I stared at him, my heart hammering so hard I thought it might break through my ribs.
"What?" I whispered, feeling joy spread through every part of me.
Booda lowered himself to one knee, his eyes finding mine like they always did as he took my hand and held it, his thumb moving over my skin.
“I never been the type to do all this,” he admitted, a small smile pulling at his lips. “But you deserve the world. You been solid with me from the start. Whether I was on top of the world or lost it all and was tryna get back on my feet, you still chose me.”
His voice quivered as tears filled his eyes.
“Nobody ever held me down the way you do, and I don’t want nobody else waking up next to me, arguing with me, laughing with me… building anything with me. Just you. So, you gon’ let me make you my wife or what?”
The world unfroze all at once. The music rushed back in, swelling around us like a tide. The guests erupted in cheers that I could barely hear over the roaring in my ears. Booda slipped a ring onto my finger, one I hadn’t seen him pull out, and the diamond caught the light, throwing rainbows across my skin.
The garden blurred into streaks of color, green and red and gold, and I was laughing, really laughing, from somewhere deep inside me that I thought had died a long time ago.
When he set me down, he kissed me, and it tasted like promises and forever. His hands tangled in my hair, and I held onto his shirt as if I let go, he might vanish.
But then his lips were gone, and so was he.
My body went rigid. The garden bled out of color, the roses going gray first, then the grass, then the sky, until there was nothing left but dark water rising fast around my ankles, my waist, my throat. I clawed for something to hold onto, but myhands found nothing, just cold and pressure and the sound of my own pulse swallowing everything else. Then the water was gone too, and I was back on the porch, gripping the plate in my lap so hard it cracked down the middle.
Nothing had changed. The music kept playing. People were still laughing, swaying, and leaning into each other under the string lights while I sat there, feeling like my chest was collapsing with every breath. My lungs worked too hard for how still I was, and the streetlights now had a halo. Everything looked like it was playing out through a foggy window.
I pressed my lips together, battling the urge to cry. Why did these memories feel like fresh wounds? It was as if each one opened a door to a pain I thought I'd locked away.
I stood up, turned, and walked through the breezeway, focused on getting away before anyone noticed something was off with me.
CHAPTER 5
“Koko!”
I barely made it through the breezeway when I heard both Tink and Giani calling after me, but I didn’t stop. My heart was pounding too hard and too fast. The proposal. The ring. Booda’s face. All of it clung to me so heavily that it was difficult to separate the memory from reality.
“Koko, wait,” Giani called again, but I kept walking anyway.
The night air hit my face the second I stepped out of the crowded section of the apartments, but it didn’t help. It felt like a vise was clamping around my heart, and my thoughts were all over the place.
Footsteps hurried behind me. Tink reached me first, sliding in front of me with concern written all over his face, while Giani stopped a step behind him, breathing a little harder from trying to catch up.
“You good?” Tink asked, studying me closely.
“I’m fine,” I lied quickly. “Just got a little headache. I’m about to head back home.”
Giani frowned immediately. “You sure? You just walked off outta nowhere.”
“I said I’m okay,” I replied, softer this time because I could tell she was genuinely worried.
Tink looked between us before setting his cup down on the ground. “I can’t let you leave before you dance with me.”
Despite everything swirling around inside my head, I laughed a little. “Boy, what?”
“My friends bet me a hundred dollars that I couldn’t get you to dance with me,” he explained, pointing toward a group of boys nearby who immediately started laughing when they realized he’d exposed them. “All you gotta do is stand there and look pretty. I’ll do the rest.”
“Tink,” Giani warned, though she was laughing too.
“I’m serious,” he insisted. “I’m tryna make that huncho.”
“A hundred dollars?” I asked, and Tink shrugged, grinning.
