Get Ready for War, page 2
The plan was designer diaper bags, matching pink diamonds, Swarovski baby baths. The plan was blistering love between me and my man. Pushing a baby carriage. Having my publicist—something we all had for no other reason than to keep us relevant in the news—flood the media with pictures of my blue-blooded offspring. Maybe a shot at reality TV. Oh, and somewhere in between droppin’ it and poppin’ it and making my last rounds through a club or two was to be the royal marriage of the billionaire music mogul’s princess and the low-money-millionaire commoner.
And no, I wasn’t settling.
And yeah, I knew it sounded crazy.
And no, there was no way for me to help who I loved. Trust. My mother tried to stop me from loving him. And all it did was make me want my man more. Heck, I even tried leaving him alone. Twice. But all it did was leave me with two missed periods and two secrets to keep. So there was no fighting it. Knox was the only one I wanted. I had to have him. Period. No negotiation. No waving a white flag. I loved every inch of his six-foot, athletic-built, sexy-caesar, paper-bag brown deliciousness. And yeah, umm hmm, he was all of that.
Snap. Snap.
And yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, I could have any man that I wanted—with way more money and surname prestige. Heck, I was astoundingly beautiful: skin like chocolate silk, a Chinese bob that lay flush against my sharp jawline. Perfectly straight teeth encased by seductive, pouty lips. And my body was hella crazy: D-sized melon cups; molded, exquisitely round and dimple-free black-girl booty; hourglass hips; thick thighs; and luscious long legs. I was the embodiment of sweetness. Candy come to life. Swizz chocolate in human form. So there was no mistake I had it going on. Nevertheless I didn’t want anyone else. I wanted Knox.
Even if I was mad at him and was too stubborn to answer his calls and tell him that.
This was way too much drama to only be sixteen.
According to my mother, the Know-Ev-ver-ry-thing-Queen, by the time I was grown, only God knew what kind of fresh-azz skeezer I would be.
I resented that.
Apparently my mother missed the memo: there was no more time for me to be grown. I was already grown. And I wasn’t a skeezer—I just wasn’t a virgin. Clearly there was a difference.
But did she care? Hell no. All Logan Montgomery cared about was what she had planned for me, and what I wanted didn’t matter. My mother was such a dirty bitc—
Know what, I won’t even say it, because truth be told, my mother was way worse than any female dog in heat.
What kind of person blackmails their daughter to come to the middle of nowhere by placing a gun—loaded with two lawyers, a Tiffany pen, and a threat to donate my trust fund to the humane society (How inhumane was that?)—to my head, if I didn’t do what she said?
She left me with no choice. I had to come here and wait for the doctor to call the hotel suite and tell us when it was time.
She had me by the throat . . . but after this I was done with her. Finished. Because apparently she had me messed up. I was born with the platinum spoon; she was the ex-groupie. And her husband, the high school dropout turned rapper, turned billionaire CEO, was even worse than his wife.
I was sick of these people. And I was tired of my decisions being tied to their money. My life was bigger than that.
I was Rich Montgomery. Socialite extraordinaire. I walked on diamonds. I was the chick who put the It in the It Clique. I was the reason the Pampered Princesses could be considered pampered. I was that chick... Now all I needed was to feel like it...
12:00 P.M.
White sheets, stirrups, blue scrubs, and bright lights...
“Close your eyes and count backward. By the time you get to three you will be asleep . . .”
Nine... seven... five.. .four.. .three...
2:30 P.M.
I ran my hands across the cool white sheets. My palms were in search of Knox’s hard, brown body. My fingertips needed to cup his muscular pecs. I needed his heat. His passion. His kisses. His love. To make love and erase the pain I felt easing into my chest and settling there. I needed him, but my palms felt nothing. No heat. No passion. Nothing. He wasn’t there. A steel fist balled in my throat.
I opened my eyes and tears lined the rims. They slipped down my cheeks. I wasn’t with Knox.
I was at the exclusive doctor’s office.
Seated across the room on the left side of my bed, with her legs crossed and her eyes scrolling the pages of O magazine, was my mother—the dirty...
Tears continued to run down my cheeks. I reached for a Kleenex and my mother looked over the magazine she leafed through. “Oh, Rich, please, not the tears.”
If I could get out of this bed I would slap her face. I narrowed my eyes and swallowed the fist in my throat. “Do you know how hard this was for me?”
“Considering that this is the second time we’re here, I thought for sure that this had gotten easier.”
“You don’t even care!”
“You have about two seconds to drop that tone at least two octaves.”
“Why, Ma? Are you scared someone may hear me?!” Instead of dropping my voice two octaves I raised it by two. “I swear you are sooo confused!”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, really, and you know it. You think that my life belongs to you!”
“That’s right. That’s exactly what I think.” She lowered her eyes back to the magazine and flipped a page. “I’m glad you realized that. Perhaps this’ll be the last time we have to fly to this godforsaken place and pay way too much money because you refuse to use condoms and continue to sleep with the hired help’s herd. You really need to stop acting like a spoiled, self-centered brat and appreciate how lucky you are. Now, enough. Get some rest because in a few hours we are out of here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Mother. Forgive me for not appreciating how you keep making me get abortions. I really apologize for the inconvenience—surely you’d rather be at the spa spending Daddy’s money.”
My mother stared at me and closed the magazine. I knew I was teetering on the edge, but I didn’t care. Everything was not about her and what she wanted. And she needed to know that. I was sick of this control freak. This was my life and from this moment I was going to live it. My way. So, I returned the same nasty look that she had given me and at this moment we were mirror images of one another . . . until she rose from her seat and I felt like a five-year-old about to get a spanking.
Don’t be scared . . . you got this...
She crowded my personal space and hovered over me, nose practically to nose.
“What did you say?” my mother asked. Her coffee breath blew in the center of my face. I blinked and she leaned in even closer.
“With all due respect, Ma. I really need you to back up. Literally and figuratively.” She arched a brow and I continued. “I don’t need you sweatin’ me right now.”
“Sweatin’ you?”
“Yeah, you’re way too close. And another thing, since we’re going there, I don’t want to hear any lectures about what you think is best for me, especially since you’ve never asked me what I want.”
“Because what you want doesn’t matter. Yo’ azz,” she said with her Southern California drawl in full effect, “better want what da hell I tell you to want.”
“Okay. Since that’s how you’d like to have it. I tell you what: after today I’ll be your little robot. Will that please you?” I folded my hands in a prayer position and said in a sweet, sarcastic whine, “I won’t get into any trouble, Mommy. I’ll stay off the blogs, go to an Ivy League university—”
“And they would never have you.”
“Oh, you’re right.” I placed one of my manicured hands over my heart. “Forgive me for that, too. From this abortion on, I’ll be the born-again angelic virgin. Your little princess. Who keeps her legs closed and gets good grades. As a matter of fact, I’ll be more like you. I’ll leave the hired help’s herd alone and instead I’ll head to dressing rooms and stalk rappers and NBA players.”
Smack!
My mother’s hand sailed across my face and burned my cheek as it landed. I almost fell out the bed as my head jerked toward the guardrail.
I quickly collected myself and as I tried to sit up my mother’s hand flew through the air to smack me again, but this time I caught her wrist, flung her hand away from my face, and gave her a look that dared her to bring it.
For the first time in my life I felt I could fight her. Like I could take her down.
My mother snatched her hand away and scanned my eyes. “Oh, you wanna fight me, huh? Okay. You think you can beat me now, is that it?” She took a step back, walked over to the door, and locked it. “Is that what they’re doing in Hollywood High—little girls fighting their mothers?”
“That’s the problem—I’m not a little girl. I’m a woman.” All I could see was red. The voice of reason went out the window, and at that moment I didn’t give a freak about the consequences. If she whopped my azz so be it, but one thing was for sure and two things were for certain: I would fight for what I wanted.
“A woman?” my mother said to me as she removed her wedding band and twenty-karat engagement ring.
“A woman.” I swallowed any and all fear that crept its way up on me. She had raised me to be a lot of things, but a punk wasn’t one of them. So the look I gave her all but told her to try me.
“A woman. Okay.” My mother gathered the drapes and the light in the room dimmed.
It was on.
“A woman,” she repeated.
I scooted to the edge of the bed. I was sore, but I was also willing to ignore the pain to prove my point.
My mother walked back over to me and said, “Let me help you out a bit. A woman has her own money and pays for her own abortions—actually a woman doesn’t get pregnant by every Tom, Dick, and Knox she lies down with. A woman uses a condom and doesn’t have to hold her mother’s hand to the doctor’s office—”
“I didn’t ask you to bring me to the doctor’s office!”
“Then you shouldn’t have come. You’re grown. You got this.”
“It’s too late now.”
“You’re right. It is too late, because if you keep runnin’ your mouth, I’ma kill you.” She sounded as if she’d just stepped off the streets of Watts. “If I were you—”
“You may as well be; you’re making all my decisions.”
“Oh, okay.” My mother removed her earrings. “I see I’ma have to go to jail again.”
“What? Jail?”
“Oh, you didn’t know that, did you?”
I swallowed.
“Don’t get scared now, sweetie. You wanna buck, so let’s do this, homie. ’Cause see, obviously I need to reintroduce you to who I used to be and am only two seconds from becoming again: Shakeesha Logan Gatling. Grape Street Crippette. I put bullets in chicks’ heads for less than the ruckus you just brought me.” She positioned her right hand like a gun, put it to my forehead, and as she mushed me in my forehead she pulled the trigger.
I felt a slight nervousness try to sneak up on me, but I swallowed.
“Too late now,” my mother said as if she’d read my mind. “You better shake that off. What, you need some Vaseline? Take your earrings off.” She quickly reached behind my ears and unfastened my hoops. She placed them on the table and said, “So you want babies, huh? You wanna be a woman. You wanna be with Knox. You’re willing to get beat down for Knox? You love him that much—”
“Yes, I love him! And that’s not going to change. I don’t care how many times you want to fight me, your own daughter.”
“Oh, now you’re my daughter—was that before or after I told you I’d put a bullet in a chick’s head and you realized that I wouldn’t be afraid to put one in yours? You’re right, you’re my daughter, and before I let you beat me I’d walk away from all the diamonds and the dollars and I would kill you. I don’t have a fear of prison. I already know what it’s like. Four years. You better Google me.”
Prison? She really went to prison?
“Hell yeah, I went to prison.”
Prison? For what?
“For manslaughter,” she continued as she paced the room, pounding her fist into her palm. “Because when I was sixteen I thought I had all the answers. I didn’t have money, my mother was getting high, and I had no idea who my father was. And my brother wasn’t in college like yours. He was doing life in prison for droppin’ bodies, and I was following in his footsteps. There was no Hollywood High, private school. I was gettin’ schooled in the streets. My family was the hood and my GED was courtesy of California State Prison. And the day I was released, I dropped Shakeesha, became Logan, reinvented myself, and yeah, I stalked basketball players, and I stalked rappers. Because I had beauty and I had a body and I wasn’t going back to prison.
“I knew there was something bigger than tossing up gang signs, drive-bys, and bustin’ caps. And all of that I had erased from my mind. I snagged my husband, gave birth to the perfect son who never gave me a problem. Never back-talked. Did exactly as he was told and what was asked of him. Now, RJ could get whatever he wanted because he knew how to listen and play by the rules.”
“Oh yeah, perfect Prince RJ.”
“He is perfect. But you. You wanna raise up. You wanna bring it.” She stopped pacing and leaned into my face. “Go ahead and take your best shot. Just know that whatever decision you make you better be able to lie down by it, because that’s what women do. Lie in the beds they made. Now let’s go. But just know that if you hit me, I’ma murder you. And I will do my time in peace. Now buck.”
Smack! Crack!
My mother threw the first hit and my face was on fire and sirens blared in my ears. My mother slapped me so hard that tears sprang from my eyes and my shoulders shook. All I could see were stars.
“You’re moving too slow!” She gripped me by my neck and pinned me against the headboard. I couldn’t breathe.
Bap!
My mother hit me again and I felt dizzy. “You’re grown!” She slapped me again. “You want Knox. You’ll disrespect me for him.” Her elbow pressed into my throat and she clenched her teeth. “I will crush your windpipe and you will be in here for a collapsed lung.”
“Ma—”
“This ain’t no ma. This is a woman’s battle. Aren’t you a woman? Fighting for what you believe in?” My mother didn’t even blink. “You wanna come for me, then you better be ready, ’cause I got bustin’ heads on lock.”
My mother’s elbow sank deeper into my throat and I knew then she would kill me. I’d pushed her many times, but I’d never seen this side of her. The only other time I’d seen Shakeesha come to life was when one of my father’s mistresses showed up at the door demanding money.
“Ma, please.” Tears flowed down my face and over her forearm. “Please let me go,” I gasped. “I . . . can’t . . . breathe . . .”
“That’s the point. I will take your breath.” Her eyes were black and cold as she looked at me. “You want Knox, then you can have him, because I’m done with you.” She let me go, quickly turned, and I jumped, grabbing my neck.
“No, don’t jump.” My mother slid her jewelry back on. “Little too late for that. Next time just come correct and work on your reflex.” She dusted invisible wrinkles off the front of her peach-colored slacks and white sleeveless Chanel blouse. “For now, I’m packing away Shakeesha.” She tucked her Chloé clutch under her left arm. “Because the next time she comes out you’ll be added to the body count. The plane leaves in two hours and it will take off with or without you.”
“Ma—”
She didn’t answer; instead she walked out of the room and the door closed behind her.
And all I could think was my mother had lost her mind.
Welcome to my life.
3
Heather
I was desperate to slice my wrist. Or take a blade and run it across my throat.
End it all.
Suicide-bomb my way out of hell.
And pray to God to sever my veins and let me bleed to death.
This way I could stop the sharp jabs that tortured my stomach and forced me to grip the cold edges of this repulsive steel toilet and dry heave.
I needed something.
Anything.
That could murder this monkey who crept up my back and ghostly whispered in my ear that I needed a hit.
When I didn’t need it.
I just wanted it bad as hell.
There was a difference.
Uncontrollable sweat dripped from the crown of my head, over my forehead, and rained down my temples as I rose from the toilet and dried my face with the sleeve of my oversized forest-green jumpsuit.
You gotta get up . . .
How?
I wiped my face again and stood up straight, only to stumble against the wall. I did what I could to play off my legs feeling like willow branches, especially since all eyes were on me.
Snickering.
Whispering.
Pointing.
There was no effen privacy. None. Everyone who passed by or sat in open view of the toilet was all in my business. And with all of the noise and the constant buzzing, I couldn’t even hear myself think.
Sweat poured down my temples again and lightning roared in my belly. I had to get the hell out of here!
My nerves were shot.
My head hurt.
My chest felt like it was giving way to an asthma attack. Even though I wasn’t asthmatic.
I wanted to scream Let me out! Do you know who I am! But I’d been here for three days and had already screamed I’m Wu-Wu Tanner for twenty-seven hours straight, and the only thing it did was give me a headache and a sore throat.
I was America’s sweetheart. A role model. The star of The Wu-Wu Tanner Show. Nickelodeon Choice Awards pick for favorite actress. Sold more Wu-Wu dolls than Barbie. More kids were addicted to me than Miley Cyrus. And none of that meant anything in here. What mattered were my charges and whatever the judge decided my fate would be.
I had to get it together so when I appeared before the judge sometime this morning, he wouldn’t think I was a junkie mess. Because I wasn’t a junkie. I just needed one hit and I would be straight. But thanks to the Los Angeles County juvenile detention center, holding me against my will, and Spencer, who made it her business to be all up in mine by calling the police on me after she crashed my party and disrupted my get right, I hadn’t had a hit in three days, was sick, and going crazy.
And no, I wasn’t settling.
And yeah, I knew it sounded crazy.
And no, there was no way for me to help who I loved. Trust. My mother tried to stop me from loving him. And all it did was make me want my man more. Heck, I even tried leaving him alone. Twice. But all it did was leave me with two missed periods and two secrets to keep. So there was no fighting it. Knox was the only one I wanted. I had to have him. Period. No negotiation. No waving a white flag. I loved every inch of his six-foot, athletic-built, sexy-caesar, paper-bag brown deliciousness. And yeah, umm hmm, he was all of that.
Snap. Snap.
And yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, I could have any man that I wanted—with way more money and surname prestige. Heck, I was astoundingly beautiful: skin like chocolate silk, a Chinese bob that lay flush against my sharp jawline. Perfectly straight teeth encased by seductive, pouty lips. And my body was hella crazy: D-sized melon cups; molded, exquisitely round and dimple-free black-girl booty; hourglass hips; thick thighs; and luscious long legs. I was the embodiment of sweetness. Candy come to life. Swizz chocolate in human form. So there was no mistake I had it going on. Nevertheless I didn’t want anyone else. I wanted Knox.
Even if I was mad at him and was too stubborn to answer his calls and tell him that.
This was way too much drama to only be sixteen.
According to my mother, the Know-Ev-ver-ry-thing-Queen, by the time I was grown, only God knew what kind of fresh-azz skeezer I would be.
I resented that.
Apparently my mother missed the memo: there was no more time for me to be grown. I was already grown. And I wasn’t a skeezer—I just wasn’t a virgin. Clearly there was a difference.
But did she care? Hell no. All Logan Montgomery cared about was what she had planned for me, and what I wanted didn’t matter. My mother was such a dirty bitc—
Know what, I won’t even say it, because truth be told, my mother was way worse than any female dog in heat.
What kind of person blackmails their daughter to come to the middle of nowhere by placing a gun—loaded with two lawyers, a Tiffany pen, and a threat to donate my trust fund to the humane society (How inhumane was that?)—to my head, if I didn’t do what she said?
She left me with no choice. I had to come here and wait for the doctor to call the hotel suite and tell us when it was time.
She had me by the throat . . . but after this I was done with her. Finished. Because apparently she had me messed up. I was born with the platinum spoon; she was the ex-groupie. And her husband, the high school dropout turned rapper, turned billionaire CEO, was even worse than his wife.
I was sick of these people. And I was tired of my decisions being tied to their money. My life was bigger than that.
I was Rich Montgomery. Socialite extraordinaire. I walked on diamonds. I was the chick who put the It in the It Clique. I was the reason the Pampered Princesses could be considered pampered. I was that chick... Now all I needed was to feel like it...
12:00 P.M.
White sheets, stirrups, blue scrubs, and bright lights...
“Close your eyes and count backward. By the time you get to three you will be asleep . . .”
Nine... seven... five.. .four.. .three...
2:30 P.M.
I ran my hands across the cool white sheets. My palms were in search of Knox’s hard, brown body. My fingertips needed to cup his muscular pecs. I needed his heat. His passion. His kisses. His love. To make love and erase the pain I felt easing into my chest and settling there. I needed him, but my palms felt nothing. No heat. No passion. Nothing. He wasn’t there. A steel fist balled in my throat.
I opened my eyes and tears lined the rims. They slipped down my cheeks. I wasn’t with Knox.
I was at the exclusive doctor’s office.
Seated across the room on the left side of my bed, with her legs crossed and her eyes scrolling the pages of O magazine, was my mother—the dirty...
Tears continued to run down my cheeks. I reached for a Kleenex and my mother looked over the magazine she leafed through. “Oh, Rich, please, not the tears.”
If I could get out of this bed I would slap her face. I narrowed my eyes and swallowed the fist in my throat. “Do you know how hard this was for me?”
“Considering that this is the second time we’re here, I thought for sure that this had gotten easier.”
“You don’t even care!”
“You have about two seconds to drop that tone at least two octaves.”
“Why, Ma? Are you scared someone may hear me?!” Instead of dropping my voice two octaves I raised it by two. “I swear you are sooo confused!”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, really, and you know it. You think that my life belongs to you!”
“That’s right. That’s exactly what I think.” She lowered her eyes back to the magazine and flipped a page. “I’m glad you realized that. Perhaps this’ll be the last time we have to fly to this godforsaken place and pay way too much money because you refuse to use condoms and continue to sleep with the hired help’s herd. You really need to stop acting like a spoiled, self-centered brat and appreciate how lucky you are. Now, enough. Get some rest because in a few hours we are out of here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Mother. Forgive me for not appreciating how you keep making me get abortions. I really apologize for the inconvenience—surely you’d rather be at the spa spending Daddy’s money.”
My mother stared at me and closed the magazine. I knew I was teetering on the edge, but I didn’t care. Everything was not about her and what she wanted. And she needed to know that. I was sick of this control freak. This was my life and from this moment I was going to live it. My way. So, I returned the same nasty look that she had given me and at this moment we were mirror images of one another . . . until she rose from her seat and I felt like a five-year-old about to get a spanking.
Don’t be scared . . . you got this...
She crowded my personal space and hovered over me, nose practically to nose.
“What did you say?” my mother asked. Her coffee breath blew in the center of my face. I blinked and she leaned in even closer.
“With all due respect, Ma. I really need you to back up. Literally and figuratively.” She arched a brow and I continued. “I don’t need you sweatin’ me right now.”
“Sweatin’ you?”
“Yeah, you’re way too close. And another thing, since we’re going there, I don’t want to hear any lectures about what you think is best for me, especially since you’ve never asked me what I want.”
“Because what you want doesn’t matter. Yo’ azz,” she said with her Southern California drawl in full effect, “better want what da hell I tell you to want.”
“Okay. Since that’s how you’d like to have it. I tell you what: after today I’ll be your little robot. Will that please you?” I folded my hands in a prayer position and said in a sweet, sarcastic whine, “I won’t get into any trouble, Mommy. I’ll stay off the blogs, go to an Ivy League university—”
“And they would never have you.”
“Oh, you’re right.” I placed one of my manicured hands over my heart. “Forgive me for that, too. From this abortion on, I’ll be the born-again angelic virgin. Your little princess. Who keeps her legs closed and gets good grades. As a matter of fact, I’ll be more like you. I’ll leave the hired help’s herd alone and instead I’ll head to dressing rooms and stalk rappers and NBA players.”
Smack!
My mother’s hand sailed across my face and burned my cheek as it landed. I almost fell out the bed as my head jerked toward the guardrail.
I quickly collected myself and as I tried to sit up my mother’s hand flew through the air to smack me again, but this time I caught her wrist, flung her hand away from my face, and gave her a look that dared her to bring it.
For the first time in my life I felt I could fight her. Like I could take her down.
My mother snatched her hand away and scanned my eyes. “Oh, you wanna fight me, huh? Okay. You think you can beat me now, is that it?” She took a step back, walked over to the door, and locked it. “Is that what they’re doing in Hollywood High—little girls fighting their mothers?”
“That’s the problem—I’m not a little girl. I’m a woman.” All I could see was red. The voice of reason went out the window, and at that moment I didn’t give a freak about the consequences. If she whopped my azz so be it, but one thing was for sure and two things were for certain: I would fight for what I wanted.
“A woman?” my mother said to me as she removed her wedding band and twenty-karat engagement ring.
“A woman.” I swallowed any and all fear that crept its way up on me. She had raised me to be a lot of things, but a punk wasn’t one of them. So the look I gave her all but told her to try me.
“A woman. Okay.” My mother gathered the drapes and the light in the room dimmed.
It was on.
“A woman,” she repeated.
I scooted to the edge of the bed. I was sore, but I was also willing to ignore the pain to prove my point.
My mother walked back over to me and said, “Let me help you out a bit. A woman has her own money and pays for her own abortions—actually a woman doesn’t get pregnant by every Tom, Dick, and Knox she lies down with. A woman uses a condom and doesn’t have to hold her mother’s hand to the doctor’s office—”
“I didn’t ask you to bring me to the doctor’s office!”
“Then you shouldn’t have come. You’re grown. You got this.”
“It’s too late now.”
“You’re right. It is too late, because if you keep runnin’ your mouth, I’ma kill you.” She sounded as if she’d just stepped off the streets of Watts. “If I were you—”
“You may as well be; you’re making all my decisions.”
“Oh, okay.” My mother removed her earrings. “I see I’ma have to go to jail again.”
“What? Jail?”
“Oh, you didn’t know that, did you?”
I swallowed.
“Don’t get scared now, sweetie. You wanna buck, so let’s do this, homie. ’Cause see, obviously I need to reintroduce you to who I used to be and am only two seconds from becoming again: Shakeesha Logan Gatling. Grape Street Crippette. I put bullets in chicks’ heads for less than the ruckus you just brought me.” She positioned her right hand like a gun, put it to my forehead, and as she mushed me in my forehead she pulled the trigger.
I felt a slight nervousness try to sneak up on me, but I swallowed.
“Too late now,” my mother said as if she’d read my mind. “You better shake that off. What, you need some Vaseline? Take your earrings off.” She quickly reached behind my ears and unfastened my hoops. She placed them on the table and said, “So you want babies, huh? You wanna be a woman. You wanna be with Knox. You’re willing to get beat down for Knox? You love him that much—”
“Yes, I love him! And that’s not going to change. I don’t care how many times you want to fight me, your own daughter.”
“Oh, now you’re my daughter—was that before or after I told you I’d put a bullet in a chick’s head and you realized that I wouldn’t be afraid to put one in yours? You’re right, you’re my daughter, and before I let you beat me I’d walk away from all the diamonds and the dollars and I would kill you. I don’t have a fear of prison. I already know what it’s like. Four years. You better Google me.”
Prison? She really went to prison?
“Hell yeah, I went to prison.”
Prison? For what?
“For manslaughter,” she continued as she paced the room, pounding her fist into her palm. “Because when I was sixteen I thought I had all the answers. I didn’t have money, my mother was getting high, and I had no idea who my father was. And my brother wasn’t in college like yours. He was doing life in prison for droppin’ bodies, and I was following in his footsteps. There was no Hollywood High, private school. I was gettin’ schooled in the streets. My family was the hood and my GED was courtesy of California State Prison. And the day I was released, I dropped Shakeesha, became Logan, reinvented myself, and yeah, I stalked basketball players, and I stalked rappers. Because I had beauty and I had a body and I wasn’t going back to prison.
“I knew there was something bigger than tossing up gang signs, drive-bys, and bustin’ caps. And all of that I had erased from my mind. I snagged my husband, gave birth to the perfect son who never gave me a problem. Never back-talked. Did exactly as he was told and what was asked of him. Now, RJ could get whatever he wanted because he knew how to listen and play by the rules.”
“Oh yeah, perfect Prince RJ.”
“He is perfect. But you. You wanna raise up. You wanna bring it.” She stopped pacing and leaned into my face. “Go ahead and take your best shot. Just know that whatever decision you make you better be able to lie down by it, because that’s what women do. Lie in the beds they made. Now let’s go. But just know that if you hit me, I’ma murder you. And I will do my time in peace. Now buck.”
Smack! Crack!
My mother threw the first hit and my face was on fire and sirens blared in my ears. My mother slapped me so hard that tears sprang from my eyes and my shoulders shook. All I could see were stars.
“You’re moving too slow!” She gripped me by my neck and pinned me against the headboard. I couldn’t breathe.
Bap!
My mother hit me again and I felt dizzy. “You’re grown!” She slapped me again. “You want Knox. You’ll disrespect me for him.” Her elbow pressed into my throat and she clenched her teeth. “I will crush your windpipe and you will be in here for a collapsed lung.”
“Ma—”
“This ain’t no ma. This is a woman’s battle. Aren’t you a woman? Fighting for what you believe in?” My mother didn’t even blink. “You wanna come for me, then you better be ready, ’cause I got bustin’ heads on lock.”
My mother’s elbow sank deeper into my throat and I knew then she would kill me. I’d pushed her many times, but I’d never seen this side of her. The only other time I’d seen Shakeesha come to life was when one of my father’s mistresses showed up at the door demanding money.
“Ma, please.” Tears flowed down my face and over her forearm. “Please let me go,” I gasped. “I . . . can’t . . . breathe . . .”
“That’s the point. I will take your breath.” Her eyes were black and cold as she looked at me. “You want Knox, then you can have him, because I’m done with you.” She let me go, quickly turned, and I jumped, grabbing my neck.
“No, don’t jump.” My mother slid her jewelry back on. “Little too late for that. Next time just come correct and work on your reflex.” She dusted invisible wrinkles off the front of her peach-colored slacks and white sleeveless Chanel blouse. “For now, I’m packing away Shakeesha.” She tucked her Chloé clutch under her left arm. “Because the next time she comes out you’ll be added to the body count. The plane leaves in two hours and it will take off with or without you.”
“Ma—”
She didn’t answer; instead she walked out of the room and the door closed behind her.
And all I could think was my mother had lost her mind.
Welcome to my life.
3
Heather
I was desperate to slice my wrist. Or take a blade and run it across my throat.
End it all.
Suicide-bomb my way out of hell.
And pray to God to sever my veins and let me bleed to death.
This way I could stop the sharp jabs that tortured my stomach and forced me to grip the cold edges of this repulsive steel toilet and dry heave.
I needed something.
Anything.
That could murder this monkey who crept up my back and ghostly whispered in my ear that I needed a hit.
When I didn’t need it.
I just wanted it bad as hell.
There was a difference.
Uncontrollable sweat dripped from the crown of my head, over my forehead, and rained down my temples as I rose from the toilet and dried my face with the sleeve of my oversized forest-green jumpsuit.
You gotta get up . . .
How?
I wiped my face again and stood up straight, only to stumble against the wall. I did what I could to play off my legs feeling like willow branches, especially since all eyes were on me.
Snickering.
Whispering.
Pointing.
There was no effen privacy. None. Everyone who passed by or sat in open view of the toilet was all in my business. And with all of the noise and the constant buzzing, I couldn’t even hear myself think.
Sweat poured down my temples again and lightning roared in my belly. I had to get the hell out of here!
My nerves were shot.
My head hurt.
My chest felt like it was giving way to an asthma attack. Even though I wasn’t asthmatic.
I wanted to scream Let me out! Do you know who I am! But I’d been here for three days and had already screamed I’m Wu-Wu Tanner for twenty-seven hours straight, and the only thing it did was give me a headache and a sore throat.
I was America’s sweetheart. A role model. The star of The Wu-Wu Tanner Show. Nickelodeon Choice Awards pick for favorite actress. Sold more Wu-Wu dolls than Barbie. More kids were addicted to me than Miley Cyrus. And none of that meant anything in here. What mattered were my charges and whatever the judge decided my fate would be.
I had to get it together so when I appeared before the judge sometime this morning, he wouldn’t think I was a junkie mess. Because I wasn’t a junkie. I just needed one hit and I would be straight. But thanks to the Los Angeles County juvenile detention center, holding me against my will, and Spencer, who made it her business to be all up in mine by calling the police on me after she crashed my party and disrupted my get right, I hadn’t had a hit in three days, was sick, and going crazy.
