if you see these men, RUN. || (DAVE EAST) (CHRIS BROWN)

Chapter 34

Capri Martin
7:00pm
Q had been long gone around this time and I had been all by myself. The sun had gone down and I was just finishing my homework before someone walked right into my room. Shifting in the seat at my desk, I turned to see who it was and prayed it wasn't my mom about to walk through.

I was relieved when I saw my dad but I was still a little tense.

"Hey..." He spoke in a low and weary tone.

"Hey..." I responded barely letting any sound escape from my mouth.

Then I noticed a red mark on the side of his eye. It looked like it'd been bleeding a lot but he just stopped it.

"What happened to your eye?" I questioned.

"Walked right into a door chasing after your mother's crazy ass." He chuckled, trying to get me to laugh too. But I just couldn't. It just wasn't in me.

"Hmm." I responded turning back to fill in the last of my homework questions.

"Pri...I wanna apologize." He spoke, clearing his throat.

I nodded my head. "For what?"

"Your mother. How she treated your-"

"Boyfriend."

"Y-yeah." He nodded. "Boyfriend."

"I don't know what she has against him. Q is the sweetest guy I've ever met." I sighed. "He makes me so happy and I don't think I've ever came across anyone like him before daddy. He's got a hold on me."

He stayed quiet for a moment then looked over at my bed. "Can I take a seat?"

"Go ahead."

Making his way over to my bed, he sat on the edge and took a long and deep breath.

"Between you and me...I think your mother is jealous."

I was not expecting that but I let him explain.

"Jealous of what?"

"Jealous of what you two have. She sees the way that young man looks at you. Hell, I do too. That's love right there. He may not know it and you may not either but...he is very fond of you. Even in the midst of the mess that went on earlier, he still found a way to steal glimpses at you in the moment."

"I don't get it...why would she be jealous of that though? She's a whole married woman."

"It's because she doesn't get looked at in that way anymore." He sighed, looking down.

And that right there confirmed my deepest and darkest fears. The fact that my parents didn't love each other anymore. And the thought alone tore through me like a knife.

I don't know why it did, but it'd always been a fear of mine since childhood. I thought that maybe if I didn't grow up looking at the perfect relationship, I wouldn't know how to be in one once I got older.

"Why don't you look at her the way Q looks at me anymore?" I questioned.

He shrugged his shoulders, continuing to stare down at the ground.

It wasn't an answer but that was all I needed. "Alright well...I'm going to finish up my homework and-"

"You know...I was just like Q when I was his age. Always...getting the 3rd degree from my ex girlfriends parents...especially your grandma and grandpa. All because of how I looked. The tattoos, pierced ears, the mean look I had on my face. The ladies loved me but the parents didn't." He reminisced smiling down at the ground. "Maybe your mom is seeing me in Q...I don't know. It's just a theory."