She kept her eyes on the road. “It’s confusing news.”
“Nah,” I said. “It’s clear. I ain’t crazy.”
She sighed. “Kay’Lo, you was doin’ good. You was on the meds, in therapy… Everything was workin’.”
“And now I don’t need that shit.”
“Yes you do,” she said, finally lookin’ at me. “At least until we get a second opinion.”
I laughed, but the shit wasn’t funny. “Why you need a second opinion if she the one been treatin’ me?”
“‘Cause people make mistakes,” Toni said. “And somethin’ about today wasn’t right. How the fuck she just gon’ switch up on us like that?”
“So now the doctor wrong ‘cause she say somethin’ you don’t like.”
“That’s not what I’m sayin’.”
“That’s exactly what you sayin’,” I snapped. “You was cool when she told you I was schizophrenic. Now she say I’m not and all of a sudden we need more opinions.”
“Nigga, ‘cause the fuckin’ diagnosis explained things,” Toni shot back. “It explained why you was up at night talkin’ to nobody. Why you was angry all the time, and why you scared me sometimes.”
I gripped the wheel. “So now I scare you?”
“Yes!” She shouted, her voice crackin’. “You fuckin’ do!”
That shit hit me harder than anything else.
We drove through the gate, pulled into the driveway and got out without sayin’ another word.
When we walked inside the crib the shit felt bigger than it was all of a sudden. It was like the good moments we had just evaporated the second we stepped inside.
I tossed my keys on the counter. “I’m not takin’ the meds no more.”
Toni turned on me. “You can’t just decide that, Kay’Lo.”
“I just did.”
I could tell she was hurt ‘cause her eyes was fillin’ with tears. She shook her head. “This is exactly what the fuck I was afraid of.”
“What?” I asked. “Me not bein’ broken.”
“No,” she said. “You not listenin’.”
We stood there starin’ at each other, both of us hurt, both of us tired and both of us scared in different ways.
“I just want you safe,” she said as tears fell down her cheeks.
“I am safe,” I said. “I’m me.”
She looked at me like she ain’t recognize her man no more and deep down, I hated that shit.
Just like that, everything we built in the last few weeks started crackin’, but not ‘cause we stopped lovin’ each other, but ‘cause somebody else decided they knew better than the truth we was livin’ in.
I ain’t know it, but this moment was the beginnin’ of somethin’ unravelin’.
And the worst part was, I thought I was finally free.
I had just pulled up on my pops, and I could already tell by the way he was standin’ near the side of the house that he had been waitin’ on me. He ain’t look nervous or uneasy, but just calm in that way he always was, like nothin’ ever really shook him even when the world was fucked up. I parked, stepped out, and beforeI could even say somethin’, he reached for my shoulder and pulled me in for a hug that was firm and groundin’.
