Session 33

Chapter sixty one

It had been a week since Cassius sat on my couch, looked me dead in the eyes, and told me he was letting me find my way back to him. His words had been sitting in my head. keeping me up. He had the audacity to be prophesizing on what I was going to do, with his smug ass. But then... was my reunion with Cassius inevitable?

Was that why I was in Solomon’s house, digging through his shit? Was I trying to find an excuse to break up. Or was it really there because something about him wasn’t sitting right? I’d been side-eyeing him since I overhead that conversation with his mother—the way he’d snapped at me when I brought it up made me think he was hiding more than he said.

I wasn’t proud of myself. But I wasn’t about to stop either.

I’d already gone through the drawers in his office, flipped through the papers stacked on his desk, checked his laptop history. Nothing. There were no signs of anything out of the ordinary, no hidden secrets about another woman or some kind of life he wasn’t telling me about. But the feeling that something was off gnawed at me.

I moved to his closet in his bedroom, pulling open the doors as quietly as I could, even though I knew he wasn’t home. Shirts, suits, all lined up perfectly like everything else in his life. It was kind of weird how everything was perfectly color-coordinated. I reached up to the top shelf, where he kept old boxes—things I figured he never really looked through. But as I was pulling one down, I heard a car pull up in the driveway.

Shit.

I checked my phone. Over an hour had passed since I started looking. I meant to do a clean ten-minute sweep and be out. I had been avoiding him like the plague since he’d been back. I was fed up with him talking to me like I wasn’t an adult. Naomi said a lot of older men do that when they deal with younger women, and it’s a major red flag because the next step is beating your ass like you’re one of their kids—that’s what she claimed at least. But I couldn’t really see Solomon putting his hands on me.

My heart was jumping into my throat as I hurried to put everything back into place. Some of the boxes were a little crooked, but I didn’t have time to fix them. I could hear his footsteps coming up the stairs.

I closed the closet door and rushed to meet him at the top of the stairs, trying to act casual, like I hadn’t just been tearing through his life looking for something I couldn’t even explain.

“There you are,” Solomon said, his voice smooth, a little too warm. He smiled, his eyes tracing over me in a way that made my skin prickle. He reached out, pulling me close, his hands sliding down to rest on my hips. “I missed you,” he murmured, pressing a soft kiss to my neck, then another, lower on my cleavage. His hand slid under the hem of the shirt I was wearing.

“Fuck, you feel good,” he praised.

I tried to focus, tried to let myself sink into his touch. His hands slid under my shirt, rough against my skin as he pulled me closer, grinding his hard dick against me just enough for me to feel him.

“Come on,” he whispered, his breath hot on my ear. “We’ve got time before you have to pick up Ekon. Let me taste you,” he whispered, tugging at my shirt, trying to pull it over my head.

His lips still felt good, but I wasn’t feeling it. Not now. I pushed him back gently, giving him a soft smile to ease the rejection. “I can’t,” I said quietly. “I’ve got therapy in an hour.”

His hands froze on my waist, and he pulled back to look at me, his brow furrowing. “Therapy?” he asked, the word heavy on his tongue. “Since when?”

“I just signed up,” I said, trying to keep my voice casual, like this wasn’t a big deal. But it was. To me, it was. “I need to figure some things out.”

He looked at me like I had just said I was joining a fucking cult. “You need to figure things out?” His voice was sharp. “I don’t believe in that therapy. You know that. I would rather us talk to my priest.”

I stepped back from him, going down a step, crossing my arms over my chest. “You may not believe in it, but I do.”

His eyes narrowed slightly.

I didn’t wait for him to respond, I headed downstairs, grabbed my bag, and headed for the door. “I’ll see you later,” I said over my shoulder. I walked out, I could feel his eyes on me, burning a hole in the back of my head. But I didn’t look back.

I wasn’t lying when I said I was going to see my new therapist. It took me twenty minutes to get there, and I was scared as hell when I pulled up.

How did it make me look, sitting in a therapist's office like I was broken or something? Sometimes it felt like there was no space in this world where a Black woman could be soft, and I was always taught that seeking help was weak. I was raised to handle my own shit, to keep my problems close. Black people didn’t do therapy. We prayed on it, we screamed into pillows, we buried it so deep it calcified in our bones—or we ended up in prison for splitting somebody’s shit wide open.

But then I sat with my thoughts for a second, letting them stretch themselves out. If Cassius, of all people—with his fists, his temper, his self-destruction—could sit down with some stranger, talk about his problems, and become better from it, then I could too.

The receptionist behind the desk was young, probably a few years younger than me, with long box braids pulled up into a bun. Her nails were neon pink, tapping against the keyboard as she typed something. She stopped to greet me.

“Hey, girl. You must be Angel, right?” Her voice was bright, almost too friendly for how I was feeling.

“Yeah,” I nodded, and she handed me a clipboard.

“Go ahead and fill this out, Beloved. Just the basics,” she said, flashing me a smile. The kind of smile that said she’d seen women like me walk in here a hundred times, unsure of whether they should stay—and she was there to make them feel comfortable. Her pretty, smiling ass was helping my nerves.

The door to the therapist’s office opened, and out walked a woman, probably in her mid-fifties, with skin the color of coffee and a head full of kinky grey hair that fell in thick curls around her face. She was pretty in a way that made you feel like you’d want to sit at her kitchen table and drink tea while telling her all your problems. She glanced at me, gave me a warm smile, and said, “Angel? Come on back.”

I stood, my knees feeling a little shaky, and followed her into the room. The office was cozy, the opposite of Cassius’s therapist. It fit me—he had chosen right for me. There was a long maroon futon-like sofa, but it was fluffy.

My therapist sat down across from me, crossing her legs and folding her hands in her lap, watching me for a moment before she spoke. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Angel.,” she said. Her voice was like when an older Black woman calls you “baby,” and it makes you feel warm.

I opened my mouth, but the words got stuck in my throat. I ran my hands over my jean skirt, feeling the rough denim beneath my fingers. Finally, I let out a breath and spoke. “I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. I keep fucking up. I’m engaged and don’t want to be married, and I always feel like hitting someone,” I said, the words tumbling out before I could stop them.

Dr. Reed didn’t flinch. She just nodded, like she understood. “That’s a big statement,” she said softly. “Let’s unpack it together.”