Read Online I Gave Him My Heart by Krystal Armstead - Free Book Online

Rayna said that the day that Nina woke up to an empty incubator in the NICU, she went crazy. And cut all of her hair off.”
    My eyes widened. I shook my head and burst out crying. “Mama, she needs me!” I cried out. “Where is my boo? Where does her Aunt Toni live?”
    “In Goldsboro, North Carolina.” Mama’s eyes glistened.
    You already knew that I took the first available flight to Raleigh, North Carolina. I’d gotten Toni’s address from Nina’s father (or the man she’d been told damn near all of her life was her biological father when in fact he wasn’t). I was going to surprise my cousin. I took a cab to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base where her aunt was staying. Toni remembered me though she’d only seen me a couple of times. She was pretty happy to see me. She was headed out to work the mid-shift at her job when I showed up that afternoon to her house. She told me that Nina wasn’t doing so well and that she hadn’t left the bed in days.
    I crept my way up to Nina’s room. I almost had a heart attack at the sight of my cousin, sitting up in her bed, with an inch of curly hair on her head, staring outside of her bedroom window.
    “Boo?” I called out to her, walking into her room, closing the door behind me.
                  Nina turned her head, looking at me. Her eyes lit up, and she sat all the way up in the bed. “Kourtney!” She cried out as I made my way over to her.
    I threw my arms around my cousin, running my fingers through her curls. I kissed the top of her head, looking down at her short hair. She had always had so much hair on her head. Damn near three-feet of hair when her curls were straightened. But at that point, she sat there looking like a chocolate Betty Boop. I wanted to punch the shit out of our parents for what they were doing to her.
    “They took my baby!” Nina cried out.
    I just looked at her, lips trembling, not even sure what to say to my cousin. I assumed by that statement that my mother was telling the truth, that Nina really knew that Aunt Rayna had given London to her willingly. It wasn’t until I was fuckin’ thirty-one that I found out that Nina had no idea where her daughter was.
    ***
    “Ummm, Nina, how long has Aunt Toni been putting comet in the fridge?” I asked, watching Aunt Toni taking a tube of Comet out of the refrigerator and sprinkling the shit on top of her plate of spaghetti like it was parmesan cheese or some shit.
    Nina glanced at Aunt Toni and then looked back at me, trying her best not to laugh at her aunt. “Girl, don’t pay her any mind.” Nina leaned forward, whispering, “She’s been doing this shit for three got-damn years. I had to empty out every tube of Comet in the house and actually put parmesan cheese in them, so she won’t kill herself!”
    I shook my head.
    When Nina moved to North Carolina, I went to visit my boo every year for three years. When I graduated high school in 2002, I moved to North Carolina to help her take care of Aunt Toni. I was there a year before I saw any signs of Toni’s mental illness. They had just switched her medication, and that was probably what got her going that day. Or maybe she sensed something crazy was about to happen.
    Uncle Timothy Mack was staying with them then. That bastard hated the fuck out of me. He said I was too sassy and had too much mouth. He hated the way I dressed. Hated the way I went out every night. Hated the fact that, as soon as I stepped on Goldsboro’s scene, I jumped straight into the dating scene. He said I was a bad influence on Nina. Said she’d been doing good those three years that I wasn’t around. I ran out of fucks to give about that nigga’s opinion after a few months. And long as Aunt Toni loved me, I could give a fuck about her husband. She knew her niece needed me around.
    “Okay, Aunt Toni,” I sighed, getting up from the table, going over to where Aunt Toni stood at the counter top, eating her spaghetti. “I have some fried chicken in the