Morgan laughed. “That’s because he fucks with GMB. He better be breaking bread. Them niggas over there getting money,” Mya shrugged. “Shit, I don’t care who the nigga run with, as long as he breaking me off something, I’m cool.” When she said that my thoughts drifted to Rylo.
“Rylo been good to me lately too, we aint had no issues in a long ass time and I’m happy about that shit,” I said finally.
“I still think you faking when it comes to that pretty boy ass nigga, you know you love a thug.”
“Nah, I love him. I really do. But sometimes… I do feel like I’m missing something.”
Mya didn’t miss a beat. “Yeah. A baby.” She said and I groaned loudly.
“Here you go.”
Morgan smacked her lips hard. “Bitch, Yah-Yah doesnotneed no baby with his cheating, pretty boy, scamming ass.”
“Well, I’m ready for a niece or fucking nephew, her, or Yatta ’s ass aint gave me nothing yet. They gotta have one first, shit I’m the youngest.” Mya chuckled.
I laughed it off, but my chest tightened as memories started lining up in my head, Rylo getting caught up in hotel rooms with bitches, his phones flipped face down whenever im at his crib, or bitches hitting my line saying they in a relationship with my man. So many explanations that never fully added up. And I chose peace over confrontation. Love over logic was the excuses I gave myself for staying with his ass.
As I settled into Miss Sue's chair, letting her take my hands and start filing down my previous set. The three of us kept talking, laughing, cracking jokes about men, relationships, and everything else. The familiar rhythm of the salon wrapped around me, the gossip, the laughter, the occasional "Bihhhhh!" punctuating someone's story. This was the most normal part of my week, and it was the part I enjoyed the most.
* * *
Two days later
I pulled up to the crib in my bmw, sitting in the whip for a minute before I cut the engine. No matter how long I stayed away, coming back to my family house always hit different for me.
Once I finally cut the engine off I continued to sit there with my keys still in my hand. My mama’s voice crept into my head, followed by my daddy’s laugh, then the gunshots that erased both of them from our lives in the same night. My Mama killed my Daddy. Then she killed herself.
I was twelve years old, I was old enough to understand death but too young to understand why love could turn into something so ugly. Yatta was fifteen and became a man overnight. Mya was eight and never really got to be a kid again after that. That loss didn’t just hurt us, but more so it rewired us.
Auntie Mazi stepped in after that. She was my Daddy’s sister. She was street-smart, sharp-tongued, and tired as hell, but she raised us the best way she knew how. Never once did she complain, even when nightmares had Mya waking up screaming every night for a year straight.
Then the lupus that had been dormant in her body for years came back with a vengeance. It happened when Yatta was seventeen. Within six months, Auntie Mazi was too sick to work, too sick to even get out of bed some days. Yatta dropped out of school, since he was already connected with the GD’s on 63rd, they put him on to hustling. he started selling dime bags of weed, then he graduated from selling dimes and slowly started moving weight, he did anything to keep food on the table and the state from taking me and Mya.
By the time Yatta turned eighteen and could legally become our guardian, Auntie Mazi was in hospice. She died a week after the papers went through, like she had been holding on just long enough to make sure we would be okay.
Yatta hustled so hard that we were able to keep our parents’ house even after auntie Mazi died. He fixed it up piece by piece. We had a new roof, new floors, and news appliance. Sometimes I feel like I could still hear my mama’s voice, and I knew I was tripping, but that’s one of the reasons why I didn’t like being home sometimes, because I knew the bones of this house still carried ghosts.
I grabbed my bag and went inside. Entering the crib, the house smelled like food and money. Which was a familiar scent to me since that’s all that flowed through here.
My big brother Yatarius better known as Yatta, sat at the kitchen table, his shoulders broad, and head down, and he was counting a stack of money. He had the stacks laid out neatly, organized, and deliberate. He didn’t look up at first.
“Sit down,” he stated calmly. I dropped my purse on the chair and took a seat across from him.
“Damn, can I at least say hi first?” He finally looked up, eyes sharp behind his black rimmed glasses.
“You alive. That’s the hi.” I laughed softly.
“You so fucking dramatic.”
“I’m serious,” he said, sliding a stack to the side. “You been moving reckless.”
I leaned back in the chair, crossing my arms. “Here we go.”
“Yah-Yah, don’t disrespect me,” He snapped in a firm voice. “I see everything. I hear shit. And I don’t like the way you moving.”
“I’m fine, Yatta” I said. “You worry too much.”
“I worry ‘cause I’m supposed to,” he snapped. “You out here dealing with that bitch ass nigga Rylo, running around doing whatever, thinking shit is sweet out here.”