“You just admitted to me that the only reason why you got with me was for sex, so what makes you think I give a fuck about your feelings right now, Raheem? You don’t give a fuck about mine, so I don’t care about yours! I’ll get the abortion, but I don’t need your fuckin’ money! Goodbye!” I said, and just like that, I ended the call.
My heart was completely broken. I saw that he tried to call me back, and I quickly declined the call, followed by blocking his number from Nandi’s phone. Suddenly, the bell rang, signaling that fourth period was over.
“You can go ahead and go. I’m going to stay in here. I shouldn’t have dragged you into this anyway. I just texted my mom and let her know that I’m not going to practice because I’m not feeling well, so she’s just going to get me when school gets out,” I told Nandi and her back her phone.
Instead of doing what I said, she slid down on the dirty bathroom floor next to me and silence fell between us for the rest of the two and a half hours that we had left in school. I had so many things running through my head, but the main thing that I was focusing on was the way this conversation was going to go when I got in the car with my mother.
The car ride
“What’s wrong with you, Journey? You look pale. Did you eat today?” my mom asked, taking a look at me as soon as I got in the passenger side of her Lexus truck.
Due to the car accident that she got in last weekend, she was now driving this car. I still couldn’t believe that my grown ass mama was walking around with a cast on her arm. She put her hand on my forehead to see if I had a fever or anything, and then she finally pulled out of the car pick up line and into the regular traffic. She had the air on four in her car, yet I was sweating. My hands were shaking, and I could feel the tears that weren’t that far away.
“I didn’t have an appetite today, so no, I didn’t eat,” I let her know.
“And that’s why you don’t feel good. How many times do I have to tell you that you cannot go a whole school day without eating anything? Please, don’t let me become one of those embarrassing mamas, where I have to pop up at the school during lunchtime just to make sure you’re eating because you already know that I will,” she said, followed by a laugh.
I laughed too because I could only imagine her doing that. I laughed harder than she did because I was laughing from an emotional state. Suddenly, we made it to a red light, and I was no longer laughing. Instead, I’d transitioned to crying. For the first few seconds, she hadn’t even noticed the change in my emotions until she happened to look over at me and saw that I was wiping my tears.
“Journey, please! Now you know damn well I was just playing. What is wrong with you?” she said and rolled her eyes like she always did when she got annoyed with something.
She quickly realized that it wasn’t the damn school pop up during lunchtime that had me emotional like this. Her face instantly hardened because she knew something was wrong. I assumed it was her mother’s intuition because in seconds, she had the car pulled over on the side of the road, and her hazard lights had quickly turned on. My body was literally shaking I was doing so much crying.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Journey?” she asked me.
She wasn’t even asking from a place of sympathy. Her voice was filled with anger, which didn’t do shit but scare me even more. I couldn’t say it. There was no way that I could say it to her. I was so glad that I decided to hang on to the test instead of throwing it out. I picked up my Burberry bookbag that was next to my feet, and I placed it in my lap. I went through the first zipper with shaky hands, and then I finally found the test that I was looking for and threw it softly into my mother’s lap.
I watched her reaction. Her big eyes lit up, and her hands went over her mouth once she saw the positive pregnancy test. In seconds, big ass tears the size of raindrops escaped from her eyes. Seeing my mother cry over me had me crying even harder.
“Journey, why? Why? Why the fuck would you do this? Why would you do this?” she kept crying and asking me over and over.
I didn’t have the answers. I really didn’t. I tried to reach over to console her because it was hurting me that I was hurting her. When she pushed me away from her, I nearly lost it. We sat in her car on the side of the road, and we cried together. I knew that this was going to be the outcome.
“Mommy, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I kept telling her over and over, but it was as if she didn’t want to hear it.
It took her about a good fifteen minutes to finally get the car off the road and back into traffic. I wanted so badly to jump in the backseat because I was afraid that at any second, she was going to reach her over and slap the shit out of me. That moment actually never came. Now when I think about it, I wish that that moment would have come because I wanted her to show me something more. Her silence was hurting me because it made it seem like she hated me. Like, she was so disgusted with me that she couldn’t even find the right words to say.
I noticed the direction that we were going in, and I wanted to speak up so badly and ask her if we could just go home, but it was no telling what she would say. She was going in the direction of my grandmother’s house, and I knew that more than likely, my auntie Sky would be over there. My auntie Sky got off at 2:00 P.M from her job at the bank, and just about every day, she made a cameo at her mother’s house before she went home. I had to face three women, and no type of prayer could prepare me for this.
We finally pulled up to the projects, and my mom got out first. I was surprised when she pulled the pregnancy test from the cup holder that she’d set it in and got out with it. I grabbed my bookbag, placed it on my back, and I followed her. The whole time we were walking, I held my head down in shame, but when we reached the staircase, something told me to look up. When I did, I saw him. Raheem was standing there holding his beautiful baby girl in his arms, and our eyes quickly landed on each other.
From the way that my mom was walking, I was pretty sure he thought that she was headed in his direction, but she wasn’t. My mom didn’t have the slightest clue as to who he was. Whenever I saw Raheem in the past, I would get these silly butterflies in the pit of my stomach, but looking at him now, I saw nothing. I didn’t feel for him the same way that I felt about him yesterday. I saw his true colors today, so I knew that I meant absolutely nothing to him.
I quickly removed my gaze from him and followed my mom up the steps until we were on the floor where my grandmother stayed. She used the spare key to let us in, and just like I thought, when we walked inside, my grandmother and my auntie Sky were sitting in the living room together watching TV. I didn’t want to be rude, so I walked over and hugged them both, placing kisses on each of their cheeks. I even tried to be slick and walk to the back, but my mom grabbed me by the back of my bookbag and damn near threw me on the couch.
Both my grandmother and my auntie were looking at her like she was crazy. Their questions were soon answered when she pulled the test from her back pocket and threw it on the table. My mom was so pissed that she started crying yet again.
“Don’t tell me that this is hers.” Auntie Sky was the first one to speak up.
When she did, her eyes were on me. I removed my focus from her and looked down at the carpet. When her question didn’t get an answer, she knew what the hell was up.
“From who?” my auntie Sky asked me, and I ignored her. “Little girl, you better fuckin’ answer me before I raise up from this couch! Your mama may not hit you, but I sure the fuck will! I said from who?” she asked, barking so loud that the pictures that were hanging up on the wall shook a little.
Auntie Sky was more than just an auntie to me. She was like mommy number two when it came to me and my little brother and sister. She liked to tell us all the time that she changed all our diapers when we were babies, bathed us, and all of that, so I couldn’t even say that she was doing too much because this was to be expected. I was damn near her daughter too.
“I can’t tell you! I’ll get him in trouble!” I sa
id, looking up at all three women with sadness in my eyes.
It hurt me to my core that my grandmother wasn’t saying anything. She was usually the one who would ride with me whether I was right or wrong, but her silence about this whole situation spoke volumes.
“FUCK HIM! I look like I give a fuck about you getting him in trouble? Your ass is in trouble, so what the fuck are you saying?” my mom asked, damn near running over from where she was standing and getting in my face. My mom wasn’t a stupid woman at all, so it didn’t take much longer for her to put two and two together. “It must be an older nigga! That’s what you mean by getting him in trouble, right? RIGHT?” she screamed when I didn’t answer her.
I nodded with a face filled with tears, and she shook her head.
“I can’t believe this shit, man! My own fuckin’ daughter! What the fuck is wrong with you, Journey? I hate that your little ass has become so fuckin’ sneaky. If I’m hard on you, it’s for a fuckin’ reason, but if you were having thoughts about having sex, you could have come to me, and I would have quickly deaded all of those little thoughts. Every time I see myself gaining some type of trust for you, you go and do something else. What is it? Your father and I try to give you a good lifestyle, but it’s like nothing we do is good enough.
“You see this part of town? This was my life until I was eighteen years old! I didn’t want that for you or any of my kids, which is why I busted my ass in school, and I took my ass to college. What’s it going to take to get you to do right?” she asked me.
Hell, I was still crying, so I really couldn’t even say anything. It was as if she was just defeated because she eventually just threw her hands up in surrender and took a seat next to me on the couch. For at least an hour, none of us said anything. My grandmother had long ago gotten up from the couch and went to the back, more than likely to her bedroom.
“Let’s go! I need to get the twins from school,” my mom finally said and stood up from the couch.
“Can I stay here, please?” I asked, looking up at her.
I couldn’t stand the thought of being around her while she was upset with me. Plus, I knew that this was nowhere near over. Now, I had to go home and worry about what my dad was going to say to me. My mom didn’t even bother saying anything back to me. She just gave me a look that was so damn evil that I quickly grabbed my bag from the floor and stood up to leave with her. I didn’t even bother to tell my auntie Sky goodbye, I just quickly walked out of the house.
My mom and I walked to the car in complete silence, and once we were inside, it took her about five minutes to even pull the car out of the parking space.
“I’m scheduling an appointment for you to get an abortion. I’m so disappointed in you, Journey, that I can’t even find the words to discuss how I feel right now. Trust me, I didn’t let you off with finding out who this man is because it was uncomfortable for you. I let you off because if you point me to him, there is no doubt in my mind that I’ll be in jail to fuckin’ night for murder! I think this is just one of those things that I’m just better off not knowing because I still have two other kids who need me.
“There are about to be some major changes, little girl. I swear on everything that I love, including your ass, that you will not have another phone until your ass is old enough to buy one! I’m putting you in private school, so I’ll start looking tomorrow. Your life is about to fully consist of school and home. I promise you that,” she let me know, and I nodded.
The abortion was what I wanted to do in the first place. I couldn’t stand kids. My little brother and sister were the two most annoying people in this world, so I could only imagine having to deal with a child of my own. Now, the part about going to private school, I could only hope that she was just talking when she said that. I didn’t want to go to no damn private school!
“I’m sorry again, Ma,” I told her, right when she pulled out.
“Journey, please!” she said, and I quickly let it go.
I’m not going to lie, I was relieved a little bit. I just knew that my grandma would end up pulling both my mama and my auntie off me. They were both looking at me like they wanted to attack me, so I was scared shitless. These days, all I ever did was make my parents disappointed in me. There was a time when I would bring home all A’s and B’s, I was respectful to both my parents, I followed the rules, and whatever else came with being a good daughter.
I’ll honestly say that I changed the day that I met Raheem. I wanted to be so much like the older girls that I knew he was into, so I slowly started changing my ways. I wanted to go back to the old Journey. Seeing my mom cry today because of my behavior was something that I didn’t want to witness again.
I started thinking a whole bunch of what ifs. Like, what if she started ignoring me and treating me the way that her and my dad were treating each other? Like the two of them just existed to each other and there was no love shown. Yes, my mom could be a hard ass, and I felt like she rode me so damn hard, but I would choose that type of treatment any day over her completely washing her hands of me.
9
Takari Evans
A whole week had gone by since Journey announced to me in the car that she was pregnant. In this week, I promise to you that my life has been stagnant. That news broke my heart because this was my baby that we were talking about; my thirteen year old daughter. I kept wanting all of this to be a bad dream, but yesterday afternoon proved to me that this was indeed true.
The abortion had taken place yesterday, and that procedure had only proven to me and the few people who knew about the pregnancy that this was indeed true. I just hated that Journey felt like she couldn’t come to me and talk to me about certain things.
I remember a few months ago, when I’d questioned her on if she was sexually active due to the hickey that was on her neck, and my own daughter looked me right in my eyes and told me no. I don’t know if I was a fool or if I had so much trust in her, but I actually believed her when she said it. After that, I didn’t feel the need to take her down to the doctors to see if she was telling the truth or not, nor did I ever question her again on it because her word was good enough for me. I felt like it was partially my fault for not being on top of that with her.
When we came home that night after finding out that she was pregnant, I, of course, told Jerrod because he was her father, and he deserved to know. All he did was look at me, shake his head, and walk out of the kitchen. I knew my husband; therefore, I knew that he was blaming the whole thing on me. In one instance, he would go on and on about how good of a mother I was, but he would be so quick to turn around and say that I was never on top of things when it came to the kids.
The fact that he wasn’t even coming into the guest bedroom to check up on me like he usually would, or he wasn’t even attempting to say anything to me, proved to me that he blamed Journey’s pregnancy on me. He was giving Journey the same silent treatment as well. The last time that Jerrod might have said anything to our daughter was the morning before she made the announcement of her pregnancy.
As pissed off as I was with Journey, I couldn’t just completely shut her out, because, at the end of the day, that was still my child.
It was the weekend, a little bit after ten at night, and all of my kids were over their auntie Sky’s house. Not to say that I was giving up or anything, but I just felt like I needed a break from it all. The pregnancy along with the abortion had taken a toll on me, and I was second hand affected by it. Imagine my hurt as a mother, as I sat out in the lobby room of a cold clinic while my daughter was in the back preparing for the doctors to come and suck a baby out of her.
My daughter wasn’t supposed to be experiencing no shit like that. At her age, the only appointments she should be having is dentist appointments, her annual physical for school, and so on. My baby hadn’t even gotten her first pap smear, yet there she was getting an abortion. This whole thing just had me in a state of depression, and for the first time today, I was finally getting out of the bed, so
I could wash my ass and brush my teeth.
I stayed in the guest bedroom all day with the blinds closed to block all the sun out. I was left in this room for hours with just my thoughts, and I can’t even tell you the number of times that I questioned my role as a mother. For my thirteen year old daughter to be pregnant, I just felt like I had to have been doing something wrong. Maybe Jerrod and I were doing something wrong. Not only was I questioning my role as a mother, but I was also questioning my role as a wife and thinking that I no longer wanted any parts of this marriage.
I was tired of this. Tired of trying to stick it out for the sake of my kids and settling with my happiness. As much as I was ready to walk away, I kept thinking back to what Jerrod said to me a few months ago about how he would pretty much leave me with nothing if I ever decided that I wanted to leave him. Then, I thought about the savings account that I had for the past year or so that he didn’t even know about.
If I left him and he decided that he wanted to be messy and freeze all my accounts, there was still this savings account that had over sixty thousand dollars in it that he didn’t know about. I had to do that. Jerrod would say some spiteful things to me over the years about him being the breadwinner of the house, and so forth, so I had to look out for myself. These thoughts that I was having in my head, I didn’t know what they would lead to, so I just cleared my mind of that, and I damn near had to drag myself out of bed.
Since it was so late at night and I would probably be getting right back in the bed after I bathed, I didn’t even bother making the bed up. I felt the need to take a good, relaxing bath, and because the best tub in the house was the jacuzzi sized tub that was in Jerrod and my bedroom, I knew that that’s where I had to go. Jerrod wasn’t home, though. We had stooped so low in our marriage, that he was now communicating with me through little notes on the refrigerator, which was literally the pettiest thing that I could think of.
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