Chapter 9 #3
“Girl, shut up! I’ll be back,” Shy said, rushing from the room.
Courtney felt the pressure of matching the value of her gifts.
That was another reason why she hadn’t wanted to be super present for the Friendsmas festivities.
She didn’t have the same means as her girls.
It was easy for them to blow bags on one another.
Courtney had to choose between a halfway decent gift for them and paying her light bill.
Shy returned after a few minutes, and she held a jewelry box in her hands.
Courtney opened the box, and she gasped when she saw the beautiful strand of pearls inside. “These are your nana’s, Shy. She left these to you in her will. I can’t accept this,” Courtney said.
“You can and you will,” Shy stated. “My grandmother was from Louisiana, girl, and she didn’t pass these down to me because they’re expensive.
Her great, great-grandmother gave them to her.
She blessed them in the backwoods of Bastrop.
You probably ain’t even never heard of it.
Those pearls protected every woman in my family from any man who ever wanted to do her harm, starting with the slave master she originally made them because of.
Swear to God, last nigga who tried to plot on me teeth fell out his mouth, and the nigga went bald, and his dick stopped working. ”
Courtney went from tears to gut-hurting laughter.
“I promise youuuu!” Shy hollered. “Now, they yours, so James can play if he wanna. Nigga gon’ fuck with them ancestors, and they ain’t never playing about whoever wearing that necklace. Voodoo the fuck out his ass!”
Courtney rushed Shy and hugged her tightly as she released pent-up emotion, crying on her shoulder.
Shy closed her eyes and held her back. “Merry Christmas, boo. You’re going to be okay. We promise you, sis.”
Sloan tossed and turned for hours as she tried to force her mind to shut off.
She was worried about so many things. She and Ellie had spoken for over an hour after she got home.
Ellie was so hurt, and all Sloan could do was pray with her and be a listening ear.
Courtney’s situation weighed heavily on her as well.
She had already gone online and started a new bank account in Courtney’s name.
Luckily, she had Court’s social security number from her medical records, since she was Courtney’s OBGYN as well.
She had put aside ten thousand dollars in emergency money, just in case Courtney ever felt the need to escape permanently.
She knew it took time to leave, and that Courtney would likely end up back at home.
Sloan didn’t like the idea of her friend being trapped in a situation due to lack of finances.
It wouldn’t happen on her watch. It seemed like Shy was the only one who didn’t have a pressing problem to fix, and she was grateful for that.
Then, there was the looming heartache hovering over her bed like a storm cloud.
She felt like she had been gutted right down the center.
She may not share her problems with her friends, but she had them.
She had a lot of them, but she was the strong friend.
She was the one they went to for support.
She couldn’t show weakness and reciprocate a need because who would hold their circle down?
She lay in bed in anguish. Cassidy had blindsided her.
She could still feel his touch. She could still taste his lips.
She wanted to call him, but it just wasn’t appropriate.
What would she tell people? They didn’t have a shot at anything real.
She couldn’t claim him publicly. She was in a predominantly white and very corporate profession.
The medical field was elitist. She had worked very hard to be respected in the healthcare community and to be an advocate for Black maternal medicine.
She couldn’t let a man with a record a mile long claim her.
She could never introduce him to anyone.
As soon as they looked him up, her entire career would be discredited.
She knew it was wrong, but it was life. It was how the world worked.
He hadn’t been a part of the world in a long time, so he was na?ve if he thought otherwise.
He could call her uppity all he wanted. She was a realist, and even though she felt such ease in his presence, she knew he was a very temporary visitor in her life.
He could never stay. Her history, mixed with his history, was a recipe for disaster anyway.
Even if she could get past the professional stain it would cause, the things that traumatized her from her childhood were triggered by his story, and she couldn’t shake that, no matter how hard she tried.
Her tears were so natural that she didn’t even realize they were falling until her pillow was soaked.
They just leaked out the corners of her eyes as she stared at the wall.
She had never felt a connection like the one she felt when she was around Cassidy.
It didn’t matter if they were in agreement or at odds, the energy exchange was electrifying.
Some days, she went through her routine simply because she had done it so many times before.
She knew what to do, when to do it, and what to say, like clockwork.
She just switched the day of the week and the color of the scrubs.
When she was near him, days felt lived. They felt unique.
She felt every second. He ignited jealousy, anger, excitement, intrigue, confusion, allure, infatuation, seduction.
She felt alive, but the one emotion that she didn’t want to feel was also present.
He triggered a dark place. A fear that he hadn’t put in her was also reignited in his presence, and it was strong enough to halt her in her tracks.
Still, being away from him, especially after knowingly hurting him, felt like torture.
She remembered meeting him for the first time.
He was just as fine then as he was now, and she had been enamored by him.
He was the most geared-up boy on his block.
He sold dope just to be able to afford his signature Tommy Hilfiger and Jordan sneakers.
She wondered if he remembered the day she had become infatuated with him.
Sloan was a regular fixture in the Whitlock household, and one Saturday night she couldn’t sleep.
She knew she needed to because Mama Whitlock had a strict rule.
If you spent the night at their house on Saturday, you were waking your butt up for church Sunday morning, and she wasn’t letting you miss Sunday school either.
But Sloan couldn’t shut her mind down. She was in the 9th grade when he walked in on her, eating ice cream at the kitchen table by herself.
He was sneaking into the house at two o’clock in the morning, and he hadn’t expected to find her sitting in the dark.
It was the night he had asked her about Deyontae Cook.
She was so proud to have an older boyfriend that she ignored his warnings, but they stayed up all night, eating ice cream and talking about their dreams. He had planned to go to college and pledge a frat.
She had wanted to become a doctor. He told her he would show her around if she ended up where he was.
He insisted on her ending up where he was, in fact, and she had agreed.
She remembered it like it was yesterday.
She still recalled the feeling of laughing with him on that living room floor.
Telling him all her goals. Him telling her what type of businessman he was going to become.
He had kissed her that night. He didn’t know that it had been her first real kiss, or he probably would have remembered.
She remembered, however, and although she had a boyfriend, she had planned to meet him at Howard University one day.
Only he never made it. She watched him drift farther and farther into the streets until the night of his arrest. All their lives had changed that day.
Sloan remembered the sick feeling of devastation that had crippled her for months after the police had taken him.
She wondered if he knew that she had held onto that one night…
those plans, she had taken them seriously, and he had broken her heart.
He had chosen a different path, and she went on to fulfill everything she had told him she would.