Page 36 of Down With the King of the South 2

I didn’t respond. I was numb. My body was numb. Even to this day, I still questioned Vonte’s bag. I never even got to see it again. The head coach told me that the janitors had searched that whole school, and it didn’t pop up anywhere. I all but tore down my entire house, trying to see if it was there, but it never showed up.

I had to take a seat because it felt like I was going to pass out. I remember the night at the hospital after Vonte had the asthma attack. I remember Taylor and her cries. It was almost as if she was in competition with me. She cried louder than me, longer than me, and one would have thought that her pain was deeper than mine, and I had birthed Vonte! She knew she was responsible for taking his bag, and she felt guilty, which is why she was crying.

I felt tears rushing down my face as I thought of Vonte’s birthday. I remember inviting her to go with us to the grave, and she came up with a lame ass excuse about not being able to see him that way. That girl couldn’t see him that way because she knew that she was responsible for what happened. Olivia tried to say something else to me, but I shot up from the pew and went over to Manny, letting him know that I was ready to go.

“Take me to this address,” was the first thing that I said when we got back in the car.

This message was from months ago when Vonte was still alive, and I tracked down his location by using his phone number. It was Taylor’s mother’s house. I’m not sure if Manny didn’t question the address because he saw the look on my face and could tell that I meant business or because he knew that with or without him, I was going to take my ass to that address, so he opted to take me instead. The whole time we drove, my leg bounced up and down. It’s like I knew that this trip wasn’t going to end well, but I had yet to tell Manny to turn around.

As he drove, it felt like the damn car was spinning. You have to know that for months I haven’t been at peace, which is one of the reasons why my son’s passing hasn’t gotten any easier on me. Vonte took his inhaler with him like I made sure to always have a bad purse on me to match any outfit that I wore. He knew he needed it, even though his asthma had been improving. There was nothing that would get him so off track that it would cause him to forget his inhaler at home. Nothing!

Almost ten minutes later, we finally pulled up to the house. I barely waited for the car to come to a stop before I opened the back door and hopped out.

“Ms. Johnson, can you hold up a second? Mr. King will kill me if something happens to you,” Manny said, coming up behind me, but it was too late.

I was already banging on the front door. I knew that someone was home because the same car that Taylor had driven to my house was parked in the driveway. I banged like whoever was on the other side of the door owed me some money. In a few seconds, the front door swung open, and a woman who looked very similar to Taylor stood on the other side. She looked pissed that I was banging on her door like this, but I couldn’t care less. I wasn’t sure if I’d just woken her up or anything, but her eyes were red, and a confused look was on her face as if she didn’t even know what time of the day it was.

“Are you fuckin’ crazy banging on my door like this?” she asked.

When she saw that it was me standing on the other side of the door, she eased her aggression down a little bit. She tied her robe tighter around her body and released a sigh.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, her voice and her face calming down some when she saw that it was me standing on the other side of the door.

I’m not really sure how she knew that it was me because we’d never met in person, but all I could think is that maybe she came to the funeral or knew me because the majority of people knew that I was Vonte’s mom.

“I want to take a look in Taylor’s room,” I said.

You would have thought that I was a police officer, and I had a warrant to search the house the way I was casually asking to see her daughter’s room.

“For what? You do know that my baby is dead—”

“And so the fuck is mine! I could give two fucks about your baby. I only care about mine! I’m looking for something that I’m quite sure is hidden in her room, so either you let me in, or I let myself in,” I said.

She tried to close the door, but I kicked it open with my foot and walked into the room. I had no idea which room belonged to Taylor because I had never been there before, but I went looking. The whole time, Manny was trying to get to me stop while Taylor’s mom threatened to call the police. I jogged up the stairs, and finally, I walked into a room that I knew belonged to Taylor because her pictures were on the wall. Her bed was perfectly made, and her room was spotless. That is until I flipped that room upside down, trying to find that damn bag.

“What are you accusing my daughter of? I just called the police. They will be here any second now,” my mom came into the room and said.

“It’s no secret that my son died because of an asthma attack. It’s also no secret that his bag with his inhalers went missing that day. Bitch, your daughter took that bag, and I’m going to find it,” I yelled at her as I went over to the closet and moved everything out of the way until I found what I was looking for.

It wasn’t in there. My last resort was to look under her bed. After this was all said and done, if I were to get locked up, I’m not really sure if I would regret barging into her home and doing this. Right now, I was moving off adrenaline, so I couldn’t stop myself from doing this even if I wanted to. I was doing this for me and my sanity. I was giving myself the answers to a question that I’ve been asking myself since the day of the championship game when I ran down the bleachers onto the court, asking anyone in close proximity if they knew where Vonte’s bag was.

“You’re crazy! My daughter would never do such a thing. She loved Vonte—”

“Bitch, fuck you! She loved the idea of what my son was going to be able to give her when he made it pro. Stupid bitch lied to me and my son, saying that she was pregnant with his child. I can’t put shit past that girl. Anybody who will go through those types of spiteful lengths is hateful and will do any fuckin’ thing, like depriving my son of his inhaler, knowing that his life depended on it,” I yelled at her.

At the same time, I pulled a trunk from under Taylor’s bed. It wasn’t that heavy, but I needed a key to open it. With all the strength that I could muster up, I picked it up and launched the plastic trunk onto the laminated floor. All the contents went spilling out along with the fuckin’ bag. My baby’s bag! With tears in my eyes, I unzipped the bag, and both of his inhalers flew to the ground along with a practice jersey, his wallet, and some cologne.

At the same time, the officers rushed to the back. The bag still had his smell on it, so as I sat to the ground, as if I was possessed, I cried, rocking my body back and forth in the process. He could have still been here. For these moments, it seemed as if the world had stopped, and my hearing had left. Out of blurr

y eyes, I could see her pointing to me and showing me to the officers, but I couldn’t really make out what she was saying to them.

Two officers came over to me, but they didn’t manhandle me. I was stood up from the floor, and it didn’t take long for cuffs to be slapped on my wrist. I finally had the answers to this puzzle, but this shit still didn’t make it any better. If anything, it made the situation even worse for me.

Toddrick “Miami” King

“When the fuck they letting her out, man?” I barked as I walked over to an officer who was sitting at the front desk. I’d been at the jail for almost three hours, waiting for them to release Shae. Out of all the people I would expect to bond out of jail, never in a million years did I think that it would be Jashae. Swear when she called me collect, telling me to come and pick her up, it took me at least five minutes to take her seriously. I didn’t believe her until her ass started crying on the phone.

She called me right when I was in the middle of a meeting. A bunch of locals in Miami and I had something big that we were trying to do for our city, which was the only reason Manny had been driving Shae around for me all day. When I finally accepted the fact that she wasn’t bullshitting me and that she was really in jail, I assumed that out of all the shit she could have done, she probably had gotten into a fight, but nahhh, badass wanted to barge in people’s shit and fuck around with their belongings.

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