Damaged (15 page)

I crossed my arms over my chest.

“You ain’t have to pay for no food, no weed, no cigarettes, no nothing,” he said, counting on his fingers. I turned to face
him, surprised he knew all my business. “KiKi treating you real good, ain’t she?”

He smiled and then ran his tongue across his lips. I rolled my eyes and turned my head. Shakira passed me a cigarette right
on time, cuz I saw I was gonna need it talking to this jerk. Nut offered to light it. I leaned down for the flame, even though
I ain’t wanna be so close to him. When I came back up, I blew smoke in his face. What the hell was he doing over here with
Shakira?

Nut bit his bottom lip. He was trying to hold his tongue, cuz I guess he ain’t like what I just did. But he just laughed.

“You can always come home. Ain’t nobody say you can’t. It’s just me and Peaches now. But she miss you.”

I shook my head. The nerve of this dude.

“I miss you,” he said, grinning. He put his hand on my knee and squeezed.

I knocked it off and rolled my eyes again.

“But… I know you still don’t feel right about that, and I can’t say I blame you. Chu was my man, one hundred fifty grand.”

I cocked my head sideways, listening to the bullshit coming from his mouth.

“Me and Chu been tight since when? Like he was thirteen or something. Him and Rob running the streets and shit, playing football
in the parking lot. Shit, I used to teach that little nigga how to play. I was like his coach,” he said, laughing. “Yeah,
I’ma miss that dude.”

I couldn’t stop shaking my head. I hated hearing him talk about Chu, knowing he was still trying to see if he could fuck me.

“But shit,” Nut said taking a deep breath, “I almost died that day, too, remember? I’m trying to live my life something big
now, you feel me?”

I took a long pull from the cigarette and then stood up to walk across the room. I walked from one side of the living room
to the other.

“Who did it?” I asked, feeling a tear ready to fall. “Who was shooting at y’all?”

Nut shook his head. “Man, who knows. Everybody wants Smurf’s spot. All that gwop that nigga got? Shit, niggas stay plotting
on his ass.”

I rubbed the back of my neck and walked to the other side of the room. Shakira sat at the kitchen table watching us. She was
still chain-smoking, too. I stood in front of the window and looked outside. The same silver Excursion I saw Shakira jump
into that night was parked right in front of the building. Wynika was leaned up against it, talking to Trina Boo. They was
laughing about something.

And that’s when everything hit me. “Is that your truck, Nut?” I asked, shocked.

He laughed and I turned back to look out the window.

“That’s my work truck,” he said, like something was funny.

“Your what?” I asked, since I never seen him in it when I lived over on Montana Avenue. I always seen him driving the light
blue Caddy.

“I gotta little hobby and shit. Nothing big. Just a little something something.”

“Huh?”

Shakira walked across the room and gave me another cigarette.

“You looking real good, Camille. Did I tell you that yet?”

I jerked my head back. This nigga was really trying his hand today. “What you want me to do, Nut? Fuck you?”

He smiled and licked his lips again. “In due time, Ms. Lady, in due time. Especially if you want a place to stay.”

I sucked my teeth and shook my head at Shakira and then I looked Nut up and down. “You sick muthafucka! How can you keep doing
this to Peaches?”

“Youngin, how you think me and Peaches met? She my bottom bitch now.”

My eyes almost popped out of my head.
Bottom bitch?
But then I started thinking about all the women Peaches was chasing off and how they kept coming back. I thought about the
girls we fought at H20 last year at Howard’s homecoming, and then the girl who pulled the gun out on Peaches in Southeast,
with no fear in her eyes.

“She likes to forget every now and then, that I’m about my business, but that bitch gonna catch on real soon.” He pulled a
set of keys out of his pocket and held it in his hand. “You want these? They for the apartment across the hall…”

I sucked my teeth and crossed my arms. I knew Nut ain’t really hustle, not like Chu and Rob did. I never really thought about
where he was getting his money from. He was always in and out. I thought he was too busy chasing pussy to be doing anything
else.

“If you can keep a secret.”

I rolled my eyes and walked to the other side of the room. “You can just get that shit the fuck outta my face.”
Who the fuck he think I am?

“Listen, bitch,” he said, standing up and walking toward me with his cane. “Who the fuck you think killed that nasty muthafucka
over there on Rhode Island Avenue? Your fairy godmother?”

His words jumped over me like a thunderstorm.

“Yeah, I know what that nigga was doing to you. Shit, Chu shot him, but I’m the one who made sure that bitch-ass nigga was
dead. I shot him in his muthafuckin’ head,” he whispered in my ear. “You gotta love a nigga for doing some shit like that.”

He smiled and stared me up and down.

All of it was news to me and too much to handle. I took a few steps back and finished the cigarette before dropping it in
a half-empty soda bottle.

“I ain’t telling you to do nothing you ain’t never did before anyway. Chu was my man, and God rest his soul. I felt his pain
about that shit. He was real fucked up behind that sick dude.”

I started shaking, and then I rubbed my forehead. Everything was just too much.

“Shit, I feel yours now,” Nut said. “I know you hurting and shit. Chu gone. That nigga ain’t coming back, either. Who else
you got? What you goin’ do without him?”

I rubbed my arms and walked around the living room. I stopped in front of the picture of the African lady with the basket
on her head.
What the fuck?

“You gotta take care of
you
now,” Nut said, standing behind me.

“Here,” Shakira said, passing me a wine cooler. I took a long-ass sip, and then my face felt numb for some reason, but I couldn’t
shake it. I walked around the room. My neck started feeling warm and my head was spinning. It was just too much. “So you knew
all this, the whole time, Shakira, that I lived with Nut? You knew he got shot with Chu and everything? All this time?”

She nodded and I started shaking. I looked at Nut, who was grinning. “E pills, sweetheart.”

I frowned and looked at the wine cooler. I scratched my face and my neck cuz it wouldn’t stop itching. The room was so hot
and humid, hotter than usual, and the sweat was making me itch more. The room started whirling around and around, so I fell
to my knees to get my balance. I was too dizzy.

“Yeah, go head, KiKi, take her clothes off,” I heard Nut say and then the sound of his pants unzipping.

Shakira stood up and started peeling my T-shirt off. I wanted to stop her, but my mouth felt stuck. I reached up and touched
my lips to check that they was still there. Of course, they was, but no words came out. My arms felt like wet noodles. I ain’t
have no control of them whatsoever. I couldn’t even feel them. My heart was too busy racing. I could feel her tugging on my
shorts, but I couldn’t do nothing to stop her. My whole body was dead. I felt like I was watching everything happen to me,
looking down from the ceiling. It was like slow motion.

“Our secret, right, Camille?” Nut said, taking his shirt off.

Our secret. Just like Mr. Big.

The last thing I remembered was Nut’s big, thick dick in my face.

W
hen I woke up, I was naked on the floor. My panties was by my head beside a wad of bills. My neck ached like I pulled a muscle,
and my thighs felt sticky, like glue. My head thumped by the temples, making me feel woozy.

Shakira was wearing her pink satin robe when she walked from the kitchen with a glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

“You all right?” she asked.

I opened my mouth, set to curse her ass out, but a sharp pain went through my head. I laid back down and waited for the pain
to disappear. I couldn’t remember nothing.

“Here, drink this and take these.”

I tried to sit up on one arm to say, “fuck you,” but no words came out.

“I know and I’m sorry. But…,” she started.

“But what?” I finally whispered. My head was pounding so hard it hurt to open my eyes. I rubbed my forehead again.

“Take these. It’s painkillers. Eight hundred milligrams each. You’ll feel better. I promise.”

I snatched the pills and tried to read them, but it was too blurry. I faked like I knew what it meant and threw the pills
in my mouth before I drank the juice. I closed my eyes. I ain’t wanna take nothing from her skanky ass, not after they had
just tricked me, but the pain was so intense. I hurt all over.

I could hear her shuffling around the apartment in her bedroom slippers. When she came back, she had a long T-shirt with her.

“Here, put this on.”

“Oh, now you want me to put my clothes on? How could you trick—I mean… why?” I asked. I felt so defeated, tears wasn’t even
coming even though I wanted to cry so bad. My life had changed so much. So fast. Why was it happening to me?

“Listen, Camille. I ain’t have no choice.”

“You could’ve warned me. You could’ve told me something!” I tried to yell, putting the shirt on. I shook my head.

She lit a cigarette and sat on the couch. “Me and you… we different… but not that different,” she said, crossing her legs.
“Don’t act like you ain’t know what I was doing all this time. I know you saw me in Smurf’s room at his cookout last summer.
He told me he saw you.”

She pulled a long drag from her cigarette. “I been doing this shit since I was twelve. It’s not so bad. At first it is, but
it gets better.”

I rolled my eyes and pulled my knees up to my chest. I wrapped my arms around my legs.

“Camille, sometimes you just do what you gotta do. What you wanna do, get back in the system? Get another foster family? Or
what, live in the streets, go from one shelter to the other? A group home?”

I shook my head.

“I thought about doing that shit first, too. It ain’t worth it, believe me,” she said, looking at her nails. “I don’t think
you really got a choice, if you ask me.”

“I ain’t asking you,” I said angrily. I was pissed off. I knew Nut raped me, but did Shakira touch me, too?

She rolled her eyes. “Well, at least here you’ll have your own apartment. All you have to do is give Nut a cut. He’ll pay
all the bills and he’ll make sure nobody fucks with you. What else can you ask for?”

I looked away from her and back at my knees. Chu would never believe this was happening to me. “Did he do that to your jaw?”

She rolled her eyes again and sucked her teeth.

“He fuck you when he want to, too. Don’t he?”

“Look, I ain’t making you do nothing you don’t wanna do!” she yelled and got up. She walked toward her room, but then she
turned around all of a sudden. “All I’m saying is, it’s easy, Camille.”

I felt a tear running down my cheek. I reached up to wipe it away.

“But… it is your choice. You can make a lot of money, girl. And I know you used to having nice things. You ready to give all
that up?”

“He tell you to say that, too?”

She stormed in her room and slammed the door.

Maybe this was the plan God had for my life. All this stuff—Mama disappearing, Nana dying on me, Mr. Big doing whatever the
hell he wanted, Mrs. Brinkley acting like it was my fault. And now Chu. Dead. After loving me so much.

I shuddered and then another tear slid down my face.

A
n hour later, Shakira came back out the room. I was still lying on the floor crying. The tears wouldn’t stop, no matter how
hard I tried.

“It’s not that bad, girl. We got each other,” Shakira said, handing me a tissue. She reminded me of Danica when she said that.
For a split second, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe it wouldn’t be that bad.

A FEW DAYS LATER

T
rina Boo had a little piece of car. It wasn’t nothing much, just an old 1994 Honda Accord, but it ran good enough to take
us around the corner to Safeway. Wynika brought her two badass four- and five-year-old sons with us, Ra-Ra and Meko. They
terrorized Safeway the whole time we was in there, screaming and hollering, yanking food off the shelves and throwing it on
the floor, trying to fight other people’s children. And Wynika was acting just like she ain’t give a damn. I couldn’t wait
to get the heck out of there and away from them.

When I came back from the grocery store, I couldn’t believe who was sitting on the couch. Peaches. She looked like she had
been crying, but I wasn’t gonna ask her what was wrong. I ain’t know what to expect out of her mouth. Was she sad cuz she
knew the whole damn time what her man was into, or was she getting herself together so she could try to whip my ass? But then
I thought about it: Peaches was in Shakira’s apartment cuz she already knew what was up. How else she get in?

“Hey,” she said as I walked to the kitchen. “I brought all your stuff over. Shakira told me to put it in the hall closet.
Hope you don’t mind. Something told me you wasn’t coming back to get it. I can’t say I blame you.”

I pressed my lips together and started unpacking my grocery bags.

“Camille, I know you mad at me.”

She damn right. I rolled my eyes at her stupid-ass comment and put a bottle of spaghetti sauce, some cans of tuna, and some
packs of Oodles of Noodles in the cabinet. I tried my best to ignore her.

“Camille, don’t be mad at me. You don’t understand.”

“How many fights did I jump in for you, cuz of some silly-ass broad?” I snapped.

“What was I supposed to say, Camille? ‘My man is trying to be a pimp, just bear with me for a moment while I beat this bitch
back’?”

I shook my head and put some Hawaiian Punch in the fridge.

“Come on, Camille. You my girl. Don’t be mad at me.”