This cracka hated me so much that he wanted me dead. He couldn’t get to my son the way that he wanted to. He couldn’t ruin Creed’s life the way that he had planned, so he had to take it up a notch. If I wasn’t a skilled driver the way that I was, and if I wasn’t always alert, paying attention to the things that were taking place around me, I feared that Yaya and I wouldn’t have been here anymore for our boys. All because of jealousy, and hatred, this man was willing to have me killed, and that’s the shit that I didn’t rock with.
“See, this is why you could never beat me in court. Your ass is stupid, and you could tell that you didn’t know what the fuck you were doing. All the conspiracy cases that I’m sure you’ve seen in court, yet you were still stupid enough to put a hit in on me with your real phone number. You were stupid enough to send the money to pay him from your personal bank account. Then, you sending text messages, talking about the shit. What kind of attorney are you? You literally just handed me this shit, and made my work so much easier,” I finished.
Once I finished, this man had the nerve to be in the front seat, and he started crying.
“I was angry. I just wanted justice for my daughter?—”
“Justice for your daughter for what nigga? My son didn’t do shit to her! Your daughter took to social media, telling the whole world that my son didn’t touch her! If you truly believe in your heart that my son violated your daughter, how come you never took her to the hospital, and showed that a rape kit was done? You know nothing happened! Your hate, and your distain for me just put a bad taste in your mouth, and it hurt your pride to know that my black ass son was in the bedroom with your white daughter. That’s all it is,” I spat. He didn’t have any words to say. Just continued to sit there and pitied his self by crying.
I wanted to get him to keep talking because it would all make sense in the end.
“How much do you want? I’ll pay you off. I was desperate at the time, and I was angry. That’s why I paid the money to have you killed. Man, if I could go back in time, I swear I wouldn’t have done it. I have too much to lose, man. My children. My wife. Everything that I’ve worked for will go down the drain if you expose this,” he said, and I laughed because that was really all I needed from him.
“I don’t have to expose it. You just did,” I responded, getting ready to see myself out of the back of his car.
“Wait, what? What are you talking about?” he stammered, turning his head around to look at me.
I picked up the recording device that was in my lap, and I flashed it at him.
“You could never beat me in court because I was always ten steps ahead of you. My mind goes to places that yours doesn’t. Where I’m from, snitches get stitches. The last time I snitched on somebody, I was probably in daycare, but for you, I’ll make an exception. Killing you would have been far too easy. I want to see you suffer. I want to see you sit down and ride out that conspiracy charge that you got headed your way. Be easy, fam,” was all I said, patting him on his shoulder, grabbing my recorder, and I got out of the car.
The whole time, he was behind me, begging, and pleading for me not to turn that recorder over, but it was already too late. My mind was already made up.
I made it back over to my truck, got in, started it up, and I quickly peeled out. I swear I drove home with the biggest smile on my face, knowing that it was me that had gotten the last laugh out of this shit. That cracka tried to ruin me. He tried to ruin my son, and the shit only backfired on him in the end. When that shit made the news, and all the blogs with him in handcuffs,locked up like how they had my son, I swear Ima smile so big that my fuckin cheeks were going to hurt.
I pulled up to the house about twenty minutes later. It was still dark out, but it wasn’t as dark as it was when I left. I pulled my truck into the driveway, shut it off, and I grabbed up everything that I needed.
I went over to the front door, keyed in the code, and I let myself in. It was Saturday morning, and the house was quiet. I’m sure the kids and Yaya were still sleeping. I kicked my sneakers off, leaving them by the door, and I made my way up the stairs. I was prepared to head to the bedroom, where I knew Yaya would be, but right when I was getting ready to walk past Sarai’s bedroom, I saw that the door was cracked, which was something that it never really was. Yaya went out of her way to make sure that that door was always closed. I was thinking that one of the boys might have went in there, and just forgot to close it back, but when I heard a sniffle come from the other side of the door, that’s when I realized that she was inside. It was shocking because she didn’t go in there. It was already painful enough for her that our daughter was no longer here, so she never stepped foot in there to make it worse.
I slowly pushed the door open, and I found her, sitting right in front of Sarai’s crib, and she was holding onto one of her onesies in her hand. Her eyes were red, tears were still lingering, but she wasn’t at her worst. Soraya has cried so hard in the past over the loss of our daughter to the point that she brought on panic attacks and even passed out a couple of times.
She saw that it was me in the room, smiled through her tears, and she patted the spot next to her on the floor, ushering for me to come over, and sit next to her. I smiled too, sitting the items down on a nearby small table that was in the room, and I walked over to her, sitting right next to her, stretching out my long legs. I wrapped my arm around her, pulling her closer to me, andonce I did that, she laid her head on my shoulder. I heard her sniffle, as she kept Sarai’s onesie in her lap. It was the onesie that she wore on the day that we brought her home from the hospital. It was a custom onesie from a shop that Soraya always used to purchase from onEtsy.In pink lettering, it read, ‘Hi, I’m Sarai, and I’m going home today’.
“How you feeling mami?” I asked, lifting my hand up that had been around her, and I put it in her hair, smoothing it down, and rubbing her scalp gently. When I asked her that question, she looked up at me, those big brown eyes piercing at me. Through the tears that were lingering on her face still, she processed my question before she answered it.
“I can breathe today. This is the second anniversary that we’ve had since her death, and last year, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Last year, I was drowning in it. I’ll always miss her. The ache that I have in my heart for missing her will probably never go away, but honestly, I’m fine,” she let me know, and that caused me to smile at her words.
I tried to sit here, and thug this shit out, but seeing that little onesie in her lap, seeing Soraya crying, smelling the scent of my baby girl in this room, seeing the pictures of her that were on the walls, and the frames on the dresser, it was all just a reminder that she was no longer here. I prided myself in knowing that any problem Soraya had, I liked to think of myself as superman, and feel like I could fix anything, but I couldn’t fix this one right here. I couldn’t bring Sarai back, and that’s the thing that hurt me the most.
A tear ended up falling from my eyes, and Soraya picked her hand up, wiped it away, and she quickly kissed me on my lips.
“Andyou?How areyoufeeling?” hearing her ask me that, all I could think of was that the therapy sessions that we were having with Dr. Shepherd were working.
One of the things that Dr. Shepherd would tell Soraya was to start considering my feelings, and to consider that I needed someone who I could lean on, and no lie, I’ve been seeing the changes. Even with her hurting right now, she still knew that the same hurt she felt, I felt it too, and that shit spoke volumes to me.
“I try to keep it all to myself because if I tell you how I feel, I know it’s going to make you very emotional. Just like you said though, I miss her so much. That was daddy’s baby right there. Only got four months with her, but that little girl loved her daddy. I miss the little shit. Her little laugh. When I walked around the house with her on my chest, she would bury her head into the crook of my neck. That little scrunch she would do with her body when I picked her up. The way she used to grip my finger when I would hold her, as she was drinking from the bottle. She could be hard down screaming, cutting up, but the second I would reach for her, all that would stop. I miss all of it. This shit hurts like a motha fucka, Ya. I’m okay though. My only concern is making sure that you’re okay, especially right now, since your carrying my babies,” I said, and tears had been falling from her eyes as I said these things to her, and she ended up laughing at the last part of my statement.
“You’re adamant about these twins. You know something that I don’t know?” she asked, as she raised her hands to wipe her face.
“I’m just manifesting, baby. That’s all,” I responded, pulling her even closer to me.
She smiled, while laying her head on my shoulder again. She pulled her phone out, and for an hour straight, we had this moment with each other, where we looked at old footage of our baby girl. Easily, the most beautiful little girl in the world. Man, I would have gave it all to her, just like how I would with her big brothers. In this room with Soraya, looking at footage of ourdaughter, we laughed together, shed a few more tears, but in the end, we were strong, and were going to pull through. This afternoon, we were going to head to her gravesite, so that we could lay flowers, and put balloons in the air for her. It was a sad day that we had to celebrate, but we had to do it. We would forever honor our little girl and allow her name to live on.
Chapter Nineteen
SORAYA ‘YAYA’ CRAWFORD
I looked at myself in the mirror, almost wanting to cry at how beautiful I looked this evening. Granted, I saw myself in the mirror every day, so I knew what would be looking back at me, but seeing myself tonight, dressed up, wearing the hell out of this black, custom gown, it made me almost want to call my parents up right now, and thank them for blessing me in the looks department the way that they’d done.
