My Roommate

24

𝚃𝚢𝚛𝚎𝚎𝚔

I was on my last phone call of the week, but I had to talk to somebody about what happened to me a couple a weeks ago. So, of course, I called Adri. 

"What's the matter, mama?" I asked once she answered the video call and looked as she'd been crying. 

"I'm excited, you come home in five days." She smiled. "We miss you." 

"Yeah, I miss ya'll too, baby." I smiled, forgetting about the reason I even called. We talked for a minute, but seeing Robert walking to his cell quickly reminded me of what I was supposed to be telling her. 

"I met my dad." I blurted out after she finished telling me about how everyone had finally been able to go back home. Everyone except Jus, he was staying with his baby mama. 

She just froze. "Excuse?" 

I laughed once she said it. "I guess he noticed me. He had came into my cell a couple weeks ago wit a picture of me, him, and my mama at the game." I smiled weakly. 

"Oh, my God." She blinked. "Yeah, I cursed him out and told him to get the fuck out my cell. He gone say, 'come see me when you ready'. Nigga I was ready twenty years ago when I needed you." I shrugged. Now I don't. I'm grown as fuck now. 

"Baby, every man needs his father. What did he tell you?" 

"That he got locked up for killing my mom the night he 'left'. I don't believe that shit." I scuffed. 

Adri looked at me with a look that meant she was thinking. "That night, I don't really remember much, but I do remember hearing a gun shot. Did he say he shot her?" She asked. I thought long and heard before just nodding. "I remember it being hella close, like it was right outside the house. I ran in my dad's room and I think I slept with them that night, too." She mumbled. 

I just stayed quiet. "Even if it is true, why didn't he call? Or even write? And even before we got to Atlanta, I was always left by myself. He been not wanting me, so why should I accept him because now he does?"

"You don't know that, Ty. You was too young to know the whole story. The only way to figure it out, or at least somewhat, the truth or not, is to talk to him about it." 

"I don't want to." I shrugged. 

"Tyreek Marloe, I don't think you should go any longer without knowing the details of such a big event. It made you who you are. It made you the person that I love." She smiled. I just sighed, cause she know how to get me to do shit. "So, talk to him." She spat. 

"Man." I sighed. "Ight." 

We spent the rest of the phone call talking about what she's been doing, what I wanted to do when I got out, and when was I going to finally open the shop. After hanging up, I decided that I would talk to Robert when he was going back to his cell. 

It only took about fifteen minutes.  I seen Robert going to his cell, so I huffed before following. He sat down on his bunk and I stood at the cell bars. "You said when I was ready, we could talk."

"Yes, I did." He smiled, looking over at me, but I couldn't look at him just yet. "I'm assuming you're ready."

I just nodded. 

"What do you wanna know?"

"Start from the beginning." I mumbled, sitting on the other end of the bunk.

He began to explain how he used to be a pimp back in the day and my mom was one of those women who came to him, he didn't go looking. Since it was way back in the day, pimping was a real big thing. He was the best one in Brooklyn, and he didn't have to go searching for girls, the girls came to him. He eventually got my mom cleaned up and they fell in love. For about five years, she was clean, and he allowed her to leave him and go get a legal job. They were still in contact the whole time. Robert loved her so much that he was willing to give up his 'job' as a pimp and start working a truck driving job. One of those times he came back, she told him she was pregnant. So, he quit the good paying job to be with her and me. He got a warehouse job and she did.. nothing. He didn't mind, they had a two bedroom one bathroom that didn't cost much since it was in the slums of Brooklyn, but they would've rather struggled together than be apart. After my mom had me, she had Postpartum Depression and fell back into drugs. This time, Crack, Heroin, whatever she could get her hands on. She fell back into being pimped, prostituted, and other shit that caused her to never be home. He had to get a job. He had no friends he trusted, he had no family that was mentally stable enough or even willing to take me, so he had the old lady across the street watch me. She was so old, she could barley stay awake for three hours on end, but he had no choice. The lady eventually died, so her grandson would watch me. He was a teen, so he brought girls over and left me in my room with the Tv running. Robert knew, but Bryce would never let anything happen to me. He was a kid being a kid.