Side Chic 4 (Forever Ratchet) (4 page)

             
“Yo, get over in the left lane and make this left up here at the light.” I instructed.
              He did as he was told but he wasn’t letting go of my last statement easily. “Tre, I know that she made a fucked up decision by leaving your kids with that nigga but it ain’t her fault. It’s his fault, he knew better! I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be upset with her but not to the point where you are talking reckless.”

             
“Make another left right up here after you pass this gas station.” I continued to ignore what he was saying about Lala. In my opinion Lala wasn’t shit and her life didn’t mean shit to me!

             
“Tre, do you hear what I am saying?” He raised his voice but I didn’t reply I just looked straight ahead. He stopped on brakes in the middle of the street causing the tires to screech and both of us to jerk forward. Luckily, I was wearing my seat belt.

             
“What the fuck is wrong with you, yo?” I roared reaching over and shoving him in the chest! Car horns blared from behind us.

             
He shoved me back hard in the chest! “I asked you a motherfuckin’ question? Did you hear anything that I was saying to you? I am not about to take you over here to this girl’s house and be partially responsible for you fucking her up!” He barked pointing a finger in my face.

             
“Either drive this motherfucka or you can get the fuck out and I will drive it my gotdamn self! Fuck that bitch!” I banged my fist on the dashboard! “She is responsible for that nigga touching my baby and if you ask me, she is just as much to blame as him!”

             
The cars behind us were blowing their horns relentlessly. He started to drive again slowly. “Tre, you need to calm down and think rationally before you do something that you may regret. I understand that you are upset and I would be too.” I could hear the sympathy in his voice. I knew without a doubt that he was saying all of the things that he was out of love for me. He was in the car right now with me because he loved me. His getting in the car and bringing the gun that I’d asked for said everything. He’d been willing to risk his own freedom for my daughter. I let out a frustrated breath and looked out the window. “I’m sure that she regrets her decision to leave those babies with him more than you or I could ever imagine. You told me out of your own mouth that she is a good mother and that she takes good care of those girls. Didn’t you?”

             
“Yeah…” I replied still looking out the window. “Don’t forget to make this right up here.”

             
“I got this. You just listen to what I am telling you before you end up in jail.” He told me. “Your babies have been through enough for one day.”

             
I let the things that he was saying sink in. He was making a lot of sense and I knew that I should take heed to what he was saying. He was right I didn’t want to end up in jail and I didn’t want to show up and act a fool in front of my kids. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Then I did the same thing again. “I’m good.” I told him just as we were coming up to Lala’s house. “It’s that house right there.” I pointed.

Tre             

              I walked up on the porch with Tyson right behind me. I rang the bell twice and waited. There were two cars parked in Lala’s driveway, one I knew belonged to her friend Nisey but I wasn’t sure of who the other one belonged to. My mind was telling me that it more than likely belonged to Reggie.

“Shit, I left my cigarettes in the car.” I told Tyson patting my pockets as if I were really looking for my cigarettes. I walked off the porch and jogged back to the car. I opened the glove box, took out the gun and slipped it in the waist of my pants. Then I grabbed my cigarettes and headed back towards the porch.

Just as I was walking up the steps, I heard the sound of the door being unlocked. The door opened slowly and Lala stood on the other side.

             
“Hey, come on in.” She told us. Her eyes were red and puffy from all of the crying that she’d done. Seeing her puffy eyes only made me heated all over again. It was her poor ass judgment that had led to all of this.

             
I walked past her and into the house. I went into the living room and saw Nisey sitting on the sofa. “Hey.” I spoke, my eyes roaming over the room. I saw blood stains on the carpet and the knick knacks that normally sat on the coffee table were strolled about the floor.

             
“Hey, Tre.” She replied wearing a tired expression. She was leaning back with her shoes off and her feet up on the sofa. She took her feet down as we were walking into the room.

             
“What’s up?” Tyson spoke.

             
“Hey.” She greeted him as well.

             
“Where are the girls?” I turned around and looked at Lala after I didn’t see either of them.

             
“They’re in their room asleep.” She answered taking a seat on the sofa down from Nisey. Tyson had taken a seat in the chair across from the sofa.

             
“Where did that blood come from on the floor?” I knew that she’d texted me that Lola was fine but I wanted to be sure.

             
“Reggie’s.” She answered rubbing her temples.

             
I walked out of the room and went down the hallway to the girl’s room. I walked over to Laila’s crib. She was sleeping so peacefully, like a little angel. It was amazing to me how she and Lola seemed to be the perfect combination of Lala and me. With the boys they looked exactly like me but it wasn’t like that with the girls. I leaned over and kissed her on her cheek and then fixed her little blanket. Next I walked over to Lola. She always slept with one of her hands over her face. I’d always found it to be so cute. I stood there for a minute and just watched her, thinking to myself how she’d been through quite a bit since she’d come into the world. First there was the condition with her heart and now this bullshit. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of sick motherfucka would want to harm an innocent child who has no way of defending themselves. I shook my head. I felt warm tears roll down my cheeks and reached up to wipe them away. I found a little comfort in knowing that Lala had returned before Reggie had gotten the opportunity to actually molest her but just the thought of him having the audacity to touch her caused my anger to boil over.

             
I left out of the girl’s bedroom and headed back into the living room, tears steadily streaming from my eyes. I couldn’t ever remember being so upset about anything in my life and I couldn’t remember the last time that anything had brought tears from my eyes. I began to fear what I might end up doing at this point. I wasn’t sure of how much longer I could control my anger before I flipped out.

             
“Where is Reggie at now?” I asked walking back into the living room. I used my hand to wipe my face but it didn’t seem to help. My mind was fucking with me hard because I couldn’t get those crazy images of Reggie touching Lola to go away. I shook my head and ran my hand over my face again.

             
“You good?” Tyson asked looking at me strangely. “Maybe we should step outside and get some air.”

             
“I’m good man.” I assured him. I looked over at Lala. “Where is he?”

             
“He’s in jail. The detective said that he’s being held without bond but that could change Monday when he goes before the judge.” She let out a sigh. “I hope and pray that they don’t give him a bond. His ass needs to rot in there.”

             
“Nah they need to let that nigga out!” I barked spittle flying from my mouth. “Jail is too good for him! They need to let me handle him. A nigga like him doesn’t deserve to live, going around touching babies and shit!”

             
“Hmph, same damn thing I said.” Nisey added sucking her teeth. “Lala said that the social worker told her this isn’t the first time that he’s touched a kid. The last time it was his niece!”

             
Hearing that took me over the edge! “Say what? This motherfucka has done this shit before?” I charged towards Lala. She jumped back, looking scared to death. She held her hands up like she was afraid that I was going to hit her and I can’t lie it did cross my mind. “All this time you had a fuckin child molester laying up in here with my kids? What in the fuck is wrong with you?”  

             
“I didn’t know!” She yelled bursting into tears and covering her face with her hands. “How was I supposed to know?”

             
“You’re right you couldn’t have known but you did know that nigga wasn’t their daddy! Why in the fuck did you leave my kids with him in the first gotdamn place?” I didn’t give her a chance to answer. “You should’ve taken them with you!”

             
She removed her hands from her face. Her face was wet with tears and snot. “Don’t you think that I realize that now?” She screamed. “Do you know how many times today that I’ve wished that I could take back my decision to leave them here with him but I can’t Tre! I can’t!” She stopped talking and sobbed loudly.

             
“Tre, man…y’all chill out. Yelling and screaming at each other isn’t going to solve anything.” Tyson attempted to be the voice of reason, which was also starting to get on my nerves. At this point I didn’t want to hear words of reason! Fuck that! People always seem to have the answers when it’s not their situation. If he were in my shoes he would probably be reacting in the same way or worse. “Let’s just be thankful that Lil Mama is alright.”

             
“Tre, I really didn’t mean for this to happen.” Lala sniffled. She’d pulled herself together some. “I know that I am partially to blame because I should’ve never left them here with Reggie alone but you have to know that I would never do anything to hurt my babies. I love those two girls more than anything in this world…” Her voice cracked and she seemed to be struggling to get her words out. “I’d die for those two girls.”

             
“Shhh…don’t cry, Lala. We all know that you love those babies.” Nisey said getting up and moving closer to Lala. She reached over and rubbed her back. She shot me a nasty look. “Nobody is perfect, we all make mistakes and use poor judgment at times but sometimes people tend to forget all of their mistakes and moments of poor judgment when they are busy pointing the finger at us playing the blame game. All of a sudden their imperfections become nonexistent but oh as soon as they fuck up again they are always the main ones begging for others to have understanding, be forgiving and realize that they aren’t perfect. Funny how they can’t do the same thing.”

             
I knew that bitch was hinting at how things had gone down in the beginning between Lala and I when the twins were first born. Yeah, I’d done some pretty foul shit but it couldn’t be compared to Lala leaving my daughters with her child molesting ass boyfriend! I didn’t respond to the slick shit that Nisey had just said because I knew that if she said something else slick in response, I was going to take her head right off of her body. To me that shit she was poppin’ didn’t even deserve a response. I paced back and forth trying to calm myself down.

             
“This is why, I wanted us to try and work things out between us so that we could be a family.” Lala was still sniffling. “That way no other man would be around our kids and we wouldn’t have to worry about anything like this ever happening but you didn’t want that.”

             
Her last statement caused me to lose what little bit of self-control that I had left. “Bitch what do you mean,
but you didn’t want that!
Don’t try and make this shit about you and me!” I roared pointing my finger in her face. “This shit is about you and your fucked up decision to leave our daughters with a nigga who you apparently barely even knew! Bottom line is you should’ve taken them with you!”

             
“I am not making this about us! I was just saying!”

             
“Saying what exactly? That this shit is somehow my fault?”

             
“I’m saying that this could’ve been avoided if you and I had given raising our daughters together a try. You obviously blame me for this. That’s basically what you’ve been saying since you got here but honestly I never wanted to bring another man into my home with my daughters. I wanted it to be you and me but when you told me that wasn’t going to happen. I moved on. I had no idea that I was moving on to someone like that but realistically no one goes and do a full background check on the people they date. I judged him according to the man that he showed me when he was with me. From what I saw he was never violent in anyway.” She explained. “It’s not like he was drooling over little girls right before my eyes or like there were any clues. Unfortunately there are people like Reggie everywhere. We communicate with them every day and have no idea. This incident taught me some very valuable lessons. I know that I have to be more careful and trust no one around my children. Trust me, you don’t ever have to worry about this happening again.”