“If only you knew.” She scoffs.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just let her go, please?”
“Not until I get the answers that I want.”
“Well at least let her go handle her responsibility.”
“How did you know that I had her?”
“Priest called. Said you flew out of there like a bat out of hell, and he was worried because he knew you two had a toxic relationship at the end. He said that she came in there looking like hell was on her heels, and he wasn’t sure what you were about to do, but he didn’t want you to get in any more trouble.”
I sigh, pulling my hand over the top of my head. “And of course, he knew that if I didn’t answer anyone else’s call, I would answer yours and Ma’s.”
“Exactly.”
I sigh again and glance over my shoulder where Charisma is staring out of the windows.
“What’s these responsibilities?”
“She has a kid, Shon.”
“Damn. I didn’t know. Does it belong to that nigga she claims to be her man now?”
“Pssh. He wishes. Old lame ass probably couldn’t produce a kid if he wanted to.”
“Then who is the baby’s daddy?”
“You.”
“Why the fuck didn’t y’all tell me?”
“You sent direct deposit funds, not a contact number. Ma and I spent every dime on your baby because we knew that’s what you would have wanted.”
“You should’ve told me.”
“You weren’t here. Besides, she asked us not to. It wasn’t easy, but I respected her decision to tell you herself, and then we knew you were on the run. Knowing you had a kid would’ve made it hard to stay away, hard for us to protect you . . . and him.”
“Five damn years, Chrissy?”
“You’re the one who stayed away that long. You made this mistake, not her.”
“Fuck!”
I turn around from the window where it’s growing darker outside by the minute, and I see Chrishon staring at me. I know that he hates when I call him that name. He always did from the minute he adopted the name Chaos, but I like to remind him that I knew him before the pain. There’s always a secret prayer in my heart that calls out to the boy I once knew.
The look of rage on his face scares me and erases every memory of the boy that I’ve been searching for. It even eliminates the man that I knew him to become.
Chaos stalks toward me and asks, “Is it true?”
I frown as I toy with the cross at my neck. “Is what true?”
I have no idea what he’s talking about or who he took that call from, because he walked away from me while he took the call.
“When I ask you this question, I suggest ya li’l ass don’t lie to me unless you want me to murda ya ass. I’m not fucking playing, Charisma. I’ll do that shit in the blink of an eye,” he states, pulling his gun from the back waistband of his jeans.
My heart thuds in my chest because he has never pulled a gun on me. I wonder if I even know this man anymore. A lot can change in five years, and he has changed. Whatever caused him to run away in the first place seems to have changed him into someone I no longer recognize.
