Page 40 of Forbidden Love

She paused for a long time. She sat the comb down in her lap then wiped her hands on top of her cotton gown.

“Casper loves me but refuses to trust me again. I broke his heart, and I’ve spent an endless amount of time trying to gain it back again.” Her voice came out low and rough.

“All the women he passed through just to hurt me has numbed me. I can never turn my back on that man because, even when I thought that he wasn’t your biological dad, he still stepped up and was willing to take the role without knowing forsure. To this day I never shared the positive DNA results, and he has remained a good father.” Her eyes filled with shame.

“What?” I asked in disbelief.

“You’re his daughter, Yeremy… I made sure of it. I’m just saying till this day he never asked to see the results. That’s how I know he still loves me. He’s never tried to deny you or treat you differently. He makes me pay for my reckless decisions while giving you a life that I always dreamed of having. Casper probably will never forgive me, but he has always been there for me in my time of need without throwing in my face what all he’s done…I just feel like shit for the one time that he really needed me, I wasn’t there for him.” She casted her eyes down sadly.

“What happened, Ma?” I searched her eyes for answers.

All I saw was sadness, her gaze dropped down to her nails. She picked at them and looked everywhere but at me.

“It’s clear that he loves you, but he treats you like he hates you. What I saw when I walked up is something that I never saw between y’all,” I said.

“He loves me, but his hate over rides the love. Casper is hot and cold when it comes to me. When no one is around, he’shimself. Casper likes to be babied; he gets to be the real him with me behind closed doors. All them hoes he keep around is a façade and they are meant to hurt me. When we around people, he treats me like what you see when you are around us. What you walked up on today, was how we always are behind closed doors,” she sadly admitted.

“But why?” I asked again.

She took a deep breath and glance back at me. Her eyes welled up with tears as her shoulders dropped.

“It was Memorial weekend…I was happy Casper was leaving because he barely let me breathe. He loved to be literally in my skin if he wasn’t out dominating the streets.” She chuckled sadly.

“Casper went to visit his mom and dad but also had a big drop off to do with your uncles down south. I ended up getting drunk with my girlfriends. I took pills and snorted dope that night. We ended up at a party that I had no business being at. Casper was blowing me up all night, so I turned my phone off. Long story short… When he got to Mississippi, his parents were robbed and killed. It ended up being an ambush connected to the men that was supposed to be new potential buyers, which would have plugged Casper in down south. Casper got shot, he was in critical condition. It wasn’t him blowing up my phone, it was your uncle calling back-to-back to get me to fly out to Mississippi to see about your dad. While all of that was happening, I was at a party with so-called friends on the wrong side of town…getting a train ran on me. I was out of it for days; they recorded and sold the tape for dirt cheap…” Her voice cracked as air left my lungs.

“Mama.” I gasped.

Her eyes filled with shame and sorrow. Her tears threatened to spill over as she rocked back and forth slowly.

“I couldn’t even remember all their names…I just remember waking up naked in my own throw up and cum stains. I contracted a couple of STDs… By the time your father madeit back to Cali, the sex tape had already fell into his hands. It didn’t make it no better that I was two months pregnant when them niggas violated me. Your father wasn’t no saint, he was loyal and loved me but I knew he cheated from time to time. I did my dirt too just to make myself feel better. It’s just that this time…I wasn’t there for him when he really needed me. It was embarrassing as well to be Casper’s woman getting passed around like a fucking blunt. Niggas felt like they had one-up on him because I made myself assessable. Before you, I was his trophy; when he said this ‘my woman’, his chest would be all pumped out.” She chuckled wearily.

“He allowed me to stay in his house and made me agree to let him be the one to raise you. He agreed that I could nurse you and be in the house up until you was potty trained. Casper wasn’t that evil by taking you fully away from me when he could have if he wanted to. He let me get you every weekend. But after everything…I stopped trying to be loved by him…I tried to survive without him, but it was hard. I started getting high off dope to survive my own heart ache…became a shitty ass mother, although I loved you so much, Yeremy. I also started to battle being sexually hyper active, it was to the point where I couldn’t control the shit. I haven’t felt like a woman in a long time, Yeremy. Only time that I feel close to being the woman I used to be is when I’m here in the same household as you and Casper. Even that hurts because I wonder what it would have been like if I never went to that fucking party. If I just listened to him and stayed the fuck home.”

My heart instantly shattered for her. It felt like for the first time I was really getting to see and know my mom. She was a woman with her own broken story. Betrayal through friendships, stuck in her own war with discovering her worth as a woman.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

She nodded, sniffed once, and cleared her throat.

“If you leave… do it right. Don’t just leave ’cause you hurt. Leave because you know your life can be more than this. Casper has a hard time with doing things the right way. His way is sometimes wrong, but he means well. He just doesn’t want you to end up like me.

Chapter 22

Sol

One Month Later

Ididn’t do dates, at least not real ones. I took bitches to hotels, fucked them, and then dropped a couple of bands on them. I saw nigga’s wear black ties sitting across from a woman to take the time to get to know her and thought that shit was lame as fuck…

For Yeremy, I made the exception. We pulled up to a steakhouse a little past eight. I stepped around to her side to open her door like a gentleman. I watched her thick toned legs swing out slowly as she stood. Her curves was wrapped in a deep olive dress that clung to her caramel skin like it missed her every time she moved.

“Damn, Ma,” I muttered, holding my hand out.

Her cheeks rose as she dropped her head and blushed from my admiration.

“You a real distraction, Yeremy.” I talked directly into her ear as we stepped onto pavement.

She giggled as we walked through the double doors. I still felt conflicted to all of this. Especially the quiet want that crawled under my skin, making me crave more than just her body. I liked her smile, laugh, and how she could carry a conversation. Yeremy knew when to be quiet and listen to mewhenever I talked, although I probably never said too much like her.

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