Chapter 18

Stacy

Something in my gut was telling me not to go through with this plan. I just had a bad feeling that something was going to go wrong and it did. As I was sitting there on the passenger side of the van, my mind kept on telling me to call my father and call the whole thing off, but I didn’t, and now I was really regretting it. How the shit went down, it was never supposed to happen like that, and the way my father just blew Kailay off and left her there had really pissed me off.

I only agreed to help him with it because he guaranteed that no one was going to get hurt. He lied to me, and the bad thing about it was he acted as if he didn’t give a fuck whether the child lived or died. I knew my father well, and gave him a serious side eye, because I knew for a fact he didn’t care one way or the other. That child was actually his grandchild, and he didn’t care, which led me to believe that if he and I ever got into it one day, he wouldn’t give a fuck about my son either.

I was really starting to hate everything about this. I couldn’t see it before, but I was a pawn in this game. My father really didn’t care about me. He just wanted to get back at Mimi any way that he could, and it didn’t matter what he had to do. I couldn’t see it before, but I actually think this man used me this whole time. When my mother left him after finding out about Mimi and her mother, Marie, he didn’t even try to fight for us. It was as if he was ready to leave. I really don’t know why he’s basically blaming Mimi for losing his family when he didn’t want them in the first place. He knew from the beginning that he and my mother had a lot of problems, since before his infidelity. I got this funny feeling that he wasn’t the only one wanting to see Mimi fall. I believed he was working with somebody else besides me and I was going to find out whom.

“Stacy,” he said, calling my name.

“Yeah, Daddy,” I replied.

“What’s up with you? You haven’t been yourself lately,” he said, looking me straight in the eye.

“Ain’t nothing wrong. I’m fine,” I said. “What’s up though?”

“I’ma need you to keep an eye on him. I have to go handle a few things. I’ll see you all in the morning,” he said, grabbing his keys and cell from the table.

“Where are you going?” I asked, popping up out of my seat.

“You don’t need to know all of that. I told you that I’ll be back in the morning. Just keep an eye on him,” he replied, pushing past me. I wanted to say something else, but I knew better. I was about to let him know that I kind of knew what was going on, but I decided to leave him clueless, like he thought he was doing to me.

I waited until he was gone before I went to check on Kaylin. I knew what I said to him earlier, but the truth of the matter was I still loved this man. I just wasn’t trying to take the blame for all of this, because he was as much to blame for this as I was, which was why I said what I had said to him. I knew he probably thought that I didn’t have a conscience at all, but I did, and it was starting to get the best of me.

When I walked into the room, he was sitting there staring at the wall. I wanted to walk over to him and give him a hug and kiss, but I knew I couldn’t. Instead, I stood there staring at him. I wanted to say something, anything, but the words were stuck in my throat. Reluctantly, I turned around and started walking out the door, but I stopped when I heard the sound of his voice.

“Where are my kids, Stacy?” he asked, which froze my steps. I just stood there, with my heart feeling as if it were going to hop out of my chest at any minute. The pain in his voice was unbearable, and it was evident that he was hurting inside as well.

“Is it really worth it?” he asked as his voice boomed through the room. I turned around to find him now staring at me. For a minute, I could’ve sworn that I saw tears well up in his eyes, but he didn’t let them fall. “All of this that you’re putting me and my kids through. Is it worth it? I mean, you’re basically leaving all of these kids without a parent, and you can’t tell me the shit sitting right with you!” I opened my mouth to say something but immediately closed it when no words would come out.

“I hope you know that nothing good will come out of this. Yes, that man may be your father, but he has something else up his sleeve. I just hope and pray that you see it before it’s too late,” he said.

He looked over to me, waiting on a reply, but I couldn’t say a word. How was I going to tell him, “Yeah, I fucked you over, and now I think my father has something else up his sleeve. He may even have someone else working with him, too.” I just couldn’t bring myself to say that. Not only would that make me look like a fool, but it would also make me mad that I fell for another nigga’s lies.

“What happened to you? When I first met you, you wasn’t this evil and vindictive. You was a little feisty, but to be lowdown and dirty wasn’t you,” he said, which pushed my buttons.

“You know what happened to me? My sister did. I got tired of seeing her with the things that I wanted, but I knew I couldn’t have. She was always happy, while I wasn’t. She could have anything that she wanted, when I couldn’t even get the things that I needed. But, the straw that broke the camel’s back was when she took my father from me. That sent me over the edge, and I never got over it,” I yelled, looking over to him.

He looked confused as he tried to connect the dots, but he couldn’t. “Next time, do some research before you go sticking your dick somewhere,” I said and stormed out of the room.

I knew I sounded bitter, but I was young when my mother put my father out. We were forced to cut all ties with him and that had hurt me dearly, because I was a daddy’s girl. I needed my father for any- and everything. No matter what reason it was, he came running. That all ended when my mother found out about my father’s illegitimate child. She threw him out, and we didn’t see him again until three years later. By then, I was hell-bent on finding that child, and I wanted to cause her the same kind of hurt and pain she had caused me.

At first, things were going smooth. I had succeeded. That was, until she met Kaylin. Dude was like her God. Whenever she was feeling down or hurt, he was there to take away all of her pain. He gave her any- and everything that she wanted and moved her up out of the hood. That’s when I hatched a plan to go after him. I was more than sure that if I fucked him, she’d be heartbroken and she’d feel how I felt when I lost my father. So, I fucked him and, boy, was his dick good. When she found out she was indeed heartbroken and she left him, but a few months later, she ended up taking him back. I was fucked up because that wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did, and I was now feeling some type of way, because I had fallen in love with him and the lifestyle that he had given me. So I said fuck the plan. I was going after the man, but here I was years later, and I still didn’t have him.

As I sat there thinking about all of the things that I’d been through and what I’d put Mimi through, I couldn’t help but to break down. She was dead, and yet I still couldn’t have Kaylin. I did everything in my power to break them up, and he still didn’t want me. I realized that it didn’t matter what I did. If he didn’t want me, I couldn’t make it happen. It took me a while, but I finally got the hint. Now I was stuck here thinking about what I was supposed to do next.