He doesn’t laugh like usual when her name comes up.
Instead, he drops his head with his mouth cocked to the side and sits his gun on my nightstand. “Nah…she trusts me with her life because she knows that everything I do is forherbest interest.”
“Even breaking things off with her?”
“There’s certain things I can’t give her that she deserves—like a normal life as a college student. She can’t have that if she chasing me around the city while I work to take care of you and Mama. Trust ain’t always easy. Sometimes it feels good and sometimes it feels like shit, but if you trust somebodyfor real, you gon' follow their lead whether it feels good or shitty.”
“Sound like you been talking to Ace and Mama too much,” I mutter.
It’s just how Ace explained it on his bedroom floor when I didn’t understand that any of the things he told me were intentional, and what Mama was talking about when I cried in her lap like I was ten.
“That’s my brother—even if I owe him a fade. We don’t gotta talk to be in each other’s heads. And that’s my Mama. She experienced this world before me and you. She’ll always know better than us.” He tosses his arm around my neck, pulling me into his side. “So, now what you gon' do with all this trust he built up between y’all? You need to decide.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
Ace
On days where black spots fill in the gaps in my memory, the toilet is my best friend. Mom used to say it’s where I had my “come-to” moments—with my arms curled around the lid, my stomach folding in pain, and my forgotten memories pouring into the bowl. The toilet is where the tiniest pieces of life try to push through those black spots and jog my scrambled memory.
“Blake said all is forgiven between you two,” Pops says from my bathroom doorway. “His eye’s healing, but he’s concerned about you... and about Lourdes.”
A dry heave wracks my body and I cough up another chunk of vomit from deep in my stomach. I try to breathe through it, but I don’t have Mom to coach me.
“Deep breath in and deep breath out,”she’d whisper, scraping her nails through my hair.“How ‘bout we ease up for a few days, Junior? What I’m gon' do if you drown one day and don’t come back home?”
“Fuck him.” I cough. “The fuck he so concerned about my lady for?”
Pops laughs. “Yourlady?”
“That’s what I said, didn’t I?”
“Nigga, you can’t even stay dry for twenty-four hours. I can’t trust you with yourself, let alone with Marshall’s babygirl. You ain’t got no lady.”
I hack up another glob of spit.
“You got her face on every gossip blog you can think of because you want to play social media games. That’s not the type of shit a man does for his lady.”
Remember how I said alcohol was funny? I forgot to mention how ignorant it was too. Phat isn’t here to stick my wrist into her middle and fix my cuff links and Mom isn’t here to stand between me and Pops to keep the peace, so we’re left to our own vices. It’s not the first time. I can’t remember all the knock out drag down battles we had back in LA, but I know Mom does. Bloody knuckles, busted lips, and bruised skin didn’t mean shit to either of us.
“Well, the best part about her beingmineis that I’ll take care of it. The fuck is you worried about it for?” I heave up one last mouthful of spit while gripping the sides of the toilet so I won’t drown like Mom fears. “I always take care of mines. You wouldn’t know shit about that.”
“Obsession don’t equate to care!”
I pinch my eyes shut and try to coach myself through deep breaths, but it’s impossible with him in my space. “How the fuck you even get up here, anyway? I told Lourdes to stop leaving her key in your truck.”
He chuckles. “You can’t erase me from your life. That’s not how this works.”
“Mom said I can do what the fuck I wanna do and my lady said I can get whatever I want. Neither one of ‘em ever steered me wrong. If I wanna erase you from my life, I can do that. Ain’t that what you trying to do with Mom?”
That’s the ignorant shit that sends his voice surging throughout her condo.
“That’s the goddamn problem!”
I peel my eyes open and turn around to look at him.
“Shelet you do what you want and have what you want without repercussions and look where you’re at today—bent over a fucking toilet before every game and calling yourself trying to court my best friend’s daughter. I told him I’d protect her from men like you and Angie drops her in your lap like she’s playing with fucking Barbie dolls. It’s sick.”
I squint, searching for the human that Gus swears exists within him. It’s hard with Mom’s spirit existing in the fibers of the walls though. I hate him for me and for her, no matter how hard Gus tries to convince me I shouldn’t.
