Page 4 of To Hades & Back

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Page 4 of To Hades & Back

With a tilted head, she responded. “Ma’am, the grocery store and Waffle House at two in the morning is not other places. When’s the last time you went out? It has to be in the last three months.”

I rolled my eyes. The last thing I went to was a Fantasia concert that was like six months ago. “I can’t stand you. What kind of vibe is it going to be?”

There was no reason for me to make up an excuse about why I couldn’t go. I was off this weekend, so I had nothing else to do. Going out might be just what I needed.

“It’s going to be so much fun. I’ll send you all the details because I know you’re gonna want to drive yourself, and that’s fine. If you think you’re going to drink, take a rideshare there, and we’ll make sure you get home.” The seriousness of her facial expression was clear. I understood though. She had dealt with her share of drunk driver accidents in the emergency room.

Our food came shortly after we solidified our weekend plans. I loved hearing about Hera’s family origin. When I first found out that she had Greek origin, I didn’t realize how much of it that it was. Hera and her sister were beautiful women who, at first glance, you’d just assume were black girls. It was when they pulled an Uno reverse and started speaking fluent Greek. The amount of double takes they got were comical.

After lunch, I had a few more hours left on my shift. A new lil munchkin came under my watch. She was born at twenty-sixweeks gestation and weighed just over two pounds. There was a lot that went into taking care of a baby in the NICU on just the skill level. In my mind, there was so much more than just the skills. The love, compassion, and support for the parents was just as important. It was all a full circle that I took honor in being a part of for the health of these little babies.

A FEW DAYS LATER…

I plopped down on my couch as soon as I walked into my apartment. My tears rolled down my cheeks without my permission. One of my lil munchkins had a clonic seizure today. The doctors already told the parents that their daughter would more than likely have muscular dystrophy. Today, for her to have a seizure was a lot for everyone. I had never been so ready for a weekend off like I was right now. This recharge was necessary.

After moping for a few more minutes, I got up to take a shower so that I could relax. When I was offered the full-time job here in Charlotte, the apartment complex that I stayed in allowed me to convert the same apartment over for my lease. When I traveled as a nurse, the hospital that I would be working at normally supplied the housing accommodations. That was true for the apartment that I was staying in. My travel assignment ended on a Friday, and my full-time position began the following Monday. Instead of the complex telling me to move out, they just converted the lease over into my name.

It was the perfect place to stay because it was walking distance from the hospital. When I traveled, I never brought mytruck or bike with me. I kept them in a storage unit in Boston, Massachusetts, not too far from my parents’ house. A month after I started my position, I flew up to Boston, loaded my bike on the back of my truck, then drove my happy ass back to North Carolina. My mother hated that I rode motorcycles. My father didn’t care much about anything that I did, as long as it didn’t bring reproach to the precious Copeland name.

Speaking of my mother.I wasn’t out of the shower for twenty minutes when my phone rang. I gave her a specialized ringtone so that I would never be caught off guard by her call.To answer or not to answer.If I didn’t, she’d call back until I did, so there was no use not to unless I planned to put my phone on Do Not Disturb tonight.“Hi, Mother.”

“My, all your mother gets is a dry hi? Jin’jer Elle, don’t be rude. I taught you better than that, contrary to popular belief.”This was why I didn’t want to answer the phone. God forbid the child of Evelyn and David Copeland not have proper manners. All of the etiquette classes and cotilions would have all been for naught.

With my eyes closed, I responded to her expectation.“Hi, Mother. How are you doing?”

“That’s much better.”The fact that one sentence made the difference with her was stupid.“I am doing exceptionally well. Earlier this week, I had lunch with the ladies at the club. They asked about you. Let me tell you…”

I immediately zoned out on her because I didn’t give a single fuck about what was going on with the people in Boston. I left for a reason and stayed away for that same reason. This was why I didn’t want to ask her how she was doing. I knew it would open the door to a bullshit conversation that she led and I hated to be a part of. Half of the women she talked about, she didn’t even like.

“Jin’jer Elle! Did you hear me?”My mother’s loud voice snapped me out of my daze. When I told her to say it again, I wished I hadn’t.“I said that your father’s birthday party is coming up. I will send you the information along with dress options.”

My face tightened.She must have bumped her head before she called me. “I’m not sure why you’re going to do that. I won’t be available.”

“How do you know that you won’t be available if I haven’t even told you the dates yet? Let’s not do this again. It’s getting utterly ridiculous.”My mother was doing the most.

I huffed before I squeezed the bridge of my nose with my fingers.“Mother, I’m not sure why you insist on doing this again. I haven’t been to his party since I was twenty-two. It’s utterly ridiculous that you continue to ask, knowing that I’m going to say no. I don’t care when the party is, I’ll find a reason to be busy.”

“When will it end, Jin’jer? This thing you have with your father. You are thirty years old and you’re still mad at us for doing what was best for you. You were out of control, so we sent you to a reform school. Look at you now!”I know the fuck she didn’t just say that stupid shit to me!

“Don’t you dare try to attribute my success to you and Dad shipping me off to a reform school because you didn’t want me to desecrate the Copeland name. Out of control is a very extreme way to say that I was being a typical teenager. All of my success, I did by myself.”I fussed at my mother.

She chuckled smugly.“You did it yourself, huh? That’s funny because I certainly recall paying tuition bills for you while you were in college. You don’t haveone student loan, but you did it yourself. Let’s not act like you had the highest grades in high school, so you weren’t given a scholarship. It was your father’s money that paid for that nursing education that you like to throw in my face. Please stop making it seem like we turned our backs on you when it was you that turned your back, little girl.”

“Trust me, that money wasn’t free. Like I said, I’m not coming to the party. Pretty sure he didn’t ask me to anyway,”I told her. I hadn’t talked to my father in over three years. Before that, the last time we spoke was at the last birthday party that I went to. Well, I wasn’t sure if his telling me that I needed to consider Weight Watchers was a conversation.“This was nice, Mother. Goodbye.”

It never failed after I spoke with my mother that I came down with the worst headache. She wanted so badly for us to be this perfect family when that was the furthest from the truth. The only thing that Judge David E. Copeland found perfect was himself. My mother was so busy asking me to come home for his birthday party but in the same breath created a narrative that I was out of the country. According to her, I was a nurse for the Doctors Without Borders organization. It wasn’t good enough to just be a nurse; I had to be out here with a noble cause underlining it.

What my mother called being out of control was me having a boyfriend that didn’t fit into the image that was becoming of the Copelands. They wanted me to be with a boy that they hand plicked themselves. When I said no, they said you’re going to a boarding school.

I couldn’t wait to go out this weekend. My day at work combined with my mother’s call tonight was a perfect recipe for getting lit. I would be irresponsible, too, but there was too muchthat could happen if I did that. Lord knew that I didn’t need any of the consequences that came with being irresponsible.

The weekend was finally here,and I looked beautiful as fuck! I had on my best wig, lashes, fragrance, and heels. My outfit was cute too, but I could wear a potato sack and still be cute. That was the way that God made me. On top of making me fine as wine, he made me thicker than molasses. I was the beauty that plus-sized women were made of.

When Hera sent me the information for the club that we would be at, I looked it up on Instagram.Club Obssession. From their page, I expected to have a good time. The male population that seemed to patronize the club was mouthwatering. That didn’t say much though because the men here were weird. There were way too many married and down-low men out here approaching women like it was right.

The first year that I was here, this man chased me so damn hard. He was in my text messages every day asking to see me. Something about his desperation was off-putting to me and for good reason. Imagine my surprise when I went down to the labor and delivery floor to check in with the parents of one of my patients and saw this man with his wife in a room. This man had just texted me less than ten minutes before I came down to the floor to tell me that he missed me and wanted to smell my pussy. From the way he texted me, you would have thought that I already gave him some pussy, but I hadn’t.

When he saw me, he almost shit himself. He was so scared that I would say something to his wife, but that wasn’t my thing. She was innocent in all of this. Besides, there was no way that Iwould ruin one of the most sacred milestones in a woman’s life. I blocked his ass and went on about my business. Ever since then, I side-eyed every guy that tried to talk to me.


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