Page 10 of The Hellcat Barbies: Aubree

AUbrEE

The day after Brasi confronted me, I drove to Golden Waters with a heavy heart and a pounding headache.

After he showed up at my house, I wasn’t able to get back to sleep.

I was spending the day in Golden Waters, and the following day, The Hellcat Barbies and I were linking for brunch at a popular restaurant.

There were a few street races going on later that night.

I needed to clean my car. I needed to do a lot of shit including getting some sleep, but I had promised Brianna that I would come visit her and bring her some clothes and shoes.

She was going to be starting kindergarten soon, and I was the cool God mom that spoiled her and bought her everything she wanted.

When my aunt first took her, I wasn’t sure I’d make it.

There were days that I didn’t get out of bed.

Depression coupled with guilt kicked my ass.

Numerous times a day I contemplated calling my aunt and telling her I made a mistake, but she’d spent eight months getting ready for Brianna.

She was never able to get pregnant, and her and her husband couldn’t afford fertility treatments.

When she begged me not to get an abortion, I felt I would have been a monster to go through with it, but no matter how stressful I knew being a single parent would be, I became attached to the child growing inside my belly.

I was so conflicted and confused. I already felt like the scum of the earth for giving my child away.

Then I had to factor in keeping it a secret from Brasi.

It was all too much, and my bitch of a sister did what I was too afraid to do, and now Brasi hated me.

I shouldn’t care if he hated me. If I was being honest, I should hate him.

But I didn’t. When he glared at me with disgust on his face, my heart broke into a million pieces.

Way too many passes had been given to my sister.

If I laid eyes on her any time soon, I might slap the taste out of her mouth.

She hadn’t even reached out to me to ask how I was doing since getting shot because a dummy thought I was her.

We looked exactly alike, but we couldn’t have been more different.

There were times I literally referred to her as my evil twin.

The cat was out of the bag, and Brasi knew about Brianna.

Even if he hated me at least I could release the weight of the guilt that I’d been carrying for six years.

When I arrived at my aunt’s house, her and Brianna were in the backyard.

Brianna was in the kiddie pool that my aunt bought her.

I knew Brianna was the reason my aunt didn’t lose her mind after her husband died.

Brianna had brought so much joy into her life, and that made me feel slightly less guilty about giving Brianna to her, but it still hurt.

Especially since Brianna was the spitting image of Brasi.

The red hair and the skin tone. I couldn’t look at her without thinking of him.

“Hi, Aubree,” Brianna squealed as she splashed water.

“Hi, Pretty Girl. I got you the clothes and shoes that I promised.” I always went overboard with gifts for Brianna because of my guilt.

I loved shopping for her, so it was easy to do too much. I purchased more than ten outfits, a coat, bookbag, socks, and three pairs of shoes.

“Can I look at them when I get out of the pool?”

“Of course you can. I’ll take them in the house.”

Inside my aunt’s house, I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the pain in my chest. Brasi wouldn’t get to know that smile and that voice. After inhaling a deep breath through my nose and exhaling slowly through my mouth, I went back outside.

“What’s wrong?” my aunt was studying me the way she usually did.

I chuckled because no matter how much I tried to pretend things were okay, she always knew when something was wrong with me. Just like she knew I was pregnant after only being around me for twenty minutes. She could read me better than my own mother.

“Autumn told Brasi about Brianna, and he’s pissed. Like real pissed.”

“I don’t know why that girl does the things she does. It wasn’t her place to tell him that.”

“She was wrong, but I was too. I should have told him. I could have written him a letter. I had six years to tell him.”

“Beating yourself up about it won’t help.

I know you had second thoughts about giving Brianna up.

You were confused and emotional, wondering if you did the right thing.

I get it. All I can do is say thank you for not getting an abortion and for giving me the chance to be a mother.

You are a good person you just went about things the wrong way. We’ve all made mistakes.”

My emotions were all over the place. Maybe I could give Brasi time to calm down and then try to talk to him.

Fuck! Why did I even care if he was upset with me?

Forcing thoughts of Brasi into the back of my mind, I stood up and went over to the pool.

I was there to spend time with Brianna not dwell on the past.

The next day at brunch, I took a large sip of my Mimosa and bobbed my head to the song that was playing throughout the restaurant. I was still in my feelings about the situation with Brasi, but I had to let that shit go.

“You racing tonight, Aubree?” Zora asked as I put my camera in my purse. I hadn’t created any content since before I got shot, and I had to get back on my shit. After all, creating content was how I paid my bills.

“Yeah, I’m gonna do a little something.” The best way to get out of my feelings was to get on some dare devil type shit. I needed an adrenaline rush, or I was going to continue to be in my feelings.

“This is a super rare occasion,” Dashai chimed in.

“I know. That means I have to make it one for the books.”

“And do,” Saskia raised her lemon drop in the air.

A group walked past the booths that we were occupying, and I noticed Nice among the men.

I hoped he wouldn’t see or acknowledge me because I wasn’t in the mood to talk.

It was so weird to me that I’d been willing to get to know him before Brasi came home, but since seeing him with Nice, I had no desire to entertain him.

I poured more Mimosa from the pitcher on the table as a loud voice sounded off a few feet away from me.

“Nah, you’s a hoe ass nigga. You couldn’t come home last night, but you’re out at brunch like a bitch.”

Like everyone else in the restaurant, I craned my neck to see what was going on, and I saw a pretty female up in Nice’s face.

My brow hiked as I watched her poke her finger into his forehead.

She said he didn’t come home last night.

I chuckled before taking a sip of my drink.

So he lived with a woman? Men were something else.

Welp, that was the excuse that I needed to stop answering the phone for him.

Smirking, I watched the show. Had I been into him, I’d be hurt, but I was relieved.

Nice tried to play it cool as he pushed her finger out of his face. I couldn’t hear what he said because he was too far away, but whatever it was, it didn’t deter his girlfriend from acting out.

“You’re a joke. I be trying real hard to stall yo’ ass out, but I see you want me to give you back to the streets. It’s cool, ‘cus there’s a line of niggas waiting for me to come back outside too.”

The look that Nice gave her after that comment said it all.

He loved her, and he was ready to spazz out at the mere thought of her being with another man.

As I drank more Mimosa, I silently thanked God that I had never slept with him.

I was officially done with men and dating.

It was a waste of time, and I could be doing other things.

I couldn’t wait to get back to football and creating content on a consistent basis.

I wanted more brand deals and to travel more.

Sitting around wasting time and energy with a trifling ass man wasn’t going to do anything for me.

A few members of the staff went over and tried to diffuse the situation between Nice and the woman that he was arguing with. I wasn’t sure if he left on his own or if he was asked to leave, but Nice stood and walked toward the exit.

“Isn’t he the one that was begging to take you out for months?” Breezy asked with a slack jaw.

I nodded, and she kissed her teeth.

“These men really ought to be ashamed of themselves. My God it’s sickening the way so many of them lie and cheat.”

I didn’t even respond because there was no need.

There wasn’t anything I could say that hadn’t already been said a million times before during girl talk.

Men were full of shit. The end. Grabbing my fork, I speared the last piece of my red velvet waffle and placed it in my mouth.

“I’m going home to sleep off the Mimosa’s I drank, so I can be ready for tonight.

I’ll see you ladies later,” I smiled and placed cash in the folder that contained my bill.

The race was going to take place on the outskirts of town in an area that didn’t have much traffic at night.

Street racing was dangerous, but that was part of the thrill.

At home, I laid on the couch and watched TV until I dosed off.

Once I woke up, I pulled my camera out to film a get ready with me chit chat type video.

I was going to update my subscribers on why I hadn’t released a vlog in over a week when I usually dropped one vlog a week sometimes two.

I wasn’t going to tell them all the details, but on YouTube alone, I had 560,000 subscribers.

If I went a few days without posting my DM’s were flooded with people asking where I was.

It was flattering but overwhelming all the same.