Page 29 of Stand on That

When we got back from Vegas, Lo didn’t go through with the abortion. My parents were initially pissed, and Lo ended up moving into the projects in a low-income housing unit just to get away from them. Her and Tyriq were off and on, and I had a beautiful two-month-old niece named Jaela.

“Tyriq! I came to get money from him, so I could pay for Jaela’s daycare, and he had some bitch in the house. We got into it, and he hit me. He also took my keys, and he won’t give them to me.”

I knew how my parents felt because despite warning Lo about niggas like Tyriq, she still did everything I didn’t want her to do. She fell for him, forgave him for too much, and endured a lot of BS because of him. Her plans to transfer to a university were over, and she was a stressed-out single mom just trying to make it. As long as I had money my niece wouldn’t want for shit. I could buy Jaela all the cute clothes, shoes, and toys in the world. I could even pay her daycare for the month and fill Lo’s tank up with gas. But as a college student with a young baby that also had to work, her life was hard. And Tyriq being a dumb ass didn’t make it any better.

“Jesus, Lo,” I sighed while absent mindedly running a red light. I didn’t mean to but with all that was going on by the time I realized the light was red it was too late to stop. I sped through it and in no time at all, I heard a siren. My heart fell into my ass and suddenly, I couldn’t hear anything that Lo was saying. It all sounded like a foreign language as I eyed the police car in my rearview mirror. I was driving a BMW with I didn’t know how much drugs and more than $5,000. The sudden urge to throw up hit me while the phone slipped away from my ear. I was fucked. I was more than fucked. I was cooked.

No bond. My eyes were damn near swollen shut from crying. I had been in the county jail for three days and even though Darius hadn’t come looking for me when I left him, I had a lawyer by day two. A lawyer that told me I more than likely didn’t have a bond because the Feds were going to pick the case up from the state due to the amount of drugs that were in my possession. He also said that unless I told the Feds who the drugs belonged to and agreed to cooperate which more than likely meant become an informant my ass was grass.

I was so pissed with myself. Legit angry. Never in my life had I made such a stupid decision and now the course of my life was altered forever. I was ashamed and embarrassed. When Lo and my parents found out I had been charged with drug trafficking everyone assumed that I had Darius’ drugs in my possession. I refused to even say over the recorded line who they belonged to, but I made sure to let them know Darius had nothing to do with it.

I was also certain that everyone thought I was dumb as hell for not telling the police that the drugs belonged to Jared. But that wasn’t how it worked. He didn’t force me to take his money and agree to transport his drugs. He didn’t force me to be distracted and run a red light with an insane amount of meth in the fucking car. And he damn sure didn’t force me to be so money hungry that I didn’t even ask him what the fuck was in the car. When I found out it was meth I almost shit a brick.

When I was nervous or upset, I didn’t have an appetite. Add in the fact that the food they served looked and smelled like dog food, and I went three days without eating. Someone put money on my account and right when I started feeling lightheaded, I got a cup of Ramen noodles and a honeybun from the commissary. A lot of the people in the county jail were either detoxing from drugs or too focused on trying to get out to care about the next person. I knew prison would be a completely different ballgame, however. What really annoyed me was when a woman that was in for trying to smuggle drugs in to her boyfriend that was in prison wanted to act like we were besties. I didn’t catch a charge for a man, and I wasn’t in that muhfucka to make friends. All I did was sleep and cry. I didn’t give a damn about crying and appearing weak because I was so frustrated and pissed that I could probably kill a bitch with my bare hands. I was little, but I had never been pussy.

I couldn’t have visits for the first week. As soon as I was told I could have visitors, the Feds did in fact pick up the case, and I was transported to federal jail. When my parents came to visit me, my mother was crying like somebody died. The visit broke me so bad that I didn’t even want them to come back. The second visit that broke me was from Darius. Seeing him sitting there with red eyes like he had been crying made my stomach sink. I had really fucked up.

“What the fuck happened, Vani?” his eyes were so sad that tears filled mine. I had let so many people down including myself.

Darius knew there was only so much I could say because we were separated by glass and talking to one another over phones.

“Just decided to make some quick money,” I mumbled not even able to make eye contact when I said it.

Darius was silent. Probably baffled because he never knew I was so stupid. Money was one thing I didn’t need. I mean, you could never have too much money, but I wasn’t hurting for it to the point of having to do dumb shit for it.

“I know ‘em?” he finally spoke.

My head was down when I nodded. All I could do was stare at the table I was seated at. It felt like I was dreaming and all I wanted was to wake up.

“Vani.”

The way Darius said my name made a chill creep down my spine. It was assertive and held so much meaning. He was disappointed. He was hurt. Maybe he was even apologetic. Lifting my head, I sniffed and peered at him.

“That nigga is gon’ come claim his own shit.” The way his jaw muscle ticked, the way his nostrils expanded, Darius was pissed. I could hear the subtle threat in his words, and I simply shook my head. Him killing Jared wasn’t going to make my problems go away. I just wanted him to leave the situation alone. I made the mess. Me. No one else. I was responsible for ruining my own life, and I couldn’t be mad with anyone but myself.

“You gon’ walk down three and a half years?” his eyes darted back and forth across my face.

Crazy thing was, I was always afraid it would be him doing time and me having to live without him. This was a plot twist like a muhfucka. “I don’t have a choice.” The lump that formed in my throat made it difficult for me to swallow.

The mere thought of being in prison for more than three years made my knees buckle. Even though I didn’t eat enough to make me anywhere near full, I had the sudden urge to regurgitate everything I’d swallowed in the past few hours. Even with a clean record, it being my first offense, and the possibility of attending a drug rehabilitation program while I was down, the least amount of time the lawyer saw me doing was forty months.

Darius’ eyes closed briefly. “Why the fuck would you do that, Vani? Why?” his orbs bore into me like he really wanted a long, drawn-out explanation.

“Why doesn’t matter, Darius. I made a dumb ass decision, and I have to eat that. No one made me do it. No one. I did it on my own.” I choked over the last word and forced down a sob. I was tired of crying because it wasn’t changing shit.

“Fuck,” he hissed through clenched teeth.

He was so handsome. I looked at the lips I wouldn’t get to kiss and the huge, muscular arms I wouldn’t be wrapped in again, and I began to sob uncontrollably. I didn’t want to. That was the last place I wanted to break down, but I couldn’t contain it. When Darius saw me, his jaw muscles flexed as he looked upward trying not to cry himself. I was over it. I had fucked up so bad, and there wasn’t anything I could do to fix it. At that moment, I didn’t give a damn about Bree or any other woman, but I realized that jealousy and stupidity had caused me to hand Darius over on a silver platter to whatever woman he chose next.

Because why the fuck would he wait on me for three years? I placed the receiver in the cradle and stood up. There wasn’t shit I could do but my time. Nothing on the outside mattered anymore, so with tears streaming down my face, I turned my back on Darius and waited on the officer to take me back to my cell.

Three years later….

Leaning into the back of my car, I removed all the shopping bags I’d placed there. Dymand’s bags had been placed in the back while I put me and Vani’s bags in my trunk. After gathering all ten bags, I walked up to the front door of Bree’s home. The home she had bought on her own with her own hard work but since my daughter lived there, I paid the mortgage every month. Dymand. The blessing I didn’t know I needed. The one thing that kept me from crashing out and losing my mind.

After Vani went to prison, I was out in the streets on demon time. I had a chip on my shoulder the size of a boulder. I caught her cousin Jared and beat his ass so bad he had to get his jaw wired shut, and that didn’t even make me feel better. Because of that dumb ass police threat that Bree made, I didn’t go near her for more than a year after Vani went away. But one night, she caught my dumb, drunk ass out at the club, and she had her way with a nigga. A way that ended up with her pregnant. I damn near got down on my knees and begged her ass to get an abortion knowing that she wouldn’t. I even offered her $25,000 to get an abortion. Shorty wasn’t having it. As much as I didn’t want a kid with her, when Dymand was born and a paternity test proved she was mine, it was a wrap. That little girl had my whole heart and was the reason that I had calmed down so much.

She was the reason I had one more year left of school and one more year in the drug game. Kyle was dominating the field in college, and we were almost certain he would get chosen for the league. He told me that as soon as he signed a contract the position as his manager was solidified, but I wanted to be able to represent him to the fullest. I didn’t want something given to me just so he could put me on his payroll. I wanted to make sure I got him the same opportunities and worked just as hard for him as a manager that didn’t know him would. He also wasn’t the only athlete I wanted to represent.