Page 41 of A Major Love

“I won’t beat around the bush and get right to it. Do you and Major have history?”

“Rahkia—”

“She’s not talking to you, Major,” Dynastie scolded.

“She’s asking shit that’s none of her business.”

“If she asks something I don’t think she needs to know, I’ll respond accordingly.”

“Ask your questions so you can leave,” I told Rahkia, pissed off and ready for this little meet and greet to end.

“I don’t know why you’re giving me this negative energy when you know damn well, I’m the one who should be upset right now,” Rahkia said, and she wasn’t wrong.

“Can you please chill and let us talk? Damn!” Dynastie spat, giving me a look that let me know she was fed up.

I lifted my hands in surrender. “Y’all got it.”

“To answer your question, Rahkia, Major and I have known each other since high school. We dated for a while after we graduated, but things got complicated, and we broke up.”

“You make it sound so simple, but I’d be willing to bet there is a lot more to your story. I’m not asking you to share, but I’d like to share a few things with you, if that’s okay.”

“Of course.”

“I don’t know how much he told you about us, or me, but regardless, I want to give you my version. I don’t follow sports, much less boxing, and I hate social media. When we met, I had no idea who he was. It was just sex for both of us at first, and even though he made it clear that it would never be anything more for him, my dumbass caught feelings. I’d already peepedthat he was emotionally unavailable, but I thought I could get him to open up. After a few months, I accepted that he was just using me for sex when the condom broke, and he demanded I get a Plan B. I did, and after that, I stopped taking his calls and responding to his texts.

“Then I found out the Plan B didn’t work, and I was pregnant. I reached out to him, and he agreed to meet me at my apartment, something he’d never done. When I shared the news with him, he wasn’t happy and begged me to get an abortion. I wasn’t surprised by his request. I actually expected it, but I was shocked that it came with so much anger and so many tears. For a moment, he forgot I was in the room. He paced back and forth, talking to himself while crying, punching the air, slapping the sides of his head, and apologizing to someone for ruining everything. I honestly thought he’d lost his mind.”

Rahkia and I had never discussed that night, and she’d never shared her thoughts, but listening to her recount what she witnessed gave me a different perspective. I’d apologized to her before Maja was born for asking her to have an abortion, but that was as far as the conversation went.

I’d never thought about how she perceived me, or the thoughts that may have been running through her head that night as I completely unraveled in front of her. She cursed me out for asking her to abort our child, but she didn’t mention anything else.

“Wow. Thank you for sharing, but—” Dynastie began but was interrupted by Rahkia.

“I shared that with you because, finally, everything makes sense. To this day, I’ve never seen a man so angry with himself. It was the first time I’d seen him show any emotion. You were the one he was apologizing to and the reason for his tears. I always felt like his heart belonged to someone else, but I was too afraid to ask.”

“What makes you think it was me?” Dynastie asked, knowing damn well it was.

“Because this nigga named our daughter after you.”

“He did—wait a minute! Major, you didn’t!” Dynastie turned to face me, eyes wide with disbelief.

All I could offer was a shrug and a weak smile because my daughter’s middle name was definitely Dynastie, spelled the same way my first and only love spelled her name.

“It’s a nice name,” I said in my defense.

“While I appreciate the gesture, what you did was disrespectful as hell. How would you feel if y’all had a son and she named him after an ex?”

“You were never my ex, so it’s not the same.”

“You’re delusional, because we were not together in any way, shape, or form.”

“Listen, I wasn’t trying to cause any problems. Maja is almost six, and I have no interest in changing her name. It is what it is. I assume you two reconnected recently, so please don’t let what I shared mess up your reunion. I mean no harm, and if nothing else, I hope what I shared shows how much Major loved you back then. I pray everything works out between you, but it’s time for me to go,” Rahkia said before standing.

We stood as well, and when we reached the stairs, I summoned Maja to say goodbye to her mother. She rushed from her room and came down the stairs as fast as her little legs would let her.

“Mommy, Daddy’s girlfriend has the same name as my middle name,” she said excitedly, as if she’d been holding that in since she was sent upstairs.

“She does. Isn’t that cool?”