate.”

  I was not sure when it had happened, but I found myself in her arms, being rocked back and forth.

  “You know, Niya tell me you problem. I want to tell you, if you no let go of all the pain and because you mad, you no heal, baby. Please, go in shower. I clean.”

  “No, please. I have to clean it up,” I said as I tried to pull away from her. Instead, she held me tighter.

  “You know, you clean for me that morning with me baby. She poop. You clean it without make one face. That day, I know you are the one for me, Niya. That day, I know, in your heart, you are pure, Jamilla. You not only clean the bathroom that day, no. You show me you . . . You show me you heart. So listen to me. You clean for me, so I clean for you. No questions. Just you go shower, and I clean, okay?”

  I looked into her eyes, and I knew that I was safe.

  “No worry. You shower. I clean before Niya get here. Hurry up. I need to talk to you, and I need you help.”

  She didn’t leave me much of a choice. I got up from her loving arms, showered, dressed, and when I came out, I sat with her for our talk.

  “Jamilla, you and Niya leaving today.”

  I sat across from her, with confusion written all over my face. “What do you mean? Where are we going?”

  “I hear you talk to her. You say you want to go to Atlanta, no? So, we pack all the stuff, and you go.”

  I didn’t know what to say. How could we just get up and go like that? “But what about school? What about our things? Are you coming with us?” I had so many questions, but it was hard to get all of them out while my head was spinning.

  “My cousin who there will get you enrolled in classes. She work for college there. I want Niya to leave tonight. If she stay, the streets will kill her like they did her mama and papi. I cannot live to see that. I will die if she stay and no leave.”

  I watched as she smoked and let her mind drift to a place that I knew I would never understand. I wanted to ask her what she was thinking about, but I left it alone.

  “Okay, you help me. We pack clothes now.” She got up, but I stayed sitting. “Let’s go, Jamilla. We pack clothes, and I send rest of stuff when you get to Atlanta.”

  “But Niya won’t want to go,” I said as I stood up slowly.

  “Niya will have no choice. I tell her when she get home. Now, no talking. Come.”

  I was so scared of what Niya was going to do once she came home, but this was between her and her grandmother. I was ready to leave but was also a little fearful of what this move would bring. Sure, I would finish school, but what would come next? As I packed, I made my mind up. I would work on my second book while really pushing Rainbow Hearts. Niya’s dream was about to come at her full force, and I didn’t want just to sit back and get lost in her world. Yes, I planned on being right by her side, but I didn’t want to forget about the one thing that would make me happy . . . my writing.

  Granny and I packed for a good two hours before I heard the front door open and close. I held my breath as Niya’s footsteps got closer and closer. When she walked into her bedroom, her eyes said it all.

  Chapter 66

  Niya

  “What’s going on here?” I looked from Jamilla to my grandmother, and neither of them said anything. “Hello? Why are you packing up my room?”

  After the night I had had, I just wanted to go home and bask in the killing of White Boy, but no. I had to come home to some bullshit that no one could explain.

  “Mi amor, sit down, honey. Let me talk.”

  Oh shit. If Granny was at a loss for words, it had to be somethin
g bad.

  “I’m going to step out and let you two talk,” Jamilla said as she damn near ran out of the room.

  “What’s going on, Granny? And no, I don’t want to sit down.”

  My granny looked dead into my eyes and said the words I feared the most. “Today you leave to go to Atlanta. You call the man who say you can come, and you tell him you coming now.”

  I cocked my head, with discontent. “I’m doing what? Nah, I ain’t going no damn where.”

  My room seemed to be closing in on me, and I took a seat on my bed.

  “Niya, you go, and you go today.”

  My head started to spin, and air wasn’t filling my lungs as it should.

  “Granny, I’m not leaving. I am not going to leave you here just so I can go to Atlanta. I need more time to plan. I need to find an apartment on my own, so you can come too—”

  “Niya, I come later. For now, you and Jamilla, you two go.”

  I stood up and started to pace the room.

  “Man, fuck that. I’m not leaving, and I need you to understand that. I’m not fucking leaving you.”

  I wasn’t trying to disrespect her, and I was sure she knew that, but I just couldn’t leave. She was my life. Most of the time, she was the first person I saw when I woke up and also the last person I saw before I went to sleep. What would I do without her? No, there had to be a way for her to go too.

  “Niya, escúchame! You need to calm down, okay? I am doing this for your good. You need to leave this place. Look what I had to wake you up for tonight. To watch a man get kill. That is a crazy life. Tell me, what did you do when you get there?”

  I looked at her and told her the truth. I told her how I smiled as White Boy’s soul left his body. I told her what I wanted done to the cops, and I told her that I had to wait to see if things got taken care of.

  “Oh my God, Niya. This no good. I understand you get even, but where your soul go to now? You are my angel, Niya. Now you so dark inside. You too beautiful person to be dark.”

  I started to laugh and cocked an attitude. “You don’t think I know my bloodline? This shit was bred in me, Granny. A dark heart is part of who I am.”