Chapter 18
Makynzee
Who gets married in the middle of the week on a Wednesday? My mom and Stanley. I’m not sure why I decided to come here and why I didn’t tell Kalil, but I’m sitting at our church with Jay waiting for my mom’s wedding to start. I feel my phone vibrate from inside my clutch. I know it’s Kalil before I even look at it. He wants to know where I am. I text him back. His response is a question mark and an exclamation point. When we first started talking Kalil would have never sent anything like that. He would barely even text. I guess I’m wearing off on him too. I tell him I’ll call him when I’m on my way home. I can’t tell him anything else. I honestly don’t know why I’m here. Jay has protested us being here at least five times since we sat down and it’s only been a few minutes, literally.
As I slip my phone back in my clutch she says, “We shouldn’t be here.”
“Well, we’re here and you volunteered to come. I didn’t make or ask you to.” It’s bad enough I’ll have to get an earful from Kalil when I get home, I don’t need it from her too. Stanley, a priest, and the guy I assume is his best man walk in from a side door. He cleans up well. His tuxedo looks good on him. He smiles at a few people in the front row before scanning the crowd. I wonder if he’s looking for me. He is. His eyes stop when they land on me. His smile grows. He looks as though he wants to come and say something to me, but I’m pretty sure I’m frowning at him. He mouths the words thank you and I look away. Kalil has sent me another text. He wants to know why I didn’t let him come with me. I seriously doubt he wants to be here, so that means he’s worried about Nyeem. I tell him it was a last minute decision and that Jay followed me when I left the studio. Before he can respond I tell him I’m not staying for the reception and that they’re about to start. I turn my phone off and slip it back into my clutch just as music begins to play. The colors for the ceremony are purple, silver, and white. The decorations are beautiful. The bridesmaid’s dresses are lovely. Amber is a bridesmaid. When she gets to the front of the church and stands in her designated place she smiles as she looks towards the doors she just walked out of. I guess she catches me in her peripheral. She looks surprised. That means she still doesn’t know the woman her dad is about to marry is my mom. I wonder if she’ll be happy with this or upset that none of us told her. “The Wedding March” begins to play, signaling my mom’s entrance. We all stand and look back towards the doors. As psychotic as my mom may be, it does nothing to take away from her beauty. In her wedding dress she’s stunning. She has no escort. My grandparents are dead and no one speaks of my only uncle. I briefly wish I could be the one to escort her. She’s beaming as she slowly makes her way down the aisle to the beat of the music. I don’t know how to process this moment. I look at her and I see pieces of myself. I see pieces of Riley. The three of us look identical. On several different occasions I’ve had people tell me I look just like my mom. I’ve never noticed it until now. I wish I hadn’t noticed it at all. I don’t want to look like her. I don’t want her to look like Riley. I can’t stop the tears that fall from my eyes. I don’t want her to see me. I try to quickly step behind Jay, but she’s slow to catch the meaning in what I’m trying to do. My movement causes my mom to look at me and I hear her surprised gasp over the music. She momentarily forgets her wedding march and rushes over to me. All eyes should be trained on her alone, but instead they’re trained on us. A voice in the back of my subconscious tells me I should hug her back after she throws her arms around me, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Jay turns into that person I no longer recognize and discreetly pushes my right arm around my mom’s waist. This hug is uncomfortable and I feel awkward, but my mom doesn’t let go. I glance around the church. Everyone’s smiling at us. Do they know our story? I look up at Stanley and see that he’s beaming with happiness. I look over at Amber. She’s one of the few people in the church who isn’t smiling. She looks confused. She’s most likely wondering why her dad’s new wife is hugging me and obviously refusing to let go. The minister loudly clears his throat once the music fades away and my mom finally lets me go.
“Will you stay for the reception, please?”
She’s crying now. I don’t answer her. I just stare at her and force a smile. Regardless of what we have going on, she’s still my mom and knows how I work. She knows my non-answer is really an answer.
“It’s okay, baby. I’m glad you even came. Thank you.”
She holds my hand and begins to back away from me, but she’s taking her time. She doesn’t want to let my hand go. The minister clears his throat again.
“I love you,” she says.
I can only take so much of this. I pull my hand away from her and pretend I’m looking through my clutch for some tissue. An older lady sitting behind me slips some into my hand. I smile my thanks to her before looking back at my mom. She’s hurrying to make her way to Stanley. His hand is held out for her to take, but he’s watching me. His smile is tight. I glance over at Amber, who’s frowning. When the ceremony is done I watch my mom from a distance, as her and Stanley shake the hands of the well-wishers in the receiving line. She’s not focused on them. She keeps looking around. Maybe she’s looking for me. Maybe not. Either way she won’t find me. Jay and I slip away unnoticed.
I don’t go to the studio the next day. My goal is to stay at home and empty the DVR of all the shows I’ve recorded. Kalil and KJ are gone. I’m not sure where, but I’m grateful for their absence. Kalil didn’t ask me anything about the wedding. I guess he’s waiting for me to just tell him. I think I’m depressed. Seeing my mom did something to me. I can’t explain it. I hate her, but I love her just as much. I miss her. I can’t explain how I feel to myself, so I know I won’t be able to explain it to Kalil. My phone rings, but it’s not Kalil or Jay, so whoever it is can leave a message. I’m pigging out on some jalapeño Cheetos and watching True Blood. Somehow I completely block my phone and thoughts of my mom and two hours later I have four missed calls and three texts. Two of the calls are from my mom. She didn’t leave any voicemails. The last two calls and the texts are from Amber.
So does this make us sisters now?
Or r u still just my coach?
R u thr?
I’m here… both
Small world, huh? Can I tell u something?
Yeah
I dnt thk I like ur mom
I wasn’t expecting that. I almost tell her neither do I, but I decide against that. I wonder how long she’s actually known my mom. What did she do to make her not like her?
Y not?
She’s trying too hard, like she’s hiding something
Like wht?
I dnt thk she likes me
Her loss
Y aren’t u here, ur obviously not sick…
Cnt I take a day off?
Not if we still hv to be here
It wnt kill u
Wht if I cnt focus, can I go hm?
Depends on the reason
Marlon broke up with me…by text…who does tht???
I’m guessing Marlon is the boyfriend she’s always gushing about. I briefly wonder if Stanley knows she has a boyfriend. Is she still a virgin or am I really an anomaly? This isn’t really my forte. I’ve never been dumped. I think I suck at this whole big sister thing.
His loss, thr will be others…
Like Kalil?!?!?!
It’s no secret that most of the girls I coach have a crush on Kalil. I can’t blame them. He is pretty freaking awesome. However, I didn’t know Amber fell into that category.
Y like Kalil?
He’d do anything for u, he luvs u, I wnt a man just like him
U’ll find someone who’ll be the same wit u
Is thr any way to speed the process up?
I’m 19. I just met Kalil earlier this year…time determines itself
I hv to wait 4 years?!?!?!?
Lol, y r u textn me instead of practicn?
I told u, cnt focus
Eminem & Lil Wayne hv a song called no love…
Use the computer in the office to download it…the edited version…
Come up with a freestyle…
Show me wht u got Saturday whn u cum in…
Ugh… O_o…it’s so like u to gv me homework whn I already said I cnt focus
Did she just give me the side eye?
Ur already focused on Marlon
Use a song tht will make u thk of him, no love
Focus will cum without u realizing it
Tht actually makes sense…c u Saturday
Maybe I’m okay at this big sister thing. Time will tell. I’m tempted to call my mom back. I wonder how she’s doing, what she’s been up to. Having too much time on my hands is something I need to steer clear of just for reasons like this. I’m suddenly craving Kalil and KJ’s company. Just as I pick my phone up to call them the doorbell rings. I look through the peephole to see who it is. I don’t recognize the guy, but he looks familiar. “Who is it?”
“Kaeden, I’m looking for Kalil.”
I don’t want to tell him Kalil’s not here, but he looks too familiar to just blow him off. “Kaeden who?”
“Kaeden James.”
I feel extremely stupid when he says this because it dawns on me why he looks so familiar. He looks like a slightly older version of Kalil. He has Kalil’s last name. Kalil only talks about his sister. He’s never mentioned a brother. This has to be a cousin, but the resemblance is too strong. “How do you know Kalil?”
“He’s my brother.”
He says this as though I should have already known. I can’t help myself. I open the door. With the door open, he no longer just looks familiar. If he wasn’t older, they could go for twins. I stare at him in silence as I wonder why Kalil never mentioned him.
“You must be Makynzee?”
I frown at him. How come he knows me and I know nothing of his existence?
“I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m guessing if he was home he’d be at the door by now, so just let him know I came by,” he says and turns to leave.
I’m not sure why, but I stop him. “I’ll call him for you. You can come in.” I don’t know this guy, so I don’t know why I trust him enough to invite him in. He stands in the doorway as if he doesn’t want to come any further. He doesn’t look directly at me. Even when he talked to me, he didn’t really look at me. I grab my phone and call Kalil. I guess I’m intrigued by the fact that he’s my previously nonexistent brother-in-law.
Kalil answers on the third ring and asks, “You miss us?”
“Yeah, come home.”
“Gotta get gas first.”
I can hear KJ talking in the background. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but I know he’s asking Kalil for something. “Baby, do you have a brother?”
He’s silent for a few seconds; caught off guard.
“Why’d you ask that?”
“There’s a Kaeden here claiming to be your brother.”
“I’ll be there in 5 minutes, don’t let him in the house.”
“Baby, it’s hot as hell outside. I already invited him in.”
“Then tell him I said get the fuck out and lock the damn door until I get there!”
The line goes dead. I look down at the phone in shock. Kalil has never yelled at me like that, let alone hang up on me. I look up at his brother. He was watching me. He tries to quickly look away, but it’s too late. He can obviously see the confusion on my face.
“I’ll wait outside.”
He goes out to the porch without waiting for me to respond. It’d be rude for me to close the door, but something tells me my rudeness is the least of his concerns. It really is hot outside though. I grab a cold bottle of water and some paper towels and give them to him. He looks as though he wants to ask me a question, but looks away from me instead. He suddenly seems uncomfortable around me. Nervous. I go back inside the house just as Kalil is pulling into the drive way. He goes into the garage and a little while later he comes in the house carrying KJ. He has that dangerous look I hate. It borders on the edge of that evil look I never want to see again.
“What’d he say to you?” he asks.
I take KJ from him and frown. “Nothing, he just asked for you. Why are you so mad?”
“How long he been here?”
He opens the door and I see Kaeden walking off the porch to the lawn.
“Just a few minutes. What’s wrong?”
“Stay in the house, Mak. Don’t come out here.”
He slams the door without saying anything else. I go to the window and peep through the curtains. Kaeden has his hands up as though he’s surrendering. His lips are moving as he backs away from Kalil, who’s coming off the porch towards him. Kalil hits him. I jump and back away from the window.
“Can I have some juice?” KJ asks.
“Why don’t you go potty first and wash your hands and then we’ll get juice and a snack?”
I put him down and he runs into the bathroom. I go back to the window just in time to see Kalil hit Kaeden again. He keeps trying to back away. He seems as though he’s not even trying to fight back, but Kalil seems as though he doesn’t care. He keeps hitting him. Kaeden is on the ground now. Kalil shakes his hand a few times as though it hurts, while Kaeden rolls onto his hands and knees and spits blood. Kalil kicks him in his stomach just as I snatch the door open and yell hiss name.
“Go back in the fucking house! I said not to come out here,” he yells.
I hate the look in his eyes more than I hate the way he’s talking to me. It reminds me of the night those guys broke in the house. He actually scares me, but I’m not going to let him continue to beat the crap out of his brother. “Baby, stop…please. Whatever he did, just forget it. Come in the house with us.”
“Go back inside.”
He’s no longer yelling and his demeanor has changed. “Come with me.”
He stares at me for a little while then looks back at Kaeden and says, “Leave, we don’t got shit to talk about.”
As he walks to me Kaeden says, “You know we do. You can’t just keep going like I don’t exist.”
Kalil stops coming my way. Yelling for him to stop falls on deaf ears. He’s hitting Kaeden again. For the life of me I can’t figure out why he won’t at least try to defend himself. I feel helpless watching them. I’m not about to try to separate them, but if I let it go on there’s no telling how much damage Kalil will do. I almost forget KJ is in the house. He yells my name as he runs outside to where I am. I try to pick him up before he sees what’s going on, but I’m not fast enough. When he sees Kalil he starts crying.
“I want my daddy,” he yells as I carry him inside.
“Daddy’s talking to somebody right now, baby. Let’s get you a snack.” The mention of a snack makes him forget about Kalil and what he just saw. As I pour milk into a cup for him I hear the door open. Kalil comes into the kitchen and squats beside KJ’s chair.
“Daddy, I called you. Mommy gave me a snack.”
KJ has been calling me mommy a lot lately. He usually corrects himself, but this time he doesn’t.
“Mommy or Makynzee?” Kalil asks.
“Mommy Makynzee!”
Cute, but why is he yelling? Kalil gives him a kiss on his cheek then comes to where I’m standing.
“Look at your hand,” I say. The knuckles on his right hand are bleeding. I grab one of the towels from the counter and wet it before grabbing his hand. As I clean the blood away I mumble, “How did you not feel this?” I guess he feels it now. He makes a hissing sound and pulls his hand away. “You need to let me clean it and ice it.”
He kisses me and says, “I didn’t mean to yell at you like that.”
I don’t respond. I’m almost positive Kalil has a personality disorder, somewhere along the lines of multiple.
“You can clean it later. I need a few minutes right now.”
He doesn’t wait for me to respond. I watch a
s he walks away. He goes in the basement. Hours later he’s still there. I have no idea what he’s doing. When I put KJ to bed I stop at the top of the stairs and listen for any signs of him. There are none, so I shower and go to bed.
Kalil
The house is quiet. My babies must be asleep. I look at my watch and see that it’s after ten. I’ve been down here too long. I turn the PS3 off and head upstairs. KJ is snoring and he’s kicked his covers off. I put them back over him then head down the hall. Mak has the covers pulled up around her neck. It’s not even cold in here. She stirs a little as I pull them off of her, but doesn’t wake up. She’s lying on her stomach. One hand is tucked under her chest, the other off to her side. One leg is slightly raised, the other straight. She’s wearing a red tank top and lime green boy shorts. I love her body. Her birthmark covers her butt and the top part of the back of her thighs. It’s darker than the rest of her body. She says it makes her two-toned, so she hates it. I think it makes her different so I love it. While I’m watching her, her eyes open and she looks up at me. She’s paranoid even in her sleep. I know it’s because of Nyeem. When I find him, he’s dead. He’s good at hiding though. It’s like he doesn’t exist unless it’s to come around and fuck with her. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” I say. I really did. She glances around the room then looks back at me. I frown and ask her what she’s looking for.
“What time is it? What are you doing?”
“Strongly considering having my way with you.”
She yawns, smiles a little and rolls onto her back. “Okay. I’m ready.” She bends her knees and opens her legs. I smile. She never tells me no. Even late at night when she’s obviously tired and sleepy.
“I said I was thinking about it, I can wait.”
“But I’m ready now. Quickie.”
She leans up and pulls her tank top off. Her breasts don’t match her ass. They’re tiny in comparison. It’s another part of her body that she hates, but I love.
“I got a song for you,” I say.
“This should be interesting. You suck at dedications.”
I take my shirt off before sitting beside her on the bed. She sits up to me and starts kissing my back and my neck. She uses one hand to rub my stomach. The other is on my chest.
She unbuttons my pants and says, “Hurry up. I need to feel you.”
She has no inhibitions when it comes to sex. She’s not tainted by any previous cats who did her wrong. She tells me exactly what she wants and lets me know when she doesn’t like something. I’ve never had a woman tell me she didn’t like something I did. It threw me off the first time she did it, but if my mission is to please her, why not make it easier by letting her tell me exactly what she wants. I laugh out loud at the thought.
“What’s funny,” she asks.
I ignore her question and tell her to give me five seconds as I scroll through the music on my phone. I find Lil Wayne’s album, The Carter IV, and play ‘So Special’ for her.
“Wow, baby, that’s actually a good one!”
I ignore the fact that she’s genuinely surprised. I stand up and turn to face her. “From behind.” She smiles and turns her back to me. I think I love her and I should probably tell her, but I need to maintain my swag, right? Besides, if I said it right now she’d think it’s only because of what we’re doing right now.
Mak’s eyes are closed, but I don’t think she’s asleep. I lie beside her and say, “Get up for a minute. We need to talk.”
“Sleep, Kalil.”
“Five minutes.”
She groans, opens her eyes to slits, and says, “Three?”
If this wasn’t a serious subject I’d laugh at her. “You wanna sleep or you wanna know about Kaeden?”
Her eyes open fully.
“You’ve never talked about him. I thought it was just you and Karmen.”
“It has been for the past three years.”
“Why?”
She’s not pushing or demanding, just curious. It’s easy to talk to her. I’m not sure why I didn’t tell her this before. “The three of us were tight, like ridiculously tight. My mom said we were knuckleheads, so she sent us here to stay with my uncle. My sister stayed in Florida with her.” I glance over at her and she places the palm of her hand against my cheek, encouraging me to keep talking. I kiss her forehead and roll onto my back. “He was my brother, like one in the same, he could do no wrong. Nothing could come between us. Always together, you saw one of us, you saw both of us. Kind of like you and Jaida, but worse. I never suspected anything and she didn’t tell me who it was at first…I honestly didn’t wanna know. I wasn’t as laid back as I am now, so knowing who it was would have probably meant me going to jail. I was telling him everything. Asking him for advice. He was telling me to ride it out, give her time, she’d come around…the whole time he was the one she was fucking with.” I wait for her to put it together. When she does she quickly sits up.
“Jasmine was cheating with your brother?!”
She actually looks mad. “She said it was an accident, they were drinking and smoking. She said I was at the club ignoring her, he was at the apartment with her…”
“Accidents happen once, not over and over. She’s full of shit.”
She’s really mad. Her expression quickly changes and she leans down and kisses me.
“I let him in here, I’m so sorry.”
She can’t blame herself for what she didn’t know.
“That’s not your fault.”
“So that’s why you fought him…because of that?”
She sounds hurt. “Because of what?”
She looks away before answering me.
“Because of him…and Jasmine.”
I can barely hear her. The thought alone is causing her to be self-conscious.
“No, hell no! That was because of you.”
She looks confused.
“He knows he’s not welcome here. He knows he shouldn’t have shown his face here for no reason at all, and he damn sure knows he had no business being around you, especially if I ain’t nowhere around.”
She stares at me in silence. I think she’s reading too far into what I just said.
“Kalil, I’m not Jasmine. There’s nothing you could do to make me cheat, let alone with your brother. I’d just call it quits and count my losses.”
“It’s not even about that, it’s the principle.”
She looks confused again. “You don’t talk to him?”
“No.”
“He stays here in town?”
“No, he actually stays in your town.”
“Then how does he know me?”
This pisses me off. When I called Karmen today she said she never told Kaeden anything about Mak. My popularity is also my curse. I can’t keep her shielded from my world forever. Sooner or later it’ll come to her. It doesn’t help that in the few months that it’s been open her studio has been going nonstop. Soon she’ll be more popular than I am. At least her popularity will be for a good thing. “You’re a pretty hot commodity. Don’t you think?” I’m not lying, but she’s not buying it. “Me not talking to him doesn’t mean he doesn’t keep up with what I’m doing.”
I think she buys this, but before she says anything we hear KJ. He’s crying and calling for his mommy. He’s been calling her mommy more and more. Since the Troy incident he’s been with us more than with Jasmine, so I can’t really blame him. I’ve been trying to watch her reactions when he does it to see if she’s uncomfortable with it, but she never really responds. She just answers whatever question he’s asking, helps with whatever he’s trying to do, or goes to him like she’s doing now. She grabs one of my t-shirts and slips it over her head as she goes towards the door. “Go back to sleep, I got him.”
She looks towards KJ then back at me. “Don’t be mean, if he tells you something scared him that means he’s had a nightmare and whatever it is you have to get rid of it, even if it means pretending.”
He’s about to be three. He’s
practically grown. “I’m not gone pretend to get rid of something that ain’t there.”
She goes around me and says, “Then don’t go.”