Can't Be That Other Woman (15 page)

Chapter 18

Delaney

              We’ve been in Miami for five long days and I must admit that Onijae was indeed showing me a great time, well somewhat of a good time. Aside from his sex addiction, he’s been the perfect gentleman. Anything I wanted, he made sure that I got it. I didn’t eat anything but the best, and when we weren’t eating or shopping, we were partying. I wasn’t even eighteen, and I was getting into clubs as if it was nothing. I guess for the right price; I could do anything I wanted to do.

              I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t missing my friend, because I was. When I first called her and told her that I was in Miami, she cursed me out from dusk to dawn. Talking about I knew how much she wanted to go there. Yes, I did, but she was all booed up, and I didn’t want to interrupt her. She was fine and so was I, well that was until Onijae started leaving me in the room for hours on end by myself. At first, I was cool with it, but by day number three, I became bored and decided to call in my best friend. I damn near had to beg her brother to pay her way, but after I threatened not to give him any, he happily obliged. Now here we were, on our way to pick her up from the airport.

              Once we made it to the airport, we parked in front so that she could see us easily.

              “I sure hope she hurries her ass up,” Onijae said, taking the steering wheel.

              “You’re going to get off my friend, before we have a problem,” I said, rolling my eyes at him.

              “No, you’re going to stop playing with me, Lay Lay. The only reason I did this was because you backed me into a corner.”

              “Threatening to stop fucking you was not backing you into a corner,” I told his dramatic ass.

“It is when you got good pussy like the one that’s sitting between your legs. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you wouldn’t have given me none. I think I would’ve started going through withdrawal and shit,” he said, almost making me choke on my cold drink after he said that shit.

              “Boy, if you don’t go sit your little stupid ass down somewhere,” I said, laughing.

              “I’m already sitting down,” he said smartly. “Come on, there her confused ass go right there.”

              I turned to see Tracy walking out of the airport. She didn’t notice that we were there. That’s probably because we didn’t tell her what we were riding in. Without waiting another second, we got out of the car and walked over to her.

              “Bessssssst!” I yelled, running over to her. She turned in the direction she heard my voice coming from and practically knocked people over trying to get to me. “I missed you so much.”

              “I missed you too. I’m so happy to be down here!” she yelled, pulling me into a big hug.

            “I can’t believe that we’re in Miami. Bitch, you know I’m Snapchatting, Facebooking and Instagramming all of this, right?”

              “I wish y’all would come on, with y’all dramatic asses. I’m not trying to be standing out here all day fooling around with y’all,” Onijae said, fucking up our moment.

              “You ain’t nothing but a hater,” Tracy told him. “Here, help me with my bags.”

              “I ain’t helping you with shit, you ain’t handicap,” he said, scrunching up his face. All I had to do was give him one look, before he walked over and grabbed her bags.

              “Damn, let me find out Delaney been beating on you and shit. Got you doing shit with one look and shit,” Tracy joked.

              “You can think that if you want, you already know how I gets down,” he said, before he picked up her bags and walked over to the car.

              “I hope you ready to cut up, because tonight we’re going clubbing,” I said, as we followed Onijae to the car. I couldn’t wait until tonight comes. We were going to cut up, and I hoped we could behave without anything bad going on.
                                                                                    * * *

       “Come on, Tracy, I know Onijae’s waiting on us,” I called out to my slow ass friend. I had been waiting on her for fifteen minutes and I was beginning to get impatient. I was beyond ready to go out and have some much-needed fun. We’d been shopping and having fun all day long. Of course, we put a dent into her brother’s pocket, but he didn’t seem to mind. As long as we were having fun and enjoying ourselves, he was happy.

              “Girl, I’m not worried about him, but I’m ready,” she said, walking out of the bathroom.

              “Damn, it’s about time,” I said, getting up.

              “You like?” she asked, turning around so that I could get a full view of her body.

              “You know I do. You look cute, but you know your brother will probably trip,” I told her, as we grabbed our clutches and headed out the door.

              “Again, I’m not worried about him. You’re the one who needs to be worried about him, not me.”

              “Really?” I asked, becoming a little scared. I was wearing a three-quarter sleeve, black lace romper. I didn’t find anything wrong with it, except the fact that it was the kind with shorts, and mine kept hiking up my thighs every once and a while.

              “You look cute though. Hopefully we can keep my brother from spazzing on the niggas that are going to be checking you out.”

              “Nothing like that will happen. We’re going to have a good time, not to cause trouble.”

              “Yeah, you can think that if you want. Let my brother see too many people checking you out, and we’re most definitely going to have problems.”

              “Girl whatever,” I said, shaking my head as we made our way to my room. We were almost an hour late, but I didn’t think he would go off on us.

              Using the key that I had, I opened the door. When we walked in the room, Onijae was sitting on the bed with his head in his hands. I immediately got the sinking feeling that something was most definitely wrong, so I walked over to him.

              “What’s wrong, babe?” I asked, rubbing his back. He didn’t say a thing, but simply looked up at me with sad eyes, then placed his head back down.

              “Nijae, what’s wrong?” Tracy asked him this time. He looked up at her, before looking back at me. It was then I noticed that he was holding my phone.

              “Onijae, what’s going on, and why do you have my phone?” I asked him. I didn’t know what to expect, hell, I had no idea what he was even doing with my phone. He didn’t say anything, but he did hand me the phone.

              “Your sister said for you to call her immediately,” he said in a small voice. I grabbed my phone out of his hand and called my sister up. Placing the phone to my ear, I looked up to find Onijae staring at me. I was beginning to get worried, especially when Daija’s phone rolled over to the voicemail, so I hung the phone up and dial her number again.

              “Hello,” she answered, her voice sounding cracked up.

              “Daija, what’s going on? Is something wrong?” I asked her. For a minute, she stayed on the phone in silence. I knew she was still there, because the call timer was still rolling and I could still hear her breathing. “Hello.”

              “Delaney, the house caught on fire,” she said, after a few minutes.

              “What did you just say?” I asked, not believing her.

“I said that the house caught on fire, we lost everything!” After she repeated it, I had to take a seat, because I could feel myself getting a little lightheaded.
              “What? How did that happen and where y’all at now?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. One minute we were laying down sleeping and the next minute, we were being pulled out of the house by firefighters. We’re at Parkland Hospital right now getting checked out.” Nothing she was saying to me really was making any sense to me.

“Daija, where were Mom and Dad? Were they in the house when the fire started?” I asked her.

“Yes they were—”

“Well, let me talk to them. I don’t understand how there was a fire and no one knows anything about it,” I told her. I didn’t understand what the hell was happening. “Just let me talk to Mom, Daija.”

“I can’t,” she said, a little above a whisper.

“What you mean you can’t? Where the hell she at?” I screamed. I felt the bed move, before Onijae appeared in front of me.

“Because Mom and Dad never came out of the house after the fire!” she yelled, breaking down. “They’re dead, Delaney, our parents are gone! The firefighters tried to get to them, but they couldn’t. By the time they finished getting us out of there, the house was engulfed in flames!”

              “Oh my God, nooooo!” I yelled, screaming at the top of my lungs. The phone fell from my hands, as I broke down crying.

              “Delaney, baby, it’s going to be all right,” Onijae said, coming to my aid.

              “They’re gone, Onijae, I can’t believe they’re gone!” I kept repeating. We sat on the floor, as I cried my eyes out for the next hour or so. My parents had their flaws, but they were still my parents. I needed them, just as well as my siblings did. Without them, I wouldn’t be here and now they’re gone. I didn’t know how I was going to get through this, but I knew I had to be strong for my siblings.

* * *

      When we arrived back in Dallas four hours later, I headed straight to the hospital to check on my brothers and Daija. It was almost three o’clock in the morning and I was nowhere tired. I was happy Dallas was with Onijae’s mom, so at least I didn’t have to worry about her right now. All I had to focus on were Dedrick, Derrick, and Daija.  I just hoped I didn’t have to go through too much, because only the Lord knows I can’t take it.

              When we pulled up to the hotel, Onijae let Tracy and me out in front, while he went to find a parking spot. I didn’t waste any time as I walked inside and headed straight to the nurse’s station.

              “Excuse me,” I said to the nurse sitting behind the desk. She was talking on the phone, while chewing a piece of gum. “I’m here for my brothers and sister.”

              “Hold on,” she said to the person on the phone. “What are their names?”

              I told her their names as I waited for her to look them up.

              “Okay, they’re on the second floor. If you go down that hall, you’re going to see a set of elevators. They’ll take you right where you need to go,” she told me.

              “Okay, thank you,” I said, walking off.

              “You go, I’m going to stay here and wait for my brother and then we’ll come up.”

              “Okay,” I said, as I walked off in the direction the woman gave me, found the elevator and rode it to the second floor. When I got off, I headed straight to the nurse’s station there. After getting the room numbers, I headed to go and check on them.

I decided to go and check on the boys first, since they were in the same room. When I walked into the room, the nurse was checking Dedrick, while Derrick was watching TV.  I stood off in the corner and waited until she was finished, because I wanted to ask her a few questions about them.

“Hello, I’m Delaney. I’m their sister,” I said, walking over to her.

“Hi, I’m Nurse Rayanne. I’ve been working on them since they got here.”

“And what is wrong with them?”

“They’re fine actually. They were just treated for possible smoke inhalation. They’re being discharged in a minute,” she said, which made me happy.

“Okay, well I’ll be right back. I’m going to check on my little sister down the hall.” I told her. I left her checking Derrick, as I went to check on Daija. When I entered her room, the doctors were in there.

“Umm, hello, I’m Delaney, her sister,” I told them.

“Okay. I’m Doctor Gavin and this is Doctor Spencer. We treated her when she came in here.”

“Okay, and what’s going on with her?” I asked them.

“Well, she’s fine. We just want to keep for a few more hours. We need to run some tests and monitor her.”

“Tests, monitor her for what?” I asked them. They both looked at each other, before they looked at Daija. “Do you want is to tell her or do you want us to tell her?”

“It’s fine, I don’t care,” she said, waving them along.

“Tell me what? What could possibly be going on now, Daija?” I asked her.

“Well, Ms. McGuff here is pregnant and we need to monitor her and the baby to make sure that they’re safe.”

“Excuse me, you said what now?” I asked, because obviously I had heard them wrong.

“I’m pregnant, Delaney, damn,” she said, putting her head down.

“And when were you going to tell me this?” I asked, walking over to the bed.

“I wanted to tell you the day you came home from Tracy’s house, but I didn’t know how to. I couldn’t handle the possibility of the things you were going to say to me. It was bad enough that I was an outcast, and doing everything in my power to get attention. I didn’t expect to get pregnant, Delaney. I swear I never meant for this to happen!” She began crying. I wanted to scream and go off on her, but I couldn’t. She needed me right now and I was going to be there for her.