Page 62 of Just Like Summer

Kamilla didn’t say a word only followed his directions until she parked the car in what used to be a shopping center. The building was boarded up, tagged by various gangs. Cairo got out, trying to pull himself together. He needed to scream, he needed to fight the urge of taking her back to the house and driving down every block of Mecca and spraying it so the message was clear – Martez was a dead man walking. He’d loaned him enough grace. He’d kept himself out of real trouble enough.

Cairo sparked a blunt, hearing the driver’s side door open. “Not right now, K.”

“Then when? Huh?” Kamilla asked. “What was that?”

He gritted his teeth and turned to look at her. “Street shit. Nigga shit. Rivalry. Deep-seeded hate I got for that nigga. Fighting for control knowing that me killing that nigga is far overdue. And I can’t fuckin’ do it! That’s what that was. That’s what it will always be until the nigga is food for worms.”

“Why?” she pressed.

“Because of you!” he bellowed. “Because of what you are attached to. Because what you fucking mean to me. I kill him, I can’t have you. That’s what it comes down to. I cut his water off and I’m locked up for the rest of my fuckin’ life and this is a fever dream. I told you…”

He swiped his hand down his face. “I told you. It’s all about you since it became about you. It’ll kill me to give you any more trauma to hold. You get that?”

Kamilla stood there, quietly, watching him put himself together piece by piece.

Cairo breathed, let the weed soothe the nerves he wouldn’t let her close enough to offer relief for. “These streets are either going to kill me or take me from you. This shit has to work otherwise all I’m going to have with you is summer, you deserve more than that.”

“You do too,” she spoke softly against the wind. “You deserve this too.”

Cairo clenched his jaw and looked away.

“Don’t say you don’t. Don’t tell me that. I’m looking at you, Cai. I see you. You deserve this. To dream with your eyes open. To feel something other than the world snatching your innocence and giving you shit in return. Look at me.”

His eyes snapped back to her. Tears sitting at the brim.

“You deserve to be here. To be with me. Hell, even if it’s not with me. You deserve to soar without the chains of this place holding you down. Your heart is pure even if it’s been tattered. I see you and you deserve to make it out of here,” Kamilla spoke. “You deserve the exit. If not for you…for KP. That’s what he would want for you right? To get the fuck out here?”

The tension was erased between them now. Kamilla’s tiny hands clutched his shirt. “I got you. Just like you got me.”

He blinked, letting the tears drop ,and she swiped them away. The longer he stood in her hold, the calmer his nerves became. “This your chance to run from me. While I’m weak.”

Kamilla’s arms wrapped around his neck and inhaled his weed-tainted exhale. “This is the strongest I’ve seen you yet. I’m not running. Even if I did, you’d find me.”

“Damn right. Thank you…for bringing me back,” Cairo grumbled, before chuckling. “And getting me the fuck up out of there.”

“You owe me,” Kamilla buzzed.

“Whatever you want.”

“After the session, sunrise on the beach. And front row seat to your soar. We got forty minutes before we gotta be at the studio. Walk the rest of that off.” Kamilla released him after a kiss to his cheek and gently pushed him away. “Go center, you got to make magic.”

Kamilla hopped on the trunk and watched Cairo take a lap around the parking lot. When he returned, he asked, “You hungry?”

“I was really looking forward to my C4 special,” she announced.

“I know. Best I can do right now is Ray’s.”

Kamilla playfully rolled her eyes. “I guess.”

“Ay, who taught you how to get away like that?” Cairo asked.

“Who you think?”

“Make sense. Didn’t know where the hell you were going, though, but you got us up out of there.”

“I’d do it again but I’d prefer not to ever go through that again,” Kamilla stated. “Whatever you and Martez got going on, you gotta figure out a way to dead it without being snatched away from me.”

“There’s only one way to settle this shit between us.”