“That’s not a plan. That’s a wish.” He stepped closer, frustration rolling off him in waves. “You’re talking about walking into an unknown situation with no backup, no protection, no?—”
“No YOU.” I cut him off. “That’s what this is really about, right? You can’t stand the idea of me doing something without you there to control it.”
His eyes flashed. “Control? I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“And I’m trying to tell you I don’t need you to!” My voice rose before I could stop it. “I’ve been keeping myself safe since I was sixteen years old, Prime. I survived my father. I survived Meech. I survived watching my sister’s dead body on that kitchen floor and picking up my whole life and running across the country with a traumatized child. I did all of that alone. Without you. Without anybody.”
“And you almost died multiple times!”
“But I DIDN’T!” I was yelling now, and I didn’t care. “I’m still here! I’m still standing! And I’m so goddamn tired of everybody treating me like I’m fragile. Like I’m gonna break if somebody isn’t holding me together.”
“That’s not what I’m doing?—”
“That’s exactly what you’re doing!” I stepped into his space, my finger jabbing at his chest. “You move me into your penthouse without asking. You decide Yusef is switching schools without discussing it with me first. You drive to Baltimore and nearly kill my father without telling me you were going. You make all these decisions FOR me, and I’m just supposed to be grateful because you’re doing it out of love?”
His jaw clenched. “Everything I do is to protect you.”
“And that’s the problem! You’re so busy protecting me that you forgot to ask if I even wanted to be protected!” I wasbreathing hard now, my chest heaving. “You gave this whole speech about how I got power over you. How I brought you to your knees. Called me a goddess. But a goddess ain’t somebody you keep locked in a tower, Prime. A goddess moves freely. Makes her own choices. Handles her own business.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you know it up here.” I tapped his forehead. “But you don’t feel it here.” I pressed my palm flat against his chest, right over his heart. “You say you trust me, but you don’t. Not really. Not enough to let me do this one thing by myself.”
He grabbed my wrist. Not rough—just firm. Holding me in place.
“You want to know why I can’t let you go alone?” His voice was low. Dangerous. “Because I’ve lost people before. People I was supposed to protect. And I can’t—” He stopped. Swallowed hard. “I can’t lose you, too. I can’t sit here in DC wondering if you’re okay, wondering if something went wrong, wondering if I’m about to get a phone call saying?—”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t KNOW that.”
“I know that I need to do this.” My voice softened, but I didn’t back down. “I know that if I let you come with me—even just to wait in the parking lot—I’ll always wonder if I could’ve done it alone. I’ll never know if I’m actually strong enough or if I just had you as a safety net.”
“There’s nothing wrong with having a safety net.”
“Yeah, buy this is something I have to do for myself.”
We stood there, breathing hard, my wrist still caught in his grip, my palm still pressed against his heart. I could feel it pounding under my hand. Fast. Hard. Matching the rhythm of my own.
“You’re really gonna do this,” he said. Not a question.
“I’m really gonna do this.”
“And nothing I say is gonna change your mind.”
“Nothing.”
His eyes searched my face. Looking for cracks. Looking for doubt. Looking for anything he could use to convince me this was a bad idea.
He didn’t find it.
“You call me the second you leave that hospital,” he finally said. “The SECOND, Zainab. Not a minute later.”
“I will.”
“And if anything feels off—ANYTHING—you get out of there. You don’t confront it, you don’t investigate, you just leave.”
“I will.”
