I couldn’t even play tough, and act like I wasn’t happy to hear from him because I was.
I dragged the answer bar across, not wanting to waste any more time, and have the call go to voicemail.
“Hey,” my voice was a little raspy because I was awakened from my sleep.
“Come outside. I’m parked in front of Ari’s house,” he let me know.
“Okay. Hold on,” I said, and then he hung the phone up.
I got up from the floor and stretched. I was wearing one of Dolo’s hoodies, with a pair of my pajama bottoms. I packed the hoodie when I packed my things and left his place.
I rushed to the bathroom, so that I could run a brush through my hair, and fix the bun that I had in. Once everything was good, I slipped my house shoes on, and I walked over to the front door.
Just like he told me he would be, his car was parked in front of Ari’s townhouse. He had it running. When I reached the passenger side, he was reaching over from the driver’s side, opening the door for me. It was freezing in his car. Even with the hoodie, and long pajama bottoms that I had on, I was cold.
I pulled the hood over my head, and after closing the door behind me, I placed my hands inside the pockets of the hoodie.
Dolo had his seat lying all the way back, with his hands behind his head, looking over at me.
“What were you doing?” he asked me.
“I fell asleep. Where are you coming from?” I wanted to know.
“The club,” he said.
“You saw Ari?” I inquired, turning my head to look at him, and instead of a verbal response from him, he just nodded his head.
“And she told you to come talk to me?” I wanted to know. He didn’t answer my question. The fact that he didn’t answer the question told me that I was right.
Again, I didn’t know what the fuck was wrong with me, but I dropped my head, picked my hands up, so that I could place the palms of my hands over my eyes, and like a fool, I started crying.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Riot?” he asked me.
“Because… because if… if she didn’t say shit… to you… you would have kept on ignoring me,” it was an angry cry that I was releasing.
That was just one of the traits that I hated I had. I cried when I was angry. I couldn’t help it. I felt like I was becoming so weak, so I took one of my hands off my face, and I reached for the door handle, going to get out of the car, but he pulled me by the hood of the hoodie that I was wearing, not letting me get out of the car.
Once he pulled me, he reached over with his free hand, so that he could close the door back, and he even locked it.
“That’s where you go wrong with me. You always think you got the answers to everything. Ari ain’t make me do shit. I’m a grown ass man, so I could have made the choice on whether I wanted to stay at the club with my niggas or come over here. All Ari did was plant the seed for me and made me see shit from another perspective,” he finished, letting go of the hoodie.
“But you would have kept on ignoring me,” I said, wiping my eyes, not looking at him because I was embarrassed.
“We don’t know what the fuck I would have done, so stop saying that,” he went on, and tears were steady falling.
I turned around, giving him my back, so that I could look out of the window. I really didn’t want him seeing me carrying on like this.
It probably took me five minutes to get it together. I slowly turned around in my seat, sitting straight, and looking ahead of me.
When I turned to look at Dolo, he had this look in his eyes, as if he probably thought that I was the craziest bitch in the world for carrying on the way that I was.
“Every time I do something that you don’t like, you break up with me,” I let him know, and he sucked his teeth.
“When the fuck have we ever broken up Riot? I haven’t been single since we got together,” he told me, acting like he didn’t know what the hell I was referring to.
I didn’t say anything else. Dolo eventually reached into the center console, and he pulled out some weed. I watched him as he rolled up right here on the compartment, grabbed the lighter that was in the cupholder, and he quickly lit the blunt.
He rolled his window down a little bit, so that the smell wouldn’t get trapped in the car. As if I was just the most stressful person in his life, he took a long pull from the blunt, and he released the smoke into the air. He already had his seat leaned back, and I just wanted to be closer to him. I ended up stepping out of my house shoes, and I climbed over to where he was, straddling his lap. I looked him in his eyes, and he looked me in mine. I was thinking about what I should say to him. I really wasn’t good at apologizing, but this was something that I wanted to work, so I had to learn.
