“Jelly—”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Okay, okay. Francine,” I push the door open to reveal my face. “Please, let me in.”
She hesitates.
And that hesitation wrecks me because Frankie hasn’t hesitated to let me in in a long time.
She steps aside anyway.
I walk past her into the flat and look around.
Everything smells the same.
The kettle must’ve been on recently because the air is warm. There’s two mugs on the coffee table, one of which has lipstick on the rim that I know isn’t hers.
It looks normal but it feels anything but.
She shuts the door behind me.
“Please don’t tell me you’re looking around for niggas. Because dealing with your nonsense is enough.”
“No, it’s not that.” I look at her and shove my hands in my pocket. “I just was kicking myself for fucking this up so quickly.”
She folds her arms, not going for it.
“You can just say what you came to say,” she says. “I’ll pass it on.”
“I didn’t want to leave a message.”
“Well, Za’s not here and I’m busy so...”
There’s a shrug in her voice that makes it sound like she doesn’t care whether I stay or go and I don’t matter either way.
I swallow. “I just came to apologise for yesterday.”
She doesn’t even blink. “You mean when your mum embarrassed your sister in front of the entire party and you defended it?”
Here we go.
I run a hand down my face. “You don’t know what it’s like to be in that position, Francine.”
“I know what it’s like to keep your word,” she bites back. “You said you had her back.”
“I do have her back.”
“You didn’t yesterday.”
“Because it wasn’t that simple?—”
“It is that simple!” she cuts in. “You either stand up for your sister or you don’t.”
“And you think it’s easy for me to do that with my mum? Or my parents on a whole”
“I think you shouldn’t have promised something you couldn’t follow through on!”
“I was going too! I swear I was, baby. I just— I— didn’t,” my breathing feels off. “I couldn’t.”
