I figured that I may as well drop chapter two. It's unedited bit I hope you enjoy. Don't forget to comment and vote.
Alexus
Leon drove me home. We didn't really speak much, and for once in my life, the silence didn't bother me.
Getting to my apartment building I was hoping Tevin wouldn't be there so that I could get a good night's sleep for once. I always found myself double and triple checking the lock on my bedroom door to make sure he couldn't get in. Then most nights, he'd get home and be furious ontop of being drunk and he'd bang on my door for hours on end before he passed out in the hallway.
I'd wanted so many times to just call the police on him, but I never could. He'd done so much for me when nobody else would and so all I really wanted was to just be rid of him, not send him to jail.
It was nerve racking.
" want me to walk you up?"
I smiled at the worried look on Leon's face. " no, I can take care of myself, remember?"
" yeah, I know."
For a moment I wished he'd come up with me anyway. Leon had been protecting me since I first went to live with him and his mother. It was like he took responsibility for protecting me when my mother died. Everyone who ever fucked with me had to see Leon about it.
I always found myself fighting to prove that I could take care of myself just to avoid feeling completely helpless. I guess in all of that, I forgot how to ask for his help when I truly needed it.
I didn't want him to think I was too weak to handle what needed to be handled, even if for once in our lives it was true.
" thanks anyway, Lele. I'll see you later."
He gave me a blank look. " stop calling me Lele. Is that what mama named me?"
I chuckled. " I'll stop calling you Lele when I feel like it, but until then-goodnight Lele."
I leaned over and kissed his cheek quickly so that I could exit his car before he had a chance to scold me again.
I paid no mind to the snow as it began to fall for the first - and probably the last- time this winter season, and rushed straight for the front door of my building. In all of the excitement of Symonee having her baby, I'd darted straight out the door in a t-shirt and pajama pants.
I was regretting that decision.
My apartment was on the fifth floor, and just like always, the elevator was broken. I don't think the thing had actually ever even worked, atleast not in the two years I'd been living there.
From downstairs I could hear the music blasting, and as I went up flight after flight all I could do was hope and pray that it wasn't coming from my apartment. When I got to the fifth floor, walking down the hall, the music got closer and closer, and at my apartment at the end of the hall, I couldn't deny it any more. The floor beneath my feet was vibrating.
I groaned. Clearly Tevin was home and had no regard for anyone else's sleeping schedules.
The door was ajar, so getting in was no big deal.
Tevin was standing shirtless in the living room next to the open window. As wind and cold air blew in, he seemed largely unphased.
I went over to the stereo, flipping the off switch.
Tevin whipped around to face me. I could tell almost immediately that he had been drinking.
" what the fuck, Tevin? You act like people don't have to go to work and shit."
" I dont give a fuck about them people. Now, turn my shit back on."
" You telling me what the fuck to do with my stereo like you pay a bill in this bitch." I rolled my eyes, going back over to the front door and slamming it closed. " when you get the fuck out of here you can buy your own shit and do what you want with it, but until then ..."
I glared at him from across the room, he glared back. Stomping over to the stereo, he flipped the switch back on. The loud rap music came pouring out of the speakers again, practically knocking me on my ass. Going back to the stereo, we were now face to face as I turned it back off, not removing my hand from the switch this time.
" bitch, this my house!" He screamed.
" your house? Please, nigga ! If every place you've ever slept in was your house you'd be a fucking real estate agent, wouldn't you?" I furrowed my eyebrows in anger as my agreavation level built up. " pay a fucking bill, then you can turn the stereo back on! Matter of fact, how about you get a real job instead of sleeping with anybody who will pay your funky-"
He made a move like he was going to hit me. I flinched, admittedly so, but stood my ground. It didn't matter if I was scared shitless that he would snap at any minute, I would be damned if I let him see that.
The reason I'd officially ended it with Tevin was because I'd found out that he'd basically been selling his body. He'd been trading sex with women for money, clothes, and anything else that they'd give him. When I confronted him about it, he lied, ofcourse, but I already knew.
" you ain't nothing but a stupid bitch. You know that? You always running yo mouth like you know what the fuck you talking about!"
" I do!" I screamed. " you're a nasty ass hoe! What you need to do is pack up yo shit and get yo bitch ass out my place before i-"
" I'm not going any fucking where. "
" leave."
" im not going any fucking where." He reapeated, only this time he bent down so that he was right up on my face. " and call me another bitch and watch I break this stereo and yo fucking jaw along with it."
I smiled. Yeah, this was probably it. This was the moment he was finally going to show how much of a bitch he was and knock me upside my head but either way, I was going out like a real one. " is that a threat? Oh, so yo weak ass, bitch made ass is threatening me?"
Tevin raised his hand to hit me again, only this time I could see that it wasn't just to scare me. He had every intention of knocking my fucking bonnet off my head and the curls straight from my scalp.
" ayo!" I turned around at the loud crashing noise behind me. Leon stood in the doorway, looking enraged. He opened my door so fast and hard that it'd crashed into the wall behind it, probably making a dent in the wall by the sound of it. I actually felt slightly relieved that he'd shown up, because if Tevin would have hit me I would have fought for my fucking life but I probably would have lost it anyway. " what the fucking going on?"
Tevin came around me so that he and Leon were face to face, still a few feet apart though. " don't come up in my place like you running shit."
Leon chuckled, but I could see the rage burning bright in his eyes. " yo place? So this yo place, huh?"
" yeah nigga, this my fucking place. You heard what I said."
" no, you right, I heard you." His jaw clinched. " See the thing about it is that I really don't give a fuck, man. I come up in this bitch and you raising yo hand to my fucking sister? That's a violation, you gotta take yo leave now. I don't give a fuck who place it was, it's her's now."
Tevin sucked his teeth. " Did you hear what I said, nigga? I said this is my-"
" fuck what you said!" Leon screamed. " either you take yo leave now, willingly, or you die up in this bitch. One or the other."
Tevin got quiet. He looked back at me, I guess wondering if staying and torturing me would be worth dying over.
" fucking bitch." He mumbled, I guess thinking that Leon couldn't hear him. That was his mistake. Leon pounced on him immediately, grabbing him around his neck and dragging him across the living room toward the window. Tevin struggled trying to get loose, but it was no use. I mean, honestly, Leon is a fucking monster.
" Leon wait-" I pleaded softly.
" no sympathy for this bitch!" He barked in my direction. Once he had Tevin at the window, he hauled the upper portion of his body out over the ledge. Tevin screamed in fear, and all I could do was watch. The only thing keeping Tevin from plummeting five stories down onto the concrete beneath, was Leon, as he gripped tightly onto the two back belt loops of the screaming man's pants.
" She a bitch huh?" Leon asked.
"nah, nah, man. That's not what I meant."
" I give you a fucking chance to leave without yo fucking head cracked open and you shit all over it by calling my sister a bitch, right?"
" that's not what I meant! I didn't mean it!"
" fuck that." I gasped as Leon released Tevin out of the window. My entire body froze. I hadn't actually been sure if he would do it but he had.
There was a loud thump and screaming from outside which had me rushing over to the window next to Leon to look out. I sighed in relief as I saw that he'd landed on the fire escape a couple of floors down. The building was old, so not every floor had a fire escape- including mine. Tevin was lucky that someone still had one or else he wouldn't have survived his fall.
" fuck, man!" Leon grumbled. " why the fuck you didn't tell me that was right there?"
" I forgot! Besides, you're lucky it was or else you would have just killed a man."
" I would feel alot better if I had."
I knew he was serious, so I didn't even waste time trying to convince him otherwise. As Tevin wiggled on the fire escape below, I pulled myself back inside the window and closed it.
Sighing, I went to close and lock my front door before Leon and I both sat on the couch. " thank you." I whispered after a few moments of quiet.
" you don't have to thank me. That's what I'm here for."
" yeah, but if you hadn't come upstairs-" A small shiver passed through my body at just the thought. " what made you come up anyway?"
He reached his hand in his pocket pulling out my phone and holding it out for me to grab. " next time, don't wait for me to come up. I'm down for whatever if it means protecting you."
Looking at Leon, I smiled. I felt like an idiot. If I'd of just opened my stubborn mouth, I could have had Tevin out of my apartment months ago.
" I love you, Lele."
" I love you too, Lex."
I fell asleep quickly.