I blinked slow, feelin’ the guilt claw up my throat. “Toni, I ain’t talkin’ about no other bitch.”
She shook her head and hit the blunt again. “So you admit you stuck yo’ dick in another bitch.”
Her voice wasn’t loud. She wasn’t accusin’ me. She wasn’t tryna fight. She was just sayin’ the truth she already knew.
I ain’t say shit. My silence filled the whole room.
“You did,” she whispered. “Ain’t no point in lyin’. I know you did.”
My jaw clenched, my chest hurtin’. “What the fuck I’m supposed to do when you don’t even want me?” I finally asked. “You ice me out. You don’t talk to me. You act like you don’t even need me.”
“That’s ‘cause every time we good, you do somethin’ to fuck it up,” she said. “Every time.”
I swallowed hard ‘cause she wasn’t lyin’, but she damn sure wasn’t clean in the shit either.
“And you not addressin’ the fact you was on birth control behind my back,” I said. “You did that shit and you still actin’ like I’m the only one who fucked up.”
Her eyes slid toward me slow, cold as hell. “I did what I had to do for myself.”
“And that’s the problem,” I said. “You selfish as fuck, Toni.”
She finally turned her whole head, her face sharp but tired. “And what the fuck that make you?”
Her voice cut the room in half.
I looked right back at her, lettin’ the truth sit between us. “It make me a nigga who love you too much to pretend I don’t.”
Her eyes drifted away like she ain’t know what to do with that.
“So I should be able to go fuck with who I want like you do?” she asked.
My whole body heated. “Ain’t no nigga touchin’ you. Whoever you decide to fuck with gon’ die. You give my pussy away and you gon’ be responsible for a toe tag.”
She laughed once, but it wasn’t happy. It was tired and sad. “Right. So you can do you, but I can’t do the same.”
“No, you can’t,” I said. “I’m not explainin’ that shit again.”
“That’s exactly why I closed up,” she said. “You think you own me.”
“I do own you,” I said. “I own your heart, your soul, your love. All that shit is mine. Same way my shit is yours.”
She ain’t respond. She just inhaled the blunt and let the smoke float up and disappear. The water rippled around her body and for a second the whole room felt too still, like everything between us was settlin’ heavy.
“We moved too fast,” she said after a long moment. “We was so in love, so passionate, so wrapped up in each other. We never stopped to learn how to love in the hard seasons. We never stopped to think about how bad shit could get.”
I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees. “I’m tryna work through it.”
“But we don’t even know how,” she whispered.
We ain’t yell or scream at each other. We just… sat in the truth, both of us lookin’ at the pieces we broke.
Finally she said, “Either you leave tonight or I will.”
My stomach dropped ‘cause the thought of her out there alone—I’d lose my fuckin’ mind. There wouldn’t be nowhere I could go where I wouldn’t need to know where she was.
So I nodded slow. “I’ll go,” I replied. “Even though I don’t want to.”
She ain’t respond. She just looked away again.
