The next morning we couldn’t figure out how to leave each other.
Then life made the decision for us.
—
I shook that memory off, and came back to the parking lot and Brielle was still looking at me.
“You need to grow up,” I said. Not mean. Just honest. “Either I’m somebody you choose out loud or I’m somebody you need to stay away from. Because the in between is killing both of us and I’m done living in it.”
The door behind me opened and Gutta stuck his head out.
“Aye. I just got a call. Another fight in two days. Twenty five thousand. You want it?”
I felt Brielle go still beside me.
I looked at Gutta and then I looked at Brielle. She was watching me with something in her eyes that was close to pleading without being willing to actually beg and I stood there for a second in that space between what she wanted and what my life actually required.
“I’ll take it,” I told Gutta.
Brielle’s face changed. That softness that had been there a minute ago closed up fast and she stepped back, grabbed her purse strap and looked at me one more time.
“You know what Street,” she said. Quiet. “Never mind.”
She walked back inside and I watched her through the window go straight to Simone and say something and Simone looked out at me through the glass and then they were both getting up and heading for the door on the other side.
Gutta came out and stood beside me watching them pull out of the lot.
“What did you do? You know, you really making this shit hard for me and my bitch.” he said.
“What I had to. And Simone ain’t yo bitch, delusional ass nigga.”
“You making sure of that, ain’t you? And damn Street! Simone was out here apologizing to you.”
“I know.” I told him, unfazed. I was tired of dancing with Bri ass. I had bigger shit on my plate that her sometiming ass.
“Gutta I got twenty five thousand dollars on the line in two days. I can’t be sitting around waiting on a woman to decide if I’m worth the argument with her family. I got things to do.”
He looked at me for a long moment and I could see him deciding whether to push it or let it go. He let it go. But his jaw was tight about it and I knew this wasn’t the end of that conversation.
We went back inside and finished eating in silence and then he dropped me back at my apartment and went his own way.
I walked inside and locked the door and stood in the quiet of my place and let everything settle. The morning had been a lot. The men in the abandoned apartment, the money from Gutta, Brielle in the parking lot saying things that she meant but could only tell me, me saying things back that I also meant and none of it adding up to what I wanted.
My phone rang.
Brielle.
I answered.
“You know what.” Her voice was different from the parking lot. Still frustrated but something else underneath it now. “I’m not about to keep letting you piss me off and act like I’m some terrible person. My family is my family and yes it’s complicated but you stand there and act like I haven’t been fighting for you in ways you don’t even know about.” I could hear her moving around, keys jingling. “And you still out here fighting in cagesand acting like your life don’t matter and I’m just supposed to be fine with watching that.”
“Bri—”
“Send me your address.”
I stopped. “What?”
“Send me your address Street. I’m coming over.”
