Page 100 of When It's Real (alt)

Nixingthatof,Imademynextcall.Eventually,hervoice came over the line.

“Hello?”

“Yeah—”

“Wait, hold up,” Tera urged, before speaking in the back-ground. “Mama, regardless of how you feel, I am carrying his child. I know what the lawyer said. We aint discussing nothing like that. I got this.”

Gliding my tongue across my teeth, I listened to a grown woman explain herself to her mama.

“Hello?” She eventually said again. “Yeah. I’m here.”

She breathed into the phone. “I am so fucking tired of every-thing and everybody. My mama keeps saying that I’m not supposed to be talking to you, acting like she works for the DA or some shit.”

“Yeah, she tripping,” I agreed. “But you and the baby alright?” “Notreally,”sheclaimed,assheshuffledaround,sounding

like she was traveling through the house. “Well, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“Shit, I’m fucking tired of this damn ankle monitor on my leg. I told my lawyer that my ankles are swelling. Then I’m so fucking tired of that bitch Babi,” she spat venomously. “She really thinks that she can replace me out of my kids’ lives. Facewon’t let me see them, and got some kinda court order. Then had the nerve to tell me to sign over my rights. Like what the fuck. You need a bond, ASAP. Because I’m fucking drowning out here, Too Low.”

Listening to her, I had to question myself. Because after fucking her a thousand times, I still felt nothing. At this point, it was becoming painfully obvious that I was incapable of loving any woman outside of Babi.

I mean…Tera was cool. She was fine. Had good pussy. But she didn’t touch me in a certain type of way.

When I first got out, I was fucking whoever, trying to stop thinking about Babi. I was switching out women like my drawls. Nobody was special. Then I met Tera in the club one night.

Me and Tera hit it off instantly. So much so that I hopped up and left the broad I was dealing with. Me and Tera got a spot together and she opened up to me, telling me about how she’d just kicked cancer’s ass. She then cried about how she'd left her girls with their daddy. All the while, I didn’t know who she was talking about.

And then…one drunken night I told her about Babi. I admitted that I was still trying to get over her. She finally revealed who her BD was, and I let her know that her BD was with my Babi.

Tera stubbornly didn’t wanna accept what I was saying, so she went to see for herself. And after going to see her girls and laying eyes on Babi, she was green with envy. The shit was literally seeping out of her pores. And I used that to my advantage.

I sat her down and told her that there was a way that she could get Babi out the picture and she was all for it. Even if it meant sending her BD to jail. Because when it came to Tera, she was jealous that Babi was getting what Face never gave her. So, she didn’t necessarily have to have Face. She just didn’t wanna see him with Babi, being the nigga he never was for her.

I soon realized that Tera didn’t mind stooping low to reach the end goal. It was her who encouraged me to apply pressure toMattie, after she realized that we used to fuck around. She said that Mattie might not be useful at all, but it was always good to