Beyond The Broken Glass3: Finally Mended [complete]

9.) Bonus Chapter: Making A way

I knew this shit would start getting to her. It's been getting to all of us. I know it's hard having to keep moving every couple months and living out of boxes and bags don't make this shit any easier. We did what we had to do to survive. I've been through worst. Living on floors, sleeping in leaky basements. Being shot at and stabbed by my own brothers. My blood brothers. Shit was hard I just wanted her to adjust.

Now I see that it ain't just me anymore. I examined my son's face every day and he just looked lost. He ain't have no other lil boys to play with, no school to make friends, he ain't got no other family besides the three of us. And Bri's always off somewhere crying, Milani be in her own lil bubble and I gotta handle shit to keep the family safe.

I never intended for our lives to be this way, and you'd think with all of my enemies dead this would be over but it's far from it. After we hit up Ray and his people Boone decided to flip the switch and now we're on his shit list. For reasons I can't explain Boone wants me dead, and I keep having to battle groups of people.

At first, it was easy, if they came—I shot 'em. Simple as that, but now I have to keep packing up my family and moving them. Now they're getting smart. I'm no longer able to tell friends from my foes. People I trusted turned on me. People who claimed to be on my side was feeding my info to my opponents.

I need Ralph now more than ever and he's been ghost on me. I can't find him anywhere, like the nigga just fell off the face of the earth. I know he had plenty of people to help him accomplish that, and none of them niggas seem to want me to find him.

"Dada, can I go outside?" He asked as he came and leaned on the arm of the couch.

"No."

"But mommy said to ask you."

"And I just said no."

He crossed his arms and scrunched up his face. The tears in his eyes and the redness of his cheeks should have been enough to change my mind. But with the wild-ass thoughts I just had made me stand my ground.

"We never get to play outside! You always make us stay in the house!" He hollered as he ran into his room.  He slammed the door shut causing me to shoot up from the couch. He must have lost his damn mind yelling at me like he the dad and I'm the kid. I jetted toward the door but before I could bust the door open Bri came out of Mimi's room and grabbed me by my arm.

"Let him be angry."

"He a fuckin' child!"

"Living under horrible circumstances." She said softly. "This is what we gave them. This is all we have to give them."

"Man whatever," I said pushing her hand down. She crossed her arms and frowned at me. "He a child and he needs to stay in his place."

"Would you be okay with your parents dragging you around state to state—city to city? And never explaining why or even given a choice. I'm sure when his mother was here he had a steady environment and nothing was left to be up in the air."

"Don't bring her up. She ain't got shit to do with this."

"When you found out she was gone and wasn't coming back it became your responsibility to give him everything he needed in life."

I don't know what was happening to her. One minute she was cool with our lifestyle and the next she was demanding that we move into a permanent house. Now with this whole phantom pregnancy bullshit she wanna start making sense and shit and being all philospoical. I wasn't doing this shit for fun. I was trying to help them survive.

"I'm doing this shit for safety not for fuckin'  fun," I reminded her as I leaned against the wall. "Yo ass keep forgetting that. And don't think that this whole lil baby conversation is over because it's not."

"Our conversations aren't even conversations." She waved me off and turned around. I grabbed the back of her sundress and pulled her back. "What!"

"Tone it down," I warned.

"No! I'm not toning shit down! You think you can just serve us up this shitty ass life and expect us to happily eat it up! We hate it here!"

"What do you want me to do?"

And with that, she went quiet. Her anger was replaced with sadness. She wrapped her arms around herself as her tears spilled over.

"I want you to let us live. Let us be happy." More tears fell from her eyes. And now we had an audience. Milani stood behind her with her hands pressed to her ears while Ky peeked at me and then at their emotional ass mama. "Let. Us. Be. Free."

"How can I do that and protect y'all?"

"Leave this life alone. Stop looking for Ralph, stop looking for Boone. Let's just go somewhere and raise our kids and start new lives once and for all and just be normal."

"I'm not even sure if you really know what normal is."

"Having a nice house, a good career, finding decent schools for the kids. Having more kids. Getting married. Having friends." She gave off a list while wiping the tears from her face. "That's normal. This isn't normal, we're living like fuckin' fugitives."

"Imma figure it out."

"While you figure it out. We're gonna go out for a walk."

She took both of their hands and brushed past me. I stood there paralyzed as I listened to the front door shut. I pulled my phone from my pocket and went to my call log.

"Yeah, man. It's me," I sighed and leaned against the wall. "I think it's time for a new set up."