“Here you are, telling me that I got this, and you are already on it. It’s going to happen, Jamilla boo, trust me.”
“It’s been so long since we have really spent time together. How about we watch the award show and just chill? We can smoke and laugh at all the wack-ass performances. Wait, isn’t Brazil’s group one of the performers?”
I watched as Niya’s smile broadened to lengths I hadn’t seen in a while. I rolled my eyes, hoping that she wouldn’t catch it.
“Oh yeah. That’s right. Turn to that channel that does the red carpet. Maybe we’ll see her on there. Bring the smoke and blunts. I’ll roll the first one.”
I didn’t say a word. I just did as she asked and sat beside her with an attitude. The whole first forty-five minutes was spent with me listening to Niya go on and on about what she thought Brazil would have on, if she would show up with that dude from the boy band whom she was dating, and even what song she thought the group would perform. Seemed like she’d done some research. Niya had never really been into the Brazilian Barbies like that, so I just sat and listened.
“Okay, the show is about to start. I’m gonna run and make us some drinks,” she announced.
I sat on the couch, pouting like a three-year-old. I didn’t like the feeling that was brewing deep inside. Maybe I just wasn’t used to her showing so much interest in someone else. As I waited for her to come back into the living room, I read the little bottom ticker on the screen that kept viewers up to date on the news. As my mind drifted back to the issue at hand, I thought I saw Brazil’s name. I sat up and waited for the news ticker to come back around again. As I sat there and read the news, my eyes felt as if they would pop out of my head.
“Oh shit!” I yelled without even trying.
“Are you okay?” Niya asked from the kitchen.
“Yo, get in here. Brazil got beat up.”
“What did you just say?” Niya asked as she walked out of the kitchen and set the drinks down on the coffee table.
I reached for my laptop and went to the most accurate celebrity blog I could think of. As soon as the page loaded, I saw that Brazil’s battered face was the first and only post on the front page. I walked over to Niya and sat the laptop on her lap. I was scared to see her reaction, but I couldn’t keep this information to myself.
“What the fuck? This nigga put his hands on her?” Niya bellowed.
I grabbed my computer before she threw it. Niya’s face was bloodred as she jumped off the couch. I watched her as she picked up her phone and, I was sure, tried to call Brazil.
“Fuck!” she shouted.
I watched as she hung up the phone and tried calling again. When no one picked up, she walked over to her contract and dialed the number that was at the top of it. Again, she got no answer. She went back over to the television and turned up the volume.
“How could he do this to her?” she murmured.
We sat and listened to the blow-by-blow as the reporter received the news in her earpiece. It seemed as if a fight had broken out between Brazil and her boyfriend when the couple was on their way to the award show. When the picture of Brazil’s face appeared on the screen again, the swelling, cuts, and bruises left her almost unrecognizable. I sat beside Niya and could feel her body trembling.
“Calm down, Niya. You’ll talk to her soon.”
I took her hand and just sat with her. For the next few hours, we flipped through the news channels, hoping to get more of the story. At the rate we were drinking and smoking, I knew that Niya would be in a dark place come morning. She just kept asking how a man could do that to a girl, to his girlfriend at that.
That was when it hit me. You really never knew what these celebrities were going through. I remembered sitting at the computer and admiring the relationship Brazil had with her boy band boyfriend. At times, I would ask God why I couldn’t be her. She was beautiful, talented, rich, and famous. She seemed to have what every girl in the world wanted. Now look at her and how things are unfolding for her, I thought. All I could do was shake my head at my private thoughts. I guessed that should show me that I should be happy with who I was, what I had, and who I had in my life.
Chapter 75
Niya
I didn’t sleep that night. I stayed up all night and blew Brazil’s phone up. I wasn’t sure if I was out of order or not, being that we had just met, but I just couldn’t help it. I stayed up, hoping that the news or the blogs would have more information about what had happened or how bad off she was, but they just kept repeating the same things over and over.
I didn’t even leave my room. I had a bottle of Cîroc and all the weed I needed in my room. Jamilla tried to get me to open the door a few times, but I just stayed silent and pretended to be asleep. Fuck. I needed to talk to Brazil. By the time eight in the evening rolled around, I was going out of my mind. I staggered to the shower and tried to clear my mind in there, but that didn’t work, so I thought that maybe I needed some food. I left my room and tried to move in silence, but that didn’t work.
“Why didn’t you open your door? I know you heard me knocking,” Jamilla said as I stood at the kitchen sink, eating a cold slice of pizza.
“I was sleeping.” That was all I offered her, and that was all she was going to get.
“Why are you so fucking cold with me? I wasn’t the one who beat her ass.”
I stopped eating, took a real hard look at Jamilla, and threw the pizza down in the sink. I wanted to really let her have it for even going there, but I changed my mind and just walked away. I thought that Jamilla knew me well, but her choice to follow me showed me that she didn’t know enough about me to know just to leave me alone. I wasn’t in the mood for her shit.
“So that’s what we’re doing now? You’re just going to walk away from me?” she snapped.
“Jamilla, just leave me alone,” I answered with my back to her.
“Nah, fuck that. How long have you known her, and you’re already acting like this? I’m your friend and I care about you, but look how you’re treating me.”
I was in my room by that point and tried to close my door, but she walked in and closed it herself.
“Yo, Jamilla. I asked you to leave me alone. What’s your fucking problem?” I sat on my bed and watched as she rolled her eyes.
“You! You’re my fucking problem. You don’t even know that girl like that, yet you’re locked up in your room, acting like a little bitch over her.”
I just kept telling myself to ignore her. I knew that I wasn’t in the right frame of mind, so I was trying my best to keep it cool.
“Look at you. All drunk and shit. You over here worried about her, yet you don’t give a second thought about not spending time with me, not seeing me, not—”
“This shit ain’t about you.”
She was really starting to piss me off. I had never seen such a selfish side to Jamilla, and I didn’t fucking like it.
“Oh really? It ain’t about me? Well . . . isn’t that some new shit? I see. What now? She’s your new Roxie, your new Marlo?”
I could feel the heat in my face and knew that if she didn’t leave my room, it would only be a matter of time before I blew up.
“Jamilla, you better leave me the fuck alone. I’m not for this shit tonight.”
She tipped her head back and let out a hearty fake laugh. “Oh, so, you not for this shit tonight?” she asked, pointing to herself. It was then that I realized that her speech was a little slurred and that she must have had a few drinks herself.
She went on. “I remember when you were always for this shit. I remember when you used to love this shit. I remember when you wanted all this shit. Guess your love ain’t worth shit.”
I wasn’t too sure what was happening, but her questioning my love made my whole face feel like it was on fire. I jumped off the bed and almost felt as if I was out of my body and watching myself. Do not put your hands on her, my brain yelled to my heart. So instead, I grabbed her arms under her shoulders on eac
h side and held on tight as I shouted in her face.
“How fucking dare you say my love wasn’t real? I fucking ripped out my heart and handed that shit to you on a diamond fucking platter, and what did you do? You threw that shit back at me, as if it wasn’t worth shit.”
“You didn’t give me shit. You can’t share that side with everyone else, Niya. If it were mine, it would be mine alone.”
“You are such a selfish bitch. You know that? I was ready to ram a bat up Marie’s ass for you. I was ready to kill. I breathed for you, bitch, for you and you only, and you didn’t give a fuck, because you are not gay. Remember that shit? Remember shoving that shit in my face in front of everyone at Kingsborough? Remember saying it time and time again as my hands were in your wet-ass pussy, yet you still denied it. What the fuck do you want me to do? Sit around and play sike-dyke games with you? Fuck that. You want me to finger fuck you, but you don’t want me? Fuck you, bitch! Motherfuck you!”
I let her go and went back and sat on my bed. She stood there, and I waited for the tears that I was so sure would come. I waited and waited and waited, but nothing. Instead, she walked over to me and tried to slap me. I grabbed her hands and pushed her away from me, which caused her to fall back on her behind. I stood up and knew that I was about to lay hands on her ass. I grabbed her shirt, stood her up, and pushed her against the wall and held her by the shoulders.
“Look at you! You in here worried about Brazil, yet you are the same motherfucker her boyfriend is. Go ahead. Hit me,” she yelled.
I stood still and tried to control my breathing. As hard as it was to hear, I knew she was right.
“Hitting you would only make you feel like you have the right to treat me the way you did. Nah, I ain’t gonna hit you, ’cause, see, my love for you won’t let me. That’s right. That shit was real. Yeah . . . was. I would have given you the world, Jamilla. I would have given you the world. I even offered you all of me, without leaving none of me out, not even a drop, but you didn’t want it. You toyed with all that I had to offer, and today I see why. You are selfish, and that’s why Brazil bothers you. It’s because you’re a taker. You take and take and take, until there is nothing left. You filled up on the love that was left in me and did nothing with it. Do you know how hurtful that is? Do you know what it’s like to look at you every day and know that the person I love the most only used my love to make herself feel better and didn’t give it back?”
She was trying her hardest to hold back the tears now, but soon they would wet her face. I could feel her stance softening under my hands as she tried to tell me that I was wrong.
“I do love you, Niya. Think of what I did for you that night. I did that because I love you.”
I couldn’t let her throw that night in my face, not right now, not when I was forcing her to face the truth of our relationship.
“When in the fuck are you going to prove it past that? I know what you did for me, and I will never forget it. The truth is, Jamilla, I know you love me, but while I was in love with you, you were just loving me. I mean, come on. We’ve been arguing about the same shit since we met. I can’t do this shit anymore, and I certainly can’t keep having the same conversation over and over again. I’m just tired, Jamilla. I just wish you could have fallen in love with me too . . . instead of playing your fucking games.”
“And you call me selfish? How could you say that I’m not in . . . ?” She stopped mid-sentence and couldn’t even finish saying what I’d been dying for her to say with so much on the line.
“You can’t even fucking say it, and that’s why I’ll fuck Brazil or whoever else I want. Man, get the fuck out of my room.”
I let her go but stayed there. We stood there, eye to eye, truth to truth, and she just couldn’t face hers. I would have stood there all night, peering into her eyes, if my phone didn’t ring. I reached in my pocket, pulled out my phone, and looked at the number. I didn’t recognize it but picked up the call, anyway.
“Hello?”
“Niya, this is Carmello. Made your mind up about that contract yet?”
I moved away from Jamilla but kept my eyes on her as I spoke into the phone. “I have been trying to call but couldn’t get anyone. Is Brazil okay?”
“Niya, this call is about the contract. How are you feeling about it?”
He was making me angry all over again.
“I have a few things that I want to request. If these demands can be met, I’m all yours.”
I waited while silence filled the air.
“Are you busy right now?” he finally asked.
“No. Why?” I asked, hoping that he would ask me to meet him somewhere. I needed to get out of this house.
“I’m sending a car for you.”
I hung up the phone and turned to Jamilla. “Get the fuck up out of my room. I need to get dressed.”
She tried to approach me, but I wasn’t having it. “Niya, I—”
“Get the fuck out.”
I waited for her to leave my room before I locked my door and got dressed.
Chapter 76
Jamilla & Niya – Paradise Lost Jamilla
Niya had been gone for only a few minutes before I started to panic. What had just happened, and why did I feel as if it was death? When I’d gone into the kitchen to talk to her, I’d sworn that I didn’t want things to end up this way. I just couldn’t understand why she was so worried about Brazil when she had just met her. I was used to being the only one she cared about like that. I didn’t know.... Maybe I had overreacted. Maybe I should have just been there for her, but what about me? I still needed her to be there for me. I still wanted to be the only one she cared about. A little selfish, maybe, but that was the truth. We were moving apart, and instead of going to her and telling her that it was bothering me, I’d fucked things up.
Niya
I enjoyed the ride to Brazil’s house. It gave me time to cool down and think. Honestly, I was shocked at how it had all gone down. Those feelings had seemed to spring up out of thin air. Feelings that lurked deep down inside and that were fighting their way through the pain and disappointment of our love had seemed to decorate the air in my room, and it had been intense.
As angry as I was, I had wanted to tell her that the words I spoke were birthed from her unreturned love, the love that I would still, to this day, give up the world for. I had wanted her to look at me and tell me that I was wrong, and I had wanted to believe her. I had wanted her to say, “Yes, Niya. I am in love with you too,” and I would have been ready to give her my all again, but she just couldn’t. How long could I try to force her hand at love? How long could I leave my needs unfulfilled for her?
As the driver pulled up to the house, I received my first text from Jamilla but left it unanswered.
Jamilla
Niya, if you’re not there yet, please call me, I texted.
I looked down at the glass in my hand and knew that I had to stop drinking. I was pacing the floor in the living room while I thought about losing Niya for good. I was going crazy as I envisioned my life without her. No, that could never happen. I sent her another text since she didn’t answer my first one.
Come on, Niya. Please. I’m sorry. I don’t want you to be mad.
I waited another five minutes before texting her to call me again. That night made me realize that I needed more friends. I really needed to speak to someone, but I had no one but Niya. I also realized that I feared being alone. I wanted someone there for me. . . . I needed someone to be there. I didn’t want to throw myself a pity party, but I felt as if I was heading in that direction. Why in the fuck wasn’t she texting me back? I would rather have fought with her than for her to ignore me.
I went into the kitchen and thought about pouring another drink but went against it. I rolled up and waited for the weed to calm my nerves. I sat there smoking, thinking about the things Niya had said to me. Was I really being that damn selfish? How could I be when all I was telling her was that she didn’t really know Brazi
l? She knew me, not her. I sent her another text, and my words were starting to show a bit of anger.
Niya, stop acting like a fucking child and hit me back. Grow up and talk to me.
Niya
I sat in front of Carmello for the second time that week and wanted to ask him about Brazil again, but he was strictly business. He had his lawyer there who would adjust the contract after the negotiations, and I wished I had mine with me. Although my lawyer had told me what to ask for and what to look for when I was looking over the revised contract, I still wanted him there. I was a bit drunk still and didn’t want to fuck myself again with another bad record deal.
“So, your terms. What are they?”
I got nervous but said, Fuck it. All he could do was say no.
“First, I want to talk about the up-front money and the back end. I want more of both.”
I went on and told him that I wanted a quarter million, and not the 150 that he had offered. I also negotiated the points I would have on the records and future royalties. He was quick to agree to a higher signing bonus, but it took some work for us to meet in the middle as far as the back end was concerned. Soon, we came to an agreement that would leave me rich if everything went well and him wealthier.
“What else?” Carmello asked as his lawyer took notes.
As I had walked into his office and had waited for him to come in, I had thought more about Jamilla and me. I had thought that maybe we just needed some space. Maybe we needed to be away from each other to know if this thing we had really was real. Plus, I just wanted to help put her writing career on the fast track. I knew that doing so would make her truly happy.
“Do you have any connections with the book world?”
I could tell that my question puzzled him, so I waited for him to throw some questions my way.
“What do you mean, the book world?”
Niya Page 28