la sua regina

Chapter 21

"Really? Why the hell are we all the way in St. Louis?" Jade asked as we drove past the arch. Mama was in the backseat slumped.

"We spending the weekend out here." I told her simply, although I had hella shit planned. "The whole weekend? I got to get back to the office, I can't stay." She said like I actually cared.

"I already talked to yo assistant, I canceled my plans, and moms need this. This what we doin', a'ight, ma?" She looked in the backseat at her mom sleeping peacefully.

I parked the Ferrari in her moms garage, and we took her Town & Country Chrysler van to get here comfortably.

She sighed, "Alright, baby. I'll let you do yo job." She nodded, placing her hand over mine, which was resting on her thigh.

"Finally! Thank you, babe." For once, she sat back and enjoyed the ride. She always felt like she had to control something, so for her to just let it go, meant a lot.

"What was it like growing up for you?" I asked her, because she'd never really talked about it. I sure as hell never knew that she was bullied. "What do you mean what was it like? It was normal." She shrugged, obviously trying to brush it off.

"You know what I mean, don't sit here and act like everything was just peachy. You were overweight, your dad died, and apparently you were bullied, so what was it like?" Silence is what I was met with.

She was looking out over the night sky of St. Louis, and I kept peeking at her, in awe of how beautiful she was when the light traveled across her face.

"You know... I remember you, now. I know that my memories were repressed, but I've been doing research and I've been learning how to unwind that."

"You literally are, my very first, and only boyfriend." She chuckled. "I remember my brothers too, and how special I felt with all of these big handsome boys protecting me."

"Of course y'all wasn't that much bigger than me, but y'all was way taller. I felt like a princess, and you were my prince charming. I used to get my ass beat for being your girlfriend, but eventually that stopped when they realized it didn't work."

"I remember, you beat this boy up... his name was Micheal. He kept pulling my hair everytime he saw me, and I would always come home crying, and with scratches everywhere. You'd get mad, and try to make me stop crying..."

"I would never tell you what he was doing, but one day, you followed me, you watched me ride my bike, and him push me off of it, and you beat his ass. I saw him a couple years ago, and I was wondering why he was acting so weird, like he didn't even want to look at me, but it's probably because he knew I knew you."

"You showed me what love was at an early age, when I was five years old." She smiled slightly, and now that I was hearing it, it was coming back to me. I probably needed to see a picture to really remember it.

"So, imagine what it's like to go from having that, and brothers, and a father, to nothing at all. I literally mean nothing."

"Not even memories of them. It was always a blur. I wondered whose rooms those were, why I could never go in them. Why I never got to play outside..."

"All I did was stay in, and eat. Which is why I got fat. I got bullied because everyone else had their fathers, and mine was dead. No one wanted me because I was fat, and which led to me being depressed, and even more fat."

"There was this guy who used to bully me. He would call me names, take my stuff, hit me. He had everybody in the school doing the same thing, for three years straight, and my junior year, I just snapped."