I nodded, filled with so much confusion and turned to board the elevator. I got off on my floor confused as hell. This is why we ‘bout to get the hell outta here. Let me call O right now, I thought to myself as I trotted down toward my apartment door. I dropped my travel wear, ran to the phone, and called O three times.
One half hour later, I sat in my room looking around wondering if I was going to miss this place. I took note of all of my Chris Brown, Ne-Yo, and Omarion posters that told stories of my adolescent crushes. My sports trophies and badges that I coveted were neatly displayed on my dresser. I sat and reminisced on each until the phone rang interrupting my thoughts. It was LaTavia who began firing off threats the moment she recognized my voice.
“Bitch, don’t let me see yo’ hoe ass in the streets! I hate you! You did this to me and my baby. You ruined our family! Well, you know what? Im’ma make sure that you don’t have a family! I hope you know how to knife fight, cuz Im’ma cut yo shit the fuck up when I see you! O told me that you were a good girl. Well if you was so much of a good girl, why he in jail now, bitch?”
My knees buckled as her words of O’s incarceration seeped into my psyche. To say that I was caught off guard wouldn’t fully explain my disadvantage. I let her speak to buy time to collect myself and calm my irate breathing. It was all surreal.
“Back up! I know you ain’t calling my house on no bullshit because my man wants me and not you. First of all, LaTavia, baby, if you could beat my ass you would have done so a long time ago when I was chosen number one, okay! Secondly, what do you mean O is locked up?”
“Oh, you ain’t hear yet or you just playin’ dumb? Whatever the case may be, don’t let me see you!” Her slamming the phone in my ear caused a sharp pain in the back of my head. My heart started beating erratically and my mouth dried. O is in jail? For what? I questioned out loud.
I tried texting my brother, but to no avail. I went into my bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed to think. I thought if O was in jail he would need to be bailed out. My thoughts immediately raced to pawning my jewelry, it had to be worth at least a grand or so, on the streets. I would get what I could and then try to get the rest from his boys. When I rose from the bed and reached for my jewelry box at first glance my heart stopped and over my heaving chest revelation hit. Samantha, my own mother, had stolen every bit of jewelry I had. I suddenly recalled finding her snooping in there the day before I left for North Carolina. At the time, I didn’t think more of it than I always did her increasingly bizarre behavior as of late. Tears began to form in the folds of my sockets but I held them back. Trying to calm my breathing, I recounted how O and I had gone over this a million and two times. I knew what to do in the event of him being arrested.
About a year before, on his birthday, O took me to a bank to open up a savings account for emergencies like this. He knew better than getting it in his own name because it could possibly be seized if discovered. He trusted me with the little money he did accumulate. He’d opened the account with fifteen hundred dollars and said that he would put more in there as the money came in. He told me that if he were to die before he used it, not to use it to bury him or give it to his mother, the money was mine to keep. The only problem was that it was Sunday and the bank was closed.
The phone rang again. It was Keysha. “Girl, I had a feeling you was back home…” Keysha went on and on nervously.
“KEYSHA! What the fuck happened this weekend?” I screamed into the phone trying to fight through the dizziness that had fallen upon me. I had no time for her usual gossiping banter, particularly when I was the subject of it. My world was falling apart and I needed answers.
“Well, that night you left…”
She dropped the bomb on me. Never again would my life be the same.