Page 20 of To Hades & Back
I glanced at Hades. He’d been uncharacteristically quiet during all of this. When my father yelled again for us to get out of his house, Hades stood to his feet. He pulled out his phone, then tapped the screen.What the hell is he doing?“Techke, did you get all of that? Upload that shit like we discussed.”
Upload?Everyone was confused when he hung up. He slid his phone back into his pocket. “Let’s see how your image handles what happens next.”
Hades walked over to the bookshelf behind us and grabbed something from the shelf. He turned around and held up some small black square thing. “Surprise. You’re on stop playing with my fucking lady camera.”
Seconds later, both of my parents’ phones rang. My mother picked her phone up first. “Hello . . . What!”
“See, Mr. and Mrs. Copeland, a lil birdy told me that you were preparing to run for senator. The video of this conversation is the perfect way to jumpstart your campaign,” Hades said with furrowed brows. He wrapped his arm around my waist. “Now we can go, baby.”
“He . . . he uploaded the video on your campaign page,” my mother said with tears in her eyes. “Oh my God! Oh my God!”
Dorian laughed. “What? It shouldn’t be that bad. You already said that you didn’t feel bad about your decision; therefore, you shouldn’t when everyone knows about it. It was nice meeting you, Mr. and Mrs. Copeland.”
With that, Hades, Dorian, and I left my parents in their house. I didn’t know about my father running for senator. It made sense for where he was in his life and career. Let’s see how far he got now.
SOME TIME LATER…
“Get your mama,Dorian. Her ass over here doing the most,” I joked with Dorian.
Jin’jer, Dorian, and I were on a video call. This was an everyday thing for us now. If it wasn’t all three of us together, then it was her and him or me and him. He didn’t have a concrete male figure in his life, and I didn’t mind stepping in. Dedra was more like a figure head in his life, but she didn’t put in the work to really be a mother. He craved a mother-son relationship. That was evident from how clingy he was with Jin’jer after such a short time.
Dorian had his head down on the screen laughing while his mother pouted from her place on our bed. Oh, yeah, she moved in a few weeks ago. Hestia and Hera made the argument to her that they all worked at the same hospital, so they could carpool. Jin’jer was worried about breaking the lease. That became a nonissue when I paid it.
“I don’t think I’m doing enough. All I said was I wanted to come up there to meet the little girl that he’s taking to prom,” Jin’jer whined. “I need to make sure she’s good enough to go with you.”
Dorian was a senior, preparing to graduate. A lot happened since our little discussion with Mr. and Mrs. Copeland. It only took a few minutes for the video that I had Techke post on his campaign page to go viral in the worst way. All of the blogs as well as major news outlets picked up the story. The research journalist had a fucking field day exposing the previous administrator of the program that Jin’jer was in.
The situation also put a light on Dedra’s trifling ass, who was ready for her payday. I was over her ass when I saw her on a syndicated daytime talk show. The funny thing about that was, when you wanted attention, you couldn’t control whether it was good or bad. Somehow, a journalist was able to get her record as a foster mother. Let’s just say that it was less than stellar with many issues with some of her children. The sad part was that the state was so overwhelmed with foster kids that neglect of a kid was overlooked as long as they weren’t sexually assaulted or physically abused.
Dorian received interview requests, but since he was a minor, they had to come through Dedra. She was cool with the interview as long as she got a cut, but Dorian declined all interviews. Jin’jer did one interview that centered around her parents’ treatment of her and the initial incident of them telling her that Dorian died. She refused any questions about Dorian directly.
“Jin, I didn’t say the girl was my girlfriend. She’s just this cool girl at my school that I asked to go to prom. She’s not that popular, and I heard no one asked her,” Dorian said.
My baby thought that he would have resentment toward her because of what happened. He told her that there was none because of how it went down. It wasn’t like she knew about him to look for him. I appreciated his maturity around the situation. With a guardian like Dedra, he had to grow up faster than he should have. I hated that shit.
Jin’jer rolled her eyes. “Ok, well, I still want to meet her. Is she a senior too?” When he told her that she wasn’t, but she was more than likely still going to be at graduation, Jin’jer’s eye lit up. “Oh, good! I’ll meet her at graduation.”
His graduation was approaching quickly. When we asked him what his future plans were, you could tell he never thought about having a real future. That shit bothered me. I introduced him to my people via video call. Dorian couldn’t believe my family lineage.
“Baby, how do you know he’s still going to be talking to that girl? He just said she’s just a prom date.” All I could do was laugh at her ass. When Jin’jer talked to Dorian, she was in full mommy mode. I wasn’t sure if she knew that. I hated that she didn’t get this opportunity when he was much younger. She didn’t have to worry. I planned to put plenty of babies in her.
Her head snapped in my direction so damn fast. I was leaning against the dresser. “First, I don’t care if he’s not talking to her. I still want to meet her.” She waved me off.
My head fell back. There was no need to fight her, and honestly, I didn’t want to. I enjoyed this side of her. It was pure, intentional, and organic. “Dorian, don’t even argue with her. There’s no need.”
“I’m already knowing. I got to get to work. I’ll talk to y’all later. Bye, Jin and Hades,” he said with a wave.
She smiled brightly. “Bye, baby.” She climbed out of the bed, came over to where I was, then leaned against my body. “Did you see the announcement from David and Evelyn?”
“You know I saw that bullshit. For a minute, I thought they were going to double down on that shit they were poppin’. I guess the court of the public was too much,” I told her.
With everything that was exposed, Mr. Copeland withdrew from the senate race. Him and his wife claimed that they wanted to work toward their daughter’s forgiveness and get to know their grandson. I called complete bullshit on that.
“From my call logs, Evelyn called me yesterday. She’s blocked, so she didn’t get through, but I still was able to see that she called,” Jin’jer said with her nose turned up. When her face softened, I knew she either wanted something or was about to say some outlandish shit. “Baby, I think I’m going to buy Dorian a car. I don’t like him riding the bus.”There it goes.
My arms circled her waist. “Baby, I don’t think you should do that right now. At least not with him still under Dedra’s roof. Plus, he doesn’t have his license yet. Let’s wait until he graduates and tells us what he wants to do. He doesn’t ride the bus all the time. Dedra does take him sometimes.”
“It just doesn’t feel right, baby. I mean, I can get him like a cash car. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy,” she urged.
