Page 34 of Rah

Out of nowhere, the grill slammed against the wooden porch. Solae had kicked it over. The metal crashed loud against the steps. Clothes, shoes, coal, and burned bills fell against the steps, some of it still on fire.

“Man, you trippin’!” I jumped back to avoid the flying burning objects. “I’m going in the houseto get my shit.”

“You ain’t got shit in there, homie. It’s burnt or bleached, bitch; including that money I found.”

My eyes fell out of my face. I thought she was just burning random money that I had in drawers, not the robbery money that I moved from Aaliyah’s house to here.

Solae laughed, watching my misery with a wicked smile on her face.

“Yeah, nigga. That money you had stashed in the closet isgone.”

I was sick and didn’t hide it. I felt like she had just set my future on fire and burned it alive because she literally had.

She was so content to see me devastated that I just walked away disgusted. I actually felt pain. She had turned on me. She had deliberately deceived me with a smile on her face. She’d hurt me on purpose.

Little did she know I was going to get her back for that shit.

I was going to have the last laugh.

8

SOLAE

Isat on the couch next to my father with tears streaming down my face. He’d come over to drop off the kids’ Christmas presents to open the next morning.

Three weeks ago, after the bank robbery and terminating my pregnancy, I expected for life to be back to normal by now. But life felt like the ground had opened up under me and was trying to drag me down to hell. All those nights I stayed home with our kids, thinking Rah was working, thinking he was building something for us, he was really building lies. I couldn’t stop wondering how long he’d been doing this, or how many times he looked me in my eyes and swore I was the only one. My heart was broken, but what twisted the knife in deeper was seeing how pissed he was, not because he lost me, not because he broke our family, but because of the money. Rah cared more about his pockets being lighter than about me walking away. That’s when it hit me hard: I was never the priority. The hustle was.

My father put his arm around me as I lay my head on hisshoulder. Simultaneously, he began to rub my shoulder as he told me, “It’s going to be okay.”

“I can’t believe he did this. It hurts.”

I don’t know what hurt worse; Aaliyah, her baby, or the baby that I didn’t have. He hadn’t confirmed anything, but I knew that Rah was cheating on me with that chick and that was his baby.

I felt like I was dying over and over again.

“Solae, if he can’t love you the right way, let him go.”

“I am, but it hurts. It hurtssobad. I don’t understand how he can love me one minute and then be so cold the next. I feel like the past fourteen years have all been a lie. I feel bad for the kids too. I know they like having their father here. I really don’t want to raise them by myself either.”

“You know what’s worse than being a single mother? Staying with a nigga that ain’t shit because you don’t want to be one.”

That stung, but he was right. I didn’t even try to argue with him. I so desperately tried to get my head together while Elijah and Essence got dressed. We were going to my grandmother’s house for our annual Christmas tradition.

“I just lost my job. I can’t do this alone,” I cried. “Even if I could, I really don’t want to.”

“It’s too many women staying in hurtful relationships because they are afraid of raising kids alone and being alone. It’s okay to be alone, and it’s okay to be in a relationship. But it’s not okay to be both at the same damn time. The fact that he says ‘I love you’ doesn’t give him permission to put you through shit, and it doesn’t mean that you have to stay and deal with it. All love ain’t loyal, baby.”

There was no denying the harsh reality in every word he said. He was right. Though at this point, I wasn’t questioning whetheror not I wanted to be with Rah. I was just hurt that it had come to this.

When I heard a knock at the door, I got nervous that it was Rah.

My dad saw the anxiety on my face as another round of knocks began, only this time harder.

“I’ll get it,” my dad told me as he stood from the couch.

We both knew that it was Rah, who had been blowing my phone up all day, threatening me for having the audacity to defy him and burn up all his money. I trusted that, with my dad’s wide stance and height, Rah would lose all aggression when that door opened.

Yet, to our surprise, there was a woman in a suit standing on the other side of the door. Two police officers accompanied her.