My stomach plummets. “Oh, T. I’m sor?—”
She sticks up her hand. “Don’t. I called you day and night for three days. I even tried DM’ing you on IG and I damn near had a heart attack when I saw our message thread was gone. So I’m sorry I’m not tap dancing and clicking my heels because you popped up on me after a year of silence. You can save your apologies. I don’t want ‘em.”
Now the air smells like Burberry Goddess. The vanilla scent burns my nose as it simmers off her, and angry tears well in her eyes. Her freckled face morphs into a blur.
I want to hug her like I used to do after she’d tell me how happy she was that Hazel had forced us to play together that one summer because she finally had a sister. Before that, we’d just stare at each other while Hazel gossiped with Aunt Faye in our driveway until one day in July Hazel pushed her my way.
“He went through my phone and saw your text—the one telling me you’d buy my plane ticket home if I needed you to.”
“Because I would have,” she rasps. “I would’ve went up there and got you if I had to and you let him tear us apart.”
“I fought for us,” I choke out, slamming my fist into my hand. “I begged. I cried. I bargained.”
“And then what? Huh? Then what happened?”
“He beat my ass so bad for having the audacity to ask for my best friend I couldn’t even bathe myself for a week. Imagine what would’ve happened if he caught me trying to reach out to you again? I was trying to survive.”
The words weren’t supposed to come out that way, but they surged out of me like they were tired of floating back and forth in my head, and maybe it’s all just muscle memory. I always told Terrica the secrets that hurt the most.
She drags her hand across her cheek while choking out a loud huff.
A rough hiccup rocks my chest as if my body knows that I shouldn’t have said anything.
She could go off and tell Meechie what I said, and Meechie could tell other folks until it all explodes in a scandal that AJ won’t be able to outrun—at least that’s what his agent, Blake, told me once.
“You’re not just protecting him; you’re protecting his legacy. I’m talking, lost endorsement deals and negative public perception for years to come. You tell one wrong person about what happens when you two fight and suddenly we’re in a media circus because you’ve tarnished the image of one of the league’s golden boys. If you’re in this for the long haul, it’s best to keep your mouth shut or you’ll make my job a lot harder,” he said.
Terrica’s eyes sink into slits and she narrows them at me. “And you were shocked when he did it?”
Her words are so cold that a shiver courses through my body. “T…”
“Don’t.” Her nostrils flare. “The writing was on the wall the summer before you graduated. It was bound to happen. I told you to leave him alone after that night at Meechie’s, but you wouldn’t listen. He snatched you up in front of everybody—pulled out a handful of your hair.” “Jalen and Malik was gon’ whoop his ass for that shit. His own damn friends were gonna fuck him up for you, but you protected him.”
“He…he could’ve lost his scholarship for fighting. He could’ve ruined his life.”
“So you let him ruin you instead?” she asks.
“He wasn’t always like this. You know that. He…he was…”
“Perfect? Yeah, you always bragged about him beingsoperfect.”
I glance up at her. “We used to cry together about his mama and daddy sleeping in separate rooms. He used to tell me about how disappointed his daddy was that he didn’t follow in hisfootsteps and become a doctor like he wanted. There was just so much pressure he was always trying to outrun.”
“But did he ever cry for you? For all the shit you’ve been through?”
I shake my head, trying to rid myself of the memories I have of AJ’s red-rimmed eyes. “Something changed that summer before I graduated. It’s not as cut and dry as you think. It’s like one day I woke up and we had gone from screaming matches to me running from his fists, but I was still in love and telling myself that this hit would be his last one. It’s like I was stuck on a hamster wheel chasing the boy I used to cry with. I couldn’t just…leave.”
“Well, what did you think was gonna happen if you stayed with him, huh?” She scoffs. “You said yourself that men like him don’t get any nicer once they show you who they really are. You said your daddy just got meaner and meaner as time went on…”
If I had anything in my stomach, I’d throw it up, but there’s nothing left except regret.
I told Rich I wasn’t tough.
“You can take me to Dr. Vick’s place. Faye should be finishing up over there,” I mutter.
PART TWO
CHAPTER
