And it felt good… too damn good.
But if I’m bein’ real, lil’ shit started peekin’ through if I paid attention. Kay’Lo still woke up some nights, sittin’ up rubbin’ his face like his mind was runnin’ somewhere fast. Sometimes he’d go quiet in the middle of a convo with his jaw tight, and his eyes somewhere else. I knew them moments. I always did.
And I noticed somethin’ else too.
When we fucked, he’d pull out every time with no hesitation or awkward pause. I believe it was his way of sayin’I heard youeven though I could feel in his body that he ain’t like it. He never complained or brought it up. He just adjusted.
I never told him how much the birth control shit hurt me. I never told him how what he said stayed with me. I just let love cover it and told myself forgiveness meant not reopenin’ wounds.
We was lovin’ through it instead of talkin’ through it, and neither one of us wanted to admit that.
It finally came out one night while we was sittin’ outside on the patio, watchin’ the water, with the music low and drinks half gone. It felt calm until it didn’t.
“When you think you gon’ be ready?” he asked, lookin’ straight ahead.
“Ready for what?” I asked even though I already knew.
“To start a family. With me.”
My stomach dropped. “I don’t know.”
He nodded slow, but I felt the shift. “That ain’t good enough,” he said. “Sound like you don’t really love me.”
That shit hurt. “How you gon’ say that?” I snapped. “You know I love you.”
“I don’t feel it,” he said. “Not like this.”
“I just wanna take shit slow,” I told him. “That don’t mean I don’t want you.”
“Slow how?” he asked. “We married.”
“I want my mind clear when it happen,” I said. “I wanna be present. I don’t wanna be stressed or holdin’ shit in while I’m carryin’ our baby.”
He looked at me like he couldn’t understand. “How you stressed when I be lovin’ you like this?”
“Because love don’t erase everything,” I said. “It help, but it don’t fix shit we ain’t talkin’ about.”
He went quiet, and that silence felt worse than yellin’.
I ain’t wanna fight, so I climbed into his lap, kissed along his jaw, his cheek and his lips, hopin’ he’d soften like he always did.
But he didn’t.
His body stayed stiff like his mind was somewhere else.
And that’s when it hit me.
We wasn’t healed. We just paused the pain and covered it with sex, trips, money, and affection. And now it was comin’ back whether we was ready or not.
I rested my forehead against his, my heart heavy.
We loved each other.
That was never the problem.
The problem was we was so scared to lose each other that we stopped really listenin’.
My cousin was gone and just like that, me and Kay’Lo had got worse.
