Page 12 of Fever: Love In Scrubs
“You have to throw a housewarming party,” Tinka said.
I shook my head. My cousin looked for any reason to party.
“And invite who?” I asked. “I don’t know anybody here anymore and even if I did, I wouldn’t have those bastards in my house. Did you forget how bad I used to get bullied?”
“I mean, we can always lure them with an invite and once they get there, bam! Beat their ass one by one.”
My aunt rolled her eyes. “Shut up, Tikayla,” she said, calling her by her real name.
“I’m just saying, it’s an option. For real though, you need to celebrate. You have a beautiful house and best of all, it’s paid off. No more high ass rent.”
“I guess that’s a bonus. Can y’all help me bring in the stuff from the car? I need to go by a few places, and I need some food.”
We retreated outside. I looked back at the house once more as we approached the car. It really was beautiful. I’d spared no expense with renovations and landscaping and the house was now one of, if not the best, looking house on the block.
“It’s about time someone did something to the place,” I heard behind us.
I turned to see where the voice was coming from and was met with the face of that fucking Karen. The years hadn’t been good to her old, meddling ass.
“Get the fuck away from my property,” I snapped.
She gasped. “Excuse me?”
“You heard what I said.”
“Your property was a travesty, young lady. It should have been condemned a long time ago for being such an eyesore. I warned that man he was going to die in there and?—”
Before she could finish the sentence, I was in her face.
“You don’t mention my father!” I yelled. “Don’t you ever fucking speak on him!”
“Wynter, stop,” Aunt Kira said, pulling me back.
“Let me at her! She’s the reason CPS wanted to take me. She called them!”
The Karen bitch squinted at me. “So you’re the daughter, huh?” she smirked. “Well, you should be thanking me. You didn’t have to continue living in this dump. If it wasn’t for me, you might have died right along with him.”
I snatched away from my aunt and slapped the shit out of that bitch. She stumbled backward, holding her cheek and looking at me in disbelief.
“You hit me!”
“You’re lucky that’s all she did,” Tinka said, grabbing me. “Take a walk before I let my cousin unleash her grief on you. Go!”
Karen ran off to her house, yelling obscenities at me. I couldn’t believe I’d hit her either. I wasn’t a violent person, but her face took me back to the day I was taken from my father. That was the day I lost all hope of him ever getting it together.
“Come on, baby,” Aunt Kira said, steering my shoulders toward the trunk.
I took a deep breath and began grabbing things to unload. Since I was making the trip down here, I decided to bring a few things now to lessen the load I’d be bringing next week. As we got to the last of the items, my gaze dropped to the old, tattered scrapbook. It had been in the back of the car since the cleaning crew found it.
I couldn’t bring myself to go through it, so I left it in the car. I’d seen my father look through it a million times. He was always adding things to it, although he never let me look in it. I remembered him telling me that I could only have it when he died… I guess it was mine now.
I reached for it, and placed it on top of the box I was carrying before taking it inside. With all of the boxes in their designated rooms, I grabbed the photo album and took it into the kitchenwhere Aunt Kira and Tinka were staring out the window at the back yard.
“You really did your big one on this, cousin,” Tinka said. “When I come to visit, just know the back yard is mine.”
I giggled. “If you say so, girl.”
They turned to face me.
