Rozalyn 5

by Shan

  I said my goodbyes to Erica, told her how much I would miss her, and told her to keep her head up. I quickly left the jailhouse and headed to see Passion. I wanted to see if she was gonna admit to this shit or lie about it.

  The ride over there, the more I thought about what Passion did the angrier I became with her. She was gonna continue to stay by my side knowing what she done, and that bothered me more than anything.

  BAM! BAM! BAM!

  Passion opened the door and smiled when she saw me. I wrapped my arms around her and kissed on her neck. Her body tasted like weed and smelled like it too. Once we made it to her bedroom, I acted as if I couldn't get enough of her, and kissed all over her body.

  "What's good baby? Somebody missed me," Passion cooed.

  "Yea, I missed you," I lied and brought my hands up to my head. I looked down at her as she removed her top followed by her bra.

  "So you told E about what Justice did, huh? All along it was you that gave her the information, and you tried to act like you didn't know how she found out huh."

  "Chmmp. Whatever, I didn't say anything to her."

  "Bitch!" I yelled and punched her in the face. I knew she was lying because she couldn't even look at me. I wrapped my hands around her throat and held on tightly until her bright ass face turned purple. Her eyes bored holes until me until they suddenly went black and her body went completely limp.

  I wanted to spit on her, but knew that I would only be leaving behind my DNA. I backed away from her and quickly left out of the room and out of the house. I didn’t have plans to kill her when I first arrived and only let her know that I knew what she had done, but thinking about my daughter being born in the way she would be fucked my head up. She had to pay for this shit.

  I didn’t know where me and Justice would be headed, but knew that we had to leave tonight.

  Chapter 9

  Tamar

  Daddy's home

  Can you say Daddy's home, Daddy's home for me

  And I know you've been waiting for this love in your day

  You know your daddy's home (daddy's home) and its time to play

  So you aint got to give my loving away

  ~Usher~

  The whole room was dark with nothing but a bunch of red numbers displaying to the left of me. I could hear to the right of me machines heavily pumping what sounded like air. My chest felt heavy and for the first time I noticed that there was something covering my mouth with tape heavily secured around it.

  I raised my arm up and noticed how lanky looking it was. Just from the looks of it, I could see that I had lost a lot of weight. My entire body felt weak, and could barely lift my head from the pillow that it was resting on.

  I closed my eyes and then quickly opened them. I looked to the right of me and then to the left of me. I had no idea where the fuck I was, but could tell that I was in a room alone. No one was here with me, and I wondered why the hell Rozalyn wasn't sitting by my side.

  I attempted to sit up in bed, but failed once again. I had no energy, and my strength was the weakest it had ever been in my entire life. I'd been down many times before, but I couldn't recall one time that I'd ever woke up feeling like this.

  I moved my hand to my stomach remembering I'd been stabbed there a few times by that bitch as nigga J.B.. I reached up to my shoulder and remembered the bullet that had penetrated me there from J.B.'s gun.

  Fuck ass nigga. I need to get the fuck outta here and find that bitch. Hoe ass nigga tried to fuckin' finish me off. Ol' punk ass bitch. Wait until I touchdown.

  Just thinking about J.B. gave me all the strength I needed to finally sit up in the bed. Once I was able to sit up, I started snatching shit that was attached to my body away. I pulled the pulse monitor away from index finger. I pulled away the blood pressure cuff that was wrapped around my arm and then ripped away the IV lines that were deep into my veins.

  I ignored the blood that seeped down my forearm and hopped out of bed. It wasn't long before the machines began to beep at a rapid pace letting off all kinds of alarms. I continued on my tirade of removing any and everything that was tying me down. The last thing was this big ass tube that was down my throat and connected to this big ass machine.

  Just as I was able to remove the tape from around my face, someone walked in. My attention shot up to the door to see two nurses; one white and one black coming into the room. They rushed to my side with panicked looks on their faces. One was on each side of me, and they tried to push me back down on the bed, but I wouldn't allow them. I pushed the black nurse off of me and tried to get up from the bed.

  "Mr. Smith, you need to calm down! Calm down and let me get the doctor."

  Mr. Smith? Who the fuck is Mr. Smith? I thought as I looked at the white nurse as she began to pull away the tape. She looked over at the other nurse and nodded at her.

  "Dana, go and get Dr. Woods, now. Hurry up!" the white nurse yelled at her.

  I decided to calm down and allowed her to remove the medical equipment being that she knew how. If it had been left to me, I was going to rip it out not really caring about the damage I might have caused in the process. Within a couple of minutes, the tube was removed, and I was given a cup of water to clear the itchiness and dryness that I felt afterwards.

  "Mr. Smith, Dana left to go and get the doctor. If you can just try to stay calm for a few minutes until he arrives and he can assess you and make sure everything is okay."

  "Who the fuck is Mr. Smith?" I asked, and my voice was raspy and barely over that of a whisper.

  "Jonathan Smith, you're Jonathan Smith, right?" the nurse asked me and was serious as fuck.

  I quickly stood up from the bed and pushed past her. I didn't have time for this shit right here. I didn't know what type of fuck ass establishment they were running, but I was about to get the fuck up out of here.

  I looked around for a cell phone and my keys and didn't see anything. I didn't see nothing around this muthafuckin' place that looked familiar. If it hadn't been for the medical machines around me, I would've thought that I was in some hotel room. That was how nice and cozy the environment was although, unfamiliar.

  I shook my head and walked towards the door to exit only to be stopped by a male doctor coming and standing in front of me. He looked me up and down, and a small smirk appeared on his face.

  I frowned at the nigga and backed away from him. He was a tall black man with a sprinkles of gray hair throughout his head. He held his hand out for me to shake, and I pulled back as if it had been some kind of trap.

  "Mr. Smith, I'm Dr. Woods and I've been caring for you over the last five months or so. It's nice of you to finally come back to this side of the world. How are you feeling?" he asked.

  I scoffed at him and tried to walk around him when he placed his hand onto my chest. As much as I wanted to fuck this nigga up for putting his hands on me, I knew that I would be no match for him.

  He was barely holding me back, and I felt as if I would crumble under his touch. My body was just that weak right now. I felt like my legs were made of Jell-O and my arms were nothing more than play-dough.

  I was so frail and knew that if I had I looked in the mirror that I would most likely be unable to recognize what looked back at me.

  "The fuck you mean five months or so…and can y'all stop with this Mr. Smith shit. Who the fuck is that? Damn!"

  "Jessa, get with Dana and check on the patient in 1-12. I'll be there shortly," Dr. Woods said as he looked at the white nurse, Jessa. The moment that she exited the room, he shut the door behind her and stared at me with seriousness dripping from his eyes.

  "Mr. Andrews. I know that you are not aware of what is going on, but you were brought here by a good friend of yours. I was paid good money to care for you and to ensure that no one knew that you were here.

  He feared leaving you in a normal hospital would endanger your life and brought you to me. This is actually a residential facility that houses elderly patients that are unable to care for the
mselves."

  "What good friend? And how long have I been here?"

  "You've been here for a little over five months. When you arrived, your body was cut open, and you were wrapped up by all kinds of medical gauze, plastics, and so much more.

  Me and a couple of my colleagues finished the surgery that was started on you, but you never woke up when we were done. You were still alive; your blood pressure was good, your heart rate was normal—everything was good, but your brain just wouldn't allow you to wake up."

  "So I've been in a coma for five fuckin' months?"

  "Medically the state that you were in was not a coma. I've seen it in patients before when I did my time in the ER. Sometimes when our brain needs time to recoup after a traumatic situation, it just shuts down.

  There is nothing anyone can do about it, but the person that's going through it. Eventually your body tells you when it's time, when it's healed, and when it's ready to begin functioning normally again. And now seems to be that time."

  "Where is my wife? Is that who brought me here?"

  "I don't know anything about a wife Mr. Andrews. Black, Anthony Woods, is my nephew…my brother's son. He asked me for this favor, and I happily obliged. Now, if you'll just have a seat on the bed and let me check you over and I'll see if you are well enough to go home."

  "No, I'm ready to go home. I can't stay here," I told him.

  I walked over to the bed to allow him to check me out, but regardless if he said I was good to go—I was leaving anyway. He had me confused as hell and five months was a long time to be gone.

  Everything felt as if it had just happened yesterday. It seemed so fresh on my brain and even the anger and animosity I felt toward J.B. was still there as if it had never had a chance to die down. I needed to see my family—my wife, and my kids. I had healed long enough. It was time to go home.

  ***

  Black picked me up from the facility and took me straight to the house. On the way there, he explained to me why he'd checked me under the place in a false name and didn’t give anyone my whereabouts.

  He feared that with me being in the state I was in that someone would take it as their opportunity to get rid of me. I had so many enemies out there and with information so easily accessible to the public; he felt that someone would come after me.

  The decision to keep Rozalyn in the dark was to protect her and the kids. I respected Black wholeheartedly for that, but I didn't know what the fuck he was thinking about pulling me away in the middle of a surgery. Even then that shit was neither here nor there. It was over with. Once again, I was alive, and I was well.

  I frowned as Black used a key to enter my home, but didn't think too much of it right then. Soon as I stepped over the threshold, flashbacks of the night Rozalyn and I had a romantic dinner hit me and caused me to pause.

  Those romantic thoughts were immediately replaced with the tragic ones of that nigga J.B. catching me off guard. Black told me that J.B. was doing time, and I'd already put in the order to see to it that he was handled.

  That nigga wasn't about to live another muthafuckin' minute after fuckin' with me. He was lucky that I had been down without knowledge that he was still breathing or otherwise he would've been six feet under.

  I shook away the ill feelings I had and moved further into the home. The aroma of fish and fries hit my nose and caused me to close my eyes just so I could savor the scent of it. The smell instantly got my stomach to rumbling, reminding me that my body had only been fed liquid nourishments over the past five months. I was ready to put some real shit into my gut and get my fuckin' weight back up.

  I could hear the kids singing and running around in the distance and for the first time since I'd woken up at that facility, I smiled. My heart rate sped up just thinking about my youngn's.

  They brought me so much joy when no one else could; especially my daughter Trina. She was the most innocent of them all, and I knew that she had to be big as hell by now. Last time I saw her she was still a little baby and was struggling with a few health problems that she occurred after being born a little early.

  "Tamarion, put her down before you drop her!" I could hear Rozalyn yell as I crept my way towards her voice.

  The scent of the food became louder and louder as I made my way into the huge kitchen. I spotted the twins riding around on their scooters and Tamarion doing his best to carry Trina across the kitchen. I shook my head because they were known to get crazy whenever I wasn't around.

  "That's how y'all do whenever daddy isn't home, huh? Just straight wilding."

  Everybody froze. Rozalyn dropped the tongues she was using to pull the fish from the fryer onto the floor and turned to look at me. She was stunned, and immediately tears poured down her face.

  She shook her head as if she had seen a ghost and leaned against the cabinet, watching as the boys took off running in my direction. I could only kneel down and wrap my arms around them. My upper body wasn't strong enough to lift them all up in my arms as I usually had done whenever I came home, and they came running at me.

  "What's up man? Y'all running around here on scooters and shit. What's up with that?" I fussed at Zavier and Zyir, and they couldn't do anything but smile at me.

  I gave them a look that told them that I wasn't playing, and they quickly rushed over to their scooters to put them away. I wrapped my arms tightly around my big boy Tamarion and kissed him repeatedly on the forehead.

  "You've been taking care of your moms, Marion?"

  "Yes sir," he nodded.

  "What about your brothers and your sister? You've been taking care of them too?"

  "Yes sir."

  "A'ight, cause you know daddy counts on you to hold it down for me when I'm not around right?"

  He nodded his head and laid his head into my chest. I could tell that he missed me, and it hurt me to know that I'd been gone for five months, and they had no idea where I was or when I was going to return.

  I held onto my youngn' for a few moments longer and then released him to pick up the baby girl. Just as I had expected she'd gotten so damn big. Her hair grown out into this curly fro and she was chunky as hell.

  I looked her over and smiled, but then instantly frowned when she tried to get away from me. She reached for Rozalyn to get her, and when I wouldn't let her go, she began to wiggle and cry. She didn't even know who I was.

  "Tae," Rozalyn said faintly as she took Trina from my arms.

  "What's up? You looking good. You been okay?"

  She shook her head no and looked towards the floor. I knew that things had to be hard on her. Here, all alone with the kids, and not knowing whether or not I was dead alive had to be the roughest thing she'd gone through since I've been knowing her.

  I hoped that she understood why Black did what he did and wasn't holding any ill feelings towards me or him because of it. He'd made a decision that in the end was best for all of us.

  Who knows what could've happened to me if I hadn't been transported to a private facility and placed under a fake name. I had done so much bullshit in my time that I never knew when a nigga was gonna see me for the sake of revenge.

  It had already been proven when J.B. bounced back and came at me that I wasn’t feared by everyone. Some of these niggas had heart, and I had to be more careful.

  "I thought that you were dead. I thought that Black was hiding the fact that you were dead from me," Rozalyn said as she finally looked up at me.

  I took my thumb and rubbed away the tears that were staining her beautiful face. I didn't want her crying because I was home, and I wasn't going anywhere.

  "Nah, baby. You know daddy always bounces back. This time I'm better than ever," I said not sure that statement was true at the moment. "Now how long before you finish cooking because a nigga hungry as fuck."

  Rozalyn giggled, "About fifteen minutes."

  I nodded my head and leaned down to kiss her lips. A bolt of electricity shot through my body and went straight to the head of my dick. It immediate
ly stood to attention, and I was now thinking about something that I hadn't thought about since I'd woken up. I licked my lips and wrapped my arms around Rozalyn, gripping her ass into my hands.

  "You've been holding it down right? Do I need to be worried about anything?" I stood back and stared into her face to watch her facial expression. She knew exactly what I was talking about.

  I didn't have to elaborate or be more descriptive in what I was talking about. I wanted to make sure she wasn't giving or had given my pussy up to anybody. I knew all too well how Rozalyn would get in tough situations and let her guard down around niggas that was supposed to be homeys of mine.

  She would let a nigga talk her easily up out her panties. We weren't new to this situation at all, and I peeped how Black used a muthafuckin' key to open the door like he'd been here often and had gotten comfortable.

  "What? Yea, I've been holding it down. More than you know. The food will be ready in like fifteen minutes."

  I nodded my head and watched as Rozalyn took Trina over to a walker and placed her inside. She glanced up at me once more before going back to frying the fish. I turned around to leave out of the kitchen where I found Black waiting by the door. He was leaned up against it and had his arms folded across his chest.

  "Give me about a week to get back right and then we back at it," I told him as I held my hand out and pulled him into a hug.

  "Take your time fam. Rest up and just hit me whenever you ready. I'm here," Black patted me on the back and turned to leave the house. I closed the door and locked up behind him.

  I ran my hands through my thick beard and then through the nappy fro that had grown on top of my head. I shook my head and hoped that I could find a razor or something around this bitch.

  "Yo' Roz, which way is the bedroom?" I asked realizing I never gotten past the living room in this house.