Booda leaned against the wall, one arm crossed over his chest, the other hand working through his chin hairs like he was thinking real hard about something. Then, after some time passed, his mouth did that thing it always did when he was trying not to smile.
“I don’t believe you,” he finally said. “You ain’t acting like somebody who moved on.”
“Tell that to my pussy. She’s been getting fucked a lot better since you been gone.”
He tried to hold it in, but the laugh burst out of him anyway. Booda bent forward, laughing so hard he had to drag a hand across his face to wipe away the tears that gathered in the corners of his eyes.
“I know your body better than you, and not once have those hips ever lied to me.” He shook his head, still laughing at me like he thought I had truly lost my damn mind. “I can tell by how you move that you bluffing. You ain’t gotta make shit up for me.”
“Fuck you, Booda! I don’t see anything funny. You wanna talk about everything but the issue at hand.”
“Nah, you wanna fight, and you know I don’t do that. You gotta talk to me, not at me.”
“How do I do that when you keep changing the subject? Then, you got the nerve to laugh in my face.”
Booda shook his head. “Nah, I would never laugh at you. You just look real cute when you mad. That’s what got me.”
“Whatever.” I waved him off and turned around before he could see my face. “I don’t have time for this shit.”
“Stop,” he ordered, and all it took was one word from Booda to make my feet forget what they were doing.
“For what?” I asked, lip quivering. “Did she lie? Was everything made up to keep me away from you while you did your bid?”
I needed to hear it from him because there was a difference between him walking away on his own and somebody making that decision for him. A difference between me being somebody he could throw away without looking back and me being somebody he never stopped thinking about.
For months, I had held on to the smallest piece of hope that his mother lied to protect him, or maybe to protect me. I wanted to believe there was another explanation for why he disappeared without a word after everything we had been through together. Something that hurt less than the truth.
Because if Booda really meant what she said he did, then loving him had been the stupidest thing I’d ever done. And judging by the way my heart was starting to crack all over again just standing in front of him, I wasn’t sure what that said about me.
Booda looked at me, and for a second, something shifted across his face. His mouth parted, then closed again, like he was reaching for the right words and coming up empty.
Against my better judgment, a small piece of me still hoped there was another explanation for all of this. If his mother lied, then maybe he hadn’t abandoned me the way I thought he did.
But the longer he stood there silent, the more my heart sank.
And then I knew.
Not fully. Not because he had said the words yet. But because people fighting for you wouldn’t stand there looking guilty. They wouldn’t search for softer ways to break your heart.
They’d tell the truth immediately.
The hope I’d been carrying around for months started slipping through my fingers right there in the middle of this parking lot,and judging by the look on Booda’s face, he saw it happening in real time.
“I didn’t say that,” he finally said, and those words hit a lot differently than I expected them to.
Months. That was how long I had been walking around with a hole in my heart, crying over a man who was too much of a coward to tell me himself. I wanted to scream in his face, break something, maybe even break him, just to see him bleed the way I had.
“Then what are you saying?” I pressed, trying not to jump to conclusions and do something stupid before I had the whole picture.
“I’m saying you took what she told you and ran with it. That ain’t on me.” He shrugged, and a hollow laugh left my mouth.
“So now you blaming me?” I yelled. “Nigga, I was out here homeless, sleeping in my car, barely eating, and moving day to day, not knowing who the fuck I was. I woke up in the hospital with no memory and nobody sitting beside my bed. What else was I supposed to do? I couldn’t spend my time chasing you down when I was trying to figure out where I was gon’ bathe, or where my next meal was coming from.”
“My momma would’ve helped you!”
“That wasn’t my place anymore!” I snapped before I could stop myself. “Not after what she told me. You think I was about to keep sitting up in that lady’s face after she made it clear you ain’t want me around? I already felt pathetic enough.”
Tears threatened to spill, but I forced them away.
