Page 21 of Little Miami Girl

“Tell me about your aunt? What type of person is she?” Jah asked.

I didn’t want to give off too much information on my aunt, but I didn’t want to lie either. “I mean, let’s just say I’m Cinderella and she’s my wicked stepmother. Only, her temper is a little bit worse,” I said, hoping he was able to read between the lines without me going into details.

“Why you always do that?” Jah asked me.

“Do what?” I asked, raising my eyebrows in confusion.

“You never answer the questions straightforward. You give fuckin’ similes and metaphors and shit, leaving a nigga guessing what your ass be talking about,” he said.

I stared at him for a minute and then I decided to let him in on a little bit.

“I have a very hard time letting people into my personal business because I honestly feel like no one really cares. But what I will tell you is that I pray to God every night, asking him to help my living situation get a little bit better. Also, the things that I have endured over the years, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. As far as my aunt, I don’t know what I did to make her treat me the way that she does, and I wish that there was something that I could do to change her ways. All I want her to do was treat me the same way that she does her children,” I told him.

“Let me ask you something. If you don’t want to answer it, that’s fine and I won’t press you,” he said and I nodded my head, telling him to go ahead and ask. “The bruises. She put them there?”

I stared into his eyes, wondering if I should tell him the truth or not. I could see that he cared, but I was so scared to trust him. I didn’t want him to take my secrets and tell anybody. I could handle the situation that I was going through with my aunt. Just to think that in a few more months, hopefully I would be attending University of Miami, and I will be receiving all of the scholarships that I had applied for. I knew that I was strong enough to take a few more beatings from her because I would be out of her house soon.

“Yes,” I said, short and sweet.

Jah nodded his head and then left the situation alone. We sat in silence until the food came. When Phillip placed our food in front of us, I said my grace and then dug in. I had proved Jah wrong and finished up all of my food.

“That’s crazy. I just knew damn well you wasn’t going to finish all of that food,” he said. Phillip had come back with the check and Jah placed a fifty-dollar bill on the table and stood up. He grabbed my backpack and draped it across one of his shoulders.

“I want to see your shop,” I told him once we started walking.

He grabbed my hand and then led me across the street. We walked into the place, and I guess red and black was his favorite color because seems like everything in the shop was either red or black. I looked around the shop at the different pictures that he had in frames hanging on the wall. Wow, this man was talented. He had done some of Lil Wayne, Tyga, Chris Brown, and the Game’s tattoos, just to name a few. He showed me the six rooms that he had in the building, and of course, his was the biggest.

All of the men there were currently doing tattoos and they all said waved at me once Jah introduced them to me. Right now, we were in his office and I was sitting down in one of the chairs.

“I bet your mom must be really proud of you. Twenty-three years old, running your own business. That’s great,” I let him know.

“Yeah, she’s happy. Hell, as long as I’m not here following in my father’s footsteps, then she’s proud of anything that I do,” he said, sitting down at his desk.

“Where’s your father? What does he do?” I asked him. Hell, he was asking me all type of questions about my personal life, so I felt like I could do the same.

“He’s in prison for murder. He’ll be in there for the rest of his life. He was out here selling drugs though before he got locked up,” Jah said.

“Oh wow, I’m sorry to hear that,” I told him.

I knew that couldn’t possibly be a good feeling, knowing that your father would be

caged away like an animal for the rest of his life.

“No biggie. I talk to the man almost every day. What about you? What’s something you have to be proud of? What them grades looking like?” Jah asked me.

“I don’t mean to brag or anything, but I’m a bit of a smartass. I’ll show you right now,” I said, standing up from my seat.

I went to the Apple desktop that he had on his desk and logged onto Pinnacle. Pinnacle was a website that all high school students used to check their grades. I typed in my information, and my grades for the first semester popped up, including the grades that I had right now for the 2nd semester, even though they weren’t final yet. First semester, I made straight A’s and right now, I had straight A’s too and finals were coming up. If I aced all of my tests, then I would be bringing home straight A’s again.

“Wow. AP World History, AP Human Geography, AP Psychology, AP European History, AP Physics, AP Calculus, and AP Language and Composition, and you got all damn A’s. Wait, and you’re number two in your graduating class!” Jah said, visibly excited for me. “You damn right you’re a smart ass,” he said with a smile on his face. “No wonder that book bag is so damn heavy. That’s sexy as hell, girl, don’t let nobody ever tell you that it’s not,” he said to me.

To see him so excited about my success caused my emotions to get the best of me, and before I knew it, tears were falling from my eyes. Only this time, they weren’t tears of hurt or pain, they were tears of joy.

“Chill, chill, I was just playing about the book bag. Come on now,” Jah said, picking me up and then sitting me down on top of his desk. I wiped my eyes and shook my head no.

“I’m not crying because of that,” I said through my tears.

I allowed myself some time to get it together and then I continued. “It’s just that no one has ever been this happy about something that I’ve done. It’s tears of joy, that’s all,” I told him.