Page 4 of Ony If It's You
Pharaoh manipulated my young mind into thinking that he loved me and only me, no matter how many other females popped out of the woodwork. He beat it in my head that none of them mattered; only me. Stupidly, I’d listened to him and allowed him to do what he wanted believing that “as long as he came home to me” I was good. It wasn’t until I had my twins that I told myself I had to walk away from him. I wanted to give my kids a two-parent household so badly, something that I hadn’t had, but quickly ditched that idea when he got worse with the disrespect. Having kids with Pharaoh hadn’t done anything but made him think that I really belonged to him.
“Hello! Earth to Lani!” Celeste was waving her hand in front of my face trying to get my attention.
“Ugh, move.” I knocked her hand down. “What were you saying?”
“I was asking if I needed to put anything else in their suitcases.”
“No, Granny has stuff there too. I just sent some stuff in case they go out somewhere.”
It wasn’t really necessary for me to send anything to my grandmother’s for them because she shopped for them just as much as I did, but I didn’t want to send them with nothing.
“Okay, well, I have all of their stuff together then. You need help with any of your stuff?”
I shook my head. “I got everything packed up too. Can you put these in Jocey’s room?” I handed her a stack of clothes just as I saw my phone was ringing. I rolled my eyes at the sight of my baby daddy’s name on the screen. I waited until Celeste was out of the room before I answered.
“Yes, Pharaoh?”
“What color panties you got on?”
I scoffed and rolled my eyes.I should have gone with my first mind and not answered the phone.
“What do you want, nigga?”
“I just asked you a question.”
“Bye, Pharaoh.”
“Aight, my bad.” He laughed and tried to stop me from hanging up. “I was just checking in. Y’all good?”
“Messiah and Jocelyn are fine. I ordered all of their summer stuff yesterday when you sent me the money, you should have gotten the pictures of everything that I got them. They’ll be with my grandmother this weekend, you’re more than welcome to get them if you would like. I’ll let her know for you if you decide to.”
Any time Pharaoh called me I gave him a complete run down of our kids. That was all he needed to ask me about and all of the explanation that I needed to give him. He liked to use the fact that I was his baby mother along with the fact that he paid my bills as a reason to keep up with me, but I quickly nipped that in the bud. This wasn’t that and I had no problem letting him know that.
“Yeah, I saw everything. Thank you for taking care of our kids. I really owe you for that shit. You keep them just as fresh as us.”
“You don’t have to thank me for taking care of our kids, Pharaoh. You know I wouldneverhave them out looking any kind of way.”
“I know, but you always go above and beyond for them. You even get Farrah’s shit because we know her fucking mother isn’t going to do it.”
Farrah was his seven-year-old daughter and ultimately the reason that I’d left Pharaoh for good. He’d hidden a whole daughter for an entire year before I found out about her. I was crushed when Khia, his other baby mama, walked into my baby shower with their one-year-old child propped on her hip claiming that she deserved to be a part of the festivities.
I ended up going into labor early, resulting in my twins having to spend the first month of their life in the NICU. I promised Pharaoh that I wouldn’t forgive him if our kids didn’t make it. Luckily for him, they had, but I still left. I wasn’t staying with him knowing that he had a whole child that he’d essentially kept a secret for over a year.
Once I was over Pharaoh and all of the stuff that he had done to me, I started to meet with Khia so that the kids could spend time together, but that was cut short when I damn near had to kill her ass for snatching Si up by his arm. I knew that she wasn’t genuine in wanting our kids to know each other, but I did it for the sake of them. Now, Farrah could come over my house, but my kids werenevergoing to be around Khia again, supervised or not. Also, I did shop for Farrah when he asked me to, with his money of course because Khia would for sure spend the money on herself.
“That’s your karma for being an ain’t shit nigga.”
“I’m knowing. You need bread for Vegas?
“No, Pharaoh. I’m good.” I rolled my eyes because I hated when he tried to do stuff for me.
I’d allowed him to get me a place to stay because I had his children and that was the least that he could do, but I didn’t allow him to spend money on me. His crazy ass was possessive enough.
“Why won’t you let me take care of you, Kehlani? A nigga knows he fucked up, but I learned my lesson. I love y’all and I want my family back.”
“You learned your lesson, huh?” I angled my head to the side waiting for him to respond.
“I swear I have, baby.”
