Page 17 of U + Me

“Living in the streets you have a better chance at cause yo dad not about to give you no shoulder to cry on. If he was on that, he would’ve been coming by and checking for you. I don’t do well with liars, Kimmie. How am I supposed to believe a liar?”

“I’m not a liar, ma. Todd is tho.” Soon as the words let Kimmie’s mouth, I slapped her across the face again. “If he wasn’t in here trying to touch on me, Darius wouldn’t have ever come over here. I tried to tell you earlier, but you wasn’t trying to hear me. Darius didn’t break in, like I said, I was on the phone with him. Phone records can be checked but breaking in a window with no cameras can’t. I’m sorry for lying about talking to Darius. Now he is going to hate me forever because of you!”

“Because of me!? How dare you! What about the hickey?! Girl, save it.” I smirked. “Yeah, you let that boy fuck on you. Got you up in here doing the most. The difference between you and him and me and Todd is, we’re married. We real grown round here, Kimmie. You can’t go round saying shit like that about people just cause you feeling emotional! You lucky I just slapped you and not tagged yo ass like I really want too! Seventeen fuckin’ years old and you fuckin’! You better hope yo ass not pregnant.”

I stormed out of my daughter’s room and all I can say is that I wish I would’ve just stopped for a minute and really listened to Kimmie before all of this mess took place. Part of me felt like she was telling the truth and another part of me wanted and prayed to believe that she was lying and covering up her sneaking around with that damn boy. Both theories were very plausible. If it was true that Todd was trying to touch on my daughter tho, I was going to kill his ass dead myself!

I was hard on Kimmie because I loved her. I didn’t want her falling in love with a man and giving him her body just so he would do her wrong like her father did me. I wanted her to see raw and uncut how much damage that shit caused. This shit with Todd though had me twisted. I would admit that part of me was with him because he was what was best for me and Kimmie when I first left her dad, especially because I had to start over. Was Todd perfect, no, but no man was. The fact that he stepped up and took me and Kimmie in without so much as a blink of an eye made me feel like he was a stand-up man.

Did he have anger problems, yeah sometimes, but hell so did I. I never thought that any of this would lead to him getting locked up for trying to violate my daughter. Hearing that rocked me and I really didn’t know what to do with that information.

Kimmie asking if the police would take her to her dad really made me feel like she was saying all of those disparaging things about Todd as a way to leave and get to her dad. That’s what made me feel like she wasn’t telling the truth. That’s what really infuriated me.

Kimmie was hell bent on having her dad in her life and for the life of me I just didn’t understand it. I cheated and then left Kimmie’s dad, Karl, to be with Todd and I only did it because I realized I had no choice but to move on from Karl. Karl hurt my heart real bad, and one thing my momma always taught me was to never love a man more than he loves you.

I know Kimmie resented me for shutting her dad out of her life, but he was only going to hurt her heart just like he had done mine. He didn’t want a family, but Kimmie was too young to understand that. Me leaving and moving on was my way of showing Kimmie that her dad didn’t love us the way that we loved him, but I loved her enough to not give up on her. Yet still in her eyes she would still pick a man that turned his back on us over me.

Todd though, he left his wife to be with me when he didn’t have to. He married me and made an honest woman out of me, something that Karl could never do; something he never wanted to do. Todd hated any and everything about Karl because he lowkey knew that my heart was still with him. Todd would sometimes treat me fucked up and take his anger out on me because he felt that I made him feel like I settled to be with him. He would get into arguments with his ex-wife then blame me and say that he walked away from his life to be with me and I’m still in love with my ex.

I did my best to tell him that he was wrong, and it wasn’t true, but the truth was it was true. Now with Todd getting high, I knew he would go on these wild tangents, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea for Kimmie to go be with her dad. That is, if he was willing to take her on cause all he really cared about was slanging his big ole dick. It would hurt my heart to hand her over to him but Todd touching on her was something that wasn’t sitting right with me. Yet, I couldn’t accuse him of something I didn’t have proof off. At the same time, I couldn’t risk letting them be around one another again after today either.

Karl though, was very well endowed, and he had a very high sex drive to go with all his dick, which I found, as well as any other woman that had ever been with him, I’m sure, that those two things were a very lethal combination. You’d have to have no walls and base to your pussy to be able to keep up with him sexually. Cheating was a must and given for Karl because one woman could never satisfy him…ever. That was our main problem and reason for me leaving him.

He let me and Kimmie walk right out of his life. At first, he would try to come around, but Todd wasn’t having it. He felt that Karl would come around and be about me and not his daughter and he wasn’t about to have that. Todd was the main reason I had to cut Karl out of me and Kimmie’s life. But now, she could have her dad.

I guess it was time for Kimmie to see for herself that her dad was not going to be the type of parent she was hoping he would be.

DARIUS

AWeek Later

Last week started out pretty fucking fabulous, until I got arrested for laying hands on Todd. I was only in jail for a total of six hours before I was released and the entire time, I couldn’t do anything but shake my head. I legit was looking at losing my scholarship, something I worked blood, sweat, and tears for over Todd, and what’s crazy is I’d do it all again for KK if I had to. That was why I respected my parents’ opinions on me keeping my distance from KK’s house.

According to my mom, my dad, who was a mason out of the south side of Chicago and very connected, was able to make a few calls from Georgia and basically make all this shit disappear. Todd was still in jail; and as far as I knew, my charges will never be seen or heard of again. As for KK, I hadn’t talked to her since they arrested me.

I called her phone a few times, but all my calls stayed unanswered. When she wasn’t at my graduation, I couldn’t help but become concerned to the point that I was ready to show up at her house and risk it all, but I knew I couldn’t take that chance. The conditions for my release and case being wiped away was that I had to stay away from Todd’s house no matter what, and instead of waiting a few weeks I would have to leave for Georgia sooner as in tomorrow soon. My dad wanted me in Georgia before school started so that we could “catch up” and get all the weird tension out the way since we hadn’t seen or really talked to one another in years so afterward I could focus on school and football.

Regardless of how risky it was though; I didn’t want to leave and not get the chance to say goodbye to KK. I graduated earlier today and as happy as I was to finally be a high school graduate who crushed and defeated all odds against me, my heart was full of sorrow cause my best friend was not there.

I couldn’t help but to get emotional thinking about what happened with KK and ever since I’d been worried sick about her. It didn’t help that my mom didn’t care for KK before my graduation, but now after the arrest she really didn’t have anything nice to say about her.

“Welcome to Red Lobster, my name is Tiffany, and I will be your server today. Are you celebrating anything?”

“My son, he just graduated from Morgan Park.”

“Oh awesome! Congratulations!” Tiffany shrieked, patting me on the shoulder. “I graduated from Julian last year.”

“That’s great!” My mom smiled. “Are you in college?”

“No, ma’am, my career path doesn’t require college.”

“That’s a new one. I’ve never heard that before, I’m intrigued,” my mom continued to pry, “What do you do exactly? Let me guess, you a dancer.”

“Come on now momma,” I shook head.

I wasn’t sure if the girl knew but my mom was implying that she was an exotic dancer and that was because of how the girl looked. It was obvious she had on make-up, which wasn’t an issue but not necessary for waiting tables. Her cleavage was showing, and she had on a pair of skin-tight black jeans that hugged her wide hips and round ass just right. Tiffany was fine and she knew it and her perky attitude could be read for a female that liked to have fun.

“Oh, it’s okay,” Tiffany assured me. “But ma’am, I can dance like a professional but I’m not a pole dancer. I actually am a makeup artist, esthetician, and just became a certified masseuse.”

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