ADDICTED TO HIM

by Linette King

  “What are you doing here?” she asks.

  “Why?” I ask, taking her in. She is the complete opposite of me: dark as night, really slim, short hair, and a Marilyn Monroe mole in the exact same spot as Marilyn.

  “Just curious,” she pauses. “Didn’t know you lived here, is all.”

  “Well, I do,” I respond, turning around to finish browsing.

  “Well, in case you were wondering, Amere is here as well. We live together. Just moved here last week with our daughter, Amiria,” she says with a smirk.

  I refuse to let this bitch see me cry. Fuck their whole family! “Do you want a cookie?” I ask because I’m trying to figure out why she would, damn near chase me down into a store, just tell me that they moved here and they all live together. Who the fuck cares? Well, I kind of do, but I’ll never let her know that.

  “Lisa? Baby, where are you?” I hear an all too familiar voice call out. I look at Lisa, who is still standing in front of me with this stupid smirk on her face.

  Amere

  Man, I have no fucking clue why Lisa’s ass wanted to move to Detroit. I met her back on the coast. She was originally a fling. Just some easy pussy to get, and I was for damn sure taking full advantage of getting it! The only thing was, I already had a good girl.

  Tamia was ever nigga’s dream. She cooked, cleaned, she’s smart, beautiful, amazing body, good conversation, don’t club, and no kids. Need I say more? Shawty was perfect but Lisa was every nigga’s fantasy! She was always willing to fuck and if it was that time of the month, she would just suck a couple of nuts out of me. See, Tamia was a virgin when I met her and it took me a little over a year to get it. After I got it, she was supposed to go wild for the dick, like most females do once they get that cherry popped. You know how y’all go dumb over the dick! Tamia didn’t, her ass was still focused on school and working. I was always her last thought but with Lisa, I was her every thought. Dating them both gave me the best of both worlds. I could lay up and fuck Lisa all day while Tamia was at school or working, and then go home and Tamia would have my plate in the microwave and she would be asleep. Tamia never asked me what I did all day or who I was with. She never questioned anything. She was always too focused on her damn self to give a damn about me and what I was doing. That's why, when I fucked up and got Lisa pregnant, I ain’t try to hide it.

  Lisa and Tamia knew each other from school but ran in different circles, so I never had to worry about the two clashing. Tamia was quiet back then and only ran with Armani, while Lisa was friends with every damn body and went out more than I did. Anyway, when Lisa told me she was pregnant, I didn’t give a damn about Tamia’s feelings. Hell, Tamia didn’t even find out through me. She wasn’t on any social media sites but Armani was. Well, Armani and Lisa are Facebook friends, and Lisa posted a picture of her sonogram and tagged me saying welcome to fatherhood. Long story short, Armani told Tamia and she was done with me, just like that. She didn’t snap on a nigga or nothing, so I knew her ass didn’t care about me to begin with. What bitch just dumps her dude because she heard he got a baby on the way without at least snapping?

  Two months after she cut me off completely, I mean cut all ties, I realized how much I really love her ass! I wish she would have let me explain my side of things, then maybe, we could have worked it out. I tried texting her but I kept getting an automatic message saying my text couldn’t be delivered. It wasn’t until I called her that I realized she had gotten that phone cut off. I went by our old place and she had moved out, but there was a letter on the door in her handwriting.

  Dear Amere,

  I loved you. You hurt me. I’m done.

  No Longer Yours,

  Tamia

  I read that letter over and over, hoping the words would change. I needed her like I needed oxygen to breathe and she left me over one fucking mistake! I was so mad. I drove to Armani’s house because I needed her help. I went over Armani’s house every day for three weeks before she let me in. It was something different about Armani, but I couldn’t quite place it. Anyway, when I tried that next week, Armani was gone as well.

  Since Tamia left me, I decided to do what’s considered right and be with Lisa for the baby. We ended up having a daughter that Lisa named Amiria. Then all of a sudden, Lisa decides we need new scenery and what better place to start over than Detroit? So, here we are.

  I done let Lisa drag me to this big ass mall after we dropped Amiria off with Lisa’s cousin, Kylie. Anyway, before I can get the car parked good, Lisa is out the car and heading into the mall. Stupid bitch! I can’t stand her, for real y’all. I’m only there because Amiria needs a mother and father in one household. That and if I leave, I know I won’t be able to be with my baby girl everyday anymore. Lisa can’t cook shit, not even scrambled eggs! Hell, she fixed me a bowl of cereal one day and had too much milk in it! She doesn’t clean right. She just straightens up and don’t get me started on laundry! I have to do it because every time she does it, our clothes end up a different color! Now she done convinced me we need new furniture, so we’re heading to the furniture store in Devonshire Mall.

  When I find the furniture store, I can’t find Lisa’s ass nowhere in it, so I walk through the mall yelling her name like she’s my fucking child.

  “Lisa baby. Where are you?” I yell because I know she’s close; I can smell her Paris Hilton perfume. She doesn’t know it but since that was the only thing I had left from Tamia, I started making Lisa wear it, so she reminded me somewhat of her.

  “Li-” My eyes gotta be playing tricks on me. There is no way in hell I’m standing here looking at my heart talking to my baby mama. Alright well, my girlfriend but damn, being my girl doesn’t compare to having my heart. Lisa could never have all of me because Tamia still has my heart.

  “Tee? W-wh-what are you doing here?” I stammer. I can’t believe we are face to face! It's been four years since I’ve seen her and time has definitely been on her side. She is even more beautiful than I remembered, her hair is longer, and her body is more toned, like she works out religiously. But, she still looks feminine and soft. Tamia is still the baddest female I’ve ever seen.

  “Shopping,” she responds dryly as she turns to continue what she was doing probably before Lisa’s ass followed her in here. See, I know Lisa followed her because Lisa doesn’t shop in Aeropostale. It's one of the stores on her broke people store list, so I already know what happened. I can only imagine what was said though. From the look on Tamia’s face, she doesn’t look bothered at all, which further proves my point that she never cared about a nigga.

  “Not here as in this store, Tee. Here as in Detroit,” I say, walking up to her.

  “Well, if you must know, Armani and I moved here for school. I run track at UMA while I’m studying to become a Healthcare Administrator,” she says with determination. I can tell she’s been doing good and I almost don’t want to get at her, but shit, what’s a man to do when he can’t move on?

  “I looked for you. I-”

  “Don’t!” She interrupted me with anger in her eyes. I know this look all too well. Tamia’s short black ass will pop off at the drop of a dime and it doesn’t matter where you are or who you are. I’ve seen her do it. I take a step back with my hands up.

  “I’m sorry Tee,” I try apologizing but she brushes past me out of the store, running dead into some dude with dreads.

  “I’m sorry beautiful. Excuse me. I wasn’t watching where I was going.” He apologized like it was his fault when she clearly was the one who ran into him trying to get away from me.

  I watched as she looked up at him before rolling her eyes, telling him fuck off before she walked away. He just stood there watching her before shaking his head walking away. It wasn’t until Lisa cleared her throat that I remembered she was right there. I looked over at her and she was mean mugging me with her arms folded, like my reunion with Tamia wasn’t her damn fault! Had she not followed her in a store, I wouldn’t have been looking for her and ran into Tamia
at the same time. So, everything that she witnessed was her own damn doing.

  “Let's go!” I say pissed off because once again, Tamia didn’t give me a chance to explain myself! I swear, she’s so fucking selfish sometimes!

  “But we haven’t even gone to the furniture store yet,” Lisa pleaded.

  “Well, had you gone to the furniture store instead of following my girl in here, we would have furniture!” I snapped. It wasn’t until Lisa slapped the shit out of me that I realized I called Tamia my girl.

  “I’m your girl and the mother of your child, and you will respect me as both!” she says before storming off. I watched her walk out of the store and didn’t even bother to chase her. Shit, I gotta figure out how to get my girl back, keep my family together, and get my money up!

  I had just started making a come up back on the coast when Lisa’s dumb ass decided she needed a new change of scenery, and she was taking my daughter, so I had to follow suit. I think I know now why she chose Detroit, out of all the places in the world to move too.

  Anyway, we’ve only been here a week and nobody seems to know who the boss is around here, so I can get on. Seems like I’m fucked but when there’s a will, then there’s a way. I will get my girl back, I will keep my family, and I will be the next King of Detroit! Being the king will be the easiest because they don’t have one right now.

  Armani

  I promise, sometimes I don’t know how I can deal with Tamia! She’s so weak minded! Can you believe when she saw Amere, she was about to fucking cry? Like real fucking tears! This nigga cheated their whole relationship and Tamia was blind to it all until I showed her the sonogram Lisa’s maggot ass posted on Facebook. After that, she didn’t even want to face him. Neither of them got the closure they needed, which is why a few months after they broke up, he came knocking on my door.

  Yeah, he came banging on my door like the police two nights after I killed Steve, so can you imagine how I was acting when I opened the door? Shit, had he been the police, I would have been arrested on the spot for standing there fidgeting like a damn fiend! Anyway, it took a few weeks before I actually allowed him to enter, and it was only because I knew Tamia was already in Detroit at orientation for school. We talked and chilled for a few hours that day. For some reason, unknown to mankind, he placed total blame on Tamia. This nigga literally called her perfect and selfish in one breath! Like seriously? I wanted to say, really nigga?

  Anyway, I had to give this bitch a quick pep talk because her ass was always running from her problems! You can’t run from your problems, baby and I’m here to let you know that! You have to face everything life throws you head on. When life throws you lemons, throw them bitches right back! So, after I broke it down so it can forever be broken for Tamia, I handed her some Kleenex out of my purse and walked away. She’s a real silly bitch if she thought I was going to remain a guest to her pity party.

  I walked through the food court and remembered I needed a new scarf, so I decided to go to Ardene’s first. So, I’m walking through the food court and I see this fine ass dark skinned dude! Babee, this nigga had dreads that were neatly done and pulled back into a ponytail. He had on all black Levi jeans with a crisp black T-shirt. I couldn’t see his shoes from where I’m standing but he was low riding and his boxers were black too. He glanced in my direction, like he could sense me staring a hole through his sexy ass, but then he kept walking.

  Now you know your girl bugging right now because I know I’m the shit and ain’t nan nigga ever caught a glimpse and didn’t want a sample! Who the fuck dude think he is? I watch him from a distance, making sure to keep at least four stores in between us and whenever I think he’s going to look back, I look into a store. So, I’m following him for a good ten minutes before he goes into Children’s Place. Fuck, this nigga got children! I can’t do a nigga with kids unless he’s strictly my sponsor, but I had hopes for sexy chocolate.

  I turn around so I can head back and get my scarf. After I purchase it and walk out of the store, I see Lisa’s skinny ass walk into Aeropostale. I’m on high alert because I know Tamia loves that store. I figure if she ain’t already in there, she will be soon and I didn’t want her to have to face Lisa alone! The closer I get to the store, the more I can tell that I’m a little too late. Since neither of them knows I’m near, I’m just going to watch the exchange.

  I’m slick pissed that Tamia ruined my day of shopping with her little sensitive ass but at least she finally gets to get hers! I know you’re thinking, only a trifling bitch would want their best friend to get anything negative, but you don’t understand! I love Tamia, I really do but nothing ever comes hard for her. She gets everything she wants and never has to work hard for anything. She wasn’t the one being raped all those nights by Steve, but she was able to track him down, so we could kill him. Tamia isn’t the one that wanted to go to school and become a nurse, but she got a track scholarship and she’s only a few months away from getting her Bachelor's in Healthcare Administration! It's not fair because I didn’t even get fucking accepted into the school!

  Tamia has it all, so she’ll never understand how I feel about everything. I’m honestly just tired of her always getting what she wants. I applaud Lisa for raining on Tamia’s parade because I’m not able to!

  I watch as the two go back and forth a few minutes, and Tamia is handling herself well! You would have never thought that she was about to cry when she first saw them from the parking lot. Anyway, I watch Tamia turn her back on Lisa, and I can only hope that Lisa hits her, so I can run up on that ass and give her 100 hands!

  Not even a full minute later, we all hear Amere calling Lisa and the look on Tamia’s face is priceless! She wipes it away so fast and I gotta admit, the bitch is good. I didn’t get pissed off until he started talking to Tamia, like his damn girlfriend wasn’t standing there! They were having a full blown conversation like it was just the two of them. All I could think of was it couldn’t be me.

  I smelled Gucci Cologne and when I looked up, I saw sexy chocolate just standing there texting on his phone, completely oblivious to what’s taking place a few feet away. I check myself out in the mirror on the wall but before I can approach him, Tamia’s crybaby ass storms past me and runs right into sexy.

  Now, I just knew he was gone curse her from here back to the coast, but he apologized! I couldn’t fucking believe it! I wanted to yell, NIGGA YOU WEREN’T EVEN IN MOTION!!! The fuck is he sorry for? Tamia told that nigga to fuck off and kept going. I swear, she’s such a drama queen. This bitch does the most.

  I turn back to look at Lisa, and Amere and this bitch is just staring at the back of his head when she should be hitting him in it for disrespecting her like that. As if completely ignoring her while he talked to his ex-girlfriend wasn’t enough, this nigga calls Tamia his girl! Like present tense, girl! Like, he’s currently in a relationship with Tamia, and Lisa slaps the dog shit out of this dog ass nigga! Then she snaps on him and storms out! Man, these bitches storm off game is so strong. Shaking my head. I guess I’ll go find Tamia.

  When I find Tamia, she’s outside on the truck, looking crazy. “What’s wrong with you?” I ask like I don’t already know.

  “Girl, wait til I tell you about it,” she responds. Well, come on and let's go to the food court and talk.

  She reluctantly hopped down and walked back inside of the mall with me. We both decided on fried rice and general chicken to eat for lunch. “So, what happened?” I asked because she’s clearly not going to talk about it on her own. I want to see if she will be one hundred about the situation.

  “So, I’m in Aero looking for crop tops when Lisa walks in!” she exclaimed.

  “Nooo!” I said.

  “Bitch yes, so she walks up to me and is basically telling me that her, Amere and their daughter, Amiria, just moved down here sometime last week. I guess she just wanted me to know,” she said, which was news to me. I couldn’t exactly hear everything that was being said, but I guess I missed out on hearing
her lie.

  “I just asked her if she wanted a cookie, then Amere walks in, calling her baby and shit!” she said honestly, and I’m mad because that's yet another good thing people will say about their precious Tamia.

  “What happened when he came in?” I asked.

  “Nothing really, he tried to apologize for how things ended with us, but I didn’t want to hear it, especially when he’s standing in front of me with his new bitch and they have a whole family,” she says then takes a deep breath, like she just used all of her wind.

  “Wow!” was all I could say. I wanted to mention dude, but I couldn’t without letting her know that I had witnessed the entire altercation and did nothing to help.

  “So, I ran out of the store and ran into Rashard!” she said smiling.

  “Rashard? Who is he?” I asked, really wanting to know. At least I now have a name to go with his sexy chocolate body.