•Chapter 12.
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TINASHE'S POV :
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY ! " I entered in my baby's room, holding a vanilla cupcake in my right hand. My big boy was turning six today and I felt so emotional about this. No lie, I had to make a big effort to not break down, and I fortunately was succeeding at holding my tears in. I didn't know for how long it was going to last though.
The night before, I kept replaying the delivery in my head, re-living every single emotions that I was feeling this day. It was tough and I thought that I was going to die while giving birth to my child, but I didn't and I was rewarded with the most precious gift I could ever had.
Seeing his lovely little face just proved how mighty and good God is. RJ really enlightened my life and every day he was making me proud to be his mother. I was beyond grateful to have my son, he was everything I needed in my life, even though I didn't know that I needed him before I got pregnant. And this fact alone will always blow my mind.
He rubbed his eyes as he slowly sat up, "good morning, mommy."
"Good morning, mommy's baby. Happy birthday ! " I sat on the bed.
"Thank you." He smiled, seeing the cupcake in my hand, that I brought closer to his mouth so he could blow the candle.
"Yes ! How does it feel to be six ? "
He shrugged as I handed him the cake, "it doesn't really change anything, but I'm six now."
I chuckled, "okay. I'm going to let you get ready. Join me downstairs when you're done."
I kissed his cheek, then left his room, going back to the kitchen to finish our breakfast. I was making his favorite: bacon, french toasts covered with Nutella and castor sugar, accompanied by a bowl of strawberries and cherries, and a glass of orange juice.
"Mommy, can I wear my new J's today ? " He yelled from the stairs.
"Yes, you can." I hollered back as I was making his plate.
A few minutes later, he was walking in the kitchen, dressed like a little prince. I couldn't deny it, my baby knew how to pull up a good outfit and he was only six, so imagine what it will be when he'll hit sixteen.
"Wow ! Look at you, my lil' prince. Showing out for your big day, do you boo ! " I hyped him up.
"Thanks, thanks, please stop." He made some dance moves and posed as I got my phone and snapped a few pictures. My baby was too cute, "hm ! It smells good here." He commented, coming towards me, his eyes focusing on his plate.
"Yeah, I made your favorite."
"You're the best mom ever ! " He jumped merrily before sitting down as I brought our plates to the table. We blessed the food before to start eating.
"Thank you for this, mommy."
"You're welcome, baby."
"I heard it's someone's birthday today." We heard a voice coming from the doorway, and to my surprise, it was Richard's. We didn't even hear him come in the house.
I instantly frowned, wondering what he was doing here since he was supposed to come back only tomorrow. Richard was away due to work and he called us two days prior to tell us that he was unfortunately not going to be there on time for RJ's birthday.
"Daddy, you're here ! "
"Of course, I'm here. Happy birthday, big boy." He walked further in, hiding something behind his back.
"Thank you ! What's behind your back ? " He asked, getting excited.
"I don't know." He put a box of a medium size and wrapped in blue paper on the counter. RJ made a list and everything that he put on it was expensive, and Richard could rarely tell him no, so I already knew he got him something extravagant.
Looking more at those two interacting, I then realized that they were matching. Both had a black t-shirt with the Africa continent on it, in white, with black lantz twill cargo pants and some new dark grey Nike Air Jordans. Even their fresh cuts were the same. They were often doing it, and it was always unplanned. Crazy, right ?
"Mommy, look ! We're matching ! " He screamed as I nodded my head.
"Yes, baby, I saw it."
"And daddy finished your french toasts." He chuckled, pointing at my plate. I was too focused analyzing their outfits that I didn't notice him digging his hands in my food and he was just in front of me. I needed to stop trancing off so often like that.
I smacked my teeth, looking up at him. "Really ? "
"RJ, you're such a snitch, man."
He laughed, "that's my mother and I don't lie to her, not even for you. Sorry." He shrugged, then grabbed a strawberry from his bowl.
"I can't even be mad at you. I can drop him off, if you want."
"Oh, uh...well, okay." Since that pregnancy scare and our conversation about future babies, things hadn't been the same between us. It was awkward and the tension was thick in the air. We were some weeks later, and I still couldn't believe that he actually said what he said. He only wanted us to have kids with each other. I didn't know if I should be flattered or mad about it, but his words definitely shocked me.
Why would he even say those things ?
He couldn't be faithful, ruining our relationship for nothing and now he was telling me that. He was confusing me more than anything else. He was so weird.
"Okay. Lil' homie, go grab your school bag."
He finished his orange juice and did as he was told, leaving Richard and I by ourselves, in an awkward silence.
"So, how was your camp ? " I asked after clearing my throat and breaking the silence.
"Good. We worked on a lot. Everybody is ready for the new season, we really are motivated to get that Lombardi."
I nodded, "good." Then an uncomfortable silence settled between us. I couldn't even look at him, I felt ashamed. And other things were going through my mind, and heart. I didn't know what it was and honestly I didn't want to know what it exactly was. I wasn't going down that road once again.
"Tina--"
"I'm back ! " RJ cut him off, running down the stairs.
"Well, then let's go."
"See you later, mommy."
RICHARD'S POV:
* *''It ain't no fun if the homies can't have none
It ain't no fun if the homies can't have none
So let's share, share, share
We'll just share, share, share''**
I sang along as I was driving RJ to school. Six years old already. Everything happened so fast. It still felt like he was a newborn just yesterday. In no time, he'll be sixteen, then twenty-one and soon he'll be living on his own and have his own little family.
I couldn't wait to get there and see him grow, but at the same I wanted to be able to freeze time for awhile, so I could enjoy him as a kid a bit longer. But I had to accept the fat that he was growing up each and every day and that I could do nothing about it, but guide and watch him.
Hopefully, he won't fuck up like I did.
"Dad, mommy said you can't play that when I'm in the car."
"Yeah, but your mother is not here."
"But I am and I can tell her."
I slightly rolled my eyes, "A dollar ? "
"More like five." He smiled, showing me all of his little white teeth.
I shook my head, not believing that my own son was swindling me. "Doing this to you own father, what a shame."
"It's my birthday, so no shame." He said, making me laugh.
"You're something else."
"Dad, can I ask you something ? " His tone was now serious.
I frowned, "what's wrong ? "
"Uh, nothing really, well I don't know. But mommy is sad lately, and I'm worried about her." He said, looking so sad and I didn't like it one bit.
I sighed, "your mother is a strong woman, you don't need to worry. She's gonna be alright."
"Are you sure ? I heard her cry the other night."
Hearing that, made me feel some type of way as my heart tightened up in my chest. "You sure she was crying ? " I asked, as I parked in front of his school. Once the car was parked, I stopped the engine, then turned around to face him.
He nodded, "yes. You need to talk to her."
"Me ? "
"Yes, you're friends. Right ? "
Were we ? I couldn't even truthfully answer his question, because I honestly had no idea. When we broke up, our friendship was ruined as well. If it wasn't for RJ, we wouldn't be in each other's life today.
"Uh, yes. I'll go talk to her."
"You promise ? "
"Yes, I promise."
"Don't lie to me, please."
"I said, I promise."
"Okay, make her laugh again. I saw you do that often, but..." He frowned, "I was younger. Are you angry with each other ? "
"You can count on me and no we're not angry. Everything is gonna be alright, I promise. Now, go learn something. I love you."
"I would love to learn something, but we not been doing much lately. Love you too." He commented before to get out, making me smile. This kid was something else.
I was on a break before the following training camp and I had nothing planned for the day, so I went back to Tina's house to check up on her, as I promised. We weren't friends like that anymore, but no matter what I will always care about her and not just because she was the mother of my first born.
She was special to my heart.
***
I slid the key in the lock, then entered in. I locked the front door behind me before to call her name. We both had the keys of each other's house, for safety purposes mainly.
After I called her for the fifth time, she was coming down the stairs. "Richard ? What are you doing here ? "
"Hey. I'm here on a little mission." She looked at me as if I was talking in another language. I sighed, "RJ heard you cry the other night and he asked me to talk to you, to make sure that you were okay."
She covered her face with both of her hands, ashamed. "Oh my God, no."
"Hey, it's okay. Things happen. Why were you crying for though ? "
She uncovered her face, "I don't want to talk about this with you. You can go, I'll have a conversation with him later and tell him to not worry about me."
"Tina..." I trailed off, staring at her. She did look sad, as if she recently lost someone.
"I'm good, really. It was nothing. I get emotional sometimes, it's normal. You can go now." She said, motioning the door with her hand.
Stop lying, was what I really wanted to say, but I didn't.
I sighed, not wanting to insist more. I couldn't force her to talk to me, "you sure it's not because of what happened between us ? " But I couldn't leave without knowing that she was really fine and able to function without breaking down at any moment. I didn't want RJ to see her like this.
That is one thing to hear your parent cry, but to actually see them in distress and completely down was a sight I didn't want my son to experience, like me.
For all the time I had to know my mother, I'd never seen her truly happy. She was rarely smiling, and whenever she did, it wasn't reaching her eyes. She was miserable and it affected me deeply, and not in a positive way. I had a few strong emotional issues to deal with as I got older, anger being the main one. I was so mad at my biological father for destroying my mother the way he did. He abused her in all the possible aspects, going deep to the point where he got to damage her soul.
"Richard, I'm good. Don't worry about me."
"Okay...but if you need to talk to someone..." I hinted, hoping that she was going to confess.
"I'll call Brettany or Stacy, or my mom. There's my sister too. Daniela. I have people to talk to, don't worry."
"And know that you can count me in too."
"Really ? " She put her right hand on her right hip, as her eyebrow arched. "I don't think so."
"I--"
"If it wasn't for RJ, you wouldn't be in my life as of today. Apparently, you are still not getting what you did six years ago."
"Lis--"
"You broke my heart and ruin us, and by that I mean our relationship and friendship. Not only my boyfriend betrayed me, but my best friend too. There were plenty of times when I was going through something emotionally and wanted to grab my phone and call you, but then I remembered that I couldn't do this anymore, and it fucking hurt. Every time. Eventually though...I got over it."
Her words stabbed my heart a few times, it was hurtful to hear that. "It doesn't have to be like this."
"But it is like this and...it's your fault. Now, go. Please."
Her eyes were expressing so much anger and pain towards me, making me uncomfortable. Believe it or not, but I was regretting what I did six years ago every day. I sometimes couldn't sleep at night because of this, because my conscious was driving me totally insane. I really wish things went a different way.
"Have a nice day."
[ Days • Later ]
TINASHE'S POV:
"Mommy, I can't find my socks."
"Which one are you looking for ? "
"The white ones with Mickey Mouse on it."
"He's wearing his usual clothes ? "
"No, he doesn't have clothes, there's just his head."
"They're with the dirty laundry, so you can't wear them."
"Aw ! " He whined, then went back in his room.
Today was Saturday and we were celebrating RJ's birthday with family and friends. The party was starting at one p.m and we were already late, so we had to get ready in a rush. We were supposed to wake up at a certain hour, but I didn't hear my alarm clock since I was deeply sleeping.
The theme was officially Superman, but we decorated everything like a carnival, so I guess we had two themes going on. But Mickey was never in the equation, so I didn't know why he wanted to wear those socks so badly.
I shook my head and finished to get ready.
"We're leaving in ten minutes ! " I heard Richard from downstairs. We decided to head to the party as a family to make RJ happy, but I wasn't really here for this.
I'd been feeling some kind of way lately and I couldn't really explain what was going on with me. It was hard to deal with this mix of confusing emotions. But it wasn't like I was actually trying to deal with this, I was just letting it be and trying to go through this the best way I could, without completely losing my mind.
As I was making my way to the living room, I could hear them laughing and acting like fools, making me playfully shake my head at them.
"It's your birthday. We can't call you a baby no more. You're six and can do more." Richard started rapping, causing me to make a grimace at this.
It was terrible.
"Yeah, yeah ! Today it's my day. It's been since Thursday. I'm the king and if you don't do as I say, you'll be in trouble. Uh, my mommy is pretty and my dad is cool. This day is gonna be good. Yeah, man ! " RJ rapped too and honestly, it wasn't that much better.
They had talents for a lot of things, but freestyle was definitely not their thing.
"You can't rap ! Please, stop the massacre. Horrible, Gosh." I let them know without any regret. I couldn't lie to them about this. I wasn't about to hype that shit.
"Boy, don't listen to your mother, she's an hater." Richard said, narrowing his eyes at me.
"Yes, you're right. Mommy, you killed our vibes, that's not cool."
"But you're matching us, so I guess you're all forgiven." Richard said and his clone nodded his head, agreeing.
We were all wearing a red t-shirt with a picture we took together when RJ was only one, blue jeans and red gazelle adidas. We also had a Superman snapback on our heads and the boys had matching white adidas watches on their left wrists in addition.
"Yeah, you love us so much that you had to be the third twin, huh ? "
I kissed my teeth, "lil' boy, bye. And there's no such thing as a third twin, we're triplets, I guess. And ! You begged me to match with y'all, so what are you talking about ? "
"I do not recall, mommy."
I laughed, "let's go, we're already late."
***
It'd been two hours since we got there and I could honestly say that I was enjoying myself. There was no drama and everybody was getting along with one another. RJ was having the time of his life, what was making me the happiest mother of the universe. As long as my baby was happy, everything was good in my world.
"Honey, I'm sorry but your father won't come. He has an emergency at work." My mother told me, putting her phone back into her bag.
I quickly rolled my eyes, "of course. Every year something is happening and preventing him to be there for his unique grandchild. It's okay, he'll send a big and expensive gift to apologize." I said with a sarcastic tone of voice. I wasn't that mad because it meant there won't be drama with him and Richard and the Lord knows I didn't need that today; but I still wanted him to show up for this family event so we could all spend some quality time together, like a real family.
"You have the right to be upset." She simply said before sipping on her wine.
"Of course she had all the rights in the world. Daddy never showed up to one of RJ's birthday parties, except last year but he was only there to start some drama, and he only stayed for an hour." My sister shared her thoughts with us.
Tamicka was my nineteen years old little sister, that I didn't see for months. I was glad that she got to come for her nephew's birthday, even though she was submerged with a lot of school work.
So yeah, my father really didn't have an excuse to not be there.
Tamicka was studying medicine in Miami and since she left the family house, she'd been living her life, completely forgetting that she had people here in Los Angeles. I couldn't blame her though because she was just enjoying herself out there.
Her and I were never the closest sisters, but we had a good relationship nonetheless. At the end of the day, we loved one another deeply and could kill for each other, but we could both be very stubborn and were often disagreeing, so we weren't getting along every day. It was so easy for us to get on each other's nerves and in the fastest time you could think of.
"Your father loves RJ, he's just a very busy man."
"Bullshit, mother. He can make more effort than this. If you really want to be there for someone, there's always a way for you to do just that. That's fool of him to treat his own family like this just because he doesn't like Richard." My sister said as I hummed loudly to agree with her. Sometimes we could be on the same page.
"Richard isn't the center of the world. I repeat, your father loves RJ. Call him tonight, so you can talk about this with him. You obviously have a problem with the man." She kept defending her husband, even though she knew we were right. I could understand it though, but only at a certain extent. It's also your job as a wife to put your husband back in his place when he's acting up.
But what do I know anyways ?
"Now, she has to call him ? Mom, c'mon."
"Tamicka, change the tone of your voice. I'm your mother, and I know you didn't forget. You think because you're living on your own now that you can talk crazy to me ? I don't think so, young girl. I brought you into this world, in tears and pain, may I add, and so If I want to take you out, I'll do it, believe that." She stood up and walked away from our table.
"Damn ! " I exclaimed as she rolled her eyes.
"I ain't scared of her."
I chuckled, "of course." My mother was so chill, but she also wasn't a woman to mess with. She would whoop your ass out of nowhere, when you're least expecting it. Surprise effect was her thing. Younger, and if we knew we did something, we had to watch out for her ninja ass. "So, lil' sis, how is life ? Having fun in Miami ? "
She smirked, wiggling her eyebrows. "I met someone."
"Oh ! Tell me everything ! " I got excited and made sure to pour my glass, "my ears are wide opened."
"Okay. His name is Raphaël. He's Brazilian. Twenty-one and in medicine like me. He's a very good kisser. And girl, he's so fiiiine."
"I see you, girl ! Heeeey ! " We made our handshake, ending it with a fist-pump. "So, are y'all official yet ? " I asked curiously.
"Not yet, but I can say that we're going for this, we're still testing the water. Oh ! Please, don't tell daddy about this. He'll try to break us up before we even start a real relationship."
"Don't worry, I don't want you to go through what I've been through when I was with Richard."
"Thank you. Talking about Richard, what's up with you two ? "
"What you mean ? " I asked, chuckling.
"I conclude y'all still playing games." She folded her arms on the table, displaying more the tan she got in Miami. We were the same light brown skin tone, but since she'd been living there hers got darker, almost matching with our dad's.
"What games ? We're not playing any type of game."
"Stop lying. You two need to get back together like right now. If people around you can feel the love, I'm sure you can definitely feel it too. Stop being in deny. Please, stop lying to yourself. I've been gone for a few months and things are still the same between you two. Y'all need to evolve."
"Now, see--" I interrupted myself as the anger inside me began boiling immediately. Was I dreaming ? This bitch really had no kind of respect for me and my family, and it was pissing me the fuck off.
Why was Fanny at my son's birthday party ?
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Thanks for reading !
CissyItsMe💋