I bit into my burger to keep from having to give my mom an answer right away. I loved my mother, and I damn sure wasn’t too good for her apartment, but I no longer had a room there. I’d either have to sleep on the couch or in Jabar’s bed, and he would have to sleep on the couch. I kind of wanted to be at home.As long as I could get to the bathroom on my own, I didn’t need anyone at the house with me twenty-four seven. If I had food and beverages within reach that would be even better. As long as the pain remained the way that it was, I would spend most of my days asleep anyway. Pain was affecting everything from my appetite to my temperament.
“It depends on how I feel when I’m released. I don’t think I’ll need a babysitter.”
“I won’t be comfortable with you being there by yourself.”
“I can check on him,” Jabar offered.
“I can go by and check on him too.”
Wanda still lived at home, but she was hardly ever there. She told our mother she was a bartender, but I knew she was a stripper. She was an adult and could do what she wanted, so there wasn’t shit I could say. She kept saying she was going to get her own place, but Wanda loved to shop and travel too much. During a good weekend, I knew for a fact, Wanda would make no less than $3,000 and she would be broke by Wednesday. A brand-new Malibu took a nice portion of her money each month, and Wanda traveled out of state or the country at least once a month.
“Between them and one of my homegirls, I’ll be fine at home,” I assured my mother.
Homegirl was code for any female that I was fucking. I had been single for three years. Leighton was the last person I’d been in a relationship with. I hadn’t met the woman since her that made me want to commit. My relationship with Leighton had been dope, but we were headed in two different directions. She was ready to leave the hood behind and chase her dreams, and I was a nigga from the trenches that wanted to stay complacent.
The hood and the streets were what I knew. It was where I was comfortable. It didn’t make sense to her. I was sure it didn’t make sense to a lot of people. Up until I got shot, it didn’t matterwhat anyone else thought. My connection to the hood ran deep. Even before getting shot, I knew better than anybody that the hood could and would spit in your face if it got the chance to do so. Desperation and poverty drove niggas to do unthinkable things. Though it wasn’t foreign to me, I was having a hard time deciding if I wanted to keep my shop in the same area and hire security or flee from the hood like everyone else that made it did.
“Buddy that shot you is still alive. They have him at another hospital. Buddy that you shot is dead,” Jabar reported. “The one that died was twenty. The one that made it is seventeen.”
It was me or him, so I didn’t care that he was dead. That was simply the way the cookie crumbled. “You know who they are?” I asked.
“Two niggas from the west side.”
I was from the south side of Diamond Cove. For some reason, finding out they weren’t one of us made me feel a sense of relief. Relief that it wasn’t anyone from the same hood as me. Being happy was overzealous as fuck. Just because my hood hadn’t turned on me yet didn’t mean that it wouldn’t. I felt like I’d be a fool to sit around and wait for it to happen.
LEIGHTON
I sat at my desk with my hands clasped together. My nose was resting against my hands, and my right leg was bouncing anxiously.
“You have to do it, Leighton. I feel like this is a sign. You need help with Jaxon, anyway. While you’re working on the show, Jaxon can spend time with your family.”
Though I was born and raised in Diamond Cove, three years before, I had moved to Charlotte, North Carolina for an intern opportunity. Fashion had been my entire life for as long as I could remember. I didn’t want to play games, read, or watch TV when I was younger. All I wanted to do as a child was dress my dolls. I got best dressed almost every year from middle school to high school. It wasn’t because what I wore was always expensive. My ass was from the hood. Majority of the clothes I rocked came from Marshall’s, Target, Rainbow, Ross, and TJ Maxx. The way I could mix and match pieces and my ability to put outfits together was chef’s kiss. I did the weird shit. The innovative and bold shit. And it worked every time. I didn’t wear clothes. Istyledthem.
I was an intern for one year. During that time, I paid close attention to everything around me. Most days, I wasnothing more than a glorified assistant, but it worked out in my favor. The knowledge was priceless, and I was able to go to industry events, fashion shows, and workshops. The things I learned combined with the connections I made were worth every exhausting day. After one year of interning, I started working on my own brand.
It wasn’t easy or cheap but while I was an intern, I met a rich ass nigga that didn’t hesitate to invest in my dreams. I had never dated a wealthy man, and Markell came along and began spoiling the hell out of me. When he gave me his black card to go shopping for fabric, I almost shit a brick. Not to mention, I met him at an industry event, so he had connections as well. Once I was no longer an intern, I paid my bills by doing receptionist work. The key was to stay plugged into the industry, so I used networking to my advantage and got a job to do admin work for a modeling agency.
When I wasn’t sketching, I was either sewing, or talking to one of the seamstresses that I worked with. The last few years had been challenging. Thank God, I had a few celebrity clients that paid me to style them because being a paid intern, and even doing admin work, wasn’t making me rich. In fact, until I met Markell, I was living check to check. There were nights I was so tired my eyes burned. I would cry out of frustration all while tears dripped onto the very paper I was drawing on. Working to pay bills and chasing my dreams in the hours that were left of the day had me sleep deprived and feeling like I was tripping. Who was I to become a famous fashion designer?
When Markell stepped in and began doing things like paying my rent, buying me fabrics, taking me to fashion week and actually introducing me to the designers, I felt like God heard my cries and answered my prayers. Things were finally starting to look up. So, imagine my surprise when I took a pregnancy test, and it was positive. My periods had been light for the past fewyears, so when I would spot for two or three days, I chalked it up to stress making my cycle even lighter than usual.
When my breasts got noticeably bigger, and my stomach turned into a little pudge, I thought I was tripping. For shits and giggles, I took a pregnancy test, and it was positive. A child was what I didn’t need. Markell was a great man, and an amazing provider, but he was super busy, and so was I. A baby didn’t fit into that equation. With a heavy heart, I made an appointment to terminate the pregnancy. When I heard my baby’s heartbeat, I had to close my eyes and pray to God that I wouldn’t burn in hell for taking a life. But when the tech cleared her throat, I opened them. Shorty looked me dead in the face and told me I was too far along to get an abortion. It felt like I was having an out of body experience.
My gaze drifted toward the monitor, and when I saw a fully formed fetus with fingers and shit, my eyes almost popped out of my head. I wasn’t sure if I was experiencing a cruel joke or the ultimate blessing. It didn’t take long for me to figure the answer out. In my friend, Gwen’s car, I called Markell and told him everything. The silence on his end made my heart drop. When he finally spoke, his exact words were, “Leigh, you can’t have a baby by me. I’m married, and if my wife finds out and leaves me, the amount of spousal support I’ll have to pay monthly would be astronomical.”
Stunned was an understatement. I was so shocked and overstimulated from the days’ events, I didn’t even remember hanging up on him. Married? He lived forty-five minutes away from me. Add in the fact that we were both busy, and he traveled a lot for work, we only saw one another maybe twice a week, but that was cool. When we ended up at the same events, he was always alone. The stigma of sleeping my way to the top wasn’t one that I wanted attached to my name, so I never played him close or became territorial at events. We’d barely speak to oneanother at some of them, but would end the night sweating, moaning, and cumming.
In the year that we’d been dealing with one another, we went on two three-day trips, and we’d gone on a handful of dinner dates. Markell was forty, handsome, muscular, and successful. He didn’t have children and appeared single. He was an amazing catch, and I wasn’t dumb enough to think he didn’t have a roster. But a wife?! That blew me. It blew me real bad. What baffled me even more was him telling me that I couldn’t have the baby when I was clearly told at the abortion clinic that I was too far along to terminate the pregnancy.
The range of emotions that I went through in a span of twenty-four hours was diabolical. I went from shocked, to pissed, to devastated, back to angry. Markell called me over and over again, but I refused to answer. There really wasn’t anything to discuss. I was already busting my ass to make it in the fashion industry. Without his financial assistance, I was going to be right back in the grind all day cry and dream all night phase of life. And too soon, I’d have another human to take care of. Shit wasn’t fair. I could pretend that Markell didn’t exist and struggle alone, or I could take him to court and give no fucks if his wife found out about his outside child.
Thank God, fatigue was the only symptom that plagued me during the pregnancy because I had to go hard the entire nine months. I took six weeks off then got right back to it. My son, Jaxon was three months old, and my assistant, Ashley had turned into my nanny as well as my assistant. I had been offered the opportunity to do a fashion show in my hometown of Diamond Cove, and I was shitting bricks.
“You’re right. It’s intimidating, but this is what I’ve worked so hard for, right? I’m going to post on my social media pages and see if I can get some sponsors. If I have to step out on faith and use my savings I will, but I don’t want it to come to that.”I was terrified but excited at the same time. This was a chance to really show people my work rather than just posting pieces on social media or getting fifteen to twenty sales a week via my website.
“I’m so excited for you,” Ashley squealed. “You work so hard, Leighton. Your pieces are fire, and people are going to love them. I’m already prepared to put in extra hours. Whatever you need I got you. I’ll even come to Diamond Cove one or two days a week to be hands on.”
I had to stand up ,walk across the room, and give her a hug because I appreciated her so much. Any industry could be cutthroat, but the fashion industry could be something else. When I was just an intern it was easier to keep my head down and avoid backstabbing and fuck shit.
