“It matters,” he stated again. “I didn’t say nothing I didn’t mean. Unless you forgot. And judging by the last three years you been away, you forgot.”
“Because I lost my sister and moved away I forgot? I didn’t forget, Dom. I wanted to. I prayed that shit away. The way…”
“Nyna, come help me. You up?” Big Mama’s voice called zapping the words and letting the tension replace it.
Nyna stopped talking and when back to stirring the pot while DJ stood there with a locked jaw. Big Mama roamed into the kitchen spotting the two in a silent standoff. She hummed and nudged Nyna toward DJ.
“Go talk to him. It’s so much tension in here y’all gonna mess up my food,” Big Mama muttered.
“I’m-”
Big Mama looked at DJ zapping Nyna’s attempt to recover where it stood. “Take her out back and talk.”
DJ locked eyes with Nyna and motioned his head toward the back door. Nyna pulled in a deep breath and ambled to the back door. He roamed behind her on to the back porch and watchedher stand at the far end and stare at Big Mama’s rows of flowers and the small stone in the middle of the garden with Veya’s name etched onto it.
“I didn’t forget,” Nyna finally spoke. “I didn’t forget the butterflies that possessed me every time you came around. I didn’t forget whispering about you at night to Veya because I wasn’t sure if I were tripping. If I were the girl you wanted or if I was making it all up in my head. She told me to tell you but I’ve never been that girl. I mean I was once but that’s not the topic right now. And then that night – after being teetered in the unknown with you. You were so cool about it. Measured. I didn’t forget that feeling. The fuckin’ feeling. So sweet, then hell unleashed.”
Nyna wiped her face. “Hell never went away.”
“It gnashed at me every second of every day,” DJ admitted.
“How’d you make it stop?” Nyna posed.
“I came back to the place hell couldn’t enter. Here,” he shared. “Big Mama got peace flowing through here. But it was more than that. It’s where you were. So I just stayed close to that so I wouldn’t forget what it felt like when hell wasn’t surrounding me and that was when you were with me.”
She hummed. “Does your girlfriend know you’re here doing all of this?”
“Should I ask about your fiancé?” he shot back making her eyes drop down to the ring and sigh heavily.
“I thought this shit was an honor. Big ass diamond to prove to himself mostly that he was a good guy.”
“He wasn’t?”
Nyna bit her lip. “He was the worst of them. But I thought maybe if I did it differently it would be different. Follow what Veya told me, see something I thought I wanted and go after it. That confidence I mustered up as front I guess was a magnetto be broken down and dependent. And then I found myself comparing him to you.”
She scoffed.
“Why all that?” DJ asked moving closer.
“Because comparing him to you only made it harder for me to look at myself,” Nyna admitted. “I was so stupid.”
“You were grieving. We lost parts of ourselves that night.”
“Kind of cruel to do what we did and then lose,” Nyna said. “Imagine fuckin’ your best friend and then shots ring out hours later.”
DJ grunted at the recall. The sweetest moments before the worse. Apart of his mind blocked it out, too deep in grief to remember how she looked into his eyes fully trusting herself with him. Her soft moans in his ear as he pushed inside of her tightness afraid of causing her pain.
“I imagined it. For a while,” he admitted. “Young nigga shit. Feelin’ like you were too good for me to ruin because I was wild. But you were a tamer. When you were around I was forced to chill and think about something other than myself. Phoenix swore by now we were going to be married or some shit.”
“Veya too,” Nyna said before pulling in a breath. “That ship has sailed though. I’m sure.”
“You didn’t hear anything I said.”
Nyna turned to him. “I heard you.”
He lifted up her left hand and removed the ring from it. “You didn’t because you would’ve heard that I’ve been waiting on you.”
Nyna licked her dry lips. “You should’ve moved on and maybe I wouldn’t feel so damn guilty for running away.”
