What did he think I wanted? Money? Cars? What exactly was it because since day one, all I ever wanted was to love him and for him to love me in return.
5
Journey Evans
“Hi favorite brother in the whole wide world,” I said with my voice sounding phony as hell when I walked into Jaden’s room.
He was sitting in a little chair that went with the driving came that he was playing on the PS4. His big headphones were on his ears as he held the controller in his hands and played the game like he was twenty-five instead of five years old. If our parents, or should I say if my mom let him, this little boy would sit there and play this game all damn day. Jaden was active and loved to play basketball outside, but I didn’t think he loved anything more than this stupid game. He loved this game the way I loved my phone. My phone that I was dying without.
It was Saturday, and my mom had taken my phone from me on Monday, so it had been a long five days without it, and I felt like I was going to go crazy. Well, I was going to go crazy if I didn’t talk to my boyfriend. His name was Raheem, and he stayed in the same projects as my grandmother. That was actually how the two of us met. He was older than me; nineteen, to be exact. If my mom or dad found out about him, they would probably have a damn heart attack.
I know you may be wondering why the hell was I kissing a boy from my school if I had a nigga of my own? The answer to that question is because I wasn’t thinking. The boy from school, his name was Milton. He was cute, and he’s had a crush on me since elementary school. The kiss kind of just happened. We were friends, and we would text here and there. Although I kept him in the friend zone, he made sure to let me know just about every chance he got that he liked me. The kiss sort of just happened. We hugged, and next thing I know, we were playing tug of war with each other’s tongues.
I didn’t feel bad that we’d gotten caught and that I’d probably disappointed my parents. If anything, I felt bad because I cheated on Raheem by kissing Milton, although Raheem had cheated on me numerous.
We couldn’t be official or out in the open with our relationship because of the age difference. Really, the only person who knew about us was my best friend, Nandi. Because we couldn’t be all out in the open with our relationship, it forced Raheem to deal with other girls. It hurt me, especially when I found out from him a month ago that a girl that he had been messing around with for quite some time had just given birth to his baby girl. I cried about that for weeks.
My mom likes to think that I’m just the average girl who’s “smelling herself,” which is why I’m constantly acting out or shutting down, but in reality, I’m dealing with real life relationship shit just like her. I was a woman too. I lied to my mother in the car the other day about not having sex. I’d been having sex for the past three months, but again, of course, I couldn’t tell her that.
“What do you want, Journey? The only time you’re ever nice to me is when you want something,” Jaden said, pausing the game and taking the headphones out of his ear.
I laughed because his attitude was every ounce of our mother. Here I am, thinking that it would be easier trying to con him out of something over Jada. I knew that I couldn’t go to Jada because her and my mom were like damn best friends, and she would probably go back and tell my mom what I had asked her for, even if I told her to keep it a secret. Granted, my mom and Jada were lying down in the bed together taking a nap right now, but it was still just a chance that I didn’t want to take.
“That’s not true, Jaden. Can I please hold your iPad? Mommy took my phone, and I just want to talk to my friends from school. You don’t want me to be happy too? You’re able to play your video games and go outside, while I’m forced to be in my room and do nothing. Jada has all her dolls too. Please, can I hold it?” I asked him, dropping down to my knees before him.
I hated having to beg for anything, but I was desperate to talk to Raheem, and my little brother was my only option. My mom knew that I could text from my iPad and my MacBook, so she made sure she took away those things from me too. I loved my mama to death, but I swear to God her ass gets on my damn nerves. She’s too strict and acts as if she was never a kid.
“Okay, you can hold it,” he said, standing up and going toward his dresser. He took the iPad off the charger and handed it to me.
“Don’t tell Mommy you let me hold it,” I said and kissed his forehead before going over to his bed.
I was just going to stay in there with it. That way, if I got caught with it, I could just lie and say that I was playing a game on it. I laid down on Jaden’s bed, propped my head up on three pillows, and quickly downloaded the textnow app. It took no time for the app to download and for them to assign me a number. I knew Raheem’s number like the back of my hand, so I quickly keyed it in and proceeded to send him a text message.
Me: Hey bae, it’s Journey. My mom took my phone again, plus my laptop and iPad, so I had to sneak and use my little brother’s iPad in order to text you. I miss you, and I love you.
I quickly sent out the message, and like an addict, I sat there itching and waiting for him to text back. I checked about five times, just to make sure that I’d texted the right number, and I had. Finally, the iPad made a dinging noise, and I quickly headed back to the app so I could read his message.
Him: Yo! Come to the hood tonight and spend the night at your grandma’s house. I need to rap to you about something.
Me: Okay. I will try and see if my mom will let me stay the weekend. What is it about?
I swear it felt like hours had gone by before he responded. My palms were sweaty, and a little bit of sweat even appeared on my top lip because I didn’t know what he wanted to talk to me about. Knowing Raheem, he could be about to tell me that he had another baby on the way or something. It was just never any telling with him. Or that he needed to hold a few dollars, so then I was stuck and put in a fucked-up position where I had to steal money from my mom’s wallet again.
I hated having to take from her because I knew that ultimately, she would give me everything I asked for, but I also knew that when it came to asking for money, I would damn near have to write an entire paper for her on why I needed it. With my mom dealing with me, plus my two little siblings and our dad, she never noticed when I took money. She had so much going on that she never remembered how much cash was left in her wallet in the first place, so I was always able to get away with it.
Him: Just come. You’ll find out when you get here. You know where to meet me at.
Me: Okay
When thirty minutes went by, I kind of realized that he wasn’t going to text me back, so I quickly deleted the app and placed Jaden’s iPad back on the charger. I was feeling some type of way because Raheem never texted back and let me know that he loved me and missed me too. Then again, I had to keep in mind that he wasn’t as in touch with his feelings as I was, so he never really expressed his love for me, although I knew that he did love me.
Whenever he would get a little money here and there, he would buy me nice bra and panty sets from Victoria Secret since my mom would never buy them for me. He’d also buy me jewelry, which I had to hide from my parents, so the only time that I was ever able to wear it was at school. When it came to being with Raheem, I just wished that I was a little bit older because I was tired of keeping what we had a secret. As much as I wanted to shout it to the whole wide world that I was his girlfriend, I knew that I needed to be careful because if the wrong person were to find out about our involvement with each other, his freedom could
be on the line due to long gap in our ages.
Now, the hard part was going to be convincing my mom to drop me off at my grandma’s house without her feeling like I was up to something. For such a tiny person, I swear she was so hard. I didn’t even understand why my mom was so hard and tough on me the way she was. She wasn’t even old. She was only thirty-three years old, so I would have expected her to be cooler than she was. It’s crazy because my friends tell me all the time that they wish my mom was their mom, and I make sure to let them know that they better be careful what they ask for.
From the outside looking in, I guess they see that my mom always makes sure that I’m dressed nicely, my hair is always done, they see the car that my mom drives, so they want that, but they don’t know that living with her was similar to being on damn probation. Any other teenager would probably think that I was just exaggerating, and I could be, but when you have a boyfriend that’s six years older than you, and he’s constantly making comments on how he wanted me to be a woman, I felt like I was rushing life. I didn’t want to be the little thirteen year old girl that my mom wanted me to be. Instead, I wanted to be the young woman that Raheem wanted me to be.