“The fuck was that?” Mega was on his feet now, eyes locked on me, nostrils flared. His voice was low, but the room had gone completely silent and everyone could hear every syllable.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“I saw you. I saw the way you looked at him.” He pointed toward the youngest one on the couch, the one who’d given me the half-smile. “You were eye-fuckin’ Bryce. Right in front of me. In my house. I saw yo hoe-ass.”
“Mega, I said hi. That’s it. I was being polite.”
“Polite?” He closed the distance between us in three steps and his hand was around my throat before I could back away. “You were eye-fuckin’ that nigga right in front of me, Serenity. Bitch, you think I’m stupid? You think I can’t see what you’re doing?”
“I wasn’t doing anything,” I said, and my voice came out thin and strained because his hand was tightening. “Baby, I swear. I was just saying hi.”
“You want a new nigga? Huh? Want one of these young niggas?” He was close enough that I could smell the liquor and the weed on his breath. All of that mixed with coke was violent combination. “They broke, Serenity. They can’t afford you. Can’t take you to Miami. Can’t buy you shit. You wanna suck his dick? You wanna suck lil Bryce’s dick?”
“Mega, stop?—”
He threw me to the floor in front of the couch where Bryce was sitting. My knees cracked against the hardwood and my hands barely caught me before my face hit the ground. Mega grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head up so I was eye level with Bryce’s lap.
“Go ahead then. Suck his dick. Since you want him so bad. Go ahead, Serenity. Show me what you were thinking about when you walked in here looking at him.”
Bryce’s jaw tightened. He looked at Mega, then at me on my knees with tears running down my face and my hair twisted in Mega’s fist, and something shifted in his expression.
“Yo, bro.” Bryce stood up from the couch. His voice was calm but firm and he was looking at Mega with an expression that was more tired than scared. “That’s your girl, man. Go ‘head with all that. She ain’t do nothin’.”
The other two guys were already standing, reading the room, understanding that this wasn’t something they needed to be present for. Bryce looked at me for a second—just a second—and there was something in his eyes that looked like recognition. Not of me specifically, but of the situation. Like he’d seen this before, in another house, with another man’s hand around another woman’s neck.
“Yeah, aight,” Mega said to them, not taking his eyes off me. “Y’all get up out of here. I need to talk to my girl.”
Bryce and the other two walked out without another word. The front door closed behind them and I heard the motorcyclesstart up one by one, the engines growling and then fading as they pulled off the block.
Mega still had his hand on my throat.
“See?” he said, pushing me down. My knees hit the hardwood and the impact shot pain up through my thighs. “They don’t want you. Nobody does. Nobody will but me. You need to be grateful for me.”
The kick caught me in the ribs before I could brace for it. I folded sideways, gasping, and my cheek hit the floor next to the shattered ashtray. I could see the scattered lines of coke from where I was lying. There it was, white powder on dark wood, close enough to taste if I turned my head.
He stood over me for a few seconds. Breathing hard. Then he stepped over me like I was furniture and walked down the hallway toward the bedroom. The door slammed.
I lay on the floor for a long time. The hardwood was cold against my cheek and my ribs were throbbing and there was glass from the ashtray a few inches from my face. The music was still playing. It was some trap song with heavy bass that vibrated through the floor and into my bones.
I thought about calling Mehar. Then I remembered what I’d said to her and the look on her face when I said it and I couldn’t pick up the phone.
I thought about calling Quest. Then I imagined what he would do to Mega and what Mega would do in response and I couldn’t make that call either.
I thought about my mother. Then I stopped thinking.
At some point I fell asleep right there on the floor, curled up next to the broken glass and the scattered cocaine, with my hand pressed against my bruised ribs and my eyes swollen shut from crying.
When I woke up, the living room was clean. The glass was swept. The table was upright. The coke was gone. And sitting onthe coffee table where the lines had been were three dozen red roses in a crystal vase and a small burgundy box.
It was a Cartier box.
I sat up slowly, wincing at the pain in my side, and stared at the box for a long time. I could hear Mega in the kitchen, cooking. The smell of bacon and eggs drifted down the hallway, and I could hear him humming—actually humming—like the night before hadn’t happened. Like he hadn’t choked me and kicked me and left me on the floor.
I opened the box. Inside was a gold love bracelet with a small screwdriver to lock it onto my wrist. You couldn’t take it off without the tool. It meant you belonged to someone.
I put it on.
22
