34

Janet

I stood outside of the cell that Kendrick was seated in. The guard yelled as she opened the cell. "You're free to go!"

Kendrick didn't move and the guard yelled again. "I said—."

"Michelle, can you give me a moment please?" I asked her. She simply nodded and walked away.

I walked into the cell and sat next to my son. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Just don't feel like leaving out this cell just to go to another one." He shrugged me off.

"Another one?"

"You and Beth hate me. Nadia does too. I disappointed everybody because I'm a disappointment. I can't ever do anything right in my life, I mess up everything. I know y'all are going to send me back into the system, and I'll do nothing but end up right back here. So I'm staying."

Kendrick hadn't looked up at me, nor did his voice crack or break. I knew he was deep in this feeling.

"We don't hate you." I began slowly. "Sure, we're disappointed, but it happens Ken. You aren't going to be perfect in this lifetime, so don't ever beat yourself down like you're supposed to be perfect. We aren't going to send you back into the system."

He still refused to look at me.

"Kendrick, what happened?" I asked him since he wouldn't move.

"If Nadia hasn't told y'all—."

"She has." I quickly responded. "We know what happened two nights ago. We know why you got involved, but what the hell happened that night?"

Kendrick shook his head. "My friend got shot. My best friend got shot as he fought Trey. That's what happened. Can I just talk to Momma B?"

"Yeah, she actually is doing the track thingy with her friends today. She wanted you to come and see her in action if you wanted to."

He finally looked up at me. "I guess it'll be good to see anything other than these white walls."

I stood up. "Well, come on. I'm sure Nadia and Beth will be very happy to see you. Plus orange isn't your color."

The teasing that I portrayed, I expected him to have a rebuttal. The Kendrick I knew would have had a rebuttal, but he fell silent as we walked out the cell.

We walked to inventory and the woman looked at me. "Can't give it back."

"His clothes? Why not?" I questioned.

"Evidence for the murder of La'Devean Harris." The woman responded. "You may have gotten him out of this one for now, but with as much blood and evidence on that boys clothing, he'll be back."

My nostrils flared. "First off, don't threaten me, because my son may have been at the scene but didn't commit any crime with holding his friends body as he bled and died. He won't be back."

"Really? Cause you can't represent him. Mommy right?" She leaned forwards with a smirk on her lips.

I chuckled at the naiveness of the woman. "You say that like I stand alone? Keep the clothes, he has plenty more. Let's go Ken."

We walked away and when we got outside Kendrick spoke.

"You can't represent me?" He asked me lowly.

"No." I answered. "I can't. Conflict of interest, but like I told that woman, I don't work alone. Jamie is kick ass just like me. You aren't going to anyone's group home, jail, or detention center. Not with me standing behind you."

Kendrick got in the car as I unlocked it. When I got in he put on his seatbelt and mumbled. "I fucked up."

I looked at him, and instead of saying something about him cussing, I only agreed. "Yeah, you did. You should have called us. I understand you not telling us why you were leaving, but the minute you left his body, you should have called someone."

"I wasn't thinking. The last thing I thought was to use someone's phone. I had left mines cause I wasn't thinking." He looked down at his lap. "I never think."

"What did that mean?" I asked him as I started the car and drove off.

"Nothing." He mumbled back as he stared out the window. I pulled up in front of our house and he didn't move, instead he looked up at me. "You said Nadia told you?"

Nodding, I met eye contact with him. "She did."

"So what are y'all gonna do about him?"

"We're going to do whatever we can, but right now our hands are kind of tied." I explained.

"Y'all gone let him get away with it? It's rape. It's freaking rape. He took her innocence away." Trey began crying. "And I wasn't there to help her. She called me and was crying for me to come get her. I found my sister in the park bushes half naked and bleeding."

"Kendrick, we aren't going to let him go free."

Instead of stopping and listening to me, Kendrick kept going. "She was crying for y'all. She didn't even come back in tune with the world until I sat her in a shower and ran water on her face, but y'all wouldn't have known. You were working on that case and Beth had photo shoots, it had y'all so busy that y'all didn't even notice my bloody jacket in the dirty clothes let alone the bloody towel."

When my son spoke like that to me, it hit me harder than it should have.

"Kendrick shutup!"

"No!" He yelled back as he hit the dashboard harshly. "Everyone needs to take some responsibilities! It's everyone's fault! We could have all stopped this before it even happened! Nobody's exempt from feeling like crap. Especially not me."

Kendrick got out the car and walked into the house. I didn't feel like moving or going into the house so I sat and waited for him to get done.

I called my girlfriend.

She answered on the 4th ring.

"Hey baby, you on your way with Kendrick?"

"Bethany, are we bad parents?" I ignored her initial question.

"No, we are not bad parents—." She stopped for a moment. "Janet what would make you ask something like that?"

"Our daughter was sexually assaulted and didn't even feel comfortable enough to tell us anything. Kendrick felt like he had to handle it himself instead of actually coming to us about it. We've made them feel alone even Kendrick's said that and—."

"Janet Damita!" My girlfriend yelled and it made me stop talking for a second. "Baby, calm down. There is no such thing as a perfect parent. I know you want to think so, and you want to believe it is, but perfect is just something we can never be. Pick your head up, yeah we missed the signs, but we can't go back and change it. The only thing we can do is try to prevent it from happening again and catch the signs this time. So breath baby, it's going to be okay."

Hearing my girlfriends voice alone calmed me down, but to add on with what she was actually saying, it gave me the sanity I needed in this moment.

"I love you." I mumbled softly. "You're always my calm in the mist of the storm."

"I love you too. That's what I'm here for. We'll talk more later, I promise, but I gotta go."

"Okay." I agreed and saw Kendrick walking to the car. "Well, Ken's coming to the car so I'll see you in a few."

"Alrighty. Bye." She hung up the phone as Ken opened the door and got in.

He put his seat belt on and I drove off.

After a while, he spoke. "Momma J, about what I said..."

"It's fine." I immediately cut him off. "If that's how you feel, then you can feel it. You have a right to have feelings."

"Not if they hurt yours." He commented lowly and I realized he felt bad.

"Look, you've had a long night. So have we. I understand completely, if you feel like we messed up then hey, okay, we messed up. And we did mess up. So don't feel bad."

Ken got irritated. "Why can't you just let me apologize?"

I looked from the road to him for a second. "Okay, what's wrong with you? Don't try to sell me no bullshit ass story either. What's circling around in your head Ken?"

"I didn't sleep last night. Or at least I couldn't." Kendrick admitted. "Everyone around me slept, even Zeek slept. Maybe because he wasn't there when it happened. I don't know, I just know that I couldn't close my eyes because every time I did, I saw Dev closing his. I tried shaking him and holding his wounds. Everything, but he just laid there."

My son was going through the motions of depression, and he hadn't even caught on to his own signs yet.

"Do you blame yourself?"

Out the corner of my eye, I saw that he nodded. "It was my fault. I shouldn't have told him what Trey did Momma. I should have just handled it myself."

"Or came to us." I suggested.

Kendrick shook his head. "As a brother, younger or older, when someone does anything to your sister and you can't protect her from it. It hurts, and when I had to sleep in her chair by her window that night because she was scared that Trey would come back— I got angry. Why her?"

"In this world, the worst shit happens to the nicest people."

"Why won't y'all press charges on this dude Momma? Why y'all letting this nigga walk?"

Finally having enough of Ken's language, I shot him and look that he caught. "Look, Nadia won't go to the police. She told us she didn't care what we said or what we did, she wasn't going to talk to them. We have nothing if Nadia doesn't say that she was raped. Of course I want this little boy to suffer, but literally our hands are tied if your sister doesn't want to make a move forward in this."

Kendrick sighed. "She's terrified of that little boy."

"Why? What is so freaking scary about that scrawny little sack of potatoes of a boy?" I questioned because I truly needed to know.

"When you find out, let me know." Ken responded as we pulled up to the track that they were running at.

They had really did the most for this thing.

Even had another set of women from a rival school here.

Just to run some type of relay.

I parked the car and got out as Kendrick followed. We walked towards the bleachers that surrounded one side of the track.

When Kendrick saw Nadia, he immediately ran to her side and I followed and sat behind them.

"Hey Nadi." Kendrick spoke, smiling for the first time.

Nadia didn't return the smile as she kept her head forward focusing on Beth stretching. "Hey."

Ken frowned at her sister. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She responded so quickly, almost as if she saw the question coming.

He looked up at me and I shook my head signaling for him to let it be.

"JJ!" I heard my name being yelled and I looked up to see Beth and some people walking towards me.

"Kids, I'll be back." I walked down the steps and leaned on the railing as she walked up.

"Hey baby, you made it." She smiled as she looked up at me.

"I did." I smiled back at her.

"JJ, these are my old track friends. Trinity and Bianca. Girls, this is my girlfriend Janet." Beth introduced us.

I spoke politely. "Hi, it's nice to meet you all." 

"Nice to finally meet you too. We've heard good things." The Trinity girl spoke.

"Yeah, nice to finally come face to face with the woman who keeps Bethany Taylor smiling. We couldn't even get a crack of a smile back in the day." Bianca informed me.

I nodded. "Well, I'm glad I'm making progress."

"Hey, I used to smile." Bethany frowned at her friends.

"Bitch bye." Trinity shot her down. "When did you ever smile? You over here gushing like a school girl."

Beth shook her head. "No I'm not!"

"Shut-up, you ain't stopped rocking back and forth on your feet since we got over here. You wasn't rocking over there." Bianca teased her and Beth realized she was rocking and stopped.

My girlfriend pointed the finger at them and then looked up at me. "Okay baby, I just wanted you to meet my friends, we have to go line up. Good luck kiss?"

I rolled my eyes playfully and she stood on her tip toes to meet me halfway as we kissed.

When she went to walk away, April came over and my whole mood shifted. "Hey Janet."

"Bye August." I turned around and walked back up the steps.

When I sat down Nadia and Kendrick looked back at me. Nadia shot me a look. "August? Momma really?"

"I don't care. Heffa knows I don't like her. Didn't even make sense to come and speak to me." I muttered back.

Before they could respond, we heard the words. "Get Ready! Get set!" Followed by a gun shot into the air.

People around us began cheering. Some of these people then brought their whole damn families with them. Aunts. Uncles. Cousins. Step Cousins.

August was the first one to run, and she stumbled over air when she tried to take off. She can't even do the simple shit right.

She put them behind and Bianca got them back into first.

Trinity was fast but the other woman running besides her was faster and by time they got the baton to Beth, I just didn't see a win in their future.

Well that was until I realized Beth was a damn firecracker on the track. She took off and passed the woman up a few meters away from the finish line.

"Well, I be damned." I commented as I looked down at my phone. "I'm impressed."

"You? No me." Kendrick added on. "I didn't know Momma B ran that quick."

Nadia didn't say anything about what we were talking about. "Momma J, I love you."

"Oh lord, what do you want?" I questioned playfully.

I saw Nadia tap Kendrick's thigh and when she did I looked up at them to find them looking over at my girlfriend.

She was hugging April, and when she tried to pull away April kissed her.

The kids looked back and saw that I had saw. "Momma, look before you kill this woman—."

I didn't hear the rest because I was already going down the steps. This bitch just wouldn't quit.

When I made it on the track, Bethany saw me. She ran and held me in place. "Nope."

"Move." I wasn't even looking at my girlfriend. My eyes were set on April who stared at me with a smirk on her face.

"Janet, I'll handle it."

"Handle it?" I scoffed. "Oh no, see I gave you a chance to handle this bitch. Now it's on me."

"No it isn't." My girlfriend began walking me backwards. "And don't call her a bitch please, her emotions are everywhere right now and she didn't realize what she was doing."

"I hope you defend me this much when I do something stupid." I told her as I rolled my eyes and shook her hands off of my arms.

Beth's face signaled that I had pissed her off. "Huh?"

"If you can Huh, yo ass can hear."

"I'm not defending her!"

My eyes widened at Beth's ignorance to what was happening. "Okay and I'm not black. Whatever, you wanna kiss your friend go ahead. Just do it while you're single."

I walked away from my girlfriend who followed after me. "We got history! It's not just that easy to drop her out of my life!"

"So why was it so easy when you were younger? You don't even sound logical. I'm not asking you for much! Just draw a line on this! I shouldn't have to beg and plead for you to put your friend in her place. It's simple shit Bethany." I responded in disbelief that this was even a argument.

Before Beth could muster up a response, Nadia and Kendrick came running towards us.

They stopped running when they made it to us. Kendrick pointed to a little boy talking to Bianca. "That dude. Who is he talking to?"

"Uh that's my friend, Bianca. Why what's wrong?" Beth asked as I looked past her and saw that Bianca and the boy didn't seem to happy to be having a conversation.

"Cause momma, that's who shot Dev." Ken told us and everyone looked his way.

"Wait what?"