After the recording studio we all went out to eat at some restaurant instead of going straight home. It had burgundy walls and dim light setting that set our moods at ease. We were brought to a round table with a white table cloth covering over it. the place looked really expensive if you asked me. The waiters and waitresses was even dressed in a white chef's coat and some kind of hat to rap up the theme of the place. After sitting there discussing the menu everyone began talking about the album. Our debut album wasn't going to be a self titled album. We were naming it Servants, after the hit song that Wayne had wrote us. The photo shoot for the album cover was going to be that next week and the album wasn't going to be out until sometime that next year.
I sat there quietly, not being apart of their conversation, but listening to it. They were talking about the music video for Servant. We had filmed it the other day and De was talking about the male models we had to dance with in the video. They were all hunks that Leena goes for." I'm surprise you didn't take one home," she said to Leena." They were all looking at you."
She shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly. " None of them caught my attention."
Her mouth dropped." What...Leena are you going out of business?!"
I shifted uncomfortably in the chair as I felt my stomach growling.
" No, I just haven't found many that I wanted. "
"I've noticed," Jojo said. " I was expecting you to bring somebody home that night we went out but you didn't."
Leena's eyes shifted over to me as she sipped on her coke. I picked up my soda and and began doing the same....trying to read her warning eyes. "No one caught my attention." she said darkly.
"Are you sure you okay, honey?" Nikki asked with concern. " Whatever happened to your affection?"
"Oh, it still gets the attention that it needs, believe me."
The waitress came and place food in front of all of us. We thanked her and she went away. I began eating my salad first as they continued their conversation." Are you not liking it here?" De asked.
"That's not it." She said, shaking her head. " Why are y'all so interested in what I do. What about y'all, how many guys have y'all fucked sense y'all been here?"
"Don't go flipping the script on us." De laughed. " I've only done one." She said as she leaned over to Wayne who sitting uncomfortably next to her. He hadn't been as talkative as usual. I wondered why.
"I haven't been with anyone." Jojo said.
"Neither have I." Nikki added.
" Y'all are still virgins." She pointed out.
They glanced at each other. " And?" Jojo asked.
" That could be changed easily." Nikki said.
Leena looked at me. " Well, Aj, looks like you have joined the party."
I shook my head." Don't bring me into this conversation."
Her head shot up at me"Wait, what?" De asked. She was smiling at me so hard. " Have you and Michael....?"
I didn't have to look at Leena to see that she nodded her head, answer her question. " Oh my God, when did this happen?!?"
I glanced up any her " Can we not talk about this?"
"What I want to know!"
I gave her a look that said, ' I will tell you about it later.' She smiled and nodded her head.
"No seriously, Leena, have you been with anyone?" Jojo asked.
She looked up at her and rolled her eyes." You know what Jolene, I have. " She said as she placed her fork down. " The last guy I was with did me so damn good, he had me dripping wet..." What she had said caught me off guard that the food I had in my mouth went down my throat before I could finish chewing it, I began coughing uncontrollably. Nikki began patting my back as I began washing it down with my coke.
" Damn, girl, its not that serious. " Leena said.
"Really, Leena?" De asked with disgust. " Can you have some concern for her?"
"Is everything alright?" I heard the waitress ask.
"Everything is fine. she just swallowed her food wrong." Jojo answered.
"Could I get her something?"
" Yes, another coke."
When I was able to pull myself together I began drinking my soda again to wash away the remains. Everyone sat back down on in the round table, and glanced at Leena who was biting into her hamburger. " Really, Leena? Was that necessary?" Jojo asked.
She shrugged her shoulders." You asked."
"You didn't have to go into detail! You've ruined everyone's apatite around here."
"Like I said, you asked. "
Jojo rolled her eyes and began playing with her food.
"I don't know what we're going to do with you." De said as she shook her head as if she was disappointed. " Aj and I need to keep our men away from you or you'll end up fucking one of them in the back seat of their car." She looked up at her and laughed.
My heart dropped to my stomach as I chewed my bottom lip. I glanced over at Leena who was staring at her blankly. De was still laughing which told me she was only joking about it. If only you knew, if only you knew. I shook my head and pushed my plate aside. I felt sick. I was in no mood for food anymore, I wanted to leave. I wanted to be with Michael.
~•~•~•~•~•~•~•
We went home shortly after that. After what Leena said no one was in no mood for eating anymore. No one even said anything. After everyone had gone to sleep I was left up flipping through the channels with boredom. There was nothing on that caught my interest so I just settled with Good Times. It was now season six and it was the episode where Florida's bus had gotten her bus stuck in a snow storm, with a few kids. I realized that one of the little girl's was Michael's little sister, Janet. She looked just like him, almost as if they were twins. He had told me that they pretty much thought alike, and that she had this crazy love for acting. She seemed pretty good.
There was this other little girl being all dramatic about the situation, saying. " We gone die of coldness-ness-ness!" that made me laugh. I settled in with that television show for a while. Laughing as the drunk man who was living in the place they went to make fire and to keep warm was acting unbelievably stupid. It was nice to take my mind off things for a while.
After the show ended the TV programming bounced back into the season before where Penny(Janet's character) had just made an appearance. She was a little girl who had followed Jay Jay home. She was girl who tried to hide her identity because she had ran away from her abusive mother. That made me wish I was smart enough to run away from my mother. I probably wouldn't be in the same house as she was right now.
As the show went one the Evans family began noticing bruises and burns on her and she kept coming up with lies that caused the accidents - just like I used to do. It became painful for me to watch and I ended changing it to some stupid advertisement for cleaning supplies. Then I just turned the TV off all together. There nothing there for me to look at.
The next day after school we had the day off from the studio. Quincy called at the last minute and said that we he had some important business to take care of. So I was stuck there until I was sure Michael was done with his work for that day and I could call him so that he could come and get me or he could call me. I was sitting at the table trying to finish the I had started the other day, Age Ain't Nothing But A Number. Lyrics weren't coming to me for some odd reason. I had scratched out so many things that it was begin to run over on the next page. I was beginning to just give up for the day so I placed my pen down in the crease and just stared at the words for a moment.
"Hey, girl."I heard her say. I glanced up at her without giving any expression what so ever. "I got a call from the school saying that you didn't come to class Monday, why is that?"
I shrugged my shoulders not wanting to answer her question.
"Girl-"
"Look, if you are going to lecture me, at least call me by my name."
She glared at me. Giving me the same look I would give someone one I seemed offended. "Why did you miss school. "
" I had some business to take care of," I lied. " and besides, Sasha has already beat you to the conversation so there is no point of you wasting your breath....or my time." I stood up from my chair and began to walk out the room. She grabbed my wrist and pulled me back down in my the chair harshly. "What the hell is wrong with you?!" I said loudly as I scold at her.
"We ain't done with this conversation."
" There was never one in existence." I tried to walk away again, but she jerked me back, this time more harshly. She was hurting me. I began having flashbacks of my child hood where the abuse remained. I quickly pulled away from them as I snatched my arm away from her tight hold.
"Look here little girl, you don't walk away from when I'm talking to you."
"And you don't put your goddamn hands on me like that!"
"I am your mother!"
I rose to my feet." No. You. Are. NOT!"
"What is going on in here?!" Sasha stood with her arms crossed across her chest. Liana stood behind her with concern in her hazel brown eyes.
"This crazy bitch put her hands on me."
"Watch your mouth!"
I shot a look at her. "No!!"
Her eyes blazed with anger while her nostrils flared. She held her hand over head, about to charge at me with it, but then she lowered it down as if she had changed her mind. "I don't know who think you are, little girl, but I am still your mother and you will treat me with some damn respect. "
"Over my dead body." I said through my clenched teeth.
"That is it," Sasha grabbed me by my arm. " Aleena! You girls come in here right now. Family meeting."
The girls came in with confusion in their eyes as they sat down on the black leather couches. Sasha pulled up three chairs and made me, Danielle,and Leena sit down in them. I sat in the middle with Leena on my left and Danielle on my right. " Now," Sasha began, as she started pacing back and forth across the thick white carpet. " There has been some crap going on between the two of you. " She pointed to me and Danielle." And you two." She pointed to me and Leena. " Ever since I gained custody of y'all all y'all do is argue. You treat you baby sister like a flying flip and I can't understand why. And Aaliyah, I don't appreciate the way you have been treating your mother since she's had gotten out of jail-"
"She-"
"Don't cut me off young lady." She warned.
I nodded quickly.
" Now I didn't come all the way out to California so y'all can sit here and argue with each other all the damn time so either y'all are going to settle your differences now, or we can just tell Quincy to forget about that album."
"But Auntie Sasha!" De whined. She was going to protest, but stopped when she saw the look she had on her face.
"Dani, how do you feel about your daughters?"
Is this her idea of an intervention? I glanced around the room and realized that it was. I sunk into the chair and closes my eyes. Why....why is she doing this?
"What do you mean?" She asked, confusingly. " Both of them, or each on individually."
"Whichever you prefer."
She'll looked at the both of us. "Well Leena, has always been my little angel, she always did what I told her to do with no questions asked, or no back talk. This girl here on the other hand, always had to question everything, bitch about everything. She's always seen me as a bad person or something."
I held my tongue, not wanting to say anything.
"Leena?" Sasha asked.
"Momma, I never saw you as being a bad person." Leena said softly." I don't care about the past, all that matters is that you're here now."
I cut my eyes at her. You're kidding me, right?
" I mean I know you had you're moments and all but at the end of the day, you still loved us. No matter-"
"Do you not hear how stupid you're making yourself sound?" I asked through my teeth.
"Aaliyah, don't interrupt them." Sasha said.
Rolling my eyes I shifted myself in the opposite position.
"As I was I saying, no matter what happened you were always there, and we had fun." She gave her a cheeky smile and I curled my lip at her in disgust.
"Aaliyah, the look on your face tells me that you don't have any memory of that at all. " Liana said softly.
I looked up at her." It's because I don't." I said. " She let a man rape us!"
"Why do you always have to bring that up?!"
"Because it happened! You're sitting around here as if it didn't."
" I don't need you to keep reminding me about that every time we have this conversation!"
"I bring it up all the time because you can't seem to wrap your stupid mind around the fact that she," I pointed towards her." didn't give two craps about us."
"She did!!!!"
" No she didn't, if she did the. why did she let him do that to us? Huh?! Answer that question."
She shook her head at me." You just don't know how to let anything go, do you." she said faintly. " I just don't understand why you be holding on to that. I just don't. Yes, I will admit she was wrong for what she did, but why do you have to bringing that up? She said she was sorry!"
" Sorry?!" I retorted. " I have spent my whole life...listening to people tell me they are are sorry. What is sorry going to do? It won't take back anything that had happened. "
"Aj-"
"No, I can't use another sorry, Leena! I won't accept that apology until she tell me why she did that, and even then.....I probably still won't accept."
"Aj, why.....why......do you have to be so damn...difficult!"
"I am not being difficult. I'm just being fair."
"You can't keep letting the past take over you Aj, you keep being this way Michael ain't even gone want to be around you and by the looks of it that dude loves you!"
" Michael has nothing to do with this, and neither does our relationship." I said. " You don't see me going around sleeping with married men."
" Keep on and it will be that way."
"You know what Leena..."
"What, what is it Aj, what is that you can possibly say? What, that it's none of my concern? That I should...stay in my own business?"
"I just wish you would just stop making me look like I'm the bad guy here."
"I will stop making you look like the bad guy when you stop making her look like the bad guy."
" I'm not making her look like the bad guy, she is the bad guy."
"How is she the bad guy, Aj?" she asked, challenging me.
I could feel the blood rushing down to my face as the anger boiled inside of me. " She. Let. Us. Get. Raped." I said through my teeth.
"Is that the only thing that you have?"
"Leena, you know there is more to it than that."
I watched as her face crumbled. " I don't want to remember any of that!" she began to burying her face in her hands.
"Neither do I, but I do!"
"Of course they do, Aj. You never remember the good times. "
"There weren't any good times. " I said though my teeth.
She rolled her eyes and began mumbling to herself.
"Why do you hate me so damn much, Leena?! What did I ever do to you to make me hate me?!?!"
"Aaliyah!" Sasha was giving me that look that said, ' If you don't shut up I will knock the taste out your mouth.'
Leena sighed. "I don't hate you." She pulled her head from her hands.
"Oh yeah? 'Cause you act like it!"
She turned to me. " I know..." she whispered breathlessly.
I frowned my eyebrows at her calmness. I watched her close her eyes and rub her temples. She shook her head. " Aj, " she began quietly, softly." you can't love somebody with that much hurt in them. You've always known that, but I'm just now learning it more and more.....I don't know whats wrong with me." She shrugged her right shoulder." I think....I just.....just lost touch with reality, if you know what I mean. I became so caught up in what I thought life was about and didn't open to eyes to see what was actually going on. I was just being....stupid." She swallowed as she looked at me. Her brown eyes piercing through my soul. It was like I could feel every inch of pain that she had been hiding for so many years.
"I was able to be hurt, but live as though I wasn't. That ain't real. I have been....lying to myself for so long that...it just got to where I was starting to believe those lies myself. That's not real, Aj, not anymore. We should be immune, if we're still alive." Placing her hand over her mouth I watched as a tear rolled down her soft cheek. I have never seen her cry before. The sight of it caused a tear to rise to the surface of my eyes. Their wails were loud in my years. " How are we still alive if there is nothing inside of us? I have to survive on intimacy. I have to...depend on other human beings for love, and at the end of the day. That's all I got. All my priorities are being alive and keeping myself from...remembering what happened to me. What happened to us. Love is a metaphorical dilemma I haven't conquered yet."
It was then that I began to understand my sister. She was always the opposite from me. I knew that a long time ago, but I didn't know how opposite we really were. I spent my years wondering....trying to figure out what was wrong with her. She spent her days trying to forget about what happened while I spent my days remembering. She spent her days numbing the pain by the pleasure of others. I spent by days numbing the pain by the sharpness of a razor and the breaking of my skin. We were opposites but we were apart of each other. " Leena, I know we haven't treated each other that....right for the past few years, but the least we could do is be there for each other...as sisters..."
She smiled softly at me.
It was quiet for a moment. All the white wall seemed to cave in.
" Well, " Liana said as she glanced at Sasha who had tears in her eyes. " Dani, I think Li maybe right about one thing. What happened did have a major impact on them. You need to tell them why you did it, for their sakes. If you care about them you will tell them. "
I glanced at my mothers face, she was crying also. I watch as she shook her head slowly, not saying anything.
"Momma, please.." Leena begged. " Please tell us....we can't take it any more....not knowing. "
"It ain't something I can explain."
"We don't care...."
De's Thoughts
God.....help them....
Nikki's Thoughts
.........
Jojo's Thoughts
Why are we even sitting here? This is so weird.....I can't stand looking at people cry. I'd rather be back in the Heartbreak Hotel fighting for my virginity than to be sitting here dealing this mess....
________
" I wanted to get clean, I did." She began. " If you think I actually like the life i was living. Laying up with some man just so I could satisfy my desire to get high, you got another thing coming, girl." She ran her fingers through her hair. " First of all, I did care about you. I still do, but you, Aj haven't even given me the slightest chance to prove you that I have changed. You think I like the fact that my own daughter can't stand to.....even be around me? She hates me? There is no pain greater than that. To have one of your own hate you." A single teat fell from her eyes.
" Why did you let him do that to us?"
"I don't know...I can't tell you exactly the reason why. I wasn't thinking straight then. All I remember is that he wanted to kill me, because I DIDN'T have his money, and I remember him telling me that if I didn' t get it to him he was going to kill me. I was trying to get my life back together for y'all, and I knew that if I died I wouldn't be able to show you that I could be the best mother for y'all. "
"So you mean to tell me that you let that bastard abuse us so that you could save your own damn life?"
"Its not as bad you make it out be Aj."
" Have it ever occurred to you that maybe we were better off with Sasha and Liana?"
She only shook her head.
" Which means you didn't think it through clearly."
" Looking back on it, no I did not."
" So all the crap we went through was unnecessary?"
She looked as though she was debating on how she should answer the question. I shook my head in disbelief.
You have got to be kidding me? Has this woman lost her mind completely?!
"Look, Aj, I wanted to take care of the two of-"
"So you let him abuse us?"
"Girl let me explain. "
"No, I understand. You wanted to be a quote, unquote better mother." I said while quoting the words in the air. " So you do that by...allowing a man to rape us? Yeah, some mother you are."
"Can you just forget about that for a moment?" She asked. " Look, I've made mistakes, everybody does, but you can't keep making me pay for them when I'm trying to set everything right with you, girl!"
" You want to make things right with me? Give me a reasonable explanation as to why you did it."
She stared at me for a moment. " I gave my reasoning...if that's not good for you then I don't know what to tell you. I said I was sorry."
Those words shot anger through me. I slammed my hand on the arm of the leather chair. " I don't want to hear another apology from you! You can leave your them hanging off the tip of your lip because they mean nothing to me."
"All I'm asking you to do is forget about what happened so I can tell you why I made the decision I made."
"Why did you make that decision. "
"I did what I thought was best for the two of you. "
" How is that best?!" I shifted myself over to her. " Tell me how was that best for us? Do you have have the slightest idea as to what that did to us?" I pulled up the sleeve of Michael's jacket. " You can't look at this and tell me that that was what was best for us."
I heard them gasp as they stared at my scars on both of my arms. I caught a glimpse a tear falling from Leena's eyes. I stared back at my mother whose face was ashen. She made eye contact with me. " If you want an explanation read all those unanswered letters I sent you. All your answers are in there." With that she stood up and stormed out of the room, leaving all eyes to be focused on me. I couldn't bring myself to look at Liana or Sasha. I definitely couldn't look at Leena. I could feel her tears. She was crying..... crying tears for the both of us.