“See you at school!” Brandy waved to Tiara before her driver took off.
Tiara waved back out of the window and then rolled it up. She had just gotten comfortable in her seat when her phone vibrated again. She grinned when she read the message on her screen.
There’s just something about you. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t get you out of my mind. Call me when you get home.
Tiara quickly sent him an “OK” text and held the phone to her chest with her eyes closed. She silently willed for Thomas to drive faster so that she could hurry up and call him. She couldn’t wait to hear his voice. The whole ride she tried to think of different topics to talk about so that they wouldn’t just be sitting on the phone listening to each other breathing.
Tiara barely paid attention to the scenery that the car passed by on the way, but when they finally pulled up, she had never been so grateful to see the gates of their home. That had felt like the longest car ride she’d ever been on.
“Thank you!” Tiara called to Thomas and hopped out of the vehicle before it was all the way in park.
Thomas sputtered something to her about her safety, but she didn’t hear him. She’d already slammed the door shut. Tiara ran into the house and up the stairs so that she could confine herself in her bedroom. She looked over the stair railing back to the first floor and saw that her mother was in the living room watching one of her sitcoms. She didn’t even acknowledge the fact that Tiara was home. Normally this wouldn’t have surprised Tiara, but since she was expecting a verbal lashing from Cat, she found it a bit strange. However, Tiara didn’t care enough to dwell on it. At this moment, she only had one thing on her mind.
When she reached her room, she took her phone out preparing to dial Mario’s number, but a throat being cleared interrupted her in mid-button press. She turned her head—and there was her father sitting calmly with his legs crossed on her bed. His eyes went straight to the red lipstick on her lips, and she immediately remembered that her hair had been in a ponytail that morning, not flowing loose off of her shoulders like now.
Tiara was frozen as she watched her father study her and wished she could turn and run out of the room. She could already tell just by looking at the expression on his face that she was in trouble. It was too late to purse her lips to hide the redness on them or to tuck her hair behind her ears. She was stuck like Chuck, and there was nothing she could do about it.
“So, what’s this I hear about a fight at school? And before you start talking, go to your bathroom and wipe that mess off of your mouth.”
Tiara didn’t even think to argue. She just did as she was told. When she came back, she stood in front of him and put her head down.
“If you were bold enough to sneak and do it, then you must have known there would be a chance that you would be caught,” Blake’s voice was venomous. “Put your head up and look me in my eyes since you can defy me behind my back.”
“Yes, sir,” she said and looked him in his eyes.
“What happened at school today?”
“This girl tried to trip me, and I had to handle my business. I’ve been ignoring her all year because I didn’t really want to fight her. But at the end of the day, I ain’t no punk. I had enough of her, and she needed to learn her lesson.”
Blake nodded his head. There was no lesson that he could teach there because she had done what he would’ve done. In this moment, Blake realized she was indeed her father’s daughter. He hadn’t raised her to be a doormat.
“OK. Next topic. When you walked in this room, you looked nothing like the daughter that was birthed for me. You are a princess, not a whore.”
Tiara looked genuinely hurt by his words, but he was not moved. She stood before him with disheveled hair and an open blouse. He saw no difference between her and the hoes his young soldiers hit and quit on a daily basis. Her appearance mirrored that of a woman that had just gotten fucked by the crew and sent home in an Uber.
“Daddy, why would you say that to me?”
“Because that is what you look like. Got your blouse all open, hair all messy. Why the fuck would you ever think that it was OK to walk into my house looking like you just got screwed by three different men? If a nigga saw you in the streets, he wouldn’t respect you. Do you know why? Because you look easy. An easy target. I couldn’t even blame him for not respecting Blake Rogers’s daughter. Shit, I don’t even recognize you.”
Tears formed in her eyes because he had never before said anything like that to her. Blake realized then that maybe he had been so strict on her that she had become one of those kids that felt she had to sneak to do everything. Cat often watched those shows that showed the outlandish things that teenage kids did
