Free PRETTY BRIGHT by Mimi Renee Page B

out.
“You already know I got you, baby, but you gone have to take a cab home,” he said, shaking his head in disappointment. “One of my homies’ girls came up here tripping, thinking that my truck was his truck, and she fucked my shit up, thinking this nigga was cheating on her...and I'm heated too!” He said.
“Really? When did all this happen?” Bright asked, playing it off as she looked out the window to observe his truck.
Terrence passed her four one hundred dollar bills. “Is that cool right there, baby?” he asked Bright. He was obviously still very disappointed.
“The phone bill is three hundred alone, the cable is oneeighty, and I need some money for me,” she said, rubbing his back. He gave her an additional five hundred dollars and then told her to keep the rest for herself.
Bright put the money in the pocket of her jeans. “You have a twenty so I can pay the cab? They may not have any change for these big bills,” she said with her hand out. Terrence peeled off a couple of twenty dollar bills and then passed them to her. Bright tucked it in her bra. Then, without further words, she hauled off and slapped Terrence into the next week and headed to the door.
Stopping himself from slapping her back, he yelled, “What the fuck was all that for?” He grabbed her by the arm to stop her from leaving the room.
Bright yanked her arm from him. “Get ya fucking hands off of me and go home to yo wife, you fucking liar!” Then, once she heard the cab driver honk his horn, she slapped him again then made her way out the room and to the cab.
“Come here, let me holler at you, baby!” Terrence yelled out to Bright. “I love you, baby, let me explain!” he said, hoping that she would stay and give him a chance to come up with a good excuse and clear everything up. Bright didn't look back; she just climbed in the cab and told the driver where to take her. She knew that playing the hurt role would benefit her in the long run, and that Terrence would be throwing money her way- money that she wouldn't even have to fuck for or ask to get.
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    Needing her bestie to talk to about the drama at the motel, Bright hooked back up with Treasure, smoked a blunt, and then asked her to take the cab with her to pay the phone and cable bill. After explaining the situation, Treasure was appalled.
    “That nigga got a bitch at home, Bee?”
“A wife, girl!” Bright replied nodding her head. “And that’s why I’ma milk that fool dry,” she said spitefully.
Bright was the child of a mistress and a married man, a filthy rich white man at that, who died from a heart attack and didn't acknowledge her or even mention her name in his will. At his repast, when her wicked grandmother introduced her to the rest of the family, the looks and things they said behind Bright's back hurt her deeply. Here she was, an innocent child, yet everybody saw and treated her as a disgrace. Growing up, Bright hated when her mother would allow her to spend the night at her white grandparent’s house. While she thought Bright was having a great time meeting and mingling with her father's side of the family, she was being hidden in their house, and terrible things were happening to her - things that she had never spoken about and tried hard to erase from her memory. But them both dying of heart conditions, one shortly after the other, was enough payback for her.
Bright didn't hate or blame her mother for it, she just wished she had a father like her siblings did. Deja and Cordell’s father was sentenced to life in prison, and even they spoke to him a few times a month, whenever their mother asked for help which was hardly ever, his family helped out as much as possible. Ryonna and Ramon’s father called them from time to time too and sent them money from Texas every birthday and Christmas. But Bright was the fatherless child, and she had no family other than her mother and siblings. And no matter what, or how old she got, it continued to be