Page 51 of Only if You Catch Me
“Nah, I don’t.”
Tesha had been absolutely correct. I wanted Persia when I wanted her. I also didn’t want her dating other men. I did act like a brat, and I could admit that. Things went left real quick, but I wasn’t exactly used to having feelings for women. The concept was foreign to me. I wanted all in with Persia and to know she didn’t want the same shattered a nigga’s ego a little bit. I wasn’t wrong for sleeping with other women because I was single, but I’d even gone against the grain and had sex with Morgan. I was out in the streets doing too damn much in an effort to prove I was still that nigga.
“Maybe she can get past it. Only time will tell, but if you know you aren’t going to do right by her, leave her where she’s at, Kastian.”
“Nigga, it was me that wanted to be with her and only her. She didn’t want that, remember? All I wanted was to do right by her.”
“Yeah, I hear you.”
Tesha and I ended our conversation, and I tossed my phone in the passenger seat. Life was turning into some certified bullshit.
An hour later, I arrived at the doctor’s office that I was meeting Doll at. It was crazy as hell how I’d been so meticulous about having a baby and choosing a mother for my child and ended up having an oops baby any damn way. I did some research and found out that plan B pills simply prevent an egg from releasing. If a woman has already ovulated, it won’t work. Which was howDoll ended up pregnant. I had to look at it like it was meant to be. We tried not once but twice to prevent pregnancy. Even if it didn’t happen the way I’d planned it, I couldn’t be mad at it.
Doll was cool. I’d known her for years, and I doubted she’d change. She wouldn’t be able to dance while pregnant, but it didn’t matter because I’d look out for her. As long as she was able to maintain her lifestyle, I didn’t think she’d have a problem with not being my woman. Doll had never been pressed about titles. She simply did her. Even without a man’s help, she did well for herself. There were more than a few times when a celebrity or something came to the club and doll left with six or seven thousand dollars. Once during Memorial Day weekend, she made $20,000 dancing Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Anything she got from a man was an added bonus.
Doll lived in a two-bedroom luxury apartment, she drove a BMW, and she traveled monthly. I arrived before her, so I sat in the car with my mind racing. It felt like I was having an out of body experience. Knowing Ryder was a snitch had my chest tight. I was damn near as sick as if I would have gotten word that he died. It was almost the same because I couldn’t fuck with him ever again. From middle school through high school, we talked almost every day. When we both started hustling, we saw each other every day. Him becoming my right-hand man was inevitable. I wouldn’t have asked anyone else. And the nigga was a rat.
I saw Doll’s car pulling into a parking space, so I got out of the car and walked over to hers. When she killed the engine, I opened the door for her. “What’s up?” I tried to mask the bad mood that I was in.
“Hey. I’m better,” Doll smiled as she emerged from the car. “You know I was panicking at first like bitch how are you going to travel and still live your best life with a baby? But I know you’ll be an amazing hands-on father, so I stopped tripping.”
“Damn right. My shorty will forever be good. You could leave and never come back, and I wouldn’t even press you. I’d take my seed, and we’d live a bomb ass life.”
“I love that for me and my baby.”
I held the door open for Doll, and she walked past me. My insides twisted as I thought about the fact that the Feds might end up snatching my ass up the same way they got Lox and Ryder. I had waited all these years to have a kid, and my ass might not even be around for it. Sad part was, I couldn’t even be mad at anyone but myself. I had been successful in real estate for a long time. Continuing to sell drugs was some shit that was based off greed. I could leave all the money I had to my child, but it still wouldn’t top actually being there.
Doll completed the paperwork that the receptionist handed her while my left leg bounced anxiously. Women were sprinkled throughout the waiting room. One white woman looked like she was about to pop and from what I could tell she was alone. Maybe her dude was at work. Maybe he wasn’t around. Maybe he was in jail. I had to force myself to stop thinking the worst because I would be embarrassed for sure if I had an anxiety attack in the doctor’s office. No one aside from Ryder, Lox, and Persia knew that I had panic attacks. It wasn’t something that I wanted people to know.
Persia. Thinking about her and how she helped me during my last panic attack brought me back to the memories of how she took the news about Doll being pregnant. Since leaving the game, my life had been so peaceful. Business was going well, and I was happy. Guess the saying is true when things are too good, the bullshit is bound to come. The bullshit was coming toward me at rapid speed. From every direction I was being hit with one curveball after another, and it was starting to take a toll.
The PA finally called Doll to the back. I waited as she got her vitals taken, answered some questions, and peed in a cup. She got undressed, and we waited for the doctor to come in.
“You nervous?” she asked.
My gaze lifted and landed on her face. I was nervous for a lot of reasons but her being pregnant wasn’t one of them. “Nah, I’m good. What about you?”
“Nervous as hell. What if it’s twins? Twins run in my family.”
With a chuckle, I shrugged. “You’ll just be having twins then.”
Doll groaned. “That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to carry them.”
The doctor came into the room before I could respond. With a smile, he introduced himself to me and Doll. He asked her a few more questions then asked her to lay back, so he could do an ultrasound and listen for a heartbeat. When Doll’s pregnancy was confirmed the week before, she was told she was six weeks. Now, she was seven weeks. I didn’t even know they could hear a heartbeat that early. Her stomach was flat as a pancake, and she’d only missed one period. The human body was amazing.
Despite not having a clue what I was looking at, I watched the screen intensely. The black and white image didn’t mean anything to me because I didn’t know what I was looking at anyway. Doll was very early, so I wasn’t expecting to see much. Maybe I was concentrating too hard because I hadn’t even noticed that it had been at least a minute, and the doctor hadn’t said anything.
“Is something wrong?” Doll lifted her head slightly.
I glanced at the doctor, and he didn’t take his eyes off the screen. He continued moving the instrument around on her stomach and didn’t respond right away. He pointed at a round spot on the screen. “This is your embryotic sac. However, it’sempty, and I can’t find a heartbeat. I think you’re experiencing a blighted ovum.”
“What’s that?” the panic in Doll’s eyes was similar to what I’d seen in Toya’s more than once. At that point, I was starting to think it was me. Four failed pregnancies with me being the common denominator?
“It’s when the embryo implants in your uterus, but it fails to grow. That’s why there’s a sac. You were in fact pregnant. The baby just didn’t develop. Sometimes it’s because of a chromosomal defect in the fertilized egg. We don’t always know the reason why for these things, but there is nothing you could have done to cause this. Once your body realizes that you are no longer pregnant, you will more than likely pass the sac on your own. There will be bleeding like a regular miscarriage.”
“How long does that take?”
“It should only take a couple of days. Make an appointment with the receptionist to come back in three days. If your body hasn’t already passed the contents of your uterus, I’ll perform a D&C. I’m sorry. These things can be hard to experience.”
