A Week Later
“Look at Mrs. Nerd Boy yallllll,” Joyy teased. I walked into Kelli’s for a slight girls’ night we were having because, despite our busy schedules, I still needed to have time with my girls.
I couldn’t do nothing but cheese at her greeting.
“Soooo. How is dating going? Is he really a good guy?” Rae asked. I smiled at my best friend and observed how wifehood looked on her. I never saw myself getting married before, but now that Vasiah was in the picture, I wouldn’t mind spending a couple of forevers with him.
“He’s… he’s… he’s everything, y’all, like seriously. I can’t even put it into words,” I sighed and sipped on my lavender lemon drop. The last time I was impressed by a nigga was when I was eighteen years old, and that was because I didn’t know any better. At thirty-one, Vasiah was everything I didn’t know I wanted…maybe even needed.
Ping.
Vasiah had texted me, and right before I could grab my phone and respond, I heard a voice that escaped from the pits of hell, clearly.
“LaReina? LaLa, that’s you?”
I glanced up at the dustiest nigga I’d seen in a while and almost snarled at him; that’s how hard I was twisting my lips up. Words couldn’t even form; I was so damn mad. I pretended as if I was deaf, eyes looking straight at Rae and Cherrice, who were sitting across from me. Dusty ass Donovan eventually caught the hint and shuffled his slew foot ass away from our table while I signaled for the waitress.
“Lemme get another lemon drop but this time with a triple shot in it.”
“Reina, who was that?” Rae asked.
“Abortion baby daddies are the most annoying niggas in the world,” I quipped.
Three pairs of eyes stared quizzically at me, and I stared back at them like they were the slow ones.
“Reina… what —“ Rae started to ask, but Cherrice shook her head.
“Please, don’t get her started. She’ll get herself riled up and try to pistol whip him and his mamaagain,and I’m just not in the mood.”
Rae’s eyes widened in horror. “What do you meanagain?!” Reina —”
“Another story, for another day,” I dismissed, my eyes following this fuck ass nigga and his little lopsided head ass family. It’d been over ten years, and while I’ve definitely moved on, I wasn’t sure why my stomach twisted in knots at the sight of him or why my hands felt clammy. Maybe because deep down inside, it felt like I was getting a glimpse of what life could’ve been like, had we been together. Donovan’s dusty ass broke my heart when I was nineteen. The funny thing is, Reign warned menot to fuck with him because he was nothing but a worker for him and Shawn, but my ass didn’t listen. I thought I could take that tarnished nigga and turn him into gold. Lost my virginity to him, ended up pregnant by him,andended up catching chlamydia. I pulled up to his house and pistol-whipped him and his big back ass mama. That day was the first time that Reign had to bail me outta jail, and the next day, I took my ass to Planned Parenthood and got that fetus sucked right outta me.
I don’t regret my decision, but I do regret ever letting a nigga catch me slipping like that, and I promised myself I would never let it happen again. I’ve kept that promise to myself, even though I could feel my walls crumbling more and more when it came to Vasiah. But seeing Donovan’s dusty ass made me want to build a new wall, bitch ass nigga.Vasiah is different; the angel on my shoulder tried to reason with me.
Rae’s eyes widened again as she put two and two together. “Oh, wait, is that? –”
“Not now, Rae,” I said firmly. Evil thoughts ran through my head, because how dare Donovan’s dirty dick ass have the audacity to open his ass kissers and speak to me? He should pretend I died bitch, because that’s what I surely did when it came to him.
“Well … Rei, don’t letwhoever that isruin your night. You’ve moved on just like I’m sure he has. So fuck ‘em,” Rae rubbed my hand, trying to make me feel better. But it was too late. My mood was already ruined, and now it would be hell to pay.
All these niggas are the same, the devil on my other shoulder declared. And I believed it, because when had there ever been a time when I was shown any different?
13
VASIAH
Hayami: I’m not coming today.
Istared at the message, contemplating how I wanted to respond. Something was tugging at me, telling me that everything wasn’t all good with her, and though I’d give her space if she asked, I wanted to comfort her, too.
Me: Why? Is everything okay?
Hayami: I just don’t feel like it.
She was being very dry and very short with me, and I wasn’t even sure what I had done. When I talked to her earlier yesterday, I knew she was going to dinner with her girls. I called her last night when she didn’t tell me she made it home, but she didn’t answer. I started working on my video game, expecting her to hit me back, but she didn’t. Checked her social media, and she had nothing posted. Called her again, then texted her. She hit me back this morning and said she wouldn’t be making it to our movie night. For the past month, we’d settled into aroutine of watching TV on Sundays because she usually didn’t take clients on Mondays and I worked from home. She’d put me on to her favorite shows and movies, and I’d put her on to my fave anime. It was something that she expressed that she looked forward to, so I couldn’t understand what was so different about today.
I stared at the message again. And while I should’ve let it go and busied myself with my own hobbies, that pesky tugging feeling had me getting in my car because now I was about to pop up on her. Or talk to her – calmly. This was out of character for me because no woman had ever affected me as Reina’s mean ass did. She was so hot and cold that I found myself checking in with her to see if it was okay to be normal with her. Most times, I embraced it because I was remembering what my Pop said about her being scared, and other times, I was absolutely sick of it, like today. Some shit had to be set straight around here. Now, she might pistol whip me, or she might fall into submission, but either way it went, Miss King-Hill needed to stop fuckin’ playing with me. I drove aimlessly for a bit, realizing that I didn’t know where exactly she lived. How she found out where I lived actually stumped me, but I had never even seen where she laid her head. She had some rule about it. And that’s another thing that frustrated me about this damn girl. All these fuckin’ rules and for what? I was tired of being grouped in with her past experiences, to be quite frank. I wasn’t them lame ass niggas, and them lame ass niggas wasn’t me.
