Confessions of a Bunny

~**Onyx**~

Some months later ....

It's been a few months since the night I went to dinner with Nicoli. I rode the high of knowing that I'd stepped out on my man, and he had absolutely no clue. I thought he caught me when I came home that night but after I put it done on him good, I knew he had no idea that I'd been out to dinner with another man. Well, that was until the next day when the roses showed up on the doorstep. I purposely didn't tell Nicoli where I lived in fear that he'd pop up on me and then Melo would go off and we'd end up on the news. I couldn't explain the flowers, so I lied and said they probably were the next-door neighbors and that I'd get rid of them. Was I paranoid after that? Hell yeah, every time the phone rang, someone would knock at the door, or I went to work I was paranoid that Nicoli would show up at the most inopportune time for me. To my shock nothing happened after the flowers. I literally hadn't spoken or seen Nicoli since that night and quite frankly I am ok with that because my life was in a state of chaos at the moment. While I did have some good things going on there were also things that I wasn't anticipating to happen.

I got the promotion to the customer service desk, which changed my schedule drastically. Initially when I was thinking about this position, I was thinking it'd be great to not stand on my feet all day. Boy was I wrong, no one ever talks about the rotating shifts, twice a month weekend schedule, and the fact that we also had to be customer ready because we worked on the same floor with the big bosses. Which meant instead of kissing ass maybe once a week, I was kissing ass every single time I came to work, and it was exhausting. Not only that it meant goodbye to my structured schedule and hello to early morning shifts and late-night shifts. It wasn't too late cause the store closed at 8, but that was different than getting off at 4. At the desk we didn't leave at 8 we left at the earliest 9, because we had to count all the register money, make out deposit slips, and prepare the next day's bags for pick up in the morning. The worst part of it all was that I was missing precious time with my daughter, dropping her off for school and picking her up at a decent hour. Now If I am lucky, I may get to see her before she goes to bed and that's only after I pick her up from her friend's house when Melo isn't working or in the streets. Yeah, I said in the streets. I prayed that what Mimi was telling me about him being back on the streets wasn't true. It took me some time to come to grips with the fact that he'd been lying to me, and it made it worse when I had to have that talk with him and let him know if you are gonna be in the streets, he could live in the streets as well. Well, yall know how that conversation went... "Please baby I'll change; I'll get out these streets for you!" Same song he sold me before, but now it's different I depend on him to help me take care Mercedes and I'll be damned if my child is in the car with him and he does some stupid shit or if those niggas get bold and decide to come to the house.

So, now I am thinking about making a drastic change again, but before I do it, I want to make sure that I am not doing the wrong thing. It was my first weekend off in like 3 weeks and I was meeting with my god mother in hopes that she could help me make this decision. "Where's my baby at today? With Derrick and his kids. Awe I miss seeing my baby. I know you do, but I had some things to take care of around the house and some other errands to run before I pick up her up tomorrow. I more than understand girl I've raised kids before. I know I mumbled as I nodded, Carroll can I ask you something? Sure! How did you do it? It, what do you mean? I mean how did you raise your kids without a stable man around. Girl if I had a nickel for every time someone asked me that she said chuckling. Baby no one said it would be easy, but we signed up for the life when we laid our backs and opened our legs!" That was one thing about my god mother she wasn't going to sugar coat nothing. She told it like it was and stood by it. "You having men problems girl! Aren't I always! Not always I thought Romello was one of those good ones. Don't get me wrong he is a good one, he's just...he doesn't know how to stay out them streets. Ahh the streets was calling him huh! I guess so, but I can't afford to take a risk on him, doing some stupid shit now, not with Mercedes around. I need a dependable man to help me raise her. Don't we all girl, but you putting him a role that he ain't asked for. Mercedes is not his child. And before you say she considers him a father, that's all fine and dandy, but the truth of the matter is, she's not biologically his nor is she financially his responsibility and you can't make him grow up to be her father. I know that. Do you, because from what I can see the past few years you've been trying to mold Romello into instant dad without realizing that he ain't even grown up himself. He's grown! If he was would he be living with you, letting you pay the bills and shit, she said raising an eyebrow at me."