Flip Side of the Game by Tu-Shonda L. Whitaker Read Free Book Online Page B

your dream come true.
    â€œHell, nobody would’ve thought that Taj Bennett would be somebody’s doctor. Vera, let me inform you, I was slingin’ rock and paying for medical school at the same time. What kinda shit was that? I was trying to save lives, and all the while selling shit that would take ’em away. And to top that off, my mother was dead. My brother and sister don’t even remember her.”
    â€œAt least you have memories of a mother. I had two fiends trying to raise me!”
    â€œHow’d you feel about that?”
    â€œHow’d I feel? Hell, wasn’t everybody but the schoolteacher and the social worker fiends? Please, you have to be shown different to know different, and living with an old-ass dopefiend who shot up the welfare check and the food stamps ain’t no picnic.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œWhy not? Why not? Because in a dopefiend’s world, they don’t give a fuck about you. Children have to be born grown, and the only stops they are allowed to make is to get off the bottle and learn how to go to the potty, otherwise, they are an inconvenience. Do you know how many times I have heard, ‘Vera, you fuckin’ up my high! Go sit down. You ain’t that hungry’?”
    â€œHow many times?”
    â€œFor eight years! Eight fuckin’ years!”
    â€œAnd then what?”
    â€œThen Aunt Cookie came and she loved me, no matter what.”
    â€œNo matter what?”
    â€œYes, no matter what. No matter how many nights I stole food and hid it in my room. No matter how many nights I cried to see Rowanda.”
    â€œWhy did you cry to see Rowanda?”
    â€œBecause I thought I needed her.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI don’t wanna talk about it.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause I can’t.”
    The room went silent, and deep in my mind I could hear Rowanda cry. I could hear her when she said, “I’d rather be dead then to have a man bust a nut in my baby’s bed!” And when she found Grandma naked and bleeding, she swore to me that she would never leave. She swore that she would always be here, and she lied. She lied. I tried not to let too much snot drip from my nose as I cried into the hairs on Taj’s chest.
    He rubbed my back and said, “All you gotta do is let it go, baby. All you gotta do is let me in.”
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    â€œRoger,” I said the next morning, getting directly to the point, while I was giving myself a fresh pedicure, “you are not coming over here.”
    â€œBut why not?”
    â€œBecause I said no!”
    â€œYou know, Vera, when I get a moment to catch you, I’ma break yo’ ass! You starting that shit again.”
    â€œWhat shit again?”
    Just as I said that, Taj came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, and he had his cell phone to his ear.
    Who the hell is he talking to? Is he trying to play me for stupid? I know he’s not disrespecting me by talking to no other chick while he’s in my house.
    â€œRoger, I gotta go. Call me later. Smooches. Taj, who are you talking to?”
    â€œExcuse me? Who am I talking to? Well, it certainly isn’t Roger.”
    â€œYou heard my conversation?”
    â€œYeah, I heard you, but it’s all good. Which is exactly why I’ma step and give you the space you need to play this cat and mouse game.”
    â€œCat and mouse game? You the one mackin’ on the line in my bathroom!”
    â€œBaby, let me tell you something,” he said, taking off his towel and rubbing baby oil across his chest and into his nipples. “I don’t have to play those games. If I want to talk to a young lady, I don’t need your permission. And for your information, I was checking my voice mail. But you check this, don’t disrespect me again, because I don’t play that shit. I got the player’s hustle down pat, so stop trying to play me, because if I gave it back,