Page 48 of Fever: Love In Scrubs
“I bet we’re very acquainted now. Don’t text my child with no bullshit.Ifshe saw him? So she’s a liar?”
“I don’t know what she is. She’s at that age where kids will say any damn thing.”
I clenched my fists at my side. “Amandela… you are this close. This fucking close. There is nothing you can say to justify any of this. Nobody should be walking around half or fully naked in front of a kid. This what you wear when she’s here? Your ass is out.”
“Why are you so worried about my ass?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I don’t even know why I bother with you at this point. You don’t see a problem with anything you do andthatis the problem. I’m done. I can’t fight with you anymore, Amandela. You’re selfish and since you don’t give a damn about the well-being of our child, I’ll be contacting my lawyer and filing for full custodial rights with supervised visitation for you.”
“What!” She shoved me. “You can’t do that!”
“It’s already done, love.”
“Fuck you! You know what this is? You still want to punish me for the divorce. You’ll use anything you can find to get back at me.”
“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a fuck about you.”
She shook her head. “I see what you’re doing, Jaxson. You wanna turn her against me.”
“You’re doing a good job of that all by yourself. I don’t speak on you in front of Jamari. Unlike you, I talk my shit when she’s not around. Yeah, she hears you dogging me out to your ratchet ass friends.”
She shrugged. “I just speak my truth.”
“Your truth doesn’t amount to shit, just like you.” I walked to the door and opened it. “Our daughter deserves better than you’ve been giving her, Amandela. If you don’t want her around, let me know so we can move forward.”
I walked out of the apartment with her yelling obscenities at my back.
Sometimes I hated this woman. She’d never been the perfect mother, but over the years she became slacker and slacker. It seemed the older Jamari got, the more Amandela became disconnected to motherhood. This wasn’t even the first time I had to threaten her with taking full custody. She’d get her shit together for a little while, then she was right back to her old ways.
I was tired.
If she didn’t want the burden of the child she birthed, she could hand it all to me. I wouldn’t fight her on it. I’d much rather my child be where she was wanted than to ever be where she wasn’t.
My sister’ssmile dropped as soon as she opened her front door and saw me.
“Aw hell nah. Why do you look like that?”
“Look like what?” I asked, sliding past her.
“Like somebody licked the red off your lollipop.” She closed the door and turned to me, waiting for an answer.
“Where’s Mari?”
“Upstairs, still in bed. Her uncle had her and Kacie up late last night watching movies. I left their asses up and went to bed. They didn’t even wake up for breakfast. Stop deflecting and come tell me what’s wrong.”
She motioned for me to follow her into the kitchen. There she grabbed two mugs and filled each with coffee before sliding one to me.
“Was it the date?” she asked.
“No. The date was great.”
“Good. We can circle back around to that. Tell me who pissed you off.”
“Who pissed who off?” Johnathan asked, coming into the kitchen. He went straight for my sister and pulled her into a kiss. “What’s up, Jaxson?”
“What’s good, man?”
“Same shit, different day. Now, who pissed you off?”
