Hold You Down

6| Travis

"You want me to come in with you?" Marco asked when pulling up to the medical facility.

"No, I'm good. I'll only be in a minute, just want to check on my mama before we go out." I responded as I got out of the car. It had been a while I last seen my mom and I really felt guilty because used to drop everything just to go see how things were going for her.

"Nurse Jackie," I started, hoping to get her attention and she appeared stunned that I was there, but she approached me with a bogus smile.

"Hey Travis. Haven't seen you around here too much as of late." she pointed out and I nodded, knowing that she was correct; I hadn't been to see my mom in a while.

"I know, I know. How's my mom?" I questioned as I proceeded to walk to her room and Nurse Jackie failed to respond as if she was holding back on speaking. "Your father hasn't told you, has he?" I shook my head, bewildered as to what she was chattering about.

"What's going on?" I asked once we got to my mother's room door. Walking in I noticed that the room was bare: no sheets on the bed, her card table was nowhere to be found, and most importantly my mom wasn't in sight. I glanced back to her and waited for an explanation about my mother's whereabouts.

"Where is my mom?"

Nurse Jackie shook her head and lamented before talking. "It's not my place to discuss a former patient with you, Travis."

I felt my eyes starting to get glossy and I was prepared to sob at that point. "Former patient?" I mumbled, hoping that she wasn't telling me that my mom was deceased. Nurse Jackie's brows furrowed and she put her hand on my shoulder.

"Oh, sweetheart, your mom is very much alive. However, your father had her moved to another facility because of her most recent incident."

I sighed in relief and wiped my eyes before any tear could start flowing down my cheek. "Thank God! Where did he have her moved to? Downtown?"

"From my understanding, he had her moved back to Indiana where her parents are."

Honestly, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He moved my mom away from me and didn't even tell me anything about it. If I didn't already have ongoing conflict with my father, this added to our complex relationship.

 "How long ago?"

"Umm, I'd say two weeks ago or so. I thought for sure you knew all about this. I'm so sorry." she apologized, but in reality there wasn't anything she could do about it anyway. The only person who I really had had enough of was my dad and at this point I'm tired of the nonsense. This time, I planned on handling the situation head-on.

"No need to be sorry. You were doing your job and I thank for taking of my mom like you have for this past year and a half, it's greatly appreciated." I assured her as I prepared to leave out the facility.

"No problem. You be good, Travis." she reached toward me and gave me a tight embrace before I left and strolled to Marco's car outside in the parking lot.

"Can we make a quick stop to my house? I need to get some things off of my chest." He immediately got off the phone when saw the tension on my face. "Babe, what's wrong? You look like you're about to explode." I just smacked my teeth and ignored his comments.

"Hello? Talk to me. I'm not driving you anywhere until you talk to me."

"I'm just tired of my dad's shit. That's it. Now can we go?" I groaned, not wanting to have this conversation right now.

"Fine. How's your mom?" I didn't reply at all, I just looked forward at the road as he drove and thought about how I was going to address my father. "Ok, so you're disregarding me and my question. Cool." he sarcastically said before turning the radio on to fill the car's quiet air.

When we pulled up to my house, I still wasn't sure of what I was going to say. I just had anger boiling throughout my body and I couldn't contain myself.

"You want me to go in with you or no?"

"Nah, just wait out here for me." I mumbled as I got out of the car to head inside the house.

"Who that?" I heard my father's voice coming from the kitchen when I came in the front door and I walked to where he was.

He greeted me with a head nod as he was standing over stove cooking something. "We need to talk." I groaned to him and his brow arched. "What up kid?" he asked, turning away from the pot to give me his undivided attention.

"So when did you plan on telling me that you moved my mom out of the state? That's fucked up po-"

"Watch your mouth in my house!" his stern voice filled the room as he disrupted me.

 "Your mother had an accident at the mental facility and she had one of her schizo tantrums where she hit her head on the walls. I'm not going to continue paying extra money for something that's not curable, I'm not." he shrugged it off like it was nothing.

My jaw clenched tightly when hearing him slight my mother and her condition. "I'm so tired of your bullshit man! That's my mom and you just sent her off because she costs you a few bucks every month! Selfish son of a bitch." I barked and I felt my fists starting to ball up.

He showed no emotion and slowly approached me, leaning to my ear. "If you cared so damn much about your mother, you would've known that she was gone three weeks ago. So don't come in my house whining like a little bitch because she not here all of a sudden." he whispered through his gritted teeth and instantaneously I pushed him from near me.

My father looked at me as if I had lost my mind. "So you think you bad now? Your faggot ass want to fight now?"

"Fuck you!"

"Man, shut your ass up. You aren't  gone do shit and the only person you need to upset with is yourself! Your non-driving ass caused that car accident to begin with." he snarled in sly manner and small smile.

I lost it when he went there and stormed towards him to tackle him down, but I was caught off -guard with his quick reaction time.  A blow to the kisser made me fall flat to the ground and to taste my own salty blood. "You still wanna fight? Get up!" he yelled, hovered over me as I squirmed on the floor trying to get up.

"What's all the commotion down here about?" Bahja came downstairs into the kitchen.

"Your stepson want to fight apparently." When she saw getting up from the ground with a bloody lip, she rushed over to me trying to help.

"Oh my God! Tevin, what the hell is wrong with you ?" she argued as she came by my side to console me. I swiped my arm away when she attempted to grab it.

 "Man, fuck you too. You probably had something to do with moms being shipped off." Bahja stood there with a blank face and before I knew it, my father was about to attack me again. "I'll kill your ass, keep talking about my wife like you stupid." Bahja got a hold of him before he bombarded me.

"Babe, no! No!" she cried out and I just shook my head.

"You not even worth it." I groaned as I threw the house keys on the counter and exited.

I was enervated: tired of being disrespected, tired of him treating me like a child, and tired of him coming down on me. I was done with them both. At this point, all I wanted to do was go see my mom and bring her back home to me.

"Baby, your mouth is swollen! What happened?" I didn't even realize Marco had got out of the car to take a look at my face. He lifted my head with his finger and wiped my lip his handkerchief.

"You ok?" he looked at me with concern written all over his face.

Before I could say words, my emotions got the best of me and a tear came down my cheek. "C'mon, let's go to my crib so we can get you an ice pack."

Vote, comment, and whatever else :)

Will Tk and Travis be able to reconcile?

Was TK wrong for sending Elisa away?