Family Lies 2

Next Lifetime

Tré
Four Months Later
TWO A.M

"Hello?" I answered the phone quietly as I snuck into the bathroom. "Hey. I'm in New York City. I just texted you the address. Meet me here before the sun comes up," she said before hanging up. And like the real bitch that I am, I brushed my teeth and threw on the tight ass denim jumpsuit my girl just made me last week.

The whole time I was getting ready I couldn't stop thinking about how I had no idea what shorty was doing in New York. But she hit me up and at the end of the day I'm a business woman. I just wanna see if she tryna talk that money talk. After spraying the shit outta my little Chanel I opened the door so slowly to find Nic snoring like she was 300 pounds. I can't believe her lil ass sound like that. I grabbed my piece and threw it in my bag and was on my way out the door.

"You cheating?" I heard my mom say and I jumped as I pulled our bedroom door shut.

"What? You know what time it is Big Dot?" My mom rolled her eyes and pushed her big hair back.

"So this what we on today, huh? Can't even call me Ma?"

"Well if you ain't never acted like my Mama before you for damn sure ain't actin' like my Mama now," I responded with a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders as I turned to head towards the front door.

"I'm tryin', Tré," the tears in my mom's throat stopped me in my tracks. I rolled my eyes to the ceiling but I didn't actually move. I've been through a lot, yeah. But I was finally grown enough to admit that my mother's pain was just as real as mine and that simple fact has got me tired of seeing her in tears day in and day out.

"All I do is try to be there for you, Tré. I couldn't before but babe I'm protecting you now, and I'm spending time with you now and I just want it to feel right again now, Tré. Why do you insist on pushing me away? Because that's what I did to you? And True?"

"Because that's what you doin' to yourself!" I snapped, spinning on my heels to face my mom with a level of disappointment I didn't think I was capable of reaching. "Them three year old twins you had... are gone! They're gone! Truth be told, I don't know what you're asking me for."

"Tré," my mom shook with tears and I just stood there shaking my head and crossing my arms over my chest. "Are you so worried about us getting something back that we had for what? Three years and some change? Because I don't want that back. Because so much of it was a lie."

"Then what do you want, Tré?!" She asked like she'd die without the honest truth. And I was just praying she could take it. "I want you to stop moping around here like you can't use either of your hands and paint something," I said straight up and my mom gasped like a white woman clutching her pearls.

"I can't, Tré, and you know I can't," she continued to cry. I sucked my teeth and grabbed my mom by her elbow to pull her towards her room. "Tré, what you doing?! You better watch how yo muthafuckin' ass is grabbin' me I know that!" She fussed. But I ain't respond until we were in her room. I flung open her closet door to find all the canvases I'd conveniently 'forgotten' about storing there sketched up and half painted. "You can't?!" I asked as I started throwing them all at her feet one by one.

"You can't?!" I barked as my mom fell to her ass in tears as she looked at all of the pieces she'd quit on.

"It's not the same," she cried so hard, "it's just not the same."

I took the deepest breath before getting down on my knees beside my mom and she fell into my arms. I shook my head. "Listen... It might not ever ever be the same. It might not ever feel the same. But... you told me before that you painted what was in your heart, Ma. I got to see what you meant by that... I don't wan't you to ever put too much on it. I can't have you walkin' around out here like that Mama," I rolled my eyes as tears crumbled down my face and I kissed my mom's head."