Trap Queen.

21♛

                                                                    C H A P T E R - 2 1

      I didn’t even make a move towards my dad. I was still processing what was going on in my mind. I hadn’t seen my father in years, and it was so weird to be facing him right in front of my eyes. This was way too real to be a dream, but at the same time, it felt like one. My eyes went straight to Cairo’s, and he had a grin plastered on his face as if he did something he was proud of. I had already told him I didn’t really want to see my dad right now, but I guess he wasn’t going to take that for an answer.

      I walked slowly up to my dad, and I let him hug me. I didn’t hug him back, though. It just seemed like all the years of hurt and confusion weren’t letting me right now. “Egypt, my, have you grown,” my dad holds me out in front of him, smiling. He’s laughing now. I actually was thinking he was happy to see me. But I had a lot of questions for him that still needed an answer.

      “Where were you? Why did you leave?” I question him finally, looking into his eyes. My father and I shared eyes—I could tell just by looking into them. My father’s smile quickly molded into a frown, and he stopped laughing.

      “I was here the entire time, baby. Your mother knew that, and I expected you to know that also.” He looks like he’s wanting to understand or something, but I don’t. I don’t think I’ll ever understand would leave his daughter and never bother to contact her again. To me, there wasn’t an excuse for that—if he didn’t like Momma, that’s fine, but he should’ve been man enough to take care of me.

      “Why didn’t you come and see me?”

      “Your mother wouldn’t let me. I tried my best, I really, really did, but your mother wouldn’t let me see you. She felt it was best if you lived with her, and I wasn’t in the picture,” my dad tries to explain himself. I don’t want to hear it, though. It doesn’t make any sense to me, and I start to get angry with him quick.

      “That sounds like bullshit. Me and my mother struggled for years and you tryna tell me she felt it was best if you weren’t in the picture? Man up and tell me the real reason! I’m a big girl now, I can take it!” I step away from my dad and look at him, confused. He just stares at me and frowns again. He sighs deeply and rolls his eyes.

      “Egypt, sometimes people just don’t work out. Your mother and I are an example. We parted our separate ways because we couldn’t live together.”

      “Bullshit! You could’ve left my momma but you had no reason to leave me. You moved to an entirely new city! What kind of man does their child like that? You don’t care about me, and the way I see it is that you left and started a new family, Cairo is even proof of that,” I exclaimed. Now everybody in the room was staring at us, but I couldn’t care less. Now, I was pissed. I couldn’t believe this dude was in my life less than ten minutes ago and now he’s already lying to my face.

       “Keep your voice down, Egypt. . .” My dad is murmuring, like he’s warning me. But I don’t even care at this point, there ain’t nothing he can do to me anyway.  He may have bailed me out of jail, but I didn’t even ask him to do that. I didn’t ask or require him to do anything. He made a choice. Now, he’s making a choice to attempt to come back in my life and that’s not what I want.

      “I won’t,” I argue. “Until you give me a real answer.”

       “Egypt, this is something that’ll be a process. There’s a lot of explaining to do, and if you give me time to explain it, I will. . . just bare with me.” My dad and I made eye-contact once again. There was still an angry look on my face, but now, I was willing listen. Egypt, girl, this was what you was waiting for your entire life in Compton. Just hear this man out. My conscience was telling me to do something that I didn’t want to.

      “Okay,” I simply replied. My angry look formed into my regular face. Cairo had some kind of grin on his face and I smirked a little too. I wonder if Momma wouldn’t have died would my father still be around? I wonder what’d she say if I finally met up with my dad after all these years. I guess I wouldn’t know, but sometimes it feels like I can talk to my momma — and sometimes she be responding back to me. It sounds crazy but I think that’s how everybody be when they lose somebody they love.

        “Are you hungry?” My dad asks me. As we were walking out of the center, it felt like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders. Now I didn’t have to worry about being in jail or not knowing about my father — it felt like I was starting all over again. It’s weird to call my father mine. Right now, he just seems like a man that’s fathered me, but a complete stranger.

       “Yeah,” I lie. Maybe if I went to go eat with my dad, we can discuss some things. Maybe he could explain to me why he wasn’t there all these years.

       I follow Cairo and my father to his car. It was a RAV4, nicer than I expected it to be. A RAV4 was proven to be a ‘white man’s car’, to all my friends. For some reason, I expected my dad to be pushing a hoopty around, but I was surprised. I didn’t even know my dad no more, so I didn’t know what he did for a living or how his life was. We had to start over completely now.

     Cairo got in the front passenger seat, so I sat in the back. My dad’s car smelled brand new, and it felt like it. I accidently burned myself with the seat belt — that’s how hot it was in the car. I swallowed hard and exhaled. My dad pulled out of the center’s parking lot and eased onto the freeway. We were driving in complete silence, and I liked it that way. There’d be a lot of talking at the restaurant anyway.

       We pulled into a barbeque place in Compton. I could smell it all the way in the car. I was never really into barbeque, but I wasn’t about to complain. I wasn’t really here for the food anyway. I unbuckled my seatbelt and lead us into the restaurant. 

      “Damn, Egypt, by the way you walking I would’ve thought you paying for us to eat. Slow down, girl,” Cairo teased. I smiled at him, but I didn’t reply. We walked into the restaurant together and it smelled beyond good. It reminded me about everything good — a cookout with my family and friends, just kicked back and relaxed, not giving a damn about nothing. . .

      “How many for today?” A white girl with blonde hair approaches us. She smiles brightly, and I almost feel like I’m supposed to smile back at her. She’s holding menus in her hand, and she looks like she was happy as hell for no reason.

      “Three,” I reply.

      “Table or booth?” The woman asks. I look at Cairo and my dad to see what they want to do.

      “Booth, definitely,” Cairo speaks for us. The woman makes her follow her to a booth and we all sit down. She puts the menus in front of us and walks away. The menu is small and doesn’t look like it has very many options on it. I barely even looked on the menu before I was ready to speak to my dad. Now that I started to think about it, why did Cairo decided to come with us? He really had no reason to be here, except for the fact he was my half brother.

     “Egypt, get ready for the real truth about what happened with me and your mother. You may not be ready for it, but it’s the real truth.”