“Aight, after you soak. If you look like this, I can only imagine what they look like,” Jahlil joked. “You fuck him up?”
“Yeah.”
“Good ‘cause I’m going to do it again,” Jahlil assured. “Come on.”
Emani started toward the house and Jahlil said something she couldn’t make out to Carson. Judging by the tension in their shoulders and the looks on their faces, they were going to handle the business of Malik.
27 /JAHLIL
“You haven’t saidanything since the shower.” Emani’s voice was soft, that’s what he needed right now, softness. Jahlil’s body was stretched out over the lounge chair of the balcony adjacent to his bedroom. One leg hung off, foot planted on the smooth concrete and a hand behind his head.
Her touch followed her voice. Causing him to open his arms and receive her. Emani was lathered in some cocoa butter he kept at all times, because when she met him she called him ashy, his oversized t-shirt, and a pair of basketball shorts. She took her position beside him, offered her leg as a weighted blanket over his waist and spoke again.
“What’s happening in there?”
Jahlil pulled in a deep breath, held it and released it. Until now, he’d been passively breathing but the weight of Emani on him made all those emotions bubble to the surface. “The only thing playing in my mind right now is how it’ll kill me to have them take him from me. From the beginning until now, I can’t see myself being anything other than his protector and he can’t seem to get that through his head, Rose. He’s thirteen and damn near six foot. They don’t see a kid when they look at him, they see a grown ass man. I’m raising him to be everything I wasn’t. Trying to give him some fuckin’ structure because I never had none.
“I had a momma who wasn’t mentally present, self-medicated and left me to be the man of the house and all that was before she even lost her mind for real. I keep that shit away from him. I don’t ever want him to know that terror. That trauma. I’m not going to let him fight like I had to. I can’t do it. I can’t disrespect my momma like that, no matter how she turned out.”
“I hear you. Maybe he needs to hear it to understand. At thirteen, I thought I had all the answers,” Emani laughed bitterly. “I didn’t.”
“At thirteen, we didn’t have no one looking out for us for real. We didn’t have no structure either. Just some ghetto kids running around trying to make something out of nothing,” Jahlil replied.
Emani looked up at the stars that hung in the Los Oceania fall sky. “That’s crazy how we were ten blocks away from each other, only to meet at freshmen orientation. I’ll never forget that day. You looked so scared. Like if college didn’t shake the way it was supposed to…”
“I was going to be back on the streets with Andrew. They were going to take him from me. I was scared as fuck. And I still have some residuals from that. Going back to the streets now is not in the picture but failing him – failing Sanaa. I can’t do it.”
“You won’t,” Emani soothed. “One thing I know is that you’re a damn good father. Like you were made for it. Andrew will get it and I’m sure Sanaa knows it.”
“Be prepared, she’s going to lose her mind when she sees you in the morning. Your mugshot had her chain smoking markers. The red one to be exact,” Jahlil said with a scoff of laughter. “She acts like my mother. On those good days. She cusses too. That’s Aunt Violet’s fault.”
“She’s a good cusser?”
“Too good to be four,” Jahlil muttered. “I’m going to start washing her mouth out with soap.”
Emani laughed softly. “No you’re not. You don’t even yell at her, I bet.”
“Can’t do it. It’ll hurt me too bad. I put her in timeout once and I thought I was going to have a panic attack.”
Emani covered her face and laughed before wincing, forgetting about the bruise on the side of her face. Jahlil moved her hand and studied it. His jaw tightening. “I’m fine. Don’t dwell too much on it. What do you need?”
“This right here.” Jahlil held her tighter and softly kissed her face. “This is all I need. Sorry I wasn’t there.”
“Don’t apologize for being a father,” Emani spoke. “I expect nothing else. If you wouldn’t have left, I’d be looking at you differently. You’re a father first and I understand that. If it were the other way around, I’d want you to understand that too.”
“You ever considered that? Being a mother?”
Emani shook her head. “Not with any of them and I made sure it wouldn’t happen. With you? Not a question.”
Jahlil hummed. “What about your career?”
Emani sighed, closed her eyes and scoffed. “This scuffle is going to end my contract. I know it. I was already behind on my album. It was supposed to be turned in a year ago but fighting with that nigga every day was fucking my head up. So this will officially be three labels in seven years. I don’t know if my career is going to be able to bounce back from that. So I don’t know. What I know is that I’ve given up a little piece of myself every year and I don’t want to do that anymore.”
“I won’t have you give up your dream to sit in the house and carry my kids. I’m not doing that to you. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve only wanted a family with you. It hasn’t panned out that way but it’s still my end goal. I won’t have you sacrifice yourself for me. You did that before and I understand that’s how you love. But you should never love someone who won’t pour back into you. I’m not going to suck the life from you. I’m going to pour into you. I might be seven years late but I’m here and the bullshit is over.”
Emani snuggled into him. “You still love me?”
“I never stopped, Rose. My love for you was what drove me home.”
