He stopped at the doorway to their bedroom, and she could see the apology all over him before he even spoke.
“Please don’t say shit to me.” Charlie was seething. She flicked the ultrasound across the room. “There’s the fucking baby you begged me to have.” So much malice boomed off the walls that Demi recoiled. He grabbed his chest like his heart was attackingitself, but it was the daggers shooting from her stare that was piercing him.
“I can explain,” Demi started.
“Fuck you and your tired-ass explanation. I don’t want to hear it. I waited for you for almost an hour. Had me looking like a fucking fool in that doctor’s office! Like a stupid-ass girl carrying another dead-beat-ass nigga baby!”
Demi’s brow lifted in astonishment. “Word?” The nerve of him to be offended. “You gone let me get a word in, or you got more insults to throw at a nigga?”
“Why even ask me to have this baby if you’re going to start off like this?” Charlie asked. She was trying her hardest to let anger prevail, but her feelings were as soft as butter. She was hurt, and he could tell. She couldn’t even pretend to be hard for long. Her eyes were welling with tears, and it gutted him to be the cause.
“I had to handle something with the funeral. It was an emergency. I was on my way to you when Lauren called,” Demi said. She was shocked at his honesty, but she almost wished he had lied. Being put on the back burner for Lauren felt all too familiar. It felt intentional, like a carefully analyzed chess move that Lauren had waited to play. “I wouldn’t have missed it if it wasn’t important.”
“Thiswas important, Demi!” She shouted.
“What would you have me do? You knew this week would be hectic for me. I told you I’d need to be around for Lo.”
“And just completely abandon your responsibility to me?” Charlie asked, scoffing. She was flabbergasted. “Just forget about me, right?” Charlie challenged.
“I ain’t say all that, Bird,” Demi sighed.
“And you couldn’t call? You couldn’t text back?” Charlie asked.
“I thought I’d be able to make it on time. By the time I got wrapped up with Lo and that crooked-ass church, I forgot to call. When I was done, I called you. I knew the appointment was over,so I came right here. I can’t be in two places at once, Bird. Give me some grace here. This is the hardest week of my life, baby.”
Charlie felt like she was going crazy. Was she wrong for expecting him to be present? Did DJ’s death absolve Demi of accountability? Were her expectations unreasonable?
“Give you grace? How much grace, Demi? Let me know. You want to sleep at your ex-wife’s house. You want to skip out on our baby’s first appointment to be there for her. You want to parade around as her shoulder to lean on all week while I’m banned from even being around. I thought me not bitching about that was grace enough. How much more you fucking want from me? Cuz at this point, you her nigga again, and I’m playing side bitch—again! You have me in the same fucking position I started in! When am I going to be put first?”
“You hear yourself? You jealous of Lo’s fucking position? You don’t want her position, Bird! She’s losing her mind! She lost a son!”
“Fuck Lauren and fuck your son!”
Charlie wanted to chase the words back as soon as she said them. They felt wrong. They were wrong. She felt like the bad guy as soon as her temper pushed the malice from her mouth. She saw the words land like a knockout blow. Demi staggered a bit in his stance, and his face went cold. He changed in an instant, going from loving and remorseful, to irate in the blink of an eye. She had gone too far, and she knew it. Charlie motioned toward him.
“Demi…I didn’t mean…”
“Stay your ass over there, Bird.” His warning was real. She knew it as flashes of the past ran through her mind. He had a mean streak, and she had felt his wrath once before. He had vowed to never handle her with less than love again, and he hadn’t, but in the back of her mind, she always wondered if he would ever lose his temper again. Her words, so callouslyspoken. The disregard for his loss. She could see them spark a dynamite stick of aggression.
He backpedaled from the room and panic spread through her as she rushed after him. “Where are you going?” she asked.
He kept moving toward the door, and he didn’t answer. His silence stirred a panic in her.
Charlie was desperate for a minute of his time, for his attention. His focus had been altered, and rightfully so, but she couldn’t help but feel like he was leaving her behind.
“You just got here! You’re not leaving me here by myself! This isn’t what I signed up for!” Charlie yelled at his back, following him, pulling him in an attempt to stop him. It felt like she was losing him, and she loved this man. She loved every single inch of him, and he was forgetting that he loved her. He was forgetting their obsession with one another. His sadness was all he felt, and it was infecting her. Their love was rotting on the shelf he had placed it on in the back of his mind. She just wanted to be acknowledged. She just wanted to be a part of his healing process, but she was restricted from being a part of that portion of his life. He spun on her, turning back so suddenly that Charlie’s instinct was to retreat. She backpedaled, and he backed her against the wall, trapping her there, his hands pressed into the wall beside her head.
“I’m out of my mind, Bird. Do you hear me? I haven’t slept. Can’t eat. Can’t get my mind right. Can’t do shit but think about how I failed my son. Stop pouring salt in the wound. Just stop,” he whispered. There was anger and desperation in his tone. He pulled back and pointed a finger in her face. “And watch your mouth.”
She had only seen Demi this angry one time before, and that time hadn’t ended so well for her. She trembled, anticipating what he might do next, and he noticed her trepidation.
“You’re scared of me?” he asked, frowning. He knew why she was. He had thought they had healed from that place. He wouldn’t dare take her back there again but seeing her anticipate punishment from him broke his heart. He backed up, giving her room, and she could see the disappointment on his face. She opened her mouth to say no, but nothing came out but sobs. She was so emotional. Pregnant, hormonal, and overwhelmed. She felt so many things, and they were hard to describe. If he could just stay with her. If he could just sleep next to her tonight, maybe none of her insecurities would exist at all, but the more time he spent away from their home, the more she feared his potential to break her heart. She wanted to apologize for what she had said, but before she could, Demi retreated.
“This is bullshit. I could have stayed gone for this shit. Rushing back to you to argue. I need some air, man.”
This time, she didn’t follow. Demi snatched his keys off the countertop and walked out the door, taking her heart with him. He didn’t even know he had it in his back pocket. He wasn’t even aware that he needed to be careful because it was fragile. Charlie wasn’t sure if she could dial back the damage she had just caused with her words. She had crossed a line by mentioning his son, and she wasn’t sure if Demi would be able to forgive her. They had been through their fair share of ups and downs, but she wasn’t sure if they could survive this life change. This funeral seemed to be tearing them apart, and Charlie wondered if her karma would force her to watch the man she loved return to the woman she had taken him from.
“Thanks for meeting me, Stass,” Charlie said as she slid into the booth at their favorite brunch house.
