Wifey 4 Life by Kiki Swinson

bags.”
    My uncle turned around and gave her his full attention. From
    my point of view, she couldn’t have come at a better time. I looked to the ceiling
    and thanked God. People said He looked out for babies and fools, and they were right.
    “How long have they been out there fucking with them?” he asked.
    “They just pulled up about three minutes ago.”
    “Stay right here and watch her,” he instructed, and then he rushed
    off.
    I heard him as he hurried down the hallway and up the staircase.
    I let out of sigh of relief as his footsteps grew fainter.
    Knowing that the police were standing outside gave me the urge
    to yell out for help, but then I figured, if I opened my mouth, my uncle would punish
    me for it. Not only that, I was unsure of how close they were to the house. It would
    be just my luck that they wouldn’t hear me. I knew if I was ever going to get out
    of this, it wouldn’t be because the police saved me. That was shit you only saw
    on TV.
    After Uncle Lanier left, Kasey had a smirk plastered on her face
    like she’d seen something amusing. I wanted so badly to ask her what the fuck was
    funny, but I didn’t have any strength left in me to open my mouth. I could feel
    blood running from my lips and my mouth like a faucet. All I could do was sit there
    and pray to walk out of this place alive.
    “Damn, homegirl! He really fucked you up!” she commented as she
    stood before me, her hands pressed against her hips.
    I looked at her, and then I turned my head away. She wasn’t worth
    any of the time I had left. My focus had to be on trying to figure out a good-ass
    lie to tell my uncle. The shit couldn’t be farfetched, so I went into thinking mode.
    But once again, this dumb bitch interrupted me. I started to tell her to get lost,
    but that would have been grounds for her to put her hands on me, and I wasn’t in
    the mood for that bullshit. I wanted to keep every ounce of energy I had left to
    use when my uncle got back.
    “Bitch, don’t act like you can’t hear me!” she yelled.
    “Kasey, why do you keep taunting me? You see how helpless I am
    right now. I don’t have the energy to start a confrontation with you. If you beat
    me until I was black and blue, I would just sit here and pray to God that you’d
    have mercy on me.”
    “Don’t try to make me feel sorry for you. I heard what kind of
    chick you were, Ms. Thang. Yeah, L.L. gave us the rundown on you and your husband
    Ricky, and how y’all turned y’all backs on Nikki after she got locked up for transporting
    y’all shit.” She frowned. “That was some foul shit, if you ask me! Niggas like that
    get dealt with when they do that betraying shit!”
    Listening to Kasey talk me to death with all that misinformation
    gave me a headache to go with the pain I felt in my throat. She made matters worse
    when she said that I deserved to be in this situation because a lot of other people
    suffered at the hands of me and Ricky. She even went as far as to say that she heard
    how vicious Ricky was when he used to run the streets, but when it came to women,
    he was soft.
    “I remember when my homegirl told me that he tried to get her,”
    she said. “She used to bartend at Blakely’s. Every time he walked up in there with
    his boys, she told me that he always tried to get her to call him, but she said
    she wouldn’t take his number.”
    “I’m not surprised,” I replied nonchalantly. At this point Ricky
    was dead, so his past life didn’t affect me at all. I couldn’t care less about anything
    he used to do. All that shit I went through with him was behind me.
    “Oh, so you knew your husband wasn’t shit, huh?”
    I didn’t respond. To me it was somewhat rhetorical, especially
    if what she said was true. I really didn’t want to entertain her anymore, so I closed
    my eyes and laid my head against the back of the chair.
    Finally I heard my uncle’s footsteps coming back toward us.
    An uneasy feeling crept back into my stomach,