Page 101 of Rah

“Veryserious. But I ain’t stupid. If I lose my head and bleed out where cops can find it, I ain’t helping nobody. I’ll make him pay, but I’m not gonna do anything that gives the DA a reason to bury her.”

Blu lightly slapped his hand on the table between us. “Alright. I’ll relax. But just say the word…if it’s ever the word.”

22

SOLAE

When Essence finally came out of the house, I hurriedly wiped my face and put on the facade as if Mommy was okay. But as she trudged through the dirty, wet snow, I knew that I wasn’t.

How had my life turned into all this?

This was all too much. Since getting out of jail, I hadn’t had the time to even think. If I wasn’t obsessed with beating this case, I was obsessed with making sure that Essence was okay.

The day after I got out on bail, I shot right up to that home where the state had kept Essence and Elijah. I acted a fool. To save their own asses, they tried to act like Essence was lying. It took my father holding me back to keep from tearing that place up. When I literally tried to rush through my father to get that bitch ass administrator, I saw myself killing her. That was when I knew the depth of fighting for your children. That was when I knew what had happened the night I stabbed Rah. I had snapped and was in fight mode for my kids. But my father reminded me that I had to keep fighting for them, whichmeant not being behind bars again. So, I forced myself to swallow the urge to kill that bitch. My father convinced me to walk away and go to the cops. But Essence didn’t want to go to the police. She was scared of telling the story again and hated the presence of the police after they had come and taken her and her brother away, and after knowing that they had taken me away. I didn’t want to force her either. If that administrator could look me in my face and accuse her of lying, I could only imagine what the police would say to my daughter while questioning her. I imagined the additional pain that it would cause her and decided to let it go, since that’s what she wanted to do. But I was going to be sure that she got some counseling. Elijah too.

Luckily, there was a ray of sunshine in this day. Kahlani had been sentenced to probation after taking the deal. I was so happy for her, and she was so relieved. She would have a record now, but at least that ordeal was done. But mine was just beginning. I had a long road ahead of me fighting this. It had only been a month, but during the preliminary hearing, I saw how much of an idiot my public defender was. He had no passion to fight for me. The prosecutor had eaten his ass up when he attempted to get the charges dropped. Now, we were going to trial, and I prayed that I would come out of this with probation. Considering how Rah was painting me as such a terrible person, I doubted it.

But I couldn’t be mad at anyone, except myself.Ihad done this.

As Essence climbed into my car, my cell rang. When I saw that it was Priest, I ignored it. I was so embarrassed about thethings happening in my life that I couldn’t face him. Over the past month, we had been talking less and less, and I hadn’t seen him. Sometimes I answered his calls, and he would just be checking on me. Sometimes, I didn’t, when I had other shit to deal with, which was all the time as of late, like right now.

“What are they going to do to me?”

As I put the car in reverse, I sighed and answered Essence. “They are going to test you for STDs.”

“STDs?” she asked in her immature voice.

“Sexually transmitted diseases, baby.” I backed out of the driveway, hating that I even had to put my child through this.

The bastard hadn’t even worn a condom when he forced my baby to have sex with him. It had been my intent to take her to the doctor as soon as I found out about the assault, but I ended up in jail.

“Is it going to hurt?”

I quickly looked at her, feeling my heart cringe as I saw the fear in her eyes, and put my focus back on the street. “You may feel some pressure, but you’re going to be okay. I’m going to hold your hand the entire time. All right?”

“Okay,” she said, bravely.

“Are you okay?’

She shrugged her shoulders. “I guess.”

“Are you sure?” I pressed.

She sucked her teeth in that irritated, teenager away. “Yeah, Ma.”

“I’m just making sure,” I replied. Then I put a hand on her shoulder, driving with the other. “What happened to you is scary, even for a grown woman. So, I want to make sure that you’re okay. Don’t let what he did make you feel like you aren’t pretty enough or worthy of a boy treating you right. He triedto take something from you, but you still have it. You didnothave sex. You are still a virgin. You still wait for the right man that loves you and treats you right and never hurts you...”

I had to stop. The tears made it impossible to say anything else. Approaching a stop sign, I wiped the tears, trying to stop them so that I could be brave for Essence. But my own words had made me feel like the hurt little girl I was trying to keep Essence from turning into.

I hadn’t waited for the right man. I hadn’t ensured that the man I gave my heart to would never hurt me.

My tears made Essence’s appear as well. The tears started to roll down her cheeks as she reached over and threw her arms around me. We were in the middle of the street at a stop sign, but I didn’t care. She needed this hug, and so did I.

“Not right now, Priest.” I ignored his call again and returned my cell back to my pocket. Then, I left my hand there to keep it warm. I didn’t care how cold it was outside. I needed the air.

The entire time that I sat in that examination room and held Essence’s hand, I managed to hold myself together. I wanted to fall apart and cry along with her as she cringed and squeezed my hand during the exam. The entire time, I blamed myself for what had happened to her.

Luckily, the gynecologist didn’t see any signs of any obvious STDs, but we still had to wait for the results to come back to be completely sure.