Page 4 of He Thugged Me First

MECCA

I should’ve listened to my brother, but I didn’t.

I thought I was grown. If a man didn’t value me or my time, then I was taught to leave him the fuck alone.

But it was different with him. His touch alone had the ability to help me lay my common sense by the wayside.

I should’ve stopped this before it started, but I didn’t.

I’d been in love with this man since I was eighteen years old, and he paid me no attention.

Last week, I called him when my brother was shot and heard a female in the background.

I didn’t know why I was even hurt. He wasn’t mine when we were apart.

I had to get that through my skull and stop breaking my own damn heart.

This dance was getting tiring, and I could no longer do this.

My heart wasn’t in it anymore, and neither was my head.

The funny thing is, I used to love playing tit for tat with him.

It tickled me with laughter, but somewhere between flaunting my little fling in his face and actually having the fling, I actually started to like this nigga.

I met Justice while I was getting food. He didn’t know what he wanted, and I suggested something.

Somewhere between all the bullshit I endured with Kasair, I actually started to like spending time with Justice.

We were getting to know one another, and we had been talking for about three months now.

I knew I needed to finally just cut Kasair off.

I needed to do it for my sake, but I wasn’t strong enough.

“I know you’ve been writing, so tell me a story,” Love requested, sitting on my floor, looking at me. She always referred to my poetry as stories because she felt like they put her into a different space.

I smirked and walked over, grabbing my phone before I scrolled through it, looking for the one I wrote at the hospital while I was with my brother.

“You don’t value me because you know I’ll always be there,

You knew I’d always pat your shoulder,

Always hold your hand across the street,

That no matter what, I’d always be in your corner,

But what if one day that changed?

What if one day you turned around and I’d left that corner without your hand?

One day you looked down, and my hand wasn’t intertwined with yours while you crossed the street

What if just one day, I wasn’t patting your shoulder?

Would all those missing actions prompt you to regret not placing value on me?

To mourn your loss of me?

What if when you looked up,

I was nowhere to be fucking found?

Would you be sick?

Can’t eat, can’t sleep type of shit?

Or would you find another to take my place?

Another stupid person to fulfill my duties and accept their low value to you,

Or was it just me?

My presence didn’t demand enough,

Or maybe I didn’t

I got complacent with accepting the little you gave me,

Scraps,

Caught myself feeling grateful for a few responses

Boy, had I escaped my mind

Let me ask again though,

Rephrase the question a bit for you in the back…

How would you feel if you looked up and I’d disappeared?

Silently removed myself from your life?

No chaotic exit

What if I just left?

Would you scream and sob because I meant so much?

Or would you have my replacement a speed dial away?”

I looked up from my phone at her, waiting for her to tell me what she thought.

“Why won’t you write a book, or go to that place for the slam? Your shit is lit!” Love mugged me like she always did. She was the only person who had ever heard me recite my poetry. I only trusted her to see those raw parts of me.

“You know I’m not like that, Love. Poets have a different vibe about them, like that chick Century that owns The Bliss. It’s a certain air.” I shrugged. I had no confidence in my poetry.

“You have that air. Maybe if you left Ka-ain’t shit alone, you’d be cool.” She rolled her eyes at the name she had come up with for him.

I laughed. “I have to. I think I wanna make things serious with Justice. He’s?—”

“Nice and artsy as well. He rhymes and you rhyme. Maybe y’all could have some lil’ creative kids.” She giggled.

“You know what? You need to tell me why you called me telling me you had something to tell me before I put your little comedian ass out.”

With a grin and a smirk, she rubbed her stomach.

I was confused. “The hell does that mean, bitch? Are you hungry?”

She giggled. “No, I’m pre?—”

“Nope, don’t finish that. That shit is contagious.” I shook my head.

“You know what? My baby won’t have a godmother, because you?—”

“Your baby? Bitch, that’s our baby. I’m not having any, so you’re carrying for the both of us. Now how many months are we?” I laughed and rubbed my own damn stomach.

She couldn’t even respond because she was giggling so hard.

I was so serious though. I didn’t see myself having kids and all of that.

I wanted to be the tipsy traveling godmother or auntie.

That was about it, especially because my little sister was six.

Mazz and I took turns on raising her, and that alone was a job in itself.

Mel was born addicted to drugs because my mother couldn’t stay off of them long enough to deliver a healthy baby.

The day Mel was born, my mother died. She died giving birth, leaving Mazz to take care of her newborn and continue to raise me.

Shit, I never even met my father, but I never longed to meet him either.

Because whatever I needed, Mazz was there, and the same went for Mel.

“I’m three months.” She pulled the ultrasound from her purse and showed it to me.

I smiled, but then I looked her over. “How do you feel about it?”

“I don’t know yet. I don’t have a problem with being pregnant. It’s just that I don’t know what I have to offer a child. Shit, at this point, I’m still a child.”

“Uh, no you ain’t. You was old enough to pop it, then you’re?—”

“Mec.” She mugged me.

“You got this, Lovey. I have faith.” I put my hands together like I was praying.

We laughed and joked for the rest of the day until Quari called her, and she rushed out of here.

The nigga must’ve said something nasty because she had hopped up and was telling me goodbye in the same breath she answered the phone with.

They had been together for almost four years, and they were so damn cute.

My thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of a phone. When I glanced at the phone, it was my brother requesting to FaceTime me. Of course I answered, but the face that greeted me wasn’t my brother.

“You did block me, huh?” Kasair asked with a mug. He looked angry, and I cared, but I couldn’t show it.

“Where is Mazz?” I asked, attempting to pay his tantrum no attention.

“Right fucking here. But this ain’t about this nigga. It’s about the fact that you playing with me like some lil’ ass nigga. Like I won’t end that nigga’s career and put him on an obituary.”

I laughed and shook my head. This was normal Kasair.

When he didn’t get his way, he threw tantrums and threatened to kill people.

I had no doubt in my mind that he wouldn’t, but I damn sure didn’t feel like going back and forth with him.

I didn’t even respond, I just hung up. I was finished getting bent out of shape over a nigga that wasn’t mine.

Kasair belonged to the streets and all the bitches running them.

QUARI

“Told ya bitch ass to stop playing with that girl.” I mugged my boy.

“Ain’t nobody playing with Mecca. It’s Mazz’s fault. Nigga taught her morals and values.” He shook his head and tossed Mazz’s phone back on the bed. His bed was empty because he had gotten up to go to the washroom.

I laughed. “Nah, don’t do that. Every female ain’t gonna let you treat her like that.”

“Nigga, don’t judge me. I would’ve been happily married if you would’ve put me on with ya sister. Now she married to that outta state nigga, and Mecca is trampling all over my fucking heart.” His stupid ass put his hand over his chest like he was actually hurt.

“Hell nah. See, my sister would’ve shot ya ho ass.” I shook my head. “Remember when Mecca hit you with ya car then took you to the hospital?” I asked.

He rubbed his shoulder. “That’s love. Mecca loves me.” He shook his head, probably thinking about that day.

“I told ya ass to stop playing with my sister. Either do right or let another nigga.” Mazz walked out of the washroom in that female ass gown and the sweats he made me bring him. He’d called me bitching about his ass being out and not liking the breeze.

“Man, whatever. Like you did right by Gayze?” Kasair asked with a smirk on his face.

“Ain’t shit to me and Gayze. She engaged now,” he responded with his lip curled. He didn’t like that at all. I didn’t know who he thought he was putting up a front for, but we saw right through it.

I laughed. “What are you gonna do about that, fam?”

He shook his head before a smirk covered his face. “I thugged it first. How she gonna come back and be with some square?”

Kasair started clapping. “Handle that shit, fam. But first, we needs to be figuring out who the fuck took shots at you. I ain’t got no beef on the streets. Do one of y’all?” he asked, looking around before his eyes landed on me.

“You know me, man. I ain’t got no beef on the streets.

Niggas take cold naps against the pavement before they get red with me.

” I shrugged. That was true because I knew my weapon, and I had laid more motherfuckers down than the man upstairs.

My heat was one of my best friends, and for the right price, I rolled nothing but heads.

“We’ll figure that out. I ain’t even worried.” Mazz shrugged.

“You ain’t? Nigga, you just took a slug through the…” His sentence flowed off when Gayze walked into the room. She was looking down at the clipboard, not paying attention to anything in the room.

“You had my nurse page me, Mr. Carson?” She looked up at him with a mug.