Chapter 8 #2
I cut the shower on and grabbed something to put on. I needed to find solace, to clear my mind and allow my body time to feel. I was so exhausted, running myself ragged and thinking about him, but what about me? Shit, Caya, just give yourself a minute.
A few minutes later I was in the shower, head under the water, just listening to the pattern of it hitting my body and the floor. Then I heard the door open and immediately the room was heavy again. I cared too much about Rennix… too much too soon.
“I fucked up, Cay. I shouldn’t have said that shit, but I wasn’t thinking straight. The thing is, you saying this shit happened too soon don’t mean it’s gonna stop happening. I mean, yeah I said some fucked up stuff, but it wasn’t how I felt. I was just in my head.”
He was pacing the washroom at this point while all I was trying to do was shower. I had yet to respond.
“Yo, you don’t hear me talking to you?”
I still didn’t respond. I was trying to enjoy my shower before I got out to deal with him.
“So you’re gonna stand your ass in there in the dark and act like you don’t fucking hear me?”
I rolled my eyes. “Just because I hear you doesn’t mean I wanna talk right now. I don’t. I’m tired.”
My answer didn’t suffice because within seconds he opened the shower door. I knew that much because I felt the cool air. When I opened my eyes, I made out his figure standing outside the shower with his arms crossed.
“You forgive me?”
“Rennix!” I shrieked, needing him to close the damn door.
“Hell nah. You don’t wanna talk. Just tell me you accept my apology and you forgive me. I’ll close the door.”
“Are you serious?”
“As fuck. Now hurry up. My shit hurt from you making me climb these fucking stairs.”
“I didn’t make you climb any stairs, Rennix. You climbed them of your own volition. You could have stayed downstairs.”
“The fuck you didn’t. What, did you think I was gonna not follow you? Yeah right, now tell me you forgive me so I can go back downstairs and lay down.”
“If your side hurts why are you going downstairs to lay down, Rennix?” I hated that I cared about him. Because the moment he said he was in pain I wanted to speed up my shower, even though I was mad at him.
When he didn’t respond I sighed, because what the entire fuck. This man was so fucking spoiled it made my head hurt.
“You forgive me?”
“No. Now go lay down so I can finish my shower.”
“Man, fuck this shower, you ready to forgive me or you wanna talk about this shit some more. And stop tryna talk to me like I’ma bitch, Caya.”
I closed my eyes and dropped my head back. He couldn’t be fucking serious. Of course he was.
“I’m not talking to you like you’re a bitch. I’m talking to you like you need to be lying down instead of interrupting my shower, Rennix.”
He sucked his teeth, then, just when I thought he would stop interrupting my shower, he opened the door wider.
In the dark I watched him back up and take a seat on the toilet.
“Now when Adonis comes up here and asks why we ain’t watching the movie yet, don’t get mad when I tell him it’s your fault. ”
I wanted to claw my eyes from my skull because he was purposely being a bug. “Rennix.”
“Nah, don’t talk to me. Finish your fucking shower.
” By now he had yet to close the door and indeed had his phone out, scrolling through it.
Safe to say my shower wasn’t peaceful. As a matter of fact, the only time his stubborn ass left the bathroom was when Adonis came in and asked him to help with his TV.
By that time my shower was over and I was getting out.
As much as I didn’t want to cook for his ass, I had to cook for my baby.
So once my body was moisturized, I tied my hair up and put on a sleep set.
To my surprise when I made it downstairs not only was the food I intended to cook put up, but so were the extras.
When I glanced toward the couch, Rennix’s angry bird ass was looking right at me.
“I put it up and ordered pizza. Now come chill, thug.”
I wanted to tell him no, but my lips never uttered the two letter word. Instead my legs carried me in his direction, then my mind questioned how I was supposed to sit, seeing as how he was indeed injured.
“Just sit in the corner.” He apparently read my mind.
I did as he said, and of course his head found its way between my legs, resting, just like my hand found his head. Shit came naturally, even though I was supposed to be mad at him. In no way was I standing on any type of business.
“Where is Adonis? I thought y’all were watching a movie.”
“Soon as I told him I wasn’t watching that Lilo and Stitch shit no more he decided I was no longer invited to his movie night.”
It took everything in me not to laugh because that indeed sounded like my son. It was always either his way or the highway, absolutely no in between. That’s why he and I didn’t watch movies together because I wasn’t watching the same movie a million times. “Oh.”
A brief silence filled the space before he broke it. “You still mad at me?”
“Yeah.” Instead of looking down at his head in my lap, I looked at the TV.
He wasn’t watching sports like a normal man, he was watching talk shows.
It wasn’t a normal talk show either, but the one I know came on earlier in the day.
If I wasn’t mistaken, ol’ girl was a doctor and she brought all types of people and celebrities on her show to talk through their issues and situations.
It was like TV therapy. I had caught a few episodes but could never stick with it since my schedule was all over the place.
“Why? I said I was sorry and I meant that shit.”
“Because even your initial thought of me doing something like that bothers me. Even though it was a split second thought.”
“I wasn’t. My reaction was out of nowhere. Out of t?—”
Trauma. Ol’ girl on the TV said the word before I could, except she was talking to another woman and not the man lying in my lap.
“Trauma.”
He nodded, probably not even catching the correlation, because he paused the TV a second later. “Yeah. I wasn’t thinking, I was jumping to conclusions and feeling. I fucked up.”
More silence.
I continued to massage his scalp, it felt good under my fingertips. “I forgive you.”
“I’m glad to hear things with Rennix are going well and you are seemingly forming healthy bonds.
That is wonderful. However, I want you to make sure you are not building the home we discussed inside the heart of another.
Your home has to reside inside of you, Caya.
” Dr. G’s controlled tone filled the room around me as I sat back on the sofa giving her a rundown of my last few weeks.
I mentioned Rennix a lot, but only because we had kind of been inseparable, even before he got shot.
It got worse after. If I wasn’t doing hair, then I was under him.
“What do you mean?” I tilted my head to the side for her to explain her statement.
“You can’t find or build your home within others, because it’s your home not theirs.”
“I never said I was. Yes, I like Rennix and the time we spend together, but I know that all the work I am doing is within myself. I understand that.”
She nodded. “Good.”
The session ended about fifteen minutes later, with me more so dazed, because now she had me wondering if I was doing the very thing I told her I wasn’t.
I liked Rennix… a lot. Did I like him too much too soon?
Probably, but putting a time on things that fit the way we did was wild… at least in my mind it was.
When I left therapy I went to have lunch with Harlem while my son was with my sister.
By her being done with school for the year, I had a paid live-in babysitter and I absolutely loved it.
Not only that, but Cylah took being an aunt very seriously because he was her baby.
She actually made plans with Adonis and had no problem sitting through the same movie over and over.
My phone’s ringer rang through my car, letting me know somebody was calling. Without looking at the screen I just knew it was Rennix. When it came to him, I had a sixth sense.
“Yes,” I answered, seeing his name on the center console.
“You out of therapy?” he asked, tone heavy like he had just woke up.
He probably had, because when I left this morning he was knocked out cold, that much I was grateful for.
I hated when he woke up in pain, that shit bothered me.
He didn’t explicitly tell me he was in pain, I could just tell by the way he moved.
It had been almost a week since his shooting and we agreed that he’d take at least a week and a half to recuperate before he started back moving around like normal.
“Yes. On the way to meet Harlem before I come home. How do you feel?”
“I’m straight. I’m about to step out with Rem for a minute, so don’t rush in.”
As soon as he said that I sucked my teeth, because he knew damn well he didn’t need to be outside right now. “Rennix.”
“What? I’m fine and I’m done taking that fucking medicine. Shit be having me sleeping too fucking much. I won’t be long.”
I shook my head at his blatant stupidity, but at the end of the day he was grown. I couldn’t make him stay in the house but I guess I could be disappointed that he couldn’t even spend a week inside after everything.
“Whatever, Rennix.”
I heard him sigh through the phone. “What, you mad at me now?”
“Nope. I’m not mad at you. Be safe.” He was about to say something, but I spoke again. “I just pulled into the lot of the restaurant, I guess I’ll see you tonight.”
“The fuck you mean you guess? Get off that bullshit, Caya.”
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. “I’m not on any bullshit. I’m about to go eat. I’ll talk to you later, Rennix.” I parked my car and just sat there for a moment, at this point listening to him breathe before he finally spoke.
“Yeah, you on that bullshit. Where you said you was at again?”
“Minding my business. Bye, Rennix.”
He laughed dryly and I didn’t say another word.
“See you in a few.” He hung up right after he said that and I shook my head, irritated as hell.
“Ughhhhhh!” I screamed aloud before finally gathering myself enough to get out of the car.
It had been a while since I met anyone who could frustrate me the way he did.
It wasn’t toxic or anything like that, but because I cared about him so much.
That night Dimitri answered his phone and told me he had been shot had scared the hell out of me, then to walk in that room and he was laid up bothered me even more.
Every time he woke up and I saw the pain in his face I felt it.
I felt him. The connection we shared was so deep that it petrified me.
I had never been so interconnected to anybody like this and here this fool was, outside days after being shot.
I pushed through enough of my thoughts before finally getting out of the car and going to meet Harlem. When I walked in, she was seated at the table drinking what looked to be a mocktail peering down at her phone.
“Damn, you’re really here before me again. I even left a little earlier,” I joked, sliding into the booth across from her.
“And here I was thinking you just like being late. Because how am I here before you and I had to sneak past that man and his bad ass kids?” She laughed.
“Don’t be sneak dissing my godbabies. They haven’t done anything to you, hoe.”
“Yeah, besides take my man. Kick me in my face while I’m sleep because they refuse to sleep in their bed?—”
“Aight not too much. They’re not that bad, especially since you pregnant right now.”
She waved me off. “So tell me what had you wrinkled all up. You know I can tell.”
I laughed. “You can, can’t you?”
“Mhmm. So go ahead and order you a drink then chug it for both of us while giving me a life update.”
Funny enough I did just that, not leaving anything out.
The update ranged from my therapy sessions to Rennix getting shot and the irritation I had with him going out right after being shot.
While explaining my annoyance to her, it dawned on me that it wasn’t so much as irritation as it was anxiety and worry.
Talking to Harlem, who let me get my entire thoughts out, was better than my therapist who seemed to only analyze my thoughts and feed them back to me.
“Your feelings are valid as fuck. But instead of shutting down, you have to tell him how you feel. Yes, he seems dismissive when it comes to himself. Shoot, every man of that caliber is. God knows Kinga is and it pisses me off. I be wanting to swing on him every time he says some shit like, ‘as long as you and my kids are straight, nothing else matters . ’ I beg to differ. It pisses me off so bad.”
I laughed because she tried to mimic him when she spoke.
“But what I’m saying is, until you tell him how you feel you’re gonna stay mad.
Just like I’ma tell you straight up that you set yourself up for that attitude when you believed he’d stay in the house for anything close to a week and a half.
They don’t know how to sit still, none of them do, and you know this. ”
I nodded, because she was right even though it irked my nerves. We talked for a while longer, more so her helping me work through my issues while we ate like she always did. Moments like this were needed, because without my girl, I’d be somewhere off my rocker going nuts.