For the first time since he’d walked back into my life, I understood why I loved him. He embraced my darkest parts, and yet, I was still terrified of who I had become.
Booda’s fingers lingered at the button of my jeans for a moment before he slowly undid them. My breathing turned uneven again as the denim loosened around my waist.
“Get out your head and come back to me. This shit ain’t new. We murk niggas, baby,” he said, looking up at me with the sincerest eyes I’d ever seen.
I shook my head. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Then stop fighting the memory. Embrace that shit.”
A weak laugh left me. “Easy for you to say.”
“It would be easy for you, too, if you would admit you liked what you did and left it at that.” His hands slid along my hips before he pushed the jeans downward. “Quit tryna punish yourself for killing a muthafucka that tried to kill you.”
I stepped out of my pants as I contemplated what he’d said.
The bathroom floor was cold beneath my feet, but when I turned on the shower, the heat slowly filling the room wrapped around me like a blanket. Steam fogged the mirror inch by inch until my reflection began to disappear behind it.
Maybe that was better. I didn’t wanna look at myself right now anyway.
Booda reached behind me and unclasped my bra before tossing it aside with the rest of my clothes.
“You shaking harder now,” he said as his hands settled against my bare shoulders.
“I feel sick.”
“That’s your nerves crashing.”
“No,” I whispered, my eyes drifting shut. “I liked it,” I admitted out loud for the first time, and for a second, neither of us spoke.
Then Booda’s hands slid down my arms until his fingers threaded through mine. He helped me into the shower, then stripped and stepped in behind me.
We stood beneath the running water, facing one another.
“You liked the power it gave you,” he corrected calmly. “That ain’t the same thing.”
“But I wanted him to hurt.”
“He wanted you dead.”
I swallowed hard.
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“It ain’t supposed to, but being in denial about you being a killer won’t either.”
My throat tightened because deep down, I knew he was right.
The girl who woke up confused wasn’t the full version of me. She was the broken version. The softened version. The version stripped of all the ugly shit that made me dangerous in the first place.
And tonight proved that woman was still somewhere inside me.
The sight of Booda should’ve calmed me completely, but instead it made something ache inside my chest. Every scar across his body told stories I couldn’t fully remember yet, and somehow that hurt worse than the flashes themselves.
Booda stepped closer and brushed his knuckles lightly beneath my chin.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
