Page 4 of U + Me

For the past couple of days, I hadn’t said much of anything to my mom and Todd, but today I was out my room and dusting the furniture in the living room. The last thing I needed was for one of them to start tripping talking about, I’m not doing my chores. My mom was listening to Toni Braxton’s,Long As I Live, in the kitchen as she moved about cooking a big pot of chicken and dumplings with a couple pans of cinnamon rolls. Toni Braxton was one of her favorites, and due to the fact that I had to grow up listening to her music over and over, she had become one of my favorites also. I used to sing along to her songs and think I was the shit just because I knew the words and sounded amazing against Toni Braxton’s voice. Now that I’d hit puberty, her music meant and felt differently. Her songs were deep and about being in love. If I had to put money on it, I’d say that my mom reminisced about my dad while listening to Toni B.

“Everybody's talking about you and her together, how could you do that to me?” my mom sang, “Can you tell by the look on my face, I still like you that way.”

Long As I Livewas a prime example of what I meant. She played the hell out of that song and sang it from her soul so grand that it rocked me. I knew my mom still had love for my dad, it was obvious as hell just from how bothered she was about him not pressing her to be together. Todd hated Toni Braxton, so when he stormed into the kitchen and turned the song down, I wasn’t surprised by his antics at all.

Long as I live (long as I, I could live). I'll never get over (you gettin' over me). It's killing me (it's killing me, killing me). I'll never get over (you gettin' over me).

“It’s killing me…I’ll never ever get over!!” My mom bellowed along to the lyrics, sounding almost as good as Toni.

“Here you go with this shit!” Todd fused.

“Turn it back up! Don’t come up in here wit yo shit, Todd! Damn it, man, turn it back up!”

Take Me Awayby Keyshia Cole started playing and Todd turned the music up but not as loud as my mom previously had it.

My mom started dancing and singing. “I love my baby…I love my babyyyy!”

“Yeah, back that big ole thang up on yo daddy!” Todd hyped as my mom twerked in front of him.

One thing about it, my mom might’ve been an asshole, but she was one of the prettiest women I’d ever seen. She was built like a stallion and stayed dressed fresh with her hair, nails, and feet done. To me she could have any man she wanted except her attitude was majorly messed up. She was a girly-girl through and through, and I was exactly like her in that sense, except I didn’t fool with too many females like that. Hell, my best friend was Darius. I really didn’t care for females because they stayed acting weird. I was friendly but it took a lot for me to call someone my friend.

Todd winked his eye at me, and he slapped my mom on the ass. I rolled my eyes at them both, then finished dusting. When I went to put the cleaning supplies back under the sink in the kitchen my mom left out, but I could feel someone staring at me from behind. I washed my hands and when I turned around, it was Todd standing there. I wasn’t sure where my mom was, but I knew she was still home, so I didn’t have to worry about him trying anything with me.

Leaving out of the kitchen I stopped in my bedroom to grab my things to take a shower then headed for the bathroom. Just as I was about to step into the bathroom, Todd bumped into me. That’s when I noticed my mom was in their bedroom because the door was closed.

“If you acted right I would make yo lil grown ass feel better than I make ya momma feel. You see she love a nigga DOWN,” Todd whispered into my ear.

His stale breath mixed with his after shave turned my stomach.

“Gross,” I mumbled. Ignoring him, I left him standing there looking crazy as I rushed into the bathroom then quickly closed the door.

As I took a shower, I could hear my mom and Todd arguing about something. I just couldn’t really make out what they were saying, nor did I really care to eavesdrop like that forreal. Just as I turned the water off, I heard the front door slam which meant one of them had more than likely stormed out.

After getting dressed in the bathroom, I gathered my things then went back into my bedroom. I left my Stanley in the kitchen so I went to get it so that I could take some Midol. I turned to head back to my room and my breath caught in my throat when I saw Todd standing in the doorway.

“Wanna know what yo problem is?” He smirked, looking at me with a weird expression, his eyes dark and eerie.

“Not really,” I mumbled as I tried to walk past him.

He grabbed my hand and placed it on his crotch then grabbed my ass. Stomping down on his foot as hard as I could, he yelped out then I kneed him in the dick and ran past him. He was standing in the kitchen hollering like a wounded cat as my heart started racing.

For the life of me I couldn’t understand why my mom kept leaving me with this creepy nigga. But then again, she treated my dad the same way before she and I moved away. She always told me that the relationship she had with my dad was a tsunami of emotions and that he broke her heart real bad. I wondered what she was on when she would leave like this. Was she fucking around on Todd like she was with my dad? She alleged that she was in love with my dad at one point, but he couldn’t commit to one woman. Then when I was born, she claimed that she was trying to get him to settle down as one final attempt at being a family, but he wasn’t for it, so she left and took me with her.

Todd was the man she was cheating on my dad with, and he left his wife to be with my mom. They both walked away from their relationships to be with one another, so the way I saw it, they deserved one another. Todd provided a place for us to stay, which was why I believe she even put up with him in the first place. I couldn’t wrap my head around how she could love someone she had to argue with damn near daily. But he took us both in when he didn’t have to so she would forever love him, I guess. Todd wasn’t right in the head, and the older I got, the more I was able to see it. I just couldn’t understand why she couldn’t see what I saw.

To me, my mom was delusional because Todd hit on us both. When he put hands on me, the way I saw it was she should have left his ass, no questions asked. He was living foul, and he wanted us to suffer instead of being accountable for it. He hit on her the most and that’s why I resented them both; him for being a jackass and her for staying and being dumb as hell.

Just like her taking my phone away and having it for years talking bout I lost the right to have a phone was some crazy shit. I did threaten them with calling my dad and that was what really set her and Todd off and why she never gave me the phone back. Like she still hadn’t given it back all because of him. They could care less that I had to be the only teenager in the world with no way to communicate outside of a landline. My mom felt that I was ungrateful and didn’t deserve the luxury of a cell for saying that I would rather be with someone that abandoned us over someone that took care of us. In her eyes, Todd could do no wrong and I truly hate she felt that way for her.

My adrenaline was going. I felt trapped and afraid because I could feel it in my bones that Todd was not done fucking with me, so I did the first thing my heart told me to do and that was call Darius.

“What up, KK?” Darius answered, calling me by the nickname he gave me.

“You home?” I huffed.

“What’s going on?”

“He tripping and I just need?—”

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