Page 17 of This is Law

“Of course, you don’t believe shit that I say to you. That’s how you do a nigga, Ya. My word don’t mean shit to you these days. If it did, we would never have gotten a divorce in the first place. A year ago, when you asked me if I had fucked that bitch, I hadn’t. I got head from her. I didn’t fuck her until after the fact. The other day, she pulled up on me at the office, and we went to lunch. I got a lil head in the car. Why the fuck I gotta explain that to you?” he wanted to know. I was drunk and struggling with getting to the red x on the screen, so that I could hang up on his ass. I eventually found it, and when I did, I tossed my phone across the room. I know for a fact that my screen shattered because I didn’t use phone cases for any of my phones, as a means of protection.

“I don’t believe him. I know he fucked that bitch,” I said to my sister, still sitting down on my ass, and using my hands to wipe away the tears that was left over.

“Come on. Let me help you get in the shower. You not about to drive me fuckin crazy while we’re out here, Ya. Don’t drink shit else, for real. What you going to do? Get drunk the rest of the three days that we have out here, and call Law each time to pick a fight with him?” she asked me. I didn’t respond back to her.

She shook her head, and she reached her hand out, so that she could help me stand up from the floor. Because my legs were so wobbly, messing with my movement, she assisted me with going to the bathroom, and even had to help me with my shower. There was left over chlorine in my hair, so I stood up under the shower water, and I washed it out, using the shampoo that I’d packed.

My shower lasted about fifteen minutes, with the help of my sister, standing right outside the shower, making sure that I didn’t stumble and bust my ass. Once I was done, I was able to brush my teeth, and I did a quick, sloppy skin routine. I couldn’t stand here at the counter for as long as I usually could because I was in my feelings terribly, and the liquor had really kicked in by this point.

After that, I added lotion to my body, and I threw on a white tee, boy shorts, and I climbed in the bed. I could be so clingy, so I scooted over to my sister, and I laid my head on her chest, as she laid down on her back.

“Everybody used to ask me if I could handle seeing Law with another bitch, and I always used to say that I could. Shai, I don’t think I can. Seeing those pictures, and videos of him with that bitch, it felt like somebody put a size twelve boot on my chest, stomped on it, and twisted their foot around. That shit hurt me to see. At the same time, I don’t think me and Law are going to be any good for each other. When Sarai died, it’s like ourmarriage died. I don’t think that I could ever go back to the same version of the wife that I was to him before that happened with Sarai. I’m still bothered by it. I’m still hurting over it,” I shared with my sister, allowing a tear to fall from my eyes.

“What if you and Law get a better therapist this time? You even said that you didn’t care for the therapist that ya’ll had to use before the divorce. What if a better one can help, and give ya’ll the better coping mechanisms, and proper way to mourn the loss of Sarai? Yaya, you still love him. That man still loves you too and is still deeply in love with you. You’re going to drive yourself the fuck crazy, stressing about seeing him out with another bitch. You know what that nigga look like. You know the kind of money and status that he has. Bitches see that, and they going to automatically flock to him, and want him. You going to have to come up with some kind of solution because them hoes love your ex-husband, and they going to try and fuck his ass down to the floor,” she said some real shit to me.

I shed tears listening to her tell me these things. It was a harsh reality, but I knew that it was shit that I needed to hear.

I continued laying on her, until I eventually dosed off. I knew one thing for certain though, and that’s that I wasn’t going to drink shit else during my time here in St. Maarten. By tomorrow, I would get in my feelings for the second time if I continued drinking, and I was going to cry to him, telling him to bring his ass out here, and fuck me, so yeah, after tonight, I planned to leave the drinking alone. My ass had done enough. I showed my ass for the remainder of the trip.

Chapter Eight

AUTUMN GREENE

It was after eleven at night, and I was at the studio. It wasn’t my session that I was in though. I was just here, supporting one of my label mates. Her real name was Ariana, but her stage name, that everyone knew her by was Litty. Litty, and I were cool. She was twenty- six years old, and just like me, she could rap her ass off. These days, a lot of the female rappers would get in the booth, and the only thing they really wanted to talk about was finessing niggas, how good their pussy, or their body was, and just a bunch of other shit that’s been done one hundred times before. Litty and I were different. We came from struggle, and we would put that hurt, and pain in our raps, and the world was fuckin with us because of that. Litty was featured on two songs on my new album, and I wasn’t surprised that those two songs were my most played songs on the album because people had been waiting for us to get in the booth together and record a track.

My album sales were good. I wasn’t mad at it, but I just know if that shit had never happened from my live video, that I would have made more sales. I was still trending on just about every social media platform, and a lot of people out there still hated my guts, but I was learning to take Yaya’s advice and ignore thatshit. What I failed with doing in the industry was ignoring shit. I was a hood bitch, and where I was from, if people were talking shit about you, you would pull up, find them, and beat their asses for it. I understood that in this new life that I was living, that I couldn’t move like that. I couldn’t beat everybody’s ass that was going to have something bad to say about me. Because I couldn’t, I tend to get on social media, and I spazz out, cursing everybody out. This scandal that I had going on right now, it wasn’t the first time that I’ve been in the media in a negative outlook, but this was the worst that it’s ever been.

My phone started ringing, and it was a facetime call from my grandma. I had a rocky relationship with my grandmother. She was the one to take me in and raise me because my mom had me when she was seventeen years old. She’d already dropped out of school by that point, and she was a hot girl, wanting to be outside, running the streets with her friends. As a baby, my mom, and I lived with my grandmother, but by the time I was two, my mom had just left, leaving me in the care of my grandmother.

As a kid, I just remember my grandma always being angry, saying shit about how it wasn’t her responsibility to be raising me, and how she’d already done her years of raising her own child. Don’t get me wrong, I know for a fact that my grandma loved me, I just think that she hated that she had to take care of me. We would clash a lot. I used to skip school a lot, run away from home, and with that, she would call the cops on me. I’ve done time in juvie as a teen for petty shit. I was introduced to the club scene by one of my home girls sister because she used to dance, and that’s how I started dancing at eighteen. I know for a fact that if I didn’t have a gift when it came to this music shit, that I would have still been in the club scene, shaking my ass for a few dollars.

Rapping had really changed my life, but I couldn’t seem to run away from my old lifestyle. I loved going to the projects any chance that I could and hanging around my old friends. Yaya was always in my ear, telling me that I needed to surround myself with better people, but it was hard when these bitches had been with me since day one, and they were literally all that I knew.

Because it was so loud in the studio, I chose to step out, and I went into the hallway, walking down further, so that I could accept the call from my grandma.

“What’s up?” I answered.

My grandma was a beautiful, caramel skin colored woman. She had a jet-black pixie cut, which looked good on her, and it helped to keep her looking youthful. She was only 54 years old, but she looked like she could be in my age range. Having children at a young age was something that pretty much ran in our family. My grandma had my mom when she was only sixteen, and then my mom did the same thing, having me at 17. I broke that cycle though. I still felt like my shit was just as frowned upon as them because I dropped out of school at seventeen just like my mom did, and by 18, I was in the club, stripping.

Because my grandma took care of me, and had raised me, I made sure that I repaid her for it, and I was taking care of her as well. She didn’t have to work because I paid all her bills, now that I was rapping. I kept money in her pocket too. Even with me doing these things, it felt like the only time she would hit my line these days would be when she was asking for money. I can assure you that this was why she was calling me right now. I doubt she gave a fuck to ask me anything about how I was doing or even choosing to pretend that she gave a fuck how my album was doing. My album dropped, and she didn’t even bother to hit a bitch up, telling me congratulations or any of thatshit. If anything, she texted me the day that my album released, reminding me that her mortgage was due that same day.

“Can you send me a few grand? Joy just called me, and she wants to go to the Bahamas Friday. We’re going to fly over there. I need to pay for my flight, send my half for the hotel, and have spending money while I’m out there,” she voiced, and I couldn’t even keep my groan to myself, so I ended up releasing it. It was loud enough for her to hear it too.

She called me, asking me for money, just like I knew she would. Mind you, I just gave her ten racks probably two weeks ago. I had no idea what the fuck she was doing with all the money that I would send her, but that shit was driving me fuckin crazy.

Joy was one of her home girls. Joy was the same age as my grandma, and they had been friends since they were kids. Joy had a husband that took care of her, and would splurge on her, so that’s why she was able to afford last minute trips, and my grandma liked going on those last-minute trips with Joy.

“Damn ma. Could you at least attempt to hit my line, and ask how a bitch is doing? I been all in the blogs for the past week because of those comments that I made on my live about the LGBTQ community. You ain’t once stop to check in and ask me how that shit made me feel. I got a whole community of people that’s been targeting me, trying to get me canceled. My first album dropped last week, and you didn’t even congratulate me on that shit. I made sure all your bills were paid last week, and I couldn’t even get a thank you. I sent you ten racks two weeks ago, just because. You treating me like I’m some lame ass nigga that’s just good enough for a check, and to take care of you,” I got right to the point. A lot of people would find what I just said to my grandma to be disrespectful, since I was cursing, but this was how I expressed myself. My grandma didn’t care about me cursing at her. Just as long as I didn’t call her out her name.

“I know you not trying to make this a thing on what you’ve done for me. Everything that you’ve done for me, Autumn, I’m owed that shit! Girl, I took care of you when your mama left! I was in my thirties. In my fuckin prime, and I had to sit my ass down, and pick up your mama’s slack. Don’t you know that I could have been foul, and handed your ass over to foster care, and let them deal with it? I chose not to do that though. I handled my responsibilities as a grandmother-

“Then let it just be that, ma! I hate when you start doing that shit, bruh! You be quick to bring up what the fuck you did for me in my past. I was a child. An innocent child, that couldn’t take care of myself, so you had to do it! It’s like you be looking for some kind of goody bag for doing for me what you did. I’m repaying you back the best way that I know how, man. The day I signed that million-dollar contract, the first thing that I did was close on a house for you, and I gave you a big ass check, too. You make a bitch feel like no matter what I do, my effort will never be good enough!” I snapped. It was rare that I would get vulnerable like this and express my feelings. Growing up, that kind of shit wasn’t allowed, and my grandma would be quick to tell me that I was acting like a ‘weak ass bitch’ or her favorite one to say was how a nigga didn’t want a bitch that nagged all day. At an early age, I’d learned to suppress my feelings, and I wouldn’t speak on shit that bothered me. I would hold it all in, and that’s why I tend to spazz on people the way that I do.

“Here we go with all that dramatized bullshit. Because I asked you for a few dollars, now you think that I don’t think what you do is good enough for me? If you not trying to send the money Autumn, then just say that, but you don’t gotta start pulling shit out of your ass, trying to give us problems that we don’t really have for real,” she snapped on me.

She thought that we might not have had any problems, but we had major problems, but she didn’t leave me with that safespace, where I could speak on how I really felt. There were so many things that I wanted to say in return to what she’d just said, but I didn’t. When I didn’t, she started mumbling shit up under her breath, and then she just hung the phone up on me.

There wasn’t many people in the world that could hurt my feelings, but my grandma was one of those that could. She always made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. I was a whole rapper out here. The biggest rapper to come out of Miami in years, and she still hadn’t given me her praise for it. I wasn’t expecting her to get down on her knees, and praise me, but damn, a ‘good job’ or a ‘I’m happy for you’ would go a long way, especially since it wasn’t something that I’ve heard from her before.

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