Page 76 of Girl, We Go Together
“Morning,” he said casually.
I shifted my weight against the door. “Hey.”
Keeping things short and sweet was just how I liked. He nodded toward the playmat behind me.
“Is she ready? I told you I was taking her today.”
“I remember,” I said, “I just finished feeding her. I just have to toss some clothes on her. You never told me where you’re going, though.”
“It’s a baby shower,” he said, looking past me into the apartment, “afamilything.”
Something about the way he said family made me uneasy, but I didn’t want to argue in front of Oriana.
She spotted him and squealed. “Dada!”
The excitement in my baby’s little voice made me smile, although I hated who she was greeting. Orion had lightly brushed past me to meet her halfway.
“Hey, baby girl,” he said, scooping her up with that easy charm that always softened me once upon a time.
He kissed her cheek, and she laughed, patting his face with her tiny hands.
“I gotta toss some clothes on her,” I reminded him.
“Hand her coat here. She can hop in the car like this. I told you I already had clothes for her.”
I sighed before going to the hall closet to grab her coat. After handing it to him and watching him dress her in it, I gave him her diaper bag. As he held it, I just double-checked to make sure that she would have everything she needed.
“I already told you she ate. I packed extra snacks and her blanket.”
“Got it,” he said, heading for the door.
“Bye-bye, Mama,” Oriana babbled, waving her chubby hand.
“Bye, baby. Be good,” I said softly.
I waited for a moment before rushing to the window. I watched as he buckled her into her car seat. Once he had her strapped in, he glanced up before pulling off, but I couldn’t read his face. That was our first smooth transaction around each other, and honestly, I loved how easy it was. I didn’t have to endure him saying anything slick. This was how I preferredthings to go for us. The apartment was too quiet after that. I tried cleaning and sorting out the laundry, anything to fill the silence. Hours passed.
Orion hadn’t sent me a text updating me on things with Oriana. There was no picture or anything. Whenever I had her, I made sure to flood his phone with photos of her, but he couldn’t do the same. My heart skipped a beat when my phone started buzzing in my robe pocket. I sighed when it wasn’t Orion hitting my line to update me about my baby. Instead, it was Zynea.
“Hey, girl,” I answered, balancing a basket of clothes on my hip.
“Hey, nothing,” she said quickly. “Have you been on Instagram today?”
“No… why?”
“Cayla,” she sighed. “Go look at what I sent you… like, right now.”
A chill crept down my arms. I set the basket down, placed Zy on speaker phone, and then opened the link she had sent me. My stomach flipped the second the profile loaded. It was Brandi with her round belly showing under a pink lace dress. Her hand was gently placed on her stomach, and she was smiling like she owned the world. The caption read:
Celebrating Baby Olivia… Thank you to everyone who came out today.
But what froze me wasn’t her. Brandi had been distant for months, and if she didn’t want to invite me to her baby shower, that was her prerogative. Seeing her wide smile with the bump isn’t what made me feel sick to my stomach; it was the following picture. Orion was standing right beside her in a Burberry shirt. OJ was in front of them, wearing a smaller version. Oriana, my baby, was on Brandi’s hip, dressed in a tiny Burberry dress and hair done up with pink bows. And there on Orion’s hip was that new baby I saw him with some months back. I felt the bile inthe back of my throat. It was the matching outfits. The smiles. The family look. How fucking dare this nigga? How fucking dare this bitch. There was no way that I was witnessing this shit. It was posted on Instagram, and everyone else was seeing this shit. Instantly, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“Zynea…” I whispered.
“I know,” she said softly. “Everybody’s reposting it. I don’t even know what to say.”
The phone started to blur in my hands. Every word, every picture… it all felt like a punch to the chest. I didn’t even have my own baby shower because that muthafucka had me all stressed out, and there he was, showing all thirty-two while standing beside Brandi’s trifling ass. And all that talk about afamily baby shower.He didn’t mean some cousin. He meant his own baby. His own fucking baby shower. And the worst part wasn’t just that he lied, it was seeing my daughter in the middle of it all. He didn’t have to take my child to pose for his family moment, especially if he was going to lie about it.
