“How is she?” I asked Kaylen.
For the past few days I had been staying at my own spot because I didn’t feel like hearing about how much she couldn’t believe Salem was working for me. Kaylen hadn’t seemed to mind it anyways. She had been spending damn near every day and night at the hospital at Jazmyn’s bedside anyways.
“Still nothing. They said she should have been up by now. I don’t understand why she would do that to herself. I don’t understand why she couldn’t talk to me…” Kaylen’s eyes teared up and she stopped talking. I walked over and wrapped my arms around her.
“Some things aren’t meant for us to understand, baby.” I wasn’t good with encouragement but it seemed like the right thing to say at the moment.
“Oh, like how I can’t understand how you working with Salem crazy ass again?”
Damn. Why the fuck I say that shit?
“Kaylen, can you just leave that shit alone?” I asked her, dropping my arms from around her and sitting down on the edge of the sofa. I dropped my head and said a quick prayer that she would drop the shit and move on to something else. I didn’t drive all the way over to her crib to argue.
“Hell no! You should be supporting me and instead you doing favors for that nigga!” she fumed.
“Wouldn’t you?!” I asked her, standing up. I was officially tired of her arguing with me over the same shit. I normally didn’t lose my cool with Kaylen but she was being so fucking one-sided. It was irking the hell out of me.
“Wouldn’t I what? Forgive his ass? Hell to the fuck no!” She walked up close to my face and tried to challenge me.
“No. If it were Alexis or Jazmyn, what the fuck would you do? Wouldn’t you help them? Wouldn’t you try to help them get back on their feet? I shot my fucking best friend over some bullshit. That shit fucked me up for real. Now he is back and he says he changed. Wouldn’t you help if it were you? You sitting over there by Jazmyn’s fucking bedside day and night, hoping her ass lives after she shot her own ass! I shot Salem and he lived. So leave this shit alone, aight?”
By the time I finished, Kaylen was looking humble as hell and I knew I’d finally shut her ass up. I loved her and I knew that she didn’t give a shit about Salem but I was tired of hearing her bitch about me being there for someone I considered a brother.
She was about to open her mouth to say something but, thankfully, the doorbell rang.
“You expecting someone?” I asked her. I wasn’t in the mood to really be around a lot of people. We hadn’t been around each other in a few days and I really just wanted to get chill and maybe fuck around a little. Stress was killing my ass and it had been a minute since a nigga had gotten some quality time in between the sheets.
“No, I’m not. I’ll get rid of whoever it is. It’s probably your best friend popping by unexpected again. That seems to be his M.O.,” Kaylen said, giving me a look. Her slick ass mouth always had to get the last word in.
I sat back down on the sofa and fell back. I said a silent prayer that Salem hadn’t decided to stop by because I didn’t want to hear her mouth about it. I listened as she slammed the lock open and snatched at the door handle.
She got too much fuckin’ attitude!
“Oh my God!” I heard Kaylen gasp. I jumped up from my seat and grabbed at the center of my back to make sure that my piece was tucked right where I had stashed it.
When I turned the corner, I was ready to smack the barrel of my gun into whoever it was at the door and gun them down if I needed to. I ran over to Kaylen and pulled her lightweight ass out of the way but stopped short when I found myself looking into the beady eyes of a frail older black woman.
“Well, hello,” she croaked as she eyed me with a suspicious stare. She looked me up and down slowly. “Kaylen, this your new beau?”
I stared back at the woman. She was obviously an addict. I could tell that she was willing to take whatever she could get her hands on to get her high. But from her dilated pupils and burnt up lips, I could see that crack was her drug of choice.
“Mama, what are you doing here?” Kaylen asked from behind me. I turned around and looked at her with my question in my eyes.
Mama?
I turned back to the woman who was standing with her hips cocked to the side and her hand situated right on top of it. She was poking out her lips as if she was annoyed with Kaylen’s question. The expression was identical to the one that Kaylen had been giving me earlier. Then almost as quickly as it came, it went away, and she straightened up her face before clearing her throat.
“I want to get clean and I need your help.” She looked around nervously as she scratched at her ashy elbows. I raised my eyebrows as I watched her. “Can I come in?” she asked.
I felt movement from behind me as Kaylen pushed forward.
“I’ve tried to help you before and you went right back to it. What makes this time any different?”
Suddenly the woman opened up her mouth and let out a loud wail that resembled the moaning of a grizzly bear. “I was raped! He violated me and it was all because I was high and I didn’t know what was going on. I need to get clean!” she yelled.
I continued to frown at the woman as she belted out her assault to the top of her lungs. I peeked behind her and saw that Kaylen’s nosey ass neighbors were already looking out through their blinds and opening their doors to see what all the yelling was about.
“I can’t go back!” she continued. “It’s not safe for me. I don’t know how I allowed this to happen. I got to get cleeeeeeaaaaaaaaannnn! Please, help…” She was cut short when Kaylen yanked her by her arm and pulled her into the house. I backed out of the way and slammed the door closed.
“Shut up all that hollering! You got my white ass, nosey neighbors looking and everything!” Kaylen said through her teeth.
The woman just kept sobbing as if she had been told she only have five more minutes to live. But there was not a tear on her face. I wasn’t convinced. I knew a junkie when I saw one. Mother or not, this bitch had to go.
“So you’re here because you need help getting clean? And you want Kaylen to help you?” She nodded her head at me with her face still wrinkled up from her fake crying. “But you’re high now, aren’t you?” I asked her.
She stopped short and looked at me with a ‘deer caught in headlights’ expression. “Who the fuck are you, anyways?” she finally said to me with her nose turned up.
“Kaylen, this your mother?” I asked her.
I had already heard about Kaylen’s mother from Salem so I knew the deal with her. She was a junkie and did anything to get what she needed to get high. She probably was all out of favors and was coming to Kaylen to get money to support her habit. I wasn’t buying her little rape story. What nigga had to rape her ass when she was giving the shit up for a few bucks to buy some dope?
“Yes, she is,” Kaylen answered me with a sigh. “Mama, who raped you?”
I stared hard at Kaylen. I hoped she wasn’t buying this bullshit her mama was selling her. “Kaylen, no one has to rape a fuckin’ junkie,” I told her.
“Zo, this is my mother you’re talking about! And I know you aren’t talking shit after the speech you just gave me about why you’ve forgiven Salem’s backstabbing ass!”
I looked behind Kaylen at her mother who had her arms folded and was smirking at me. That bitch was up to no good and I knew it, but I didn’t have time to deal with all of that at the moment.
“Alright, I’m out,” I said. I walked over to the couch and grabbed my jacket as Kaylen watched me.
“Where are you going?” she asked me, throwing her hands on her hips and standing in front of me.
“Kaylen, don’t start with this bullshit, okay? I came over here to relax, not to play ‘babysit the reformed crackhead.’”
Both her and her mother gasped out loud.
“How dare you?” Kaylen yelled.
I knew I was being harsh, but I didn’t give a shit. I’d been around addicts my whole life who tried to pretend they were clean or wanted to get clean in order to get over on me. Kaylen’s ‘mammy’ wasn’t no different and I wasn’t buying any of her little act. If Kaylen wanted to fall for it, she could on her own.
“All I’m doing is trying to get clean so I can be a mother to my daughter,” Kaylen’s mother whistled through the gaps where her missing teeth should have been. “I’ve been vih-lated! Why can’t you see, I been vih-lated? I’m the victim!” She started to sob loudly again, her mouth wide open, showing off a mouth that resembled the character Jerome for the show Martin.
In fact, I thought to myself, her ass look just like Jerome!
“Zo, you need to leave,” Kaylen whispered as she walked over to pull her mother into a hug. The woman looked at me with a sneaky grin plastered across her bumpy and bruised black face.
“Peace,” I muttered. I walked out the door and hopped in my ride. I would be staying at my crib for the night. I’d be damned if I slept in the same house with Kaylen and her crooked ass mama.