Page 13 of Saint Baptiste 2

Sage was a fucking joke.

She didn’t give a damn about me. She was no better than Valerie’s ass.

I was the black sheep. It was fucked up because I was the one who’d endured and sacrificed the most. Being treated like shit by Valerie, I could handle. But Sage? That hurt a little different.

After granny died, I took care of her when Valerie couldn’t. And Val couldn’t, quite often. When she was out all night, chasing funky ass, ain’t shit ass niggas who wouldn’t help her with the light bill, it was me, making sure Sage didn’t go to sleep hungry. And on those ‘dick chasing nights’, I always looked forward to her forgetting about school the next day so I made sure to take the alarm clock to our bedroom to get us up, because her ass would be too drunk to hear it go off.

I was ten. Sage was six. I was a child taking care of a child. That was life for us. For me. And that didn’t stop. Well, for a minute it did. Not completely anyway. The way I took care of her changed shortly after Valerie came home with a man. A ‘real man’, as she called him. He paid all of the bills and made sure the refrigerator had more than enough food in it. He was her boyfriend, and we were to respect him by calling him Mr. Bill.

“Worried about me for what, Sage?” I asked as our eyes met in the mirror.

Mr. Bill was like a fucking knight in shining armor. He took us out every Saturday for ice cream at the Dairy Queen. Saturday morning, Val would wake Sage and I up at around ten, after she and Mr. Bill had already eaten before he went off for work.

Sage and I would sit at the kitchen table, all smiles, kicking our legs, eating syrupy waffles and sausage links, watching Saturday morning cartoons on the little thirteen-inch kitchen TV. Right after, we’d get dressed in matching sundresses Val picked out while we ate. It was the oddest shit, honestly. Saturdays were the only days she dressed Sage and I like twins when we were four years apart with different daddies. I was ten, dressed like my six-year-old little sister. It was a little embarrassing, but I didn’t care too much. I was just happy to finally have a ‘normal’ family like my best friend. It felt good to finally have someone to call ‘daddy’ since I never met mine. However, we couldn’t call Mr. Bill, daddy. It was actually forbidden. Valerie made that very clear. However, Sage slipped up one Saturday.

After that, Saturdays changed for us.

“I—” She paused and shifted her eyes away from the mirror before moving to the other side to avoid our reflections. “I was just worried, Kiki,” she continued, her voice low and timid.

And... just like that I felt bad.

I hated being the oldest. Hated that Sage had always been like this... this little fragile, wounded bird I had to take care of regardless of the ‘nothing’ I’d get in return for my efforts. I loved her. Loved her more than she could possibly believe. She thought I hated Dejuan and wanted her to do better because ‘I just didn’t understand marriage’ and a bunch of other bullshit that wasn’t a true reflection of the way I felt. I wasn’t bitter. I didn’t hate him because he loved her so much and I wanted it for myself.

I hated him because he abused her pure heart. Hated him because he took advantage of her innocence. She couldn’t see him sucking her dry. Couldn’t see the lies in his eyes the way that I could. I wanted the people I loved to see what I saw in them. That they deserved the rawest, truest, form of love in the world and nothing less. I wanted that for Sage. She deserved that. She was good enough. However, she wouldn’t get it until she could see herself the way I saw her.

I took a deep breath and completed my Doordash order and cracked the seal of my La Roche-Posay cleanser. “Thanks for checking on me, Sage. I appreciate it. Sorry I scared you. But I’m good, sis.” I softly said, coddling her because that’s what I did.

I wasn’t okay. But I refused to allow Sage to see me the way she thought she would see me when she got here. Broken. I could be literally dying on the inside, and I’d never let Sage see me suffer. It had nothing to do with being seen as some kind of pilar of strength but everything to do with what she would do the moment she left this fucking house. She’d tell Val I wasn’t okay and... I wasn’t okay with that. I wasn’t okay with Valerie knowing I wasn’t okay. Not after seeing her so... radiant. She didn’t deserve the satisfaction.

“Oh...” Sage said with a light smile. “Good. I’m—I’m happy. That’s... it’s good Naoki.” She exhaled and scratched at the back of her head.

“Of course,” I replied vigorously scrubbing my face.

Ugh.

There were cracks.

Not in my skin. Bitch, my skin was fucking flawless. There were cracks in my got damn mask. Pretending was harder with the shit on the surface. I was emotionally unstable. I didn’t like this. I hated it. It wouldn’t leave me alone. That... those memories. I felt them on my skin. Felt him on my skin. I just... I wanted to put them back. I wanted to bury them again. Wanted to forget but... I couldn’t and I was losing my got damn mind.

“You sure?—”

“I’m sure,” I snapped. “Do you need anything else? I have shit to do. I need you to go.”

I did. The longer she stayed, the harder she made it for me to move on. I couldn’t pacify her. Couldn’t be the big sister. I couldn’t coddle her or treat her like my ‘wounded little birdie’ because today I was the wounded little birdie. I was the one that needed to be coddled. But there was no one coming to my rescue. Not genuinely. Sage couldn’t help me if her concern was genuine anyway. She couldn’t even help her got damn self.

She squinted and pushed off the wall. “I don’t think you’re okay and I?—”

“I told you I was good, bitch. The fuck? It’s like you want something to be wrong with me. Damn!” I shouted.

She flinched and drew back. I flipped the faucet on and leaned forward to douse my face with cold water. I hated her. Loved her and hated her too. The reasons I hated her weren’t her fault, and I loved her more because of it. She was poisoned by Valerie. She was a fucking replica of that bitch. Everything about her. The way she put that bitch ass nigga on a pedestal. The way she carried herself. The sound of her voice. Everything.

She was Valerie. God knew what He was doing when He gave her a son.

After turning the water off, I grabbed one of my facial cloths and quickly covered my face to dry it. Along with a few droplets of water were tears that had managed to betray me.

“I wasn’t trying to make you mad, Kiki,” Sage whispered. “I’m just worried about you.”

I sighed again and finally took the towel from my face. Looking over at her, I shook my head. “You’re not really worried about me, Sage. You talked to that lady, and she told you about what happened. That’s what this little visit is about. Tell her I’m good. Tell her the only reason I left was because I would have killed him. And I’m too much of a bad ass bitch to be sitting in a funky ass prison cell for the rest of my life.”

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