“Well, you already being a bitch anyway, so I might as well let you get back to your moody ways. I’ll buy you chocolate or something if your period on. Just say the word, girl.”
“Get out of my office, Aniya,” I demanded.
“This ain’t your office. You don’t have no office here, girl. We let you borrow this room,” she teased.
“Aniya, please.”
“Aniya, please. That’s all you know.”
I let my head fall to my chest as my shoulders dropped in defeat. Stone had already mistreated me at the school; I didn’t need my only friend mistreating me too. This was just not my week.
“I have a delivery for Ms. Shanet Ellis,” a man said.
“I’m Shanet.”
There was a guy standing in my doorway with a bouquet of roses and some chocolate. My period wasn’t on, but I definitely needed some chocolate. I didn’t need an excuse to eat me a good Hershey’s kiss, and he was carrying a whole bag.
“Sign right here for me.”
He walked over to my desk and handed me the flowers and the candy like he was on his third delivery for the day and already over it. I signed the form and let him go on his way. I knew just how he felt in that moment.
“Ooh, somebody got some flowers. Let me guess who that is from. You know what? Who am I kidding? I don’t have to guess. Ain’t nobody else sending your mean ass flowers. Open the card and read it, girl. Tell me what it say.”
I rolled my eyes at Aniya before I opened the card. All it said was two words:I’m sorry. Stone was full of audacity, and I wasn’t falling for it.
If he thought that he could win me over with some flowers, candy, and a lousy card with two words on it, he had another thing coming. I was only accepting a proper apology for the disrespect he’d shown me. If he wanted to apologize to me, he would have to do it the right way—to my face, and with real words.
“See, I told you that man didn’t mean no harm.”
“Yes, he did, and he’s sending flowers because he feels guilty.”
“Guilty or not, he want to eat your pussy, so let him eat your pussy.”
“You know what, Aniya? You stay in the office. I’ll leave.”
It had been almosta week since the last time I talked to Shanet. When I saw her face scrunch up at me in the hallway the way it did, I knew she was pissed, but I wasn’t thinking in the moment. She had to see things from my point of view. I was a brand-new parent being called to the school for my brand-new son, who was suspended.
Shanet was used to dealing with kids and their behavioral problems. It was her job, but I was trying to figure all this out as I went. It should have been easy for me to take her advice. I had no doubt she had the right answers, but I needed to do things on my own and in my own way. That was how my brain worked best.
In the days after our run-in at the school, I sent flowers, called her phone a million times, and did everything but sendsmoke signals to get her attention. She wasn’t having it. All my text messages went unanswered, and when I called this morning, I was blocked.
Shanet was standing on big business, but I wasn’t giving up. If I had been blocked from her phone, the only option I had was to pull up. I had already found out where she did her morning run and was on my way.
Shanet’s favorite park to run at was Jones Park, and since I wouldn’t be able to focus in the gym after finding out I was blocked, I was on my way out there. It was cold as hell, and I put on the first jogger set I saw.
Running was not my thing. I loved being in the gym. I could pump iron for two hours straight, but putting on running shoes this morning didn’t sit right with me. I knew I would only have ten minutes before I’d be out of breath, but if I had to chase Shanet’s ass, that was exactly what I would do.
I got out of the car, laced up my shoes, and headed toward the beachfront side of the park where I knew she’d be stretching for her run. I saw her as soon as I walked up. She was at the stretch bar with one leg thrown over it.
“Good morning.”
I walked up beside Shanet coolly and started to stretch. I needed my legs to be loose if I wanted them to carry me through more than ten minutes of running. I was not built for this, so I knew I couldn’t jump out there without stretching.
“How did you find me?” Shanet asked.
“It wasn’t hard.”
“So you a stalker now?”
