Dear Drama

by Braya Spice

  Dear Drama

  Braya Spice

  www.urbanbooks.net

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  This novel is dedicated to my single-parent sisters. The road for us has always been tough. Still, we make a way and continue to pull through. Love is on the horizon....

  Acknowledgments

  Braya Spice is in the building! As you all know, I also write as Karen Williams.

  My novels, Harlem On Lock, The People Vs. Cashmere, Dirty to the Grave, and Thug in Me; my short story collection, Aphrodisiacs: Erotic Short Stories; and the anthologies that I have contributed stories to, Around the Way Girls 7 and Even Sinners Have Souls Too, have all been urban fiction. Dear Drama is my first contemporary work!

  I hope you enjoy this story, and I hope it gives a voice to all the women out there that have been on this quest for love, have made mistakes, have been through the ringer and back, and still truly want to experience wholesome, unconditional love. Ladies, know that you don’t have to allow yourself to be mistreated, be with a piece of a man, or trade one bad man in for another to have someone. Despite the fears you may have about not finding someone to love you, know there is no need at all to settle. And all that you aspire to have, you shall have. Trust.

  I want to thank my beautiful children, Adara and Bralynn. It is so funny that since my son was born, I have written three books. And this is with my son being on my hip! Honestly! As long as he has his dinosaurs and can watch Dino Dan, he allows his mommy to write. Adara, since her conception, hasn’t been a problem and still, to this day, inspires me to be all that I am.

  Sending love to my sister “Crystal” and my mother.

  Hey to my nieces, Mikayla and Maydison; my nephews Omari and Jeff Jr.; my cousins Donnie, Jabrez, Devin, and Mu-Mu; and my goddaughter La’naya. Hey to Tammy, Shauntae, Ray, Eric, Christina, and Terry.

  Thanks to my friends Sheryl, Roxetta, Lenzie, Christina, Kimberly, Linda, Tracy, Christina, Talamontes, Pam, Carla, Sewiaa, Ronisha RIP, Tina, Shumeka, Valerie Hoyt, Tara, Pearlean, Maxine, Dena, Barbara, Henrietta, Candis, VI, Phillipo, Latonya, Leigh and Vanilla, Yvonne Gayner, Sandra V, Sandra T, Ivy, Daphne and Lydia, Mrs. Pope, Rob, Tiffany and Trudy.

  Big ups to all my author buddies, Mondell Pope, Aleta Williams, Terra Little, Terry L. Wroten, and Angel Williams. Rainne Grant, you inspire me! Hey Netta!

  Thanks to Carl and Natalie! Natalie, I know your job is demanding, and I truly appreciate all the hard work that you do. I’m 100 percent sincere when I say that. Thanks for believing in me, Carl, to the extent that you took a gamble on this book! Thanks Rosemary! Thanks to my editor, Kevin Dwyer. I love, love, love you to pieces!

  Dear Drama is here.... Enjoy!

  Prologue

  January 2007

  “You gonna put this fucking ring on!”

  I could not fucking breathe.

  I stared at Greg as spit flew from his mouth and his hands were wrapped around my throat. As his hold tightened, I started to gag and choke. Then lines of snot flew from my nose. But that crazy muthafucka would not stop choking me.

  My hands went to cover his hands.

  My eyes pleaded. I hoped he would see the begging and feel sorry for hurting me, and he would stop.

  He released my neck and looked me in my eyes like he had won. “You gonna wear this shit or not?”

  It was an engagement ring. This fool didn’t get it. How many more times could I let him punch me in the mouth or bash my head into a wall in front of our daughter? My hearing in my right ear was already fucked up, and I was wearing a tooth implant in the front of my mouth. I had left his ass for a reason, and now he thought he was going to persuade me to come back to him with a punk-ass engagement ring? I had too much to lose. A little girl that was his, Sierra. And I refused to let her see her mom get her ass whipped by her father again.

  Enough was fucking enough. That was why I had left his ass like a thief in the night. And now he had found me... .

  He slapped me to get my attention. Despite being slapped numerous times by him, I had never gotten used to the pain. It was paralyzing and brought heat to whatever spot he hit.

  I blinked and stared at the shiny engagement ring in front of me. It had my birthstone in the middle, with diamonds around it. Pretty. But fuck that. I shook my head, indicating no. I refused. I was not marrying him. I deserved to be happy. I was a good person, and I took good care of our daughter and didn’t treat people bad. In fact, I had been the perfect girlfriend to Greg, but he had still treated me bad. I was ready to move on and see what a healthy, wholesome relationship felt like. I knew Greg could never give me that, ’cause if he could, he would have done it already. He was far too violent and far too jealous to be anything other than what he was. Two years with him had shown me that. If you could beat the mother of your child in front of your child, then you were really a low person. A person I wanted to do without.

  He punched me in the side of my head and went back to choking me. And mind you, this was all going on while our two-year-old daughter stood in front of us, horrified, and watched.

  Alarm hit me. What if this was it? He had always said that he would kill me if I were to leave him. What if he ended my life this night because I refused to go back to him and agree to marry him? I knew I could not let that happen. If there was ever a time to fight, now was it. My daughter needed me. I swung at him with my fist, refusing to let him take me out.

  His hands released my neck so he could dodge my hits and grip me by my hair.

  I winced in pain. “Sierra! Code ten,” I yelled.

  She dashed away, snatched the cordless phone off the end table. She knew code ten was her cue to dial 911. I had already prepped her that if her dad found us, this was what we would have to do.

  When Greg saw her with the phone in her hand, he let me go. “Sierra, put the phone down, baby. Daddy got warrants. You don’t want me to go back to jail, do you?”

  She dialed the three numbers quickly, and then she put her tiny middle finger in the air and ran out of the living room to our hallway.

  Greg’s eyes widened.

  If I weren’t in pain, I would have laughed.

  With a kick to my body, he dashed out of the house so he could be gone before the cops could get there.

  I grimaced at the pain I was feeling, and hoped he didn’t leave any more bruises. But touching my face told me my right cheek, where he slapped me, was swollen.

  That was when I heard sniffles coming from the hallway of our studio apartment. I grimaced again and slowly stood. I walked in the hallway, to find Sierra tucked in the corner, crying.

  “Awww. It’s okay, baby.”

  I scooped her into my arms and hugged her, knowing I had made the right decision by leaving that crazy muthafucka. And I sighed, be
cause I knew I would have to move again.

  Chapter 1

  Before I start running over my life any further, let me introduce myself. My name is Allure Jones. I’m about to be twenty-one. I have slanted eyes, could pass for a mix of Chinese and black if I were a little lighter, but I’m not. I have brown skin. I have shoulder-length hair but wear braids 90 percent of the time, because I have a lot on my plate and don’t have time to be constantly going to my older sister’s beauty salon to get my hair done, although when I do, my hair stay looking fly. I have nice teeth for someone who used to have a massive overbite, and my mama didn’t take the time to get me braces, because she was too busy trying to raise my sister, I, and my two brothers—(who both live in Spokane, Washington)—alone. I reside in Long Beach, CA.

  I have full lips, which I am just now embracing, because before I was constantly made fun of for having full lips and was even called a monkey when I was a kid. I have a splash of beauty marks on my face and body that I inherited from my grandmother. Now the body ... big breasts, D cups to be exact; a small, slight curve, which I call my ass; pretty calves. That about describes me. My older sister, who is twenty-four, is identical to me, except she is only five-one and her hairstyles, from weaves to lace fronts, change with the weather.

  I have been told I am pretty, cute, sexy, and even fine. I have a beautiful baby girl named Sierra and a crazy-ass baby daddy named Greg. I gave him my virginity, he in turn got me knocked up, and a few months after my daughter was born. He gave me a very unpleasant surprise: chlamydia. And more ass whippings than Ike gave Tina. I managed to break free of his crazy ass and was now trying to make it on my own, if I could, which was hard as hell. We managed to elude him, keep him from figuring out where were for staying, for two months, but he found out. It was like he was the FBI. After the incident where he tried to strangle me, Sierra and I packed our shit and moved again.

  It wasn’t the home of my dreams. But it sure as hell was better than where I had come from as a kid. It didn’t have any rats or roaches. Sierra could have her own room, due to my Section 8 voucher, and she had a yard to play in. The only problem was that it was smack-dab in the hood, on the eastside Long Beach on Magnolia and Pacific Coast Highway. But, when you were living on minimum wage and financial aid, it was the best that you could do. And I, indeed, was doing my best. I was going to college full-time at Long Beach City College and I, worked in their child development center as a child care worker about twenty-five hours a week. It wasn’t a lot of hours or money, but the schedule allowed me to study and go to class and not neglect Sierra. The job also gave me the opportunity to get the hell off of welfare before I became dependent on that shit. But I never had much luck getting Greg to give me child support. He would quit his job just so he didn’t have to pay me, and he worked under the table because he was just trifling. I had hoped my hard work in college would eventually land me a position teaching high school English. That was my goal.

  I smiled when the phone rang. I rushed to the living room to answer it.

  When a male’s voice said hello, I recognized it as Greg’s. I hadn’t heard from him since the day he tried to strangle me and tear my arm from my socket. One month had passed since then, marking our third month of separation.

  “Hey,” I said dryly. I started to ask him how he got my number, but I figured he probably called 411. I couldn’t afford to get it blocked. And it made no sense to avoid him any longer, anyway. He was, after all, Sierra’s father, and I had to deal with him. I just wished he would accept that it was over between us and would act like he had some sense.

  Over the two years of our relationship, he not only cheated on me with numerous women, but also beat the hell out of me for things even he couldn’t explain. If I went outside our apartment in a dress he claimed was too little, smack! Or if I argued back at him when he accused me of sleeping around and called me every bad word known to mankind, smack! Sometimes I wondered how I got away from his crazy ass alive. He threatened to kill me so many times, it got to the point where I was just waiting for it to happen. And that day he showed up at my apartment two months before, I thought he was going to kill me.

  His gruff voice brought me back to the present. “Since I figured it’s your birthday, I thought I’d take Si Si for the whole week and give you a break.”

  I hesitated. I didn’t feel comfortable dealing with Greg since our leaving him, because I didn’t know what he would do next. But at the same time I did not want to keep him from his daughter. I went back and forth with myself, not knowing the proper choice to make.

  “Listen, I know I fucked up in the past and I fucked off our relationship, and I accept that you don’t want me back. But I’m not fucking off my kid. I love you and Sierra, and now I’m going to focus on being the best father I can be to her and help take some of the stress off of you.”

  “Greg, the last time you popped up at my house, you put your hands on me.”

  “And I’m sorry about that. Allure, listen. That kind of shit is wrong, and if I don’t learn to control my temper, I’m going to end up in jail for really hurting someone. You have my word. I’m done with that. I promise you.”

  He sounded sincere, but I had learned to question his words because they were not always sincere. He had promised me time and time again that he would keep his hands to himself and stop disrespecting me, but he always reneged. Still, I wanted Sierra to have her father in her life. I had lost mine when I was six in a bus accident. So I never knew what it was like to have a father. It had to be different for my daughter. But I didn’t want Greg to know where I lived, by any means, so coming to my house was out. I figured out a safer alternative.

  “Okay. I’ll drop her off at your mother’s house.” I almost expected him to argue. But it was his mother’s house or nothing. He wasn’t going to get another chance to act stupid in my home.

  “That’s fair enough. I know I acted a—”

  I cut him off. “What time do you want me to drop her off?”

  “Is ten o’clock okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Allure?”

  “What?” I snapped.

  “I love you.”

  I hung up before I made a smart comment that would have us arguing. I no longer loved Greg. I no longer had the desire to be with him. He had done too much to me for me to feel that sentiment toward him. Part of me hated him. Another part feared him. Which was why I hung up before ugly things spilled from my mouth.

  Next thing I knew, I was wearing my version of Beyoncé’s “freakum” dress, which was pink and tight fitting, and backing my ass up on the dance floor to Kanye West’s “Good Life.” I was more tipsy than a little bit, and next to me, taking it all the way down, was my sister, Crystal, who had hooked up my hair and makeup, and my friend Creole, who was on the stage with her head tossed back and her thonged ass being exposed. Kendra had passed on coming.

  “You look like you having fun over there!” my sister said while doing the two-step.

  I laughed, closed my eyes, and took my body all the way to the floor and slowly brought it up. I didn’t have to hold myself back from anything any damn more. I didn’t have to stay cooped up in the house while my friends enjoyed their early twenties. I was fucking free. I wasn’t Greg’s punching bag anymore. I didn’t have to hear him curse at me or call me out of my name.

  A dude slipped into our circle and curled an arm around my waist so I was grinding on him. He was rubbing his hands up and down my waist and calling me sexy. I was having a ball, and I would have continued dancing if I didn’t damn near scream when I caught sight of Poo. That was Greg’s boy. He was right across from me, freaking on a chick, and yeah, his hands were all over her but his eyes were all over me. His look was clear. It said, “I’m going to tell.”

  Now, I knew I wasn’t with Greg anymore, so I was doing no wrong and had no reason to trip, but there was something about the way he was looking at me and something about how he slipped away from the girl he was dancin
g with. Then he was on a cell phone, which had me scared. I knew if he were to call Greg, Greg would be here with quickness. So I was now no longer feeling any confidence, and my steps were now awkward and stiff. I couldn’t help but feel apprehension. Which pissed me off, because I shouldn’t have to feel this way. I was single, trying to have a good time! I wasn’t neglecting my child. I handled my business in school and at work, yet the problems were still present because of Greg.

  The next thing I knew, Poo was walking up to me. He paused one feet away, looked at me, smirked, and shook his head. Then he twisted the hat on his head. The dude dancing with me moved in closer on me and was gripping my hips. Poo shook his head one more time and walked away. When the song ended, I hugged the guy and rushed away.

  From that point on I couldn’t seem to break away from Poo’s ass, either. Every song I danced to, alone or with a guy, was under his eyes, and the shit made me so uncomfortable, I could no longer enjoy myself. At one point he was even talking on his cell phone as I danced with a guy, and I was scared he was talking to Greg. I was so focused on him and what he was saying that I ended up tripping into the girl behind me.

  “Watch where the fuck you going,” she snarled in my ear.

  “Shut up, bitch,” I said, calmly walking away.

  She continued to wolf, but I ignored her and walked off the floor.

  My sister followed after me. “Where you going?”

  “Can we go now?” I didn’t want to tell her why, so I lied. “I’m kinda hungry.”

  “Okay, we can go to Denny’s and get something.”

  I led the way because I wanted to get the hell out of there just in case Greg popped up in and started some shit. ’Cause if he did pop up, it would be some shit. I knew that for sure.

  “Damn, Allure, slow down. Damn, you act like you starving! And we were having fun,” Creole yelled.

  I instantly felt bad for stopping short our fun because of the possibility of an encounter with Greg. But I laughed nervously and didn’t slow down until I was in my sister’s Pathfinder. They hopped in and the car started, and then, and only then, was I able to breathe right.