Status

CHAPTER 8

The lights were back on in the morning. My phone was dead so I hooked it up to the wall charger and let it build up. On my way to Kylie’s room, I heard two men downstairs laughing. I peeked in on my sleeping baby girl, then trotted down the steps.

“Rodrick, when did you get here?” I asked.

“A few minutes ago,” he said. He gave me a hug and a kiss. “The Lord brought me home.”

“I see. Hopefully the Lord will keep you home.”

“We can only hope. One only knows what He has in store for me.”

I glanced at Gideon. He hadn’t looked at me at all. “Good morning, Gideon.”

“Good morning,” he said dryly.

He’s still upset with me, I thought. But hopefully he would come back around and we’d have the same relationship before the attempted kiss. I would continue to be nice to him and respect him like I always had.

As I plopped down in between them on the couch, Rodrick told me they didn’t charge him with anything. The detectives just asked him questions for a few hours and made him sit in a holding cell even longer. Even though they let him go, he still wasn’t out of the water. He said they could still charge him later on down the line if they discovered any new evidence. All they had now was internet speculation and the last comment Kenneth Murberry posted on Rodrick’s wall before he was murdered.

My gut feeling told me that he and Gideon were responsible. But one thing I didn’t do was ask questions. I didn’t want to know anything and I didn’t want to see anything either.

“Then there’s still a chance my parole officer can violate me for coming in contact with the police,” Rodrick said. “That’s if he finds out. I’ll have to go back and finish off the rest of my time. But I’m not gon’ worry about it. I already put it in God’s hands.”

“How much time you got left on your sentence?” I asked him.

“Seven months,” Rodrick said.

“That’s not that bad. What about you, Gideon? Are you still on parole?”

“Yeah,” Gideon replied. “But I’ll be done with it in two more days.”

“Damn, that’s good. Are you gonna celebrate?”

He nodded. “I already got something planned.”

“Tyesha, go get dressed,” Rodrick said to me. “And while you up there, wake up my baby girl. We’re all going out on this beautiful Saturday morning to eat a nice breakfast at the Isle of Capri. Maybe splash a little bit on the crap table too. My treat. It’s not often I get to do somethin’ nice for the ones I love. I try to show my appreciation as much as I can.”

Gideon gave him dap and I one-arm hugged him before racing up the steps. It was times like these that reminded me why I fell in love with Rodrick. He was so appreciative and generous. Whenever he tried to give me large amounts of cash, though, I would turn it down or do one of two things: put it up for his daughter’s college tuition, or put it up for him in case he got incarcerated again. I didn’t want to become dependent on his drug money. But him taking me and Kylie out was something different.

I was flipping through the hangers of clothes in my closet when I heard my phone beep. I picked it up and unlocked the screen, saw a notification lit up on The Site. When I clicked it, a message appeared alerting me that someone had posted on Rodrick’s wall. I had my settings set so all Rodrick’s interactions on The Site would automatically pop up in my newsfeed, and if someone commented or left a message on his wall, my phone would beep. Rodrick was a goodhearted person, but I still had to keep tabs on him.

My phone buffered for a moment, and then the message appeared.

It felt like I got shot in the stomach with a semi-automatic; it was twisting in painful knots as I read the message and the time it was posted. I was beyond stunned, woozy almost. I read Angela youngandfly Serrano’s comment again, as my feet traveled on their own back downstairs. Before I knew it, I had Rodrick in a deathly chokehold.

“You trifling-ass nigga!” I screamed.

He choked and gagged, trying to wrest my arms from around his neck. As he tried to pull away, he dragged me across the couch but I still stayed latched. I bit into his temple ragefully.

He slammed me over his shoulder onto the carpet.

Gideon pushed him. “Ay, nigga, don’t hurt her!”

Rodrick held the side of his face as he maintained his balance. He had minor bleeding. “I’m sorry,” he said.

I didn’t know if he was apologizing to me or Gideon. I got up and seized two handfuls of his dreads, yanking him around. He slammed into the flatscreen, as I yanked left and he tripped over the coffee table, fell onto it—but not through it.

“You were with that bitch last night!” I hollered. “You fuckin’ liar! You weren’t locked up!”

“Tyesha, let him go,” Gideon said, pulling me by the waist.

“No!! I’ma kill his bitch ass!”

I dragged him off the table and Gideon fell behind me and I fell on top of him. Rodrick got up and ran around the couch. I got up and tried to go after him but Gideon was holding me by the waist again. I threw elbows but he wouldn’t let me go.

“What did I do?” Rodrick asked.

“You know what you did, bitch!” I yelled. “Where the fuck were you last night?!”

“I was in jail.”

“No, you weren’t! You were at that bitch Angela youngandfly Serrano’s house!”

“No, I wasn’t, Tyesha. I got my release paperwork in my pocket.”

“You fuckin’ lying bitch! She posted on your wall this morning that you were at her house all fuckin’ night! When your daughter is here in the dark with no damn power!”

He blinked guiltily. “She posted what?”

I struggled with Gideon. “Let me go! I’ma murder his bitch-ass!”

“I really was locked up, Tyesha. She just bonded me out, that’s all. I tried to call you but your phone was off.”

“Let me go, Gideon!”

“Gideon, hold her until I get outside.” Rodrick started backpedalling out the door. “A’ight, bro?”

When Rodrick shut the door behind him, Gideon let me go. I ran to the door and yanked it open, dashed down the steps as Rodrick screeched away from the curb. His Challenger screamed down the road.

“I’ma kill his ass,” I said to Gideon when I got back in the house. “Can I use your gun?”

“Tyesha, you act like you didn’t see this coming,” he said.

“Did you know? Were you in on it too? Did he tell you to watch me so I wouldn’t be asking where he was?”

“I was played too. He knew I wouldn’t do nothing like that to you willingly.”

“Can you leave, please?”

“Tyesha, I swear I didn’t know where he was,” Gideon stressed.

“Still, can you leave? Please?”

His jaws clenched, then he threw on his track jacket and strolled out the door.

I sat on the arm of my couch and crossed my arms. Tears slowly fell down my cheeks as I thought of how many people saw Angela youngandfly Serrano’s post. Hundreds, maybe thousands. It was bad enough having a man who cheated on me, but for it to be broadcasted over the World Wide Web was literally unbearable. My chest began to constrict on its own, and I found myself trying to catch my breath. It sounded so simple to just change my relationship status and delete Rodrick as a friend, but it wasn’t. People would see me as a quitter. And I know for a fact once his status changed, tons of bitches would pounce on him, and Kylie would end up with who knows how many brothers and sisters. But the fight for his love was tormenting my soul.