"The innocence of a child is bought and sold. In the name of the damned, the range of the angels left silent and cold."
Michael's POV
"I should just got back in rip his fucking..." her mumbling words fell into her thoughts as she clenched in her jaw in an attempt to shut herself up. Her long, neatly arched eyebrows were pulled together and I could see her temples popping out of her head. Her hands were balled up into tight fists. She was so mad that I could feel the anger that was ranging inside of her in the air.
It was so intense.
I looked out unto the dark road as I began to focus on where I was going. She had started mumbling again and this time it was curse word after curse word. I didn't like the way they sounded coming from her mouth. Anyone else, I could care less. But she was different, those words were too ugly to come out of mouth that was so beautiful.
I looked over at her. Watching her face as the lights that flew by danced across her soft medium brown skin. Her eyes stared straight ahead. The reddish brown color almost looked scary because of the way they looked in the dark. Almost like the eyes of a scary character in a horror film. It made her anger seem more known. "Are you okay?" I asked slowly, and softly. I was afraid that she would flip out on me too, like she had done with Dj. After only knowing her for a few weeks I could tell that she was very irritable, and hated it when people questioned her ways.
Her head slowly turned towards me. She looked as if she was debating on yelling at me. I turned to focus on the road so I wouldn't have to see the agonizing look on her face. I heard a long frustrating sigh escape her lips. " No, I am not okay," she replied in a harsh tone of voice. " Do you know how close I was from beating the living hell out if him?! I swear, I wanted to kill him!"
I chuckled nervously, " Well, you didn't. That means you got self control." She probably would have if I hadn't pulled her off of him.
"Whatever," she said quickly as she sunk down into the seat and crossed her arms across her chest. She looked like a little five year old girl who had just been told no by her parents. She looked so cute. "take my mind off of this before I make you turn this car around."
"Uh. What do you want me to say?"
She shrugged her shoulders. " I don't know! " Her voice rose to a higher pitch as she threw an irritating look at me." Talk about something mindless to take my mind off of this. Please!" she begged.
" Uh..." I began searching for something ad I stopped at a red traffic light. I looked at her out if the corner of my eye. She was playing with the ends of her thick hair. Then I remembered something, " So, Aliyah, huh?"
She cut her eyes up at me, giving me a look that was unreadable, then she just sighed and said, "Its Ah-lee-yah, not Uh-lee-yah. "
I nodded my head slowly as I tried to make sense if the pronunciation, " Aaliyah," I said it slowly. " I like it, do you know what it is?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, what is its origin, you know, where'd it originated from?"
"My grandma told me that it's Arabic."
"Did she name you that?"
"Yeah," she said softly.
" What does it mean?" I asked after a quick moment if silence.
She didn't say anything. I looked over at her and she was staring out the window. Watching as the rain droplets hit the window and ran down to the side if the door as they were in race of each other. "It means, the highest, most exalted one. The best." Her words were in a whisper as she continued to stare out into the rain. The shadows of the droplets were beginning to reflect on her face, the way the slide down the window made it look as if its shadows slide down her cheeks, as if she was crying. They made her look intoxicating, almost like a breath taking model that was on the cover of Vogue magazine.
The meaning was beautiful, and I thought it fit her perfectly. In my eyes she was perfect. "Why don't you go by that, why go by Aj?"
"Well, first of all, I get tired of having to correct people all the time."
"And secondly?"
She looked up at me with questioning eyes. " What?"
"You said first of all," I pointed out. " That means there's another reason why you don't want to go by your real name."
"You would catch to that," she said after sucking her teeth dramatically.
I let out a lighthearted laugh but then grew serious again. " Well?"
Her eyes was filled with hesitation as she ran her fingers through her hair and glanced out the the window. " When I was born the doctors told my grandma that it was a miracle that I was brought into this world without any complications. My mother wasn't.... well, she didn't take good care of herself while she was pregnant with me. My grandma, being the religious woman she was, had said that it was by the grace of God that I actually survived so she wanted to name something that had a meaning pertaining to the situation. She didn't want anything common, like Grace or Miracle, or Faith. She always wanted to be different from other people. So, with that, she found Aaliyah from some book she was reading. She said that the holy spirit had told her that I would do great things in my life and that that name would be just the beginning of it. " She said the last part with so much doubt in her voice that it hurt me. How could she not see what she was capable of.
"Grandma died when I was seven from a heart attack, and Leena and I had to go move with mom and her boyfriend. I barely knew her, the only time I'd see her was when she'd call grandma's house asking for money....they'd always argue and after that, I wouldn't hear about her for months. So, when we moved in with her you can only imagine the change I had to face then. "
"What were the changes?"
I looked back at her when I noticed she wasn't speaking. I could see the hesitation in her eyes. "Sorry," I mumbled. Thinking I was maybe asking too much.
"Well," she sighed as she spoke. "well, she was a crack addict and a prostitute, and she had a lot of men coming in and out of her apartment. " She cleared her throat and swallowed hard. " One time she left me and Lee in that apartment alone for two weeks straight with anything to eat.....and during that week....there was like men who came and beat on the door, hoopin' and hollerin', asking her to show them something. I hid in the closet for days until she came back."
" My mom never called me by name. It was always Lil girl. And you know, being the girl that I am I had no problem with correcting her anytime she called me that. One day when I did she told me that I didn't deserve to have that name. That I was nobody..." Her voice fell into a whisper." That I was just a piece of crap. So I stopped going by that name. I began telling Leena to call me Aj and the people at school too and it just stuck. I don't feel that name fits me."
"Because of what your mother told you?" I asked offensively.
" Well yeah, and other things she had told me."
"What else did she tell you?"
"I found my escape through music. There was this church down the street from the apartment complex and I would go to their choir practices. The choir director, Mrs. Diane, had taught me to play piano and she also taught me how to use my voice. As I became more skilled with what I did I began showing it around the house. I remember when I was eight I would take the radio and try to learn how to play all the songs that came on the piano. I would listen so closely to the hidden beats and practiced by drawing the keys on a long sheet of paper I had gotten from my art teacher, I would pretend to play the notes as if I could hear them; I could hear them in my head."
My eyes widened astonishment. "That's amazing, my brother would do something similar with the guitar when he was younger."
She nodded, giving me a mere smile. "When mom found out she pretty much flipped out on me. Told me that I needed to stop such nonsense because I would never do anything with a career as a musician. She said my life was within the streets. After that I didn't play a note or listened to another song for at least a year and a half."
"Why did you believe her?" I asked. " You're entirely too talented!"
"She was the only adult figure I had, I couldn't look up to Lee because by that time she had shut herself out from everyone."
"I don't understand..."
"Then it's not meant for you to understand."
"Where's your mother now?" I asked, ignoring her ignorant comment. "Is she - "
"No, no." She shook her head. " She's on jail. She was arrested for drug possession and prostitution charges. We moved here after that."
" Do you miss her?" I asked softly.
She looked up at me again and shook her head slowly from side to side. " No...because she did something no mother should have ever done to a child of theirs."
" What's that exactly?"
She raised her eyebrow at me." You ask too many questions, you know that right?"
Now she trying to avoid answering the question. She was beginning to realize that she had said too much.
" Well, your putting it out there for me to ask about it."
"Touché," she said, looking back at me. Then she let out a long piercing sigh and pulled her knees up to her chest and rested it on chin on her knee cap. " When I was nine my mom owed a lot of money to a pimp, and he gave her a choice that she could either pay him, or he could have her..." Her eyes focused on her house ahead as she spoke. I didn't even realize I had made it there. " She gave him me instead....and a that age I had lost my innocence to him as well and most of my dignity. It only happened once all the rest was just touching up until the time she was arrested. But it was one too many..."
The words that had just been released from her mouth took me completely surprise. It was like someone was slowly pushing a knife through my heart, allowing me to slowly feel every pinch of agonizing pain as my heart bleed out from the wound. I could only imagine how she must have felt as she was telling me that. She was probably having flashbacks of the day that it happened. It was then when I began to understand why she was the way that she was. " Liyah...I-I'm sorry..."
She sucked her teeth and began shooing off the sympathy I was having for her. " There's no need to apologize. "
How could she act so careless about such a thing? " That shouldn't have never happen to you or no other child, that is absolutely...." I let my sentence trial, searching for the right words.
" Juvenile, foul, deranged?"
"That and then some!"
She rolled her eyes and laid her head back against the seat. She began shaking her head. " Its okay, it's in the past. There's nothing I can do about it." I knew she was just saying that. I could feel it in the way she said it. Slowly, as if it was painful to say.
I decided to let it go. " So is that why you went off on DJ like that?"
"You're suppose to be keeping my mind off that."
I felt embarrassed. " Oh, right..."
She rolled her head in my direction until we made eye contact. Neither one of us said anything or even made a gesture. We were just trapped. Holding each others gaze for the very first time. And it was kinda strange because I could feel myself becoming lost in her brown iris-like I was being hypnotized or something. I was going crazy on the inside. Butterflies and all. And it wasn't before long that I felt an irresistible urge to kiss her, and it looked like she probably wanted to kiss me too. But I wouldn't dare try it. Even though I was curious to know what those full lips would feel like against mine, I knew that would be an stupid move for me to make.
After a few more moments, she broke our gaze and cleared her throat. "Yes, that's why I went off on him," she said, answering my question.
I turned the engine off in the car and turned the face her in the seat. " I'm sort of glad you did, he's...he's a punk."
She gave me a small laugh. " I have to agree with you on that."
The car fell in a silence for a moment again, and I rested my head on the stirring wheel as I thought about the little information she told me about her life. The hell she had went through was just crazy beyond belief and I was pretty sure that wasn't even half of it. I closed my eyes to try and ease the anxiety, but another question formed in my head. " Did the same thing happen to Leena?"
The silence of the car was soon filled with her loud harsh sarcastic laughter. It was like loud bells against my eardrums. I looked up at her to see her shaking her head as if I had just asked a question that was stupid beyond belief. "What?"
She stopped laughing enough to answer, " No, he wouldn't have never done anything to her."
"Why not, I mean...."
"He wouldn't have never done anything to her because he is her Daddy."
My eyes widened in surprise." Really?"
"Yes," she nodded. " I don't know who my father is, I don't even think she knows. I've heard some rumours around Brooklyn about how people think she ended up with me. " She said. " One was that she got so drunk and so high one night, that she took home this biracial guy. Another one was that she had just hooked up with one of her clients who she had regularly." He raised up her index finger. and began shaking it. " But the most ridiculous one I had heard was that.....she had a train ran on her and each one of the guys had eyes that was the same color as mine change from day to do, see how stupid that is?"
I thought back to all the times I've seen her in the studio. That was usually on between Wednesday and Saturday. And I would sit there and stare at her wondering why they went from brown to hazel to green to grey. I was doing the same in the waiting room. They change colors? That makes sense then.
" You know, four of them had brown eyes form darkest to lightest, another one had green eyes, and the last to had grey eyes."
"What about the color they are now?" I asked.
Her eyebrows farrowed. " What do you mean?"
I pointed towards them. I couldn't really see them because of the dark but I could still make out her reddish brown irises. " They're like, this reddish brown."
" Oh, that's just the color they change when I get really mad. "
"Why do they do that?"
" Well my grandma told me that its hereditary. My great great grandfather supposedly had it and it skipped all the way down to me. It's kind of weird."
"Weird? I think they're beautiful!"
She gave me a disgusted look, " Are you usually this-"
" Sometime," I answered already knowing what she was going to ask.
Shaking her head she opened the car door. " Thanks for taking me home," she said.
I turned towards my door. " Wait, let me walk you up there. "Then jumped out before she could protest.
I waited until she had closed the door completely. "I have a question for you," she said as she walked up to me shoving her hands in her pocket.
"What is it?"
"Why are you here? I mean you're this famous person who is well known in society, why come here, to Harlem?"
I didn't even know that she knew who I was. " Well, I'm here visiting my Aunt and to work on my creative process on my next album. I wasn't getting any of it in California. "
"Is it working-you're creative process?"
"A little."
She raised her eyebrow at me. "I feel like there's more to the reason why you're here."
"Well, I just told you the truth, so..." I gave her a soft smile.
"I believe you," She said as she walked unto the porch. Her skin was beginning to glow under the porch light. Making it look more of a golden brown. I could see where the sweat was beginning to stick on her chest; I want-
" I just think that you don't know what it is yet." She said, pulling out of my thoughts.
I focused on her eyes before she realized what I was doing. "And you do?"
"No, I don't. But I do know how to trust my instincts." She turned towards the door to open it but stopped and turned around." Good night." she said softly. Then she opened the door and walked in the house, but stopping for a slight moment and turned to me. " Oh, and by the way" -she leaned in on the wall, almost as if she was about to tell me a secret-"you're a terrible driver." She said in a half of a whisper. She pressed her lips into a small smile then closed the door leaving me out there alone.
She actually has a sense of humor. I sighed softly and turned towards the night sky. The warm air dance against my face as I began to walk down the steps. I hated what she had told me about her past life, what had happened to her was terrible and I was beginning to understand her a little bit more. She always pushed the guys who'd flirt her away because she was constantly reminded of what happened. I couldn't but to not like that because each and every time I saw her I fell for her even more. Especially tonight-I really didn't realize it before now-and I couldn't help but to wish that she didn't tell me because I was beginning to feel the pain she must've felt; I can only imagine what that does to a person. I loved the fact that she told me, that had to have been a big step for her considering the fact that Shay said that she only kept to herself and didn't open up to anybody. Something told me, that I was the only person who she probably had told that to. The only person she had trusted to tell that to.
And that, I loved.