“How did it get here?” I slowly approached the case as if it were going to grow legs and run away.
“Don’t know,” she answered with a shrug. She took a bite of her cinnamon roll, then pushed her plate away. She wiped her hands on her napkin, then turned and looked at me. “Tulane did look annoyed as fuck though.”
“He always looks annoyed,” I rebutted as I ran my hand over the case. “It’s his favorite emotion to display.” I turned the case on its side and pressed in the code to unlock it. The sound of the lock disengaging echoed through the room.
I started to open the case, but Berkeley slammed it shut. “Don’t open that until we talk,” she said, shaking her head.
“Berkeley--”
“Hear me out before you start up,” she sighed. My eyes went back to the case, and I bit into my bottom lip. “Yale, we need to talk.”
“I don’t want to,” I said, shaking my head. It’d been almost two weeks since I told them about the accident that killed Xavier. For the first week, I locked myself in my room and hid. I wasn’t ready to face the world, to see the faces of the women who shared so many of my features and know that I’d taken one of us from the world. So I stayed to myself as much as I could. Then, on week two, Clarke picked the locks to the room, and they surrounded me until I was ready to face the world. Today was my first day out of my room. “Not right now.”
“That tall light-skinned nigga was here,” Clarke said, walking into the room. Her attention was on the wood in her hand. She’d started a new piece yesterday and was almost finished. “He and Tulane got into it. They were yelling.”
“What tall light skin nigga?” I asked her, but Clarke’s attention was now on the plate of cinnamon rolls on the counter.
She set the supplies down and walked over to the counter. She examined the rolls before her face twisted, and she shook her head. “He put too much frosting on them,” she said as she took a step back. “I told him when he was making them this morning not to put that much frosting on them, but he didn’t listen.” She turned and looked at me. “How can you love a nigga that doesn’t listen to simple instructions?”
“What tall light skin nigga, Clarke?” I asked again. My heart was slamming against my chest as I thought of the possibility of it being Amethyst she was talking about. She looked at me and blinked as if she didn’t understand the question. “Clarke, what did he look like?”
“Tall and light skin,” she answered with a shrug. “I said that already.”
“Did he have long curly hair?”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “He looked a little sassy if you ask me.”
“Damn, Clarke,” Berkeley laughed. “That man didn’t look sassy, and you know it.”
“He talks too much,” Clarke said with a shrug. “When he wasn’t glaring at us, he was asking about Yale like he couldn’t just go upstairs and see her.” Clarke crossed her arms and then leaned against the island to face us.
“He made you cinnamon rolls as an apology for getting on your nerves,” Berkeley said, and Clarke smirked. The more time we spent together, the more I realized that she was probably the bluntest person I’d ever met. There wasn’t a thought that went through her mind that she didn’t say aloud.
“He could’ve gone upstairs to check on Yale like I suggested,” she replied. “Then he wouldn’t need to apologize.”
“What did he need to apologize for?” I asked as I watched them talk, as if I wasn’t here.
“He said I talked too much and that I was going to meet someone who wasn’t going to deal with my mouth and shut me the fuck up,” Clarke laughed. “I told him I’d like to see that person try.”
“Amethyst is here?” I clarified.
“He left a few hours ago,” Clarke said, shaking her head. “After he made those damn cinnamon rolls, he left.”
“Why didn’t one of you tell me?” I could feel myself getting upset, but I wasn’t sure who I was upset with. Amethyst for not coming to see me, or at them for not telling me he was in the house.
“He asked us not to,” Berkeley answered. “He was here to talk to Tulane and drop off your case.”
“You said you didn’t see who brought it in here.”
Berkeley shook her head. “No, I said I didn’t know how the case got in here. I didn’t see Tulane or Amethyst bring it in here.”
“A fucking play on words,” I sighed and rolled my eyes. “You knew how the damn case got into the house.”
“I did, and I also know that y’all shit isn’t my business like that,” Berkeley replied. “Amethyst came here to talk to Tulane, not you. We told him more than once to go up and see you, but he never did. That’s not our fault.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from going off. She was right, Amethyst not coming to see me was on him, not them. Instead of going off on them, I nodded, locked the case back, and left it on the counter.
“Where are you going?” Clarke asked as I moved away from the counter.
