I open my eyes to see a doctor in front of me. Yawning I sit up to a slight pain across my stomach. The doctor looks up from his clip board at me and he sees I'm awake.
"Well Miss Morreno you gave us quite a scare last night." he tells me.
"What happened?" I say rubbing my eyes.
"Well a series of things happened. Were you aware that you were 14 weeks pregnant?"
My heart clenches and eyes get wide at everything he just told me. "N-No." my voice cracks. Cardo was right. I'm having his baby.
"I'll come back when your stress levels come down."he nods at my monitor.
I hear the door open and Carlos walks in holding breakfast. He looks a little down but he looks like his self. The doctor walks out leaving me and Carlos to talk. "Did he tell you guys?" I ask him my voice raspy.
"Yeah he told us about the migraines putting stress on your brain. I know you and Cardo are on bad terms and you stressed but you gotta always take care of yourself first so you can provide for that little girl in the waiting room. She needs you, no matter what age. She always gone need her mama. Biology may not give you that tittle but you are her mom no matter what and nobody can take that from you. They not gone keep you any longer but you got to take it easy." he looks at me in the eyes firmly.
"Okay, okay. I will." I say and I close my eyes again and I start crying again. I can't believe I didn't even notice I'm 14 weeks pregnant. 14 damn weeks, I continued my life like I didn't have a care in the world. A baby. I can't have his baby. It'll be a excuse to stay with him. I need to leave him. I need to be strong for Nala. I can't be strong for her if I'm always being weak to Cardo. I would die inside if Nala ever let a man treat her the way Cardo treats me. No real woman would put up with half of the shit I've taken with Cardo.
The drug dealing, the cheating, the lying. If I had any real goals in life I would leave. I would take Nala away from all this before she gets hurt. Before I have to bury another body that held my best friend in it once.
The door opens and I don't even look up to see who it is. Even when I hear his voice I can't look him in the eyes knowing I'm stuck with his child forever. His arms wrap around me and the door closes or opens again. "Baby we gone get through this." he said.
"I hate you. I hate you so much." I cry. He grabs my chin and stops me from talking again with a deep kiss that reaches my soul. He pulls back and wipes my tears and kisses my hand.
"I know you hate me." he rolls his eyes. I smile too but it's obviously fake. I really do hate him but will I leave him? Will I hate him for long? No.
The answer is no. Always is, always will be.
"Here your clothes." he passes them to me and I get up so I can get cleaned up. Cardo helps me because it feels like my my vagina is being ripped away from me when I turn to the side too quickly. Once I'm done I get dressed and Cardo puts my hair in a bun. It's grown all the way back since I chopped it off 2 and a half years ago. We stayed quiet for a very long time and then the doctor came in with pictures of my brain.
As soon as I get my discharge papers we leave to go back home. On the ride it was completely silent so I decided to break it. "Was it true?" I ask him.
"No. Lena you and Nala are all I live for now. I wouldn't do anything to jeopardize my relationship with you."
"Okay." I smile. He looks guilty. I don't believe his ass for one second. "You're still lying."
"What you want me to say?"
"The truth. I'm sick of hearing you lie about it. Just own up to the dirt your dirty ass has. Claim your shit."
He shook his head and gripped the steering wheel harder.
We pulled up to a different Condo building and I looked over at him confused but he just got out. I slowly slipped out of the car holding my stomach. My baby is in there. If I have any chance of leaving Cardo I'll have to keep him a secret. I only look bloated right now. It's a side affect of my new medicine also. I have an excuse. So many things I have to get now. I have to prepare for A BABY. I still can't believe it. As we get in the elevator of this condominium I smile. I'll make sure my child has the life he or she deserves and Nala deserves to have a normal life too. We get off on the 7th floor and I'm still confused. A long hallway of doors and on the third one from the left a door swings open.
His mom steps out into the hall and she walks out to greet us. She kisses Cardo's cheek and he smiles at her. She looks at me and her eyes fill with tears as she gently wraps her arms around me. I wrap one arm around her and we embrace for some time. After she let go she kissed my forehead and led us into the room.
I see Cyrus sitting on the couch playing an XBox and I become more confused. He sees me and he waves at me while giving Cardo the finger. Cardo chuckles doing it back making sure his mom wasn't looking. Cyrus gets up and hugs me tightly while dapping Cardo up.
I stand between them looking back and forth. Cardo pulls out his phone and I grab it quickly. He all but throws me on the ground to get it back. He catches me before I could fall on my ass. His mom walks in and I push him away from me. Miss Selina keeps walking to the kitchen with wide eyes.
I get tired of standing and I go sit on the couch. His mom walks out of the kitchen with to go plates in her hands. Cardo and Cyrus disappear into the back hallway. She comes to sit by me and she smiles. "How are you feeling?" she asks me.
"I don't know how to describe how I feel." I tell her truthfully.
"I remember when I gave birth to my little baby. Cardo and Cyrus' father used to beat me to death. I was getting ready to leave him when I found out. I just knew when he found out I wouldn't want to leave. He would find a way to convince me to stay. Drink found out anyway and soon he started treating me nicer. He stayed with me all the time. He wasn't cheating anymore. It was wonderful and then I had his first son and he seemed to find his love for me all over again. Life was good, Lena."
I sat up and listened closer. She was explaining the hell she had been through. It was like she was reading my mind. I felt the same way.
"I shouldn't have left my child but I knew my crazy sister would take care of him." She sighs smiling and reminiscing. "That girl was crazy but she loved him. I got pregnant with my second child. I had to have a whole other baby to realize this isn't what I wanted for my children. Drik promised he would kill my two year old baby if I didn't leave Cardo here. His own son. I was 7 months pregnant with Cyrus when I walked out the door and never looked back. I thoughts Sarah was doing me a favor but when I came back I realized she had made my own son hate me. I had fucked up." She started to tear up and cry. "I fucked up Lena. I fell in love with a sadistic mother fucker and I prayed my son would never turn into him. Motivated by money and the hoes. That's no way to live forever. We were so young and in love and we made mistakes. The only good thing I have with him are those two curly headed boys up the stairs." She wiped her eyes and I realized I was crying too.
"I'm so sorry." I tell her.
"I'm fine now baby girl. I was just a stupid white girl back then. I'm still white but I think I'm a little smarter." She laughed. "You're so beautiful and you have so much to live for. Don't ever settle and let someone make you unhappy for the rest of your life."
"I won't. Thank you for telling me this."
Cyrus is Cardo's full blood brother and his dad wants to kill us. Drik is another drug dealer, probably an old one. My mind is racing for strange faces so that I can come up with something. I'll have to look into that. And to think he was apart of this family before I was and now he's trying to break it apart.
"What was his last name?" I question more
"It was Kingston. I changed Cyrus' but Cardo wanted to keep it because he thought it sounded sexy." she laughs and I join in because that sounds like him. "My silly little boy." she remembers.
Your hoe ass little boy. Your hoe ass little boy was going to be the father of my child.
