Silence filled the apartment after that.
I looked down at the weapon still hanging from my hand and tried to imagine Booda killing somebody, but every memory I had of him so far was of him loving on me.
“What did that have to do with me?” I asked, and the moment the words left my lips, Giani laughed and pushed herself off the wall.
“Koko, you really don’t remember who you used to be.”
That irritated me immediately.
“If I did, I wouldn’t be asking,” I snapped, ready to take that bitch’s head off.
There was nothing funny about the shit I was going through.
“You wasn’t just Booda’s girlfriend. You was his rider,” she said. “Niggas knew not to play with you either.”
“That don’t even sound like me.” I scratched the side of my head, tryna picture myself as a female gangsta.
Giani laughed under her breath and shook her head. “That’s because you comparing who you are now to who you used to be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you wasn’t soft, Koko.” She pointed toward the window. “And you damn sure wouldn’t have let nobody try to run you over without spinning the block right after. You and Booda were some savages, and once people crossed y’all, it was up.”
I looked down at the gun still hanging from my hand and replayed everything that had just happened. Most people would’ve frozen after almost being hit by a car, but I unloaded the clip without even thinking about what I was doing.
Giani’s phone suddenly buzzed in her pocket, so she pulled it out and looked down at the screen.
“Tiffany’s looking for me,” she said. “She heard the gunshots and is around there panicking ‘cause she can’t find me.”
I nodded, though my mind was still stuck on everything she had just told me.
Giani slid her gun back into her purse before looking at me again.
“I’m about to head out, but I’m gon’ put my ear to the streets and see what I can find out about that nigga in the car,” she said. “If he's bold enough to try some shit like that over here, somebody knows who he is.”
A bitter laugh escaped me. “Seems like everybody knows more than me.”
Her expression softened. “Don’t worry, friend. It won’t be like this forever.”
She pulled her phone back out and held it toward me. “Lock your number in.”
I took it from her, typed in my digits, and handed it back. She called my phone, waited for it to ring, then ended it and slipped hers back into her purse.
“Call me if anything happens. I don’t care what time it is either.”
“I will.”
Giani lingered by the door for another second before unlocking it and stepping out into the hallway. “Lock this behind me,” she warned.
“Trust me, I was,” I replied, and that actually made her smile a little.
A second later, she disappeared down the stairs, leaving me alone with the smell of gunpowder still hanging in the apartment and more questions than answers.
CHAPTER 6
The neurology office smelled like sanitizer and stale coffee, and somebody’s child kept dragging a toy truck across my feet. I smiled politely, trying not to snap at the kid, but he wouldn’t stop.
“Goddamn, bitch! Get yo’ muthafuckin’ baby,” I barked at the chick sitting beside me on the phone.
