"we fell in love the way you fall in leaves."
Juwan "Rocky" Rockwell has had a pretty hard life. Between trying to find a way to fend for himself and dealing with the normal hardships of teenage angst, he had nowhere to turn as an adolescent and no...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"whole"
"A'ight. I gotta' be out so I can go see my son," I explained in the form of a grunt as I got up from the comfortable seating of Red's couch. "You always leavin' to see your son. Why you don't ever bring that lil' nigga over here?" Red inquired. I kissed my teeth. "You niggas talk trash about my love life all the fuckin' time, B. I can't have you down playing my parenting skills too."
"If you were a good parent, you wouldn't even be concerned about what we got to say," Red retorted. "Whatever, man," I waved him off. "Catch you later, Rocky," Marcus said.
"Peace," I responded, giving a quick handshake before seeing myself out.
I left the apartment building and wasted no time making it over to Ava's. For the past three weeks, she'd been giving me the silent treatment. She'd hand off Jamir along with his diaper bag before slamming the door in my face. I'll admit it. I deserved such harsh treatment after the shit I said to her, the last time we spoke. . . I just didn't anticipate how much such treatment would hurt. The only woman I've ever considered marrying had gotten her closure while the only other woman I loved couldn't be trusted. Ava was all I had left, and I happened to fuck that up too.
why was I surprised?
I made it up to her front door, using the spare key I still had to get inside. Once in, I could hear Jamir crying up a storm. I closed and locked the door before sliding off my coat and hanging it up. I then followed the commotion that Jamir was causing into the nursery, where Ava was just finishing the task of changing his diaper.
"All done, J. Aww, come here. I know. I know," she cooed, taking our son into her arms. She swayed and bounced, patting his back and shushing him softly. In the midst of doing so, she found my gaze and rolled her eyes at the sight of me.
I kissed my teeth, leaning against the door frame of the room. "Hello to you too, Ava Maria."
She ignored me, Jamir continuing to sob in her arms. After several moments of his cries finding no relief, I took it upon myself to step up to Ava. "Let me get him," I insisted.
She allowed me to take him from her arms. "Daddy to the rescue. What's up, lil' man? What'chu doin' all that cryin' for?" I held him high in my hands, a smile on my face as he slowly ceased his screaming. His brown eyes were still glossed over as I kissed his chubby cheeks, but never did he begin crying once more. I held him close to my heart, Ava watching on quietly.
I glanced at her, taking note of her wild and frizzy hair and the bags under her eyes. A visible wave of relief washed over her at the peaceful silence that filled the air of her home.
"Go take a load off. I got 'im from here," I told her. She took her time in doing so, her eyes stuck on our son for several seconds before she left the nursery. With that, I sat in the rocking chair that was positioned in a corner of the room. I grabbed a little book from the short shelf that was right next to the chair before cracking it open and beginning to read aloud to Jamir.
