“Madi, we weren’t together, but I can’t do this with her!”
“Do what?” I yell again, my hands going in the air like a crazy person.
“I can’t do commitment! I’ve never been able to!”
“Why?”
“Shit!” He pulls at his hair again, his muscles tensing with the action. “I can’t do this with you right now.”
“Well…,” I murmur. “You have until I wake up in the morning to tell Tillie, or I will, and I’m not playing around. Nate, I may care about you like I do a brother, but blood or no blood, I would still act the same. Tillie is my best fucking friend, and she likes you—only God knows why—so fix this shit.”
Then I turn toward my door and storm back into my room, a little on edge and a lot annoyed. Flopping down onto my bed, I stretch wide and count the squares on my ceiling. I can’t fucking believe it. We’ve been home for approximately three hours, and he has managed to sink himself into someone else. What the hell is his problem? Are all men like this? Should I be checking on Bishop?
With that thought, my stomach churns with unspoken emotions. Nope, not going there. Bending over my bed, I pull out the leather book and sit back against my headboard, flipping open the page and looking over the double infinity sign again.
“Who are you, Katsia?” I whisper. I need last names or something. Who is this person and her mysterious husband? With so many questions hanging in my balance, I flick to the next page and start reading.
6.
Plot holes
Pregnancy went very slowly. Almost like a train that was about to crash, but in slow motion and you were the only passenger on board—with your pregnant belly. You knew it was coming, but you just hoped it was a different outcome. My husband always said how excited he was about us having another son. He said it was another soldier for his plan and that his right-hand man, Mathew, was also expecting a child. Around the same time as me too, they said. I was feeling very unnerved, not because I was pregnant at a later age, but because he was adamant it was a boy. Like he already knew I was bearing his son, the next boy in line.
What made him so sure I was carrying a boy? And why did that scare me? Why did I feel like there was always something missing when it came to what I knew, like something was always being held back from me? Stepping into the little nursery I had designed, I folded the little rug and placed it into the wicker drawer.
“Ma’am, I don’t mean to interrupt, but the meeting is about to begin and I need to escort you to the Landing.”
Nodding, I straightened my dress out, my hand running over my swollen belly. “I’m ready.” I was not ready, and I had no idea what was in store for me, but I knew I had four months before I gave birth to my baby. I had to find out as much as I could before those four months were up, because I knew, deep down, that just like the calm before the storm, something was going to blow up, and I was adamant that I, or my child, would be in the vicinity when it happened.
I jolt from my sleep, attempting to keep my eyes peeled open but failing miserably. Closing the book, I push it under my bed and shut my eyes, promising myself that I will continue it tomorrow. Though the book is thick, I’m so engrossed in the story that I know it won’t take me too long to finish.
“Madi come on! We’re going to be late!” Nate yells from his Porsche.
“Well, you can wait!” I hiss to myself under my breath, reaching for an apple in the fridge and flicking my long hair over my shoulder. I’ve been wearing a lot of scandalous clothes lately—probably Tatum’s influence—so I decide on ripped boyfriend jeans, a tight white tank top that shows just a smidge of my flat, toned belly and a lot of my boobs—not hard considering the size—and my Chucks. Leaving my hair in natural loose curls that flow down to my tailbone, I pinch my cheeks, trying to get a pink blush to spread across my skin, my leather bangles rubbing across my jaw in the movement, and then walk out the front door, closing it behind myself.
“Calm down!” I scold him, clutching my books in my hand.
He tips his aviators down his nose and checks me out from the driver seat just as I pull open the passenger door. “Well, damn, sis. Do you ever look bad?”
“Yes,” I reply curtly. “Usually after I kill cheating men.”
Nate rolls his eyes and pushes his glasses back up his nose, putting it into first gear and skidding out of the driveway. “Stop being dramatic. She didn’t even care.”
“I call bullshit. She would care.”
“And how do you know this? Maybe she’s just different.”
I grin, a thought popping up in my head. “Well”—I shrug, checking my nails with a slight smirk on my lips—“I mean, if she didn’t care, maybe it’s because she has this super sexy—and when I say sexy, I mean fucking gushing sexy, Nate. Like, one look and I was ready to tear my own panties off and shove them in my mouth just to have his hot body under—”
He slams on the brakes, my head jolting forward.
“Nate!” I scream at his impulsiveness.
“Yo! You hear that, dawg?” Nate hollers into his phone. His phone that is connected to his stereo. His phone that has the Bluetooth light flashing. His phone that—
“Yeah, I fucking heard that,” Bishop growls. So low it sends chills down my spine. Double shit. Fucking me and my unquestionable loyalty to my friends, always getting me into trouble one way or another.
“So who is this friend?” Nate asks, eyebrow quirked.
I laugh. “I’m not telling you shit.”
“Madi!” Bishop snaps. “Who is he?”
“I don’t know! We met him a few days ago when we went to pick her up from school.” Nate pulls back onto the road and continues to drive us toward school. “Anyway, Tatum and a little bit of me were saying how hot he was, and Tillie said how they sleep together. But they’ve been doing it since they were young and it’s just something comfortable between them. Zero awkwardness.” I look toward Nate. “You can’t get mad, Nate the Snake.”
“Did you just call me Nate the Snake?” He narrows his eyes at me.
I shrug. “Well, you know, since you boys like riddles so much.”
“Your mouth… it’s going to land your ass in hot water one day,” Nate replies, pulling into the school parking lot.
Walking into my first class, I instantly know something is wrong. The classroom falls silent as I open the door.
“Madison, you’re late again. Why am I not surprised?” Mr. Barron says, not lifting his eyes off his chalkboard.
“Sorry, sir.”
“Take a seat, Madison,” he replies blandly.
I shuffle to the back of the room, ignoring the hissing whispers that start bouncing off the walls. It’s almost like my first day all over again. I drop my books down onto an empty desk and slide into my seat. I don’t even have Tatum in this class to ask what all the stares are about.
Sinking into my chair, Felicia—I think her name is Felicia—who has black hair, black clothes, and black smudged eyeliner under her lashes, leans toward me, her eyes staying on the teacher, careful not to gain his attention. “Psst.”
I lean toward her slightly, just as my phone vibrates in my pocket. “What?”
“So is it true? You’re like, sleeping with all of them?”
I snap my eyes to her, my heart pitter-pattering in my chest. “What do you mean?”
She reaches into her pocket and then pushes a couple of buttons before turning the phone to face me, hitting Play on a video. The first part shows me and Nate and our embarrassing kiss in our living room, and then skips amateurishly to me and Bishop kissing and hugging at the campsite, before jumping to me and Brantley. And then it goes to Bishop and me having sex in the tent, showing my silhouette dropping my clothes, and the video doesn’t stop. You can hear me murmuring and whispering out my pleasures for everyone to see and hear, my body rocking over his through the shadow. At the end of the tape, a little black box comes up with pink writing:
“You’re next, bitch. Your days ar
e numbered—just like mine were!”
“Oh my God!” I whisper, tears threatening to surface. Shoving my chair back, I catch Ally smirking from the front of the classroom.
“Madison!” Mr. Barron scowls at me. “Sit down, or I will have to refer you to the principal’s office.” Everyone looks at me, their laughs circling around me, echoing in a swirl, pounding through me.
“I… I’m—”
“A whore?” Ally sneers.
The whole classroom erupts into laughter, and I quickly gather my books, my hair falling over my face as I dash out the door and down the corridor.
“Hey!” Tatum comes crashing into me, her phone plastered to her ear and her eyes watering, looking around frantically. “Oh, thank God!”
“Tate?” I break, my tears pouring over my cheeks.
“Come on, let’s get you home.”
I let her pull me under her arm as she takes me to the elevator. Slamming on the button vigorously until I’m sure she’s about to break it, the doors ding open and she pulls me in forcefully. Once the doors close, she swipes the tears off my face and kisses my lips. “It’s okay, Madi. It’s going to be okay,” she tries to reassure me, looking me in the eyes. “Goddammit, I’m going to kill that bitch!”
“Who?” I ask, swiping the tears off my face, as the door dings open again onto the underground parking.
“It was Ally, Madison. It may not have been her who recorded it, but she uploaded it onto her account on YouTube. She wanted people to think she did it.”
“Why?” I yell, following her to her car. “Why would she do this to me? Why?”
“Bishop, babe, it’s all for Bishop.”
“But the note at the end? About my days being numbered…?”
“Who knows?” Tatum unlocks her car, and I slip into the passenger seat as she slides into the driver seat. “But it was her, Madi.”
“I’m so embarrassed, Tate. I’ve never felt so humiliated in my life.”
“I know, babe. I know. Well, I don’t—but I can imagine.”
“Not helping.”
“Okay, totally not helping. I’ll take us back to my house if you’re not ready to face the Kings.”
I nod, swiping the tears again. “Sounds good, thank you, but can we quickly stop there and pick something up? I feel like I could do with the distraction.”
“No questions asked.” She pats my leg, driving out from the garage. “We will figure it out, okay?”
I nod again, trying to work out how exactly she thinks we’re going to figure it out. “Yeah, sure.”
Walking into Tatum’s high-class, modern home, I shut the door behind us, carrying a box of Krispy Kreme donuts and enough Carl’s Jr. to feed half a state.
“Feel a bit better?” she asks, smiling at me and flinging the keys onto a table.
“A little, but I haven’t had food yet. Ask me again after I’ve had enough carbs to impregnate me.”
Tatum giggles. “Come on. We can go into the theater room and stuff our faces in there, with a bottle of tequila and some trashy romance movies.”
I follow her down the dark hallway, through her sitting room, and then through another door that leads down to the theater. “Your parents aren’t home?”
“Huh?” she asks, opening the door. “Oh, no, they left last night. I’m sure they’ll be home either tomorrow or on the weekend.” We walk into the room, Tatum hitting the lights until a dim hue settles over the triple row of large sofas. Each sofa is enough to sit two adults comfortably, and there are around ten of them in the theater. There’s a tiny bar tucked away in the corner with a popcorn machine and candy display, and then beside that is a large—no, scratch that—massive projector screen. Tatum walks to the bar, and I drop our food on a sofa, my bag onto the ground.
“Okay! Now I’m not good at cocktails, but we can just drink it straight. The end result is just the same.”
“Thanks for this, Tate. You’re a great friend.”
She pauses, handing me a glass and twisting the lid off, pouring some clear liquid into it. “You would do the same, Madison. It’s nothing.”
And I would. God knows I’d move heaven and hell for her if I had to. We sit down and my phone vibrates again. Peeling my burger cover off, I look down at the screen to see Bishop’s name flash across the phone. Exhaling, I take a large bite out of my burger, to the point where Tatum is looking at me with raised eyebrows.
“Hungry, or stressed?”
I shake my head. “He stresses me out,” I murmur around my burger.
“It’s not his fault, Madi.”
“No, I know it’s not, but I can’t talk to any of them right now.”
She nods, popping a chip into her mouth. “Totally understandable.” Shuffling back to the ginormous sofa, I kick my shoes off and finish the rest of my burger in silence.
“I found this book,” I say, starting on a donut.
“Oh? Kinky kind?”
I roll my eyes. “No, though I wish, because this one is kind of making me a little depressed.” I lean forward to grab it, when my phone lights up again, this time showing a text message.
Bishop – I’m sorry.
Ignoring him, I reach for the book and flash it at her. “See!” Then I flip it open. “It’s title-less, and Miss Winter wasn’t actually supposed to allow people to check it out of the library, because it’s some link in history. But after my third visit to the library, she must have felt sorry for me and let me take it.”
“Miss Winter is weird as fuck. I don’t understand that woman.”
“She’s not weird.”
“Give me a look.” Tatum waves for me to pass the book over.
“Tatum, wipe your hands!”
“Are you serious?” She pauses and then rolls her eyes, wiping her hands with a napkin. “Next thing I know you’ll be calling it your precious.”
I smile at her wit and then hand her the book. “So it’s about this woman, right? I’m only up to chapter 7—at least I think they’re chapters. It’s a very different book… but it’s intriguing. I’m still not sure what it’s about. I went into it blind, because it has no title, no blurb, none of that.”
Tatum takes a swig of her drink. “There’s no sex?”
“No.”
She hands it back. “Sounds boring.”
I snatch it back from her. “It is not boring. It’s fascinating.”
“So what is it? Like a memoir or something?”
I shake my head. “Apparently, it’s her suicide note.”
“In the form of a book?” Tatum squeals, taking a chocolate cream donut out of the bag. “How poetic.”
I flip the page open to where I was up to before falling asleep last night, and start reading out loud.
8.
Why?
“No, no, no, no, no…” I shook my head from left to right as another contraction rippled through my insides. “I don’t… I’m not ready. It’s too early.”
“It’s not too early, ma’am. You’re only two weeks early. That’s enough time for the baby to survive on its own.”
Leaning my head back on the cold, hard ground, I looked up to the stars. “It’s not time—”
“Enough, Katsia. It’s time. Do as you’re told and do it with class.”
I looked toward my husband. “Don’t you dare use that tone with me!”
“Woman! You are to do as you’re told, or so help me God, I will slap some sense into you!” he roared, launching at me. I didn’t flinch. My insides were tearing open, my stomach rippling with such pain it could put the fear of death into any man. I was ready for war. I didn’t know it at the time, but there was a reason why so many people were surrounding me. My husband’s right-hand man sat in the corner with his wife, who was cradling their newborn son, as well as the rest of the soldiers—as he called them—surrounded him.
“Ma’am, you’re ready to push.”
“Why here?” I whispered out to no one in particular. “Why here?” I scream, just as
a contraction hits. I pushed roughly, until my stomach rolled over in pain and my pelvic bone felt like it was shattering under the heavy pressure that was being lumped on it.
“One more push, ma’am. That’s it. I can see its little head.”
Breathing in jaggedly, I gave one last scream and push. With a pop, a bright, burning ring of fire around my crotch, and a wet river flowing between my thighs, I pushed until all the pressure I was feeling was no more. A soft cry sounded out and my maid smiled, wrapping the baby in a throw. “Ma’am, you have yourself a daughter.”
“What?” I smiled, love filling my being. I would have loved my child regardless, but knowing it was a daughter filled me with a different kind of love. The same amount, just different feelings.
The room cut silent. “Repeat what you just said,” Humphrey demanded, moving up the stone step. “Did you just say daughter?” he questioned her, his head tilted. I saw the look pass in his eyes, and I knew instantly right then and there that something was wrong. So very wrong. Husband was livid, absolutely spewing. A girl? A girl had no place for him in his world.
The maid nodded, fear flashing over her face. She looked toward me frantically. “Yes—yes, um….”
He snatched the baby from her hands, and I rose from the stone bed. “Humphrey! Give me my baby right now.”
He took her down, one step at a time. “No. No girls.”
“What do you mean?” I screamed at him, blood dripping down my thighs and my body swaying from side to side.
“Girls that are born from the first nine,” he seethed, turning to face me, “are to be taken care of. Sit down, wife, and do as you’re told.”
“No!” I screamed, stumbling down the step. “Humphrey!” Everything blurred and spun, the cold walls going in circles in my brain.
“Ma’am,” my maid said, her face coming into view in threes. “Ma’am, sit down so I can tidy you up.” Her voice echoed and repeated. My eyes closed and my head tilted back as everything under me fell. I dropped onto my back, smacking the back of my head. Tilting my head up at the dark sky, I watched as the full moon blared down at me.