“It went good. He helped me see shit more clear. I know exactly what I gotta do. And if I made you feel like I wasn’t handling shit right with Mallory last night, I apologize. You don’t have to worry about her being a problem again, or her having that baby.” Kaseem said as if he was sure of that. I wanted to ask questions, but I didn’t want to upset myself with the answer. Hopefully he’d kill the bitch like I requested.Last night, I purposely didn’t ask him any questions about that baby, or what he planned to do with the delusional bitch who was supposedly carrying it. The thought of it hurt me too much to want to sit around and talk about it.
“I appreciate you for making that clear.” I said and he smacked my ass before heading out the room and letting me get ready. He didn’t even know, he almost got some head just now. I didn’t want to make myself late though. I smiled to myself at the effort my husband was putting in.
Close to and hour and a half later, I went into the office where Kaseem was going over numbers and I told my man I’d be back later. He grabbed my phone and started pressing buttons before I could get to the door to leave. I looked at my phone when he gave it back, and saw that he’d shared our locations.This made me instantly frown my face up. He just would never change. This man wanted to be in complete control of my life. I couldn’t breathe without asking this nigga for permission first, and I wasn’t with all of that.
“Don’t start, you know last time you left by yourself, I damn near had to kill muthafuckas behind playing with you. If I wouldn’t have followed you, that situation could have turned out bad. So yeah, we gone share locations. Indefinitely. You are sneaky Tattiana and I need to know where you are at all times.” He said, seriously.
“Really? I thought we were past that. You the one who needs a tracker on yo ass, but okay, I gotta go.” I was so annoyed with this man wanting to be my father.
He grabbed my arm and pulled me into him. He hugged me tight while kissing my ear, then my neck, and just like that, I forgot what the hell I was just mad about.
When he finally let me go, I had my driver take me to the restaurant.
The whole ride there, my stomach was in knots while I went over what I would say in my head. All this time I’d wanted to come clean to my girls. All this time I wanted to be able to lean on somebody, somebody who’d known me since before I ever lost my innocence. But I knew I couldn’t risk exposing it, not with my freedom hanging over that secret. My aunt would have done anything to keep my daughter, so I never doubted that she would have sent me to prison for the rest of my life, on a lie. She had evidence that would look like otherwise.
Now that it was already out on the table with Kaseem and Zuri both, I felt like I owed it to River and Nyla to hear it from me before it got out some other way. If I knew my husband like I thought I did, he was about to shake shit up and I was gonna bring my daughter home with us soon. So I needed them to know before things went any further.
We all pulled up to Xoxo restaurant around the same time. It was a lavish little spot downtown, pink everything, inside out, from the walls to the booths to the light fixtures, everything soft and luxury and expensive looking. This was the place that we would always have brunch, or dinner nights. This was one of our favorite spots. So it felt good to be here with them again.
All three of us walked in looking good as hell. When it came to stepping out, we always looked our best, even if the fit was simple. We all were so happy to see one another, we hugged at the entrance for what seemed like forever. This was the first time in life that we didn’t hang out damn near everyday, so it was definitely an adjustment.
We got greeted by the host and waited to be seated.
“You got me nervous as hell and shaking like a damn stripper,” Nyla said while we stood there waiting. “What’s going on?”
“That’s what the hell I’m saying,” River added. “The suspense is killing me. I didn’t even get any sleep last night. I kept thinking about what it was that you needed to tell us.”
We got seated, and I ordered a drink as soon as the waitress walked up. Hell, I was needing something to loosen myself up before I said a word. Both my girls were sitting there watching me, waiting with nervous energy bouncing between the three of us at that table.
“What’s going on in that house, Tattiana?” River said first, leaning forward. “You know if it’s all bad, you ain’t gotta stay with that nigga. As powerful as they may be, can’t nobody force you to be there. Fuck them if that’s not what you want. I know you act like you love him and all, but you don’t gotta fake for us, especially not after what happened last night. We can beat his ass and get you the fuck up out of there if that’s what this is. I knew you were moving too fast with him from the jump. And I knew that nigga was crazy the way he knocked Savion’s teeth out and he ain’t even know you like that yet.” River spat. Her ass was going in and not even waiting for me to tell her my secret. She wanted me to leave my nigga. Was the bitch crazy?
“Wait, not too much on my husband,” I snapped, cutting her off. “I’m not coming up off him for NOTHING. That ain’t what this is about. You looking for a reason to have a problem with my man, and you are so wrong. He’s actually a good guy. He just has a different way of doing things. Like I’ve said before, any nigga that allows another man to knock their teeth out is a damn fool and deserved that shit. Fuck Savion, and his weak ass teeth,”
“Wait, what happened last night? Damn, I’m just in the blind and y’all keeping secrets.” Nyla asked, eyes wide. “And like Tatti said, not too much on my brother-in-law either. Hell, I need they marriage to work. It’s giving me hope for me and my man Namier.”
Both me and River looked at her like she’d lost her damn mind.
“Okay, it’s too much going on here,” River said, throwing her hands up. “Now Nyla calling this nigga her man after he was just… you know what, never mind. Whatever them niggas doing to y’all, I don’t want no parts of it. They are making y’all green as hell, and I don’t like that. Is it a spell or what? Cause I know damn well, bitches ain’t willingly letting niggas bump their heads.
That made me think about Zaire for a second, how River would probably fall clean out her chair if she ever laid eyes on him, how laid back and fine he was, exactly her type if I was being honest. But I didn’t have room in my head to be making love connections right now. I just knew that if and when they met, River’s ass would be singing a whole other tune.
I knew her better than anybody.
“Okay,” I said, taking a breath, wrapping both hands around my glass. “I’ve been keeping a secret from you both for almost eightyears and now, I know that I need to come clean and lay it all out for y’all.”
The table went quiet. I took a sip of my drink for some courage before I continued.
“As much as I wanted to tell y’all for years and years,” I continued, my voice already starting to shake, “as much as I had to physically stop myself from letting you both in more times than I can count, I couldn’t. Because my life and my freedom was threatened the whole time. Know, that’s the only reason why I’d ever keep a secret that big from either of you. This has been the hardest thing I’ve ever been through in my life, and not being able to tell either one of you has honestly been almost just as hard as living through it.”
I felt my eyes filling up before I could stop it.
Both of them leaned in closer, concern all over their faces, waiting on whatever was coming next.
So I ran it down for them. Start to finish. The whole story from the time I stepped foot into my aunt house that summer. And everything that happened after.
“Wait,” River said, her face changing, tears already sliding down. “So Nariyah’s your daughter and you were pregnant when you stayed down there for that school year? I knew that little girl looked like you way too much for it to be a coincidence, I always said that. Oh my God, Tatti.” She reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “You should’ve found a way to tell us. We wouldn’t have ratted you out, wouldn’t have made none of it worse. We could’ve been your support system this whole time and found a solution a long time ago.”
“Yes,” I said, wiping under my eyes. “She’s my daughter. She doesn’t even know it though. I named her after the two of you. Y’all were the best things that ever happened to me and I wanted my baby to be a reminder of that. I put your names together, tried to find the closest thing that made sense and sounded pretty to me. That’s the one thing my aunt actually let me do. She allowed me to name her.”
