“How do you know that name?”
I hate that it came out of his mouth.
The same mouth that calls me Sonny.
From the same lips that once kissed me.
He draws it out when he says it—“Reign-man wired me to never need connection or affection.”
The line from my rap
spit back at me,
and my stomach sinks.
You write shit so you don’t have to talk about it. That's the point.
But the way he’s looking at me?
It’s as if I knocked the air out of him once,
and it still hasn’t come back.
“Christ, Allison. Your pen’s weaponized poetry.” His head tips away, a breath punching out with his hand against his chest, like it still awes him. “You didn’t just write a bar. You buried a whole confession in only two fuckin’ words, four layers deep—a quadruple entendre.”
He holds up one finger.
“Reign Man—a man who ruled over your body, rewired you.”
A second finger.
“And then—fuck—say it out loud, you give his name: Raymond.”
A third finger, brows raised.
“Rain Man—the guy in the movie?
“Avoids physical and emotional intimacy.
“Yeah I fuckin’ Googled it, aight? And you hinted at it in the next bar.”
The fourth finger.
“The guy’s name in the Rain Man movie?”
He huffs out a stunned breath.
“Raymond.”
I go quiet,
my eyes wide,
lungs shut.
I want to run. I want to stay.
I want him to never stop looking at me,
