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Chapter Eighteen

SORAYA ‘YAYA’ CRAWFORD

It was almost midnight, and I’d landed in New York about an hour ago.

I was tired as hell because I’d been up, and on the move since five this morning.

Out of all the people that I could have been in New York with, here I was with my ex-husband, and I knew that there wasn’t anything good that was going to come from this trip.

Me and Law were beefing. We’ve been beefing since last week, when he came to drop the kids to the house, and I had to find out at the last minute that his ass spoke to a recruiter, and basically, he already had one foot in of telling the recruiter yes.

To some, they might not see where I was coming from, and probably just thought that I was throwing shit out of proportion, but to me, it was deeper because it wouldn’t have been the first time that Law has made a grand decision about the kids, without considering me.

I’m not sure if it’s because we’re raising boys, and because Law is a man, he probably felt like his decision making will be better, and more beneficial than me as a woman, but there’s been times before that I’ve been left out, and I’ve expressed to him that I didn’t like that shit, and here he was, doing it again.

Him, and I really haven’t spoken much since that happened.

Today was our first time speaking to each other since it happened.

Law called me this afternoon while I was at work, telling me that our old friend Marissa had passed away.

Marissa stayed right across the street from Law, and I when we were kids.

That was my girl. She’d lived there from the time that I was six, and she moved by the time we’d gotten into middle school.

After that, it’s like I never heard from her again.

Probably six years ago, she found me on social media, and I remember waking up to this long message from her, telling me how much she missed me, how she had just gotten on social media, and I was one of the first people that she had looked for.

I immediately gave her my number, and she called me instantly.

We talked about so many things, and I remember getting off that phone, and my face was drenched in tears when I learned about some of the things that she was going through.

She was just dealing with a lot of different health issues.

She told me about the bad habit that she’d picked up on, which was smoking cigarettes, and that led to her being diagnosed with lung cancer.

When she left Miami when we were twelve years old, she moved to New York with her mom, and she shared with me how she had been smoking cigarettes out there since she was fifteen.

Some friends that she’d met out there had introduced her to it.

Marissa was telling me about the abusive relationship that she was in with her boyfriend of five years.

She didn’t have any children though. I remember wiring her a lot of money, just so that she could get up, and leave that relationship alone.

She was so happy for the money. Called me crying, and everything, thanking me.

She never left him though, but one thing about me, I wasn’t a woman to judge, and I just figured that when she was good and ready to leave him, she would.

After that, we would talk every blue moon.

She would always comment on my posts on social media, telling me how we needed to hang out one time.

I flew up to New York, and I saw her once.

Man, we had such a good time. Over the years though, we kind of just lost contact with each other.

She hasn’t been on social media in about three years, and every time that I would think about her, and I would call or text her, most times, her phone would be off.

While I was working this afternoon, Law called me, telling me that Marrissa’s mom had found him by looking him up online, but telling him that she was mainly looking for me.

That’s when she told Law about Marrissa’s passing from lung cancer, and that she was having her services tomorrow.

She died last week, but with her mom grieving, and trying to plan her daughters funeral, she didn’t have the time to reach out to us sooner, which was understandable.

I couldn’t miss her funeral. That was me, and Law’s childhood friend.

Marissa used to tell Law and I that we were going to get married one day and have a bunch of beautiful children.

She loved Law like a brother and loved me like a sister.

Her heart was honestly so pure, and ever since I found out about her passing, I have been off, and on crying all day.

I just wished that I would have done more, you know?

When I noticed that she wasn’t on social media, or when her phone was off, I just wished that I would have taken a trip out to New York to see her.

I had my own life going on in Miami, trying to raise my children, be a wife, and run a business, that at the time, I didn’t think of doing that.

Now, here I am, living with all this regret, after losing someone that I really did care about.

My sister knew Marissa as well. I called Shai the second I found out the news, but when I called her, I called her with the intention of knowing that she wouldn’t make it because she was halfway across the world right now in Dubai.

Even if she wasn’t in Dubai, Shai probably still wouldn’t have come because my twin didn’t do funerals.

She attended my daughter’s funeral when Sarai passed, and she took it horribly, just as I knew she would.

Shai was honestly the best auntie in the world.

She loved my boys, and my daughter as if they were hers.

The first month of Sarai’s life, she was at our house just about every day because she wanted to be with her niece.

Shai did send a beautiful flower arrangement to the church, where the funeral would be tomorrow for Marrissa’s services, which was sweet, and thoughtful on her part.

We had a driver, and he’d just pulled the black truck into the front of the hotel.

We were in a brand-new Cadillac Escalade.

It had that brand new car smell, with a mixture of a vanilla scent.

Law was sitting on one side of the truck, while I had been on the other.

The seats were pilot styled, so we weren’t sharing the same seat.

We’d flown private here, which I wasn’t surprised about because that was the only way that Law preferred to fly.

The flight over here, I removed my shoes, tucked them up under me, and I wrapped a throw blanket around my body, sleeping the entire way here.

Even with the two-hour nap that I’d taken on the flight over, I was still tired.

Hungry too. The second we made it up to our rooms, I planned to order some food to the room.

“I appreciate you, man,” Law said to our driver, once we were outside the truck. The driver was pulling our suitcases out from the back, and once mine touched down on the floor, I tried to grab it, so that I could wheel it, but Law knocked my hand out of the way, so that he could grab it.

He grabbed my bag, and his, and then he reached in his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and the first bill that his hand landed on, he handed it to the driver, thanking him.

From there, we walked inside of the hotel together.

We didn’t have any reservations or anything, but this was a spot that Law and I stayed years ago, so he decided to bring us back here.

“For my room, can you ask them to put me on a lower floor?” I asked him, as were approaching the check in area.

His ass didn’t even respond to me. He just kept on walking, and I was behind him, keeping up.

There was a beautiful, fair skinned woman that was behind the desk, and she smiled when she saw the both of us.

“Welcome to The Times Square EDITION. Do you two have a reservation tonight?” she asked Law.

She couldn’t contain the smile on her face, and the thirst as she was looking him up, and down.

I dealt with this shit, even in our marriage.

Women wouldn’t give a damn that I would be standing right next to him.

They would still lust over him. Once I put it through my mind that I would be one tired bitch, trying to fight every bitch in the world about my man, I just stopped letting it get the best of me.

I knew how to properly tune out, and pretend that something wasn’t bothering me, when it was.

I’ll admit, Law knew how to handle situations like that though.

In the past, when he would peep a woman openly lusting over him while I was around, that’s usually when he would pull me into him, probably tongue me down while they were right there, or just show me any kind of affection, so they would know that they didn’t stand a chance with him.

“What’s up? Nah, we don’t have a reservation. You have any rooms available?” he asked her.

“Ummm, I really don’t think so. It’s a busy weekend for us, so we’re just about all booked up.

Some type of retreat is happening here, so we have so many guest. Looks like I do have a standard room on the 20 th floor.

That’s literally the only room that I have left.

It does have a view of Times Square, so that’s good. There’s queen beds though,” she stated.

“Can we go to a different hotel then?” I asked Law. I was tired, but not too damn tired where I would agree to sleep in the same room with him.

“Yaya, it’s twelve in the fuckin morning, bruh!

I been up since five this morning just like your ass.

I been in and out of court all day. I’m tired too.

Sleep your ass in one bed, and I’ll sleep in the other one.

You about to start up that bullshit, and Ima curse your ass out!

” he spat. My nostrils flared listening to him talk to me like this.