“Not fast enough. Shit, I have to go to work and need to cook. It’s three days of dishes in this damn sink.”
“Then Bobbi needs to wash them. I’ve been over Aria's house all weekend. I haven’t stepped foot in the kitchen.”
“Well, you about to step foot in this muthafucka today,” Carla snapped.
Knowing that she wasn’t going to win the fight, Tyler slipped on her pajama pants and headed upstairs. Carla was sitting at the kitchen table with a cigarette hanging from her mouth and scrolling on her phone. She glanced up at Tyler, twisted her lips, and then focused back on her phone. Tyler turned to the sink full of dishes and frowned. Instead of moving the dishes out of the sink to thaw her food, Carla set the frozen chicken right in a pot full of nasty water and old rice.
“I can’t wait until you turn 18.” Carla coughed, pulling from the cigarette. “You can go stay with Aria or the lil gay boy forever.”
“I don’t have to wait for 18, I can go now,” Tyler snapped back, bucking her eyes in the process.
“Now why would I mess up my money because you ready to run the streets like ya mama? Keep on acting hot in the ass, you’re going to get into some shit you can’t handle.”
“Can you not?”
“Can you not go to bed with a sink full of dishes? Got my kitchen smelling like sour milk,” Carla fussed, blowing smoke in her niece's direction. “I took you in when I should have left you in that foster home. Ya daddy didn’t even want you. Shit, you need to be thanking me. When I say jump, your only words need to be how high.”
“You wish,” Tyler mumbled, snatching the chicken out of the sink and tossing it on the counter.
“And when do you get another YouTube check?” Carla followed up.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you need to find out. I have things to do.”
“How are you making plans with my money?” Tyler frowned at her.
“'Cause it’s in my name,” Carla snapped. “That’s how. You’re sixteen and you can’t do shit without my permission, including collect money for them lil singing videos.”
Instead of responding, Tyler turned back around, almost biting a hole in her lip. She hated that she had to go through Carla to cash her checks, but YouTube wouldn’t put them in her name because she was under the age of eighteen. The checks weren’t much, but Carla always took the majority, leaving Tyler with no more than a hundred dollars. It was shit like this that made Tyler want to stop singing, but she didn’t do it for the money. She sang because it made her feel whole.
“Call them and see what’s the holdup,” Carla continued. “And you might need to start posting more videos. Shit, that money comes in handy.”
Again, Tyler chose not to respond. It only took her twenty minutes to wash the dishes, bleach the sink, and wipe down the counters. Tyler knew that once her aunt was done cooking, she’d have to do it all over again because Carla damn sure wasn’t going to lift a finger to clean shit when she had Cinderella sleeping in the basement. Drying her hands, Tyler left the kitchen without a word.
Plopping down on her bed, Tyler pulled out her phone to check the views on her video. Like always, she had easily reached a few thousand within the first hour of posting. Tyler didn’t know where singing would take her, but she hoped like hell it would get her far the fuck away from her aunt.
“Ty, you busy?” Bobbi ambled down the basement stairs.
“No,” Tyler answered, looking up from her phone. “What’s up?”
“Girl, you need to open up a window, it smells like basement down here.”
“Probably because it’s a stankin’ ass basement.”
“Anyway, girllllll, I went to a party last night and guess who was asking about you!”
“Who?” Tyler asked uninterested.
“Dex.”
“Who?” She squinted, not recalling the name.
“Bitch, Dex! The guy from the club a few weeks back. He said he's been trying to call you, but you’ve been ignoring him,and I know damn well you ain’t ignoring that man, unless your phone is off.”
“My phone isn’t off, I just don’t feel like talking to him,” Tyler replied.
“Are you crazy?” Bobbi fell on Tyler’s bed. “He is famous, got plenty of money, and can get you signed! Why would you dodge a man who can change your life?”
