After several months of finally working independently, some territorial trouble leads Luna to working for a pimp again. Only this time it's different...
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Luna
When I told my grandma what happened, her face looked more relaxed than I ever seen before. And then she asked when Akim was gon take us all out again. I swear the woman is crazy.
I ain't heard from him yet today, and it's now the evening. But I guess he gotta lay low cuz of what happened.
I'm cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, listenin to my music, and I can't even stop thinking about him. The things he done for me. Damn, the man makes me real weak.
There's a knock on the door and I walk on past my grandma sittin on the couch and open it, and I smile all big when I see Akim's face, smilin right back at me.
"Well if it ain't our saviour," my grandma says from the couch, I give her a look and she just laughs "how's you?"
"I'm good now, maam." He replies, keepin his eyes all over me.
"Y'all go sit in the backyard," my grandma says standing up "I ain't made it so nice out there for no reason, I'll make y'all some tea, go on now."
We sit together on the cushion covered benches in the backyard. Wit the fairy lights, and coffee table and distant city lights, it is real nice out here now. I remember how it used to be, when we was struggling. I glance at Akim and smile, and he already lookin at me.
"What you thinkin bout?"
"How shit used to be...and how you done made it better."
"How did shit used to be?"
"You don't wanna know."
"I do, I wanna know everything about you."
"Well...you know how I was when you first found me."
"Yeah, course, I remember it."
"I been in that state for a very long time."
He sighs and looks at me. We hear sirens in the distance but he don't fret, he ain't really scared of anything, and it comforts me more than he'll ever know.
"And you ain't no more?" He asks.
I shake my head. "I ain't."
He nods "imma keep it that way."
My grandma puts the tea on the table, Akim thanks her as usual, my polite ass man, and then she go back inside to watch her soap opera.
He takes a sip and looks at me. "If you could be somewhere, anywhere in the world part from here, where'd it be?"
I smirk. "I wanna live in a whole different country. Wit beaches, good people, good schools, a language I could learn. And I wanna take the people I love wit me."
"What other language y'all speak again?"
"My grandma, late mama and I speak Spanish, mama done learnt French too, to widen her client base," I kiss my teeth "least that's what she told me."
"You don't have to tell me this, but how'd your mother pass away?"
I smile at him real soft, but the smile fades when I remember her face. My sweet mother, Valentina.
"She had a older sister, my aunt, my grandma don't talk bout her, they hated each other. But, my aunt, her name was Veronica, she was a bad influence on my mama, since they was young. Hooked her up wit the business, the men and the drugs. And then one day, she ran away wit a man, left Valentina all on her own when really she needed her older sister. And my mama came to see me and my grandma, and she wasn't the same, and when she left my grandma looked real sad. Like she knew...like she knew my mama gave up on life. She overdosed the next day. And Veronica, to all our surprise came to the funeral, and didn't bother shedding a single tear. Came up to me, said 'that's gone be you in no time' pointing at the grave. And I ain't seen her since."
Akim just stares at me, ain't no words to be had for a story like that, of course. I don't even blame him.
"Tell me, bout your mother, Angeline." I say.
He smiles.
"She was, just another Angel in hell, you know."
"Yeah...I know."
"She was so beautiful, and she could be so funny, under the right circumstances. And she loved my father a lot, and I'll never know why, cuz that motherfucker ain't deserved a ounce of that love," he looks at me, like he don't know if he should tell me everything or not, probably more for my sake than his own "she sorta realised towards the end that he ain't all that, and when he noticed, shit drove him mad, so he shot her in fronta me when they was fighting one time, looked me in the goddamn eyes, and shot himself too. I cried for my mama, took Mya, and left. Then eventually system took us, separated us and lead me here."
The man's so hard now that I don't even see no tears in his eyes. And somehow that's even sadder to me than if he was crying.
"I'm sorry that happened to you." I whisper, what more can I say.
"You, my love, is the last person In this entire world gotta apologise to me."
I smile, and so does he. Even though we jus revealed the most tragic parts of ourselves.
"You Luna," he mutters and points at me while holding his mug "you so goddamn special. Matter of fact, you an Angel in hell. But Imma take you outa here, I promise, I swear to god."
"Where you finna take me?" I ask.
"How Spain sound?"
"Sounds like heaven to me. It's my grandma that's finna give you a hard time," I laugh "especially after she done all this backyard up couple months ago."
He chuckles and shakes his head. "I'll take the backyard all the way across the Atlantic if that'll persuade her."
I laugh, stand up and take our mugs, and give him a kiss on the cheek before going inside, and he follows behind real close.
He looks at me wit them eyes under the dim light of the kitchen, them sad gangster eyes, them been through the worst type eyes, but they still in love wit what they see.
I put my arms over his shoulders and he puts his around my waist, and he hugs me, real tight. He's warm, and he smells like himself, and he feels like love.
