Three months had passed since I last stepped foot into my mother's house. The night I found out about her visiting John, I moved out. I waited until she went to Ohio the next morning and cleared out my room. Benny said it was okay for me to stay with her until I found my own place. I didn't have a job. After getting fired for calling off the night of Benny’s party, I’d been in too much of a funk to go out and get another job. So Benny put me on with selling some X Pills to put a little money in my pocket. The pay was good and I didn't have to do much. All I did was sit at a back booth in the club and wait for people to approach me. I didn't have to talk because everyone knew when they sat down across from me that it was twenty-five a pill and fifty after midnight, so no words had to be exchanged.
In my eyes, my life was starting to improve until one day I saw the For Sale sign in my mom's front yard. It must have hurt her to see me everyday and to have me look at her as if she was a complete stranger. I couldn't blame her if she wanted to move somewhere other than next door.
"You moving, Ms. Parker?" I heard Benny ask my mom one day as she stood on the porch puffing on a cigarette.
"Yeah, baby, I gotta go."
"If you need help, let me know," Benny said.
“Thanks, but I'm moving back home."
I went over to the door so I could hear a little better. I could see both Benny and my mother, but they couldn’t see me.
"For what?" Benny asked. "I thought Hayden said wasn't nothing in Ohio but a bunch of prisons?"
"I don’t got nobody here," she said. "All my friends are in Ohio."
"That ain't true, Ms. Parker. You got Hayden here," Benny said, trying to lift my mom's spirit.
My mom shook her head. "Hayden is grown. She has her own life to live." With that said, my mom turned and walked back into the house.
I had to admit that I was gon' miss my mom, but she had a lot of demons to deal with, John being one of 'em. So the only advice I had for her was…”Do you.” Because I was certainly going to do me.
I had to get use to my mom being gone. Although we hadn’t been on speaking terms before she sold the house and moved, I missed seeing her every day. At least with her being next door, I knew she was all right. I felt alone in Kansas since mom had left. I had even thought about moving back home too, but I changed my mind. I just couldn’t bring myself to deal with my mom after betraying me again over that pedophile and plus, I’d made an agreement with the judge that I wouldn’t go back to Ohio. I had Benny and the rest of the girls if I needed someone to lend an ear or a helping hand, but it wasn't the same as having my mom around for those things.
It was crazy, because every time I started missing my mom, I would get drunker than a punk. My life was heading nowhere and fast. I was now not only selling X pills, but I let Sticky talk me into dancing to make extra money to get my own place. Benny was cool to live with, but lately I'd been catching her staring at me in a manner that made me feel uncomfortable.
She had lust in her eyes every time she watched me, especially when I walked with my towel wrapped around me coming from the shower. I started getting dressed in the bathroom before coming out; even then, she looked at me as if I was a piece of meat. I guess Sticky was starting to notice too, because they'd been arguing a lot lately about Benny's flirtatious ways. Benny always laughed it off with a wave and accused Sticky of being insecure, but Sticky and I both knew the truth. I definitely didn't wanna be the cause of them breaking up. My living arrangements had started putting a strain on me and Sticky's friendship, so to ease her mind, I promised her that as soon as I saved up a couple more thousand, I would leave. Truthfully, I had more than enough money to move out from selling the X pills, but I was scared of the thought of being on my own.
It had been over three months since I last promised Sticky that I would move out. I kept on making excuses. I couldn’t keep using the money bit, because I was making mad money stripping. I quit selling X pills because all the big time ballers' chicks stayed up in the club, keeping my g-string laced with fifties and hundreds. I gave a lot of 'em lap dances and a few even wanted to take me into the Champagne Room, but I declined the offers. I still wasn't sexually active, although I did get the urge to be pleased at times. But the past sexual abuse I had experienced kept me from acting on them.
Sticky and me had gotten to the point where we wasn't speaking at all. Every time we were in any spot at the same time, she would cut her eyes at me. I even walked in on her talking about me a time or two, but I just let her jealous antics roll off my shoulders like water. I really didn't know what Sticky's problem was. She knew I didn't get down with females and therefore really wasn’t a threat to her and Benny. I guess she was just mad at the fact that someone other than her had Benny's attention, and that somebody just so happened to be me.