I stayed standing at first.
He looked up at me. “What’s up?”
I jerked my chin back toward the foyer. “You and Zahra moving and didn’t tell me?”
I noticed reluctance flash in his eyes. “No,” he said. Then he picked his drink up and added, “Ava moved out.”
Me and Ava’s situation had gotten so toxic that I was trying to get her out of my head. I needed to let go. So, I had been ignoring the thread that security used to put in updates about her. I knew that if there was a threat of real danger, they would call me. That was why I had no idea of her movements as of late.
Hearing that she had moved out gutted me. Suddenly, it felt like she was moving across the country again. But I didn’t let it show on my face. I just walked farther in, took the chair across from him, and picked up the bottle on the table like that news hadn’t fucked my head up. “Word?”
“Yeah. She said she ready for some independence.” Then Saint laughed. “Like that’s gonna stop me from being on her ass.”
I laughed, halfheartedly. The second he said Ava moved out, I felt this grief, as if her not being down the hall when I came over, even with us not talking, was an ending I didn’t want to read.
Me and Ava hadn’t had a reason to speak since the doctor’s appointment. Every time I came over to Saint’s after that, sheeither wasn’t home or stayed locked up in her room. I knew she was avoiding me. And I was cool with that. I knew when her next appointment was, and I was so close to family that I knew how she was doing. I was still so pissed off with her for putting me in this position that every time I felt like I was supposed to check on her, I felt like I was letting her get away with doing this to me, so I would change my mind.
But now there were boxes in the foyer. Ava was preparing for life without me in it.
I stared at the TV without seeing anything on it.
“Her hair business is booming. Within a week, she put the deposit down and got the whole place furnished. She moved in with whatever she could carry. The movers are coming to get the rest tomorrow.” Saint looked over at me and must’ve peeped something, because he said, “Her new spot is only like twenty minutes away.”
I took a sip of liquor. “I didn’t ask how far it was.”
He leaned back. “I’m telling you anyway.”
I looked back at the screen. The Packers scored. The crowd on TV lost their minds, but Saint cursed, while all I could think about was Ava standing in some new place without me, without me seeing who came in and out, without me knowing if she was straight.
That thought irritated me instantly, because I didn’t want to feel anything about her moving. I didn’t want to care.
Saint changed the subject, started talking football, the spread, some dumb shit Big A had said earlier about one of the teams. I answered when I had to, but my mind kept drifting back to those boxes and what they meant.
Ava was really building her own lane, separate from all of us, separate from me. A part of me respected it because she had always had more backbone than people gave her credit for. Another part of me hated the thought of her pulling fartheraway. And the most toxic part liked that she was carrying my child while doing it, because no matter where she moved, no matter how much distance she tried to create, that still tied her to me in a way nothing else could.
A commercial came on, and Saint muted the TV.
He leaned back on the couch and said, “Be honest. Do you want to be with Ava?”
I looked at him and gave him nothing at first.
“I know you like to act like you don’t want no parts of anything that look like family, love, or some real shit. But I see something in you every time you can’t have her how you want her.”
I took a slow sip of my drink before I answered, “That’s just it. I want her howIwant her, not how she wants and deserves to be had.”
Saint frowned. “What that mean?”
“It means Ava deserves to be possessed the right way. She deserves some loving marriage, a house that feels like home, and however many babies she wants. And she deserves all of that with a willing and capable man. She deserves a nigga that wants all that and can be in it without flinching.”
Saint stayed quiet but nodded his head real slow as if he was respectfully listening so that he could fully understand.
“I stayed away from her as long as I could because I knew that. I knew I wasn’t built for what she’d eventually want from me. Then I got weak, couldn’t take it anymore, and made a mistake.”
“Maybe that mistake was the universe putting y’all together the way y’all story was supposed to start,” Saint foolishly suggested. “Every love story isn’t a perfect fairytale. Sometimes that shit is toxic first. Sometimes it’s painful first. Sometimes people come together through mess.”
“If that was the case, I wouldn’t get sick to my stomach every time I think about being committed. I wouldn’t feel like I can’t breathe every time I think about being a father to that child. Maybe some people just ain’t meant for that shit. Maybe you should appreciate me knowing my own capabilities enough not to waste Ava’s time pretending otherwise.”
Saint rubbed his beard and sat with that.
