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“You don’t owe me. You owe yourself. Stop moving so fast. Just take a moment and think.” Thinking was the last thing I wanted but his firm hand on my shoulder gave me no other choice but to slow myself for a moment. His skin showed the scars of his life. A wide gash above his eye from a fall he had from a building we worked on, a long mark from his wrist that swept around to his elbow from when a piece of plywood pierced him. Those were just the ones I’d seen. When Remy came into my life, it was God’s way of showing me that even if you weren’t blessed with what you thought you should have been, He always gave you what you needed in another form. He was such a father figure to me.
I thought I was big shit when I stepped on his construction site the first time. I was an apprentice thinking I knew it all. Didn’t want to listen to anyone and damn near killed myself and a few others. He was hard on me and didn’t let me cut corners. He taught me all the shit that wasn’t in the books I learned. I got so good and I owed it all to him. He believed in me so much he invested in me. Then I blew the shit.
“Life happens to all of us. You got your first dose, oh well? If it doesn’t happen this time, there will be more opportunities.”
“I respect you, Remy. You know I do but I’m tired of waiting. This one is mine. Trust me. I got it this time.” He gave me a nod and dropped it. He went to his car and I headed to mine. Before I took this meeting, I’d been up all night working on specs and planned to get some rest before I took that beautiful woman out, but I couldn’t. The whole helicopter ride back to the city I thought about what I could do. No more taking from my family. This one was on me, and if that meant I had to travel down a few roads I had no pleasure in taking, then so be it.
As soon as the chopper hovered over the landing pad in the back on one of the houses I currently had for sale I was reaching out to an old contact. I dropped a text.
Ready to work.
“You want me back around ten tonight, right?” the pilot yelled over the propellers. A text came through before I could respond.
Welcome back, Patch. Meet me tonight.
“Yeah, and I need you to drop me somewhere else tonight.”
“You got it!” he said, and I stepped back, watching it lift into the air.
If there was one thing that I knew about myself, it was that if I truly wanted something, I was going to get it no matter what it took.
Lesha
I was so stupid. A muthafuckin’ fool. It was impossible for me even to digest the information I was given so I had to call an emergency girls meeting. I literally could not believe my damn eyes.
“I say we beat his ass! It ain’t shit but a muthafuckin’ flight, and I ain’t got shit to do.” Nesha paced the floor in my living room back and forth.
“Calm down, Nesha.” Satisa soothed her hand down her very pregnant belly as she sat against the wall.
“Look at this shit! He is playing in my damn sister's face! Who goes so far as to propose to my sister just to fly down and get married to another bitch in less than a week.”
I closed my eyes and rocked back and forth in my seat. I started out the day feeling so relieved. I finished my stint with the after-school program, and I was home free. I was ready to spend the weekend celebrating that. Much to my damn surprise I woke up this morning with over a hundred text messages from Devin’s baby’s mother. It showed her posing next to Devin in their wedding photos with her very pregnant belly. She even included a video for good fucking measure. I couldn’t be surprised that she had gotten my phone number because women were better detectives than the FBI but damn. Yes, I told Devin this was over, but when he left, he acted as if he would doanything to make us work. Why the hell do all that shit knowing you were getting married to someone else? More than anything, we were supposed to be friends. There is no way a wedding was planned in less than a week. I just fucking could not! My head hurt and I was sick to my stomach all at once. How could he do me of all people like that after all we went through? After he knew all the intimate details of my story.
“This nigga really ain’t shit.” I fell back on the couch. It wasn’t even noon, and I was on my second glass of wine. I needed it.
“That is some low shit,” Even Satisa admitted.
“Let me see that phone!” Nesha said as she swiped it from my hands without allowing me to respond. “Look at all this shit! All these text messages between them. He telling her how much he loves her and shit! This nigga is so dumb. He is damn near convicting himself of a crime already. Don’t let this nigga say shit to you! Yeah, we need to hop a flight, sis’!” Nesha bounced around like she was preparing for a heavyweight match.
“Nesha,” Satisa called her name. I don’t know what it was about my best friend, Satisa, but the way she spoke your name communicated everything she wanted to say. At this point, she was calling for Nesha to back down. I was hurting, and all Nesha could see and feel was rage.
“No fuck that, Satisa! Everybody’s life ain’t always smiles and fucking rainbows. The only way some of us get through it is if we let these muthafuckas know that ain’t nobody gone play with us. Niggas and females alike. Nobody comes to save chicks like us, so you wouldn’t fucking understand!” Nesha snapped, and there was lethal silence in the room.
“Wait a minute! This isn’t about you or anybody else! I called y’all to help me feel better because I am the one goingthrough it but quite honestly everybody can just leave! I’m sorry Satisa. You didn’t deserve that at all.” I added quickly as I saw the tears start to well in her eyes.
I walked to my back room, holding back tears of my own. I don’t know why the hell Nesha snapped off on Satisa like that when the only person we needed to be mad at in this situation was Devin’s snake ass. I landed in my bathroom, and I slapped my hands against the counter as the tears that had been threatening to fall finally slipped from my eyes.
“Sis’,” I heard Nesha’s voice from the doorway, and I waved my hand. “No, I’m sorry. You know I hate when somebody play with you like that. I fucking hated Devin, but if no one else understands why I do. I never wanted our lives to end up like this.”
I turned to her, and her eyes filled with the same tears mine had.
“Please come back. I’m just going crazy lately.”
“Wait. Where is Satisa?” I asked, looking over her shoulder.
“I told her I was sorry and would come back here and get you. I thought she was right behind me.”
I wiped my eyes the best I could, but at this point, I couldn’t hide the fact that I was crying. I walked down the hall, and I saw Satisa still on the floor, rocking back and forth, looking like a turtle on his back.
