About fifteen minutes later, I was pulling onto the street it was located on and spotted my mama pacing back and forth, looking distressed as she jammed her finger into her phone’s screen. Most likely the shit was dead, and she was trying to make the muthafucka turn on like a fucking idiot.
Swooping over and throwing my shit in park, I hopped out. She jumped at my abrupt movements, but when recognition set in, her brows furrowed.
“Get in the fucking car so I can take yo’ ass back.” I yanked my passenger side door open.
“I ain’t going no fucking where! I told you, you can’t make me do a got damn thing!” she screamed and tried to storm off, but I yanked her tiny frame back toward me by her bicep.
When she landed against my chest, I spoke through gritted teeth. “And what the fuck did I tell you, Whitney?”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d called Mama anything. I stopped calling her mom when I was a teenager, because she didn’t want me to, and the shit didn’t even feel right. After that,I would just speak whenever I had something to say but never address her by anything specific. By saying that, calling her Whitney felt just as foreign as Mama would.
“Help! Help!” she screeched out on the quiet and deserted street.
However, it wasn’t deserted because no one lived over here; it was quiet and shit because this was an affluent ass neighborhood. On one side of the street was where the clinic and a few other doctor’s offices were, and across the wide street were residential spaces.
I threw her ass into the passenger seat, shutting the door quickly as I rushed around to the driver’s side. I scoured the scene as I did so, though, making sure I didn’t see a nosy muthafucka peeking through their expensive ass curtains with a phone pressed to their ear and the police on the other fucking line.
Flooring it, I sped all the way down before dipping into the parking lot of the clinic, while my mama yelled, cursed, and shoved my shoulder roughly enough to make the car swerve a few times. I’d thrown the car in park so sharply that our bodies and the vehicle jerked forward some.
Climbing out in haste, I grabbed my mama from the passenger side and started to pull her toward the entrance. Before I even made it in good, the staff rushed up to help me.
“We got her,” an older lady said as the younger woman grabbed onto my mother. I was able to surmise that the young bitch was the one I’d spoken to over the phone.
“Let her up out this muthafucka again, and I’m gon’ air it out,” I said, and the ladies nodded as security stepped up. “Aye, I suggest you stand yo’ ass over there and collect ya fucking check. Don’t get into some shit you not built for.” I cut my eyes in his direction, causing him to back away in defeat with a curt nod of understanding.
“I hate you!” My mama broke through my stare off with the security guard as the two ladies of staff took her toward the back, worried looks on their pale faces. “I’ve hated you since you were three years old! My biggest regret is you! I should’ve aborted you like your father begged me to! Everyone else hates you, too, you fucking nobody!” Her voice echoed as she was dragged further down the hall. “If you weren’t rich, you’d be lonely as fuck!” was the last thing I could make out.
When the guard and I locked eyes, I cringed at the sympathetic look in his eyes. I immediately turned away from him and exited the building through the glass sliding doors, before hopping into my car.
As I drove, I did my best to tune out my mother’s words, but it was difficult, especially since she was supposedly sober at the fucking moment. Before, I’d been able to attribute her behaviors to the alcohol, but what was the fucking excuse now? And shit, maybe I was wasting my fucking time with this rehab shit if she was still gon’ be the same fucking person.
Moments like right now was when I would start to think destructively, causing me to pull over to the curb. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, doing my fucking best to rid my mind of my detrimental ass thoughts. I couldn’t entomb my troubles into a numbing cocktail of alcohol, weed, pills, and women like in the past, now that I had Banks. Not only that, but she made me feel like I was above that shit, and doing any of it, even without the females, would make me feel like I’d betrayed her.
Unable to put my hands on the wheel and foot on the gas without ensuring I wouldn’t pull up to a liquor store or worse, I grabbed my phone from the cupholder of my Maybach and dialed her.
“Are you coming back yet? If so, please stop at Starbucks for me. Keep me on the phone so I can order.” She giggled, making the corner of my mouth lift slightly.
“I got you.”
“You don’t have to go if it’s gonna make you that glum,” she somewhat quipped.
“It ain’t that bad, Peep. Plus, if it’s too difficult, I can always have one of them bitches in line help me.”
“Keep playing, Willow,” she shot back as I chuckled as much as I was able to. “Why do you sound like that then?”
“Long day already. We’ll chop it up later. I just wanted to hear ya voice.” I felt my body relax as soon as she had answered and even more so the longer we conversed.
“Aww, that was sweet. Fine and sweetandgot a big dick. I hit the jackpot!” she complimented, making a nigga grin like a bitch.
Hearing how she felt versus my mother was always jarring to a nigga. My mama had known me longer, but Banks had seen me through a clearer, more sober lens.
“If a nigga start complimenting you back, I’ll never make it to Starbucks,” I admitted.
I could talk about Banks St. Thomas all day like I majored in her.
“We can’t have that. Plus, I wanna see you. I’ll be done with class by the time you get back here, and I wanna practice something else.”
“Which is?” I put my car back in drive, yielded, then pulled off, moving the call from coming through my phone to my car speakers.