I can see parts of her that nobody else can, even though I ain’t ask for it to be this way. She’s just easy to see for some reason.
“Kenny know?” I ask.
She tugs at her shirt and looks down at the creek while I study her deep dimples up close.
“No,” she finally replies.
“Faye?”
She shakes her head.
I suck in a breath and look off in the same direction toward the creek. We probably look stupid as hell talking to each other this way, but I guess this is the aftermath of one of those “tact” situations.
“Does anybody know?” I ask.
“Nobody who actually matters here,” she mumbles.
“You gon’ tell them?”
“Tell themwhat, Rich?” she asks in a strained voice, wrinkling her arched eyebrows.
It’s the first time I’ve ever heard her say my name, and I can’t even enjoy it because it’s wrapped in contempt now that I know her quiet secret. Arnez said admitting that secret out loud for the first time was one of the worst things she’s ever done.
“Okay, fine. So where he at then?” I ask.
She stares down at the loose gravel and garbles out a barely audible, “I don’t know.”
“What you mean you don’t know where he at?”
She flings her head up. “You know, this really isn’t any of your business. You don’t know anything about me or…or my ex and our relationship.”
She wants to touch me.
She wants to jab her finger in my chest and do all the emotional shit that women do when they argue, but she can’t because he took that power away from her.
I reach down and grab her soft hand, uncurling her fingers from the ball they’re in.
Her body goes stiff like it did yesterday, but she doesn’t run this time. She lets me pull her warm hand up and slap it against my chest.
“What’re you doing?” she rasps, letting it fall back to her side.
I pick it up again and pry her pointer finger apart from her other bandaged fingers.
I stab it into my chest and hold it there. “That’s where it’s supposed to be in case you forgot. Now what else I do to piss you off?”
She balls her face up and looks away, shaking her head.
“Look at me,” I grunt. “Look me in my face and tell me what else I did to piss you off.”
She shakes her head again and, fuck, if I ain’t tired of that shit, but Arnez always says you have to be patient with women like her and I think Slim might bejustlike Arnez.
“You…you just know stuff that you shouldn’t,” she utters, staring at the ground. “And I don’t like it.”
She sounds like Ky trying to explain to Rasheeda why he won’t eat broccoli. There’s nothing complicated behind her explanation. It’s like she’s run out of ways of expressing herself.
“Then why won’t you look me in the eye and tell me that?” I ask.
“Because I can’t!” she yelps, lifting her hands up. “I…I just can’t. Alright?”
