Chapter 25 Toni Roc
‘Trill-Land, ‘LoLux Estate
Another week later…
Life without Kay’Lo wasn’t easy but I kept tellin’ myself it was better than bein’ hurt every damn day.
Another week slid by with us not speakin’ like we normally do and the silence ain’t even feel like silence no more.
It felt like somethin’ heavy that wouldn’t move no matter how many times I tried to breathe around it.
I missed him, and I hated that I missed him ‘cause I knew he was out doin’ whatever the fuck he wanted.
I ain’t have no physical proof, but I felt it.
Kay’Lo carried himself different now, but even though we wasn’t together in the same house, he still made sure I never lacked.
He kept the cleanin’ crew comin’ in twice a week.
They washed everything, folded everything, scrubbed the floors, wiped the mirrors, and made sure the mansion stayed warm and full even when my spirit wasn’t.
If I needed money, groceries, anything at all, he sent it without me havin’ to ask.
He still checked on me through small messages, those lil’ “you good” and “you need anything” texts that should’ve comforted me but instead reminded me of how far away he felt.
None of it touched the place inside me that had shut down weeks ago.
That part of me didn’t move for nobody, not even him.
I ain’t know how to pull myself out of it, and maybe that’s what scared me the most. It wasn’t new.
I been doin’ this since I was a lil’ girl.
Whenever somethin’ got too heavy, or too grown for my mind to understand, I used to sit in that tub in my Grandma Glo house and curl into myself like I was tryna disappear.
I wouldn’t talk. I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t fight back.
I’d shut down ‘cause that was the only way I knew how to keep myself safe.
And the older I got, the more that lil’ girl inside me showed back up whenever life got too loud, ‘cause she didn’t argue and she didn’t yell or beg nobody to love her; she just folded into herself and waited for the world to quiet down.
So the grown woman me protected her. The adult version of me turned inward to keep her from breakin’ again.
Kay’Lo ain’t really know that side of me ‘cause I never let things get this far between us.
I always came back, but this time had been different.
I reached my limit and my body did what it always did. It shut down for survival.
And for the first time since we ever got together, Kay’Lo was meetin’ the part of me that didn’t know how to function under hurt.
I ain’t know how long it would last, but the weeks kept passin’ and I still couldn’t bring myself to reach for him.
The house was too quiet and too big now, so when my cousin Sha’Nelle texted sayin’ she was comin’ back to Trill-Land, I damn near cried from relief.
I picked her up from the airport hours earlier, and now we was in the kitchen like we used to be, pots boilin’, music playin’ and smoke driftin’ out the window while drinks sat half-melted on the counter.
Oxtails simmered slow on the stove, thick gravy bubblin’ around them. We had rice on the side, some cabbage with peppers chopped up in it, and sweet plantains fryin’ golden in the skillet. The whole kitchen smelled like home, and my spirit started loosenin’ just from havin’ my cousin near.
We was rappin’ lyrics loud and off-key, takin’ shots, stirrin’ the pots and laughin’ at dumb videos on our phones. For the first time in weeks, I ain’t feel like I was trapped behind glass.
Sha’Nelle leaned on the counter and squinted at her phone. “Bitch, these Trill-Land niggas fine as hell. I swear I’m gon’ end up pregnant if I stay out here too long.”
I cracked a smile for the first time all day. “Girl, shut up.”
“Nah, for real,” she said, pourin’ another shot. “And don’t even let me start on that cousin of Kay’Lo’s. Renza? Baby, that man is too damn fine to be actin’ like he don’t know what time it is.”
I laughed and almost dropped the spoon. “Renza be in his own world. Don’t take it personal.”
Sha’Nelle lifted her chin like she was hypin’ herself up. “Mmhm, well before I leave Trill-Land this time, he gon’ be screamin’ my damn name, you hear me?”
I burst out laughin’, almost chokin’ on my drink. It felt good. It felt needed and for a second, life ain’t feel so heavy.
We quieted down after a while, lettin’ the music fill the room. Sha’Nelle tapped her nails against her cup before lookin’ over at me.
“Toni… y’all ain’t talked yet?”
I sighed slow. “Only time we talk is when he ask me if I need anything. That’s it.”
She nodded like she already knew that answer. “At least he still checks on you.”
“I appreciate it,” I said, stirrin’ the pot even though it didn’t need stirrin’. “But I just… I don’t trust him right now.”
She ain’t argue or defend him. She just let it sit, which is why I loved her.
I grabbed my phone while the cabbage finished, scrollin’ the same way I been scrollin’ for days. I opened my Instagram, went to my notifications, and there it was again.
Echo Lennox liked another one of my stories.
This girl stayed poppin’ up in my shit, quiet but consistent.
It never crossed my mind to look at her page until tonight. Maybe it was ‘cause I spoke my distrust out loud. Maybe it was ‘cause I felt somethin’ cold move through my spirit when her name appeared again.
Either way, I finally clicked her profile.
The girl was cute. Real cute, but the way another bitch looked ain’t never bothered me. Bitches bein’ pretty wasn’t the part that hurt.
It was the next part that did…
Since she was always lookin’ at my stories, I clicked hers.
The second the first picture loaded, my whole body went numb. My fingers slipped, the glass cup hit the floor, and the shatter echoed so loud that Sha’Nelle screamed my name.
“Toni! What happened?”
I couldn’t say a word ‘cause the whole room went still, the music felt like it disappeared, and my chest ain’t even feel like my chest anymore.
‘Cause on the screen was Kay’Lo, sleepin’ in some bed with her layin’ on him like she belonged there, her face pressed into his shoulder and her hand across his chest while his body was half covered and she was smilin’ like she won some prize.
And then there was another picture, and another, but all off guard shots she took of him like she knew better than to catch him while he was fully lookin’ into the camera.
Sha’Nelle rushed over and snatched the phone out my hand before I dropped it. When she saw the images, her mouth fell open and she placed my phone on the counter like it burned.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Oh my God, Toni.”
I couldn’t breathe around the pain. I couldn’t think around the pain. I couldn’t even cry yet ‘cause the hurt was too full to spill out.
It was one thing to hear somethin’ about ‘Lo leavin’ the club with a bitch, but was another thing to see that shit.
My husband… my Kay’Lo… the same man who used to love me out loud and tell me I was his whole world, the same man who couldn’t fall asleep unless his hand was somewhere on me, was laid up in a bed with another woman like I ain’t even exist.
Somethin’ inside me broke again, and it broke deeper than the last time.
Sha’Nelle grabbed my shoulders, her voice sharp with anger and heartbreak for me. “Toni… baby… breathe. Please breathe.”
But I couldn’t move.
I just stood there in the kitchen, the food still cookin’, the music still playin’ and my cousin still holdin’ me… while my world fell apart right in front of my eyes.
My mind was so fucked up right now, I called Pluto and she came right over like it was nothin’, walkin’ straight through my door with that look she only get when she know some shit ain’t right.
She came in smellin’ like soft perfume with her hair pulled back in a bun like she rushed out the house without even thinkin’.
She ain’t ask no stupid questions, or tiptoe around nothin’.
She walked straight up to me and said my name in that calm way she had.
I handed her the phone without even lookin’ at her.
I couldn’t. I already felt like if I blinked too fast everything inside me would spill out.
Sha’Nelle was pacin’ the kitchen while the oxtails simmered, even though nobody had touched a plate since everything flipped upside down. I was sick to my stomach, and for the first time in a long time, even food couldn’t pull me out the fog I had dropped into.
Pluto sat down slow on the stool beside me, and I handed her my phone without sayin’ a word ‘cause I couldn’t find my voice if I tried.
She glanced at the screen once, then looked again harder, and the way her expression sank confirmed what I already feared.
She recognized the girl instantly. It was the same bitch she saw Kay’Lo walk out the club with on his birthday a few weeks ago.
Sha’Nelle snatched the phone next and started zoomin’ in on every picture, her nails tappin’ hard against the screen as she studied them. She kept shakin’ her head like she was tryna make sense of somethin’ that was never gon’ make sense to nobody who loved me.
“Nah, this some bullshit,” Sha’Nelle muttered, scrollin’ slower. “Look at how he layin’. Bitch, he ain’t even lookin’ at the camera. He knocked the fuck out. This hoe been takin’ pictures while he sleep ‘cause she know Kay’Lo don’t even play like that. You can tell she did this on purpose.”
Pluto nodded, her voice soft but firm. “She know exactly what she doing, Toni. I ain’t saying any of this is okay, but the way she moving?
This is spite. This is a wounded ego and a bitch who want attention she’s not getting from him.
Kay’Lo is hurt, and he acting out. I’m not excusing him, but I’m telling you exactly what this is. ”
I swallowed hard, my eyes burnin’, but the tears wouldn’t fall ‘cause I was past cryin’. I wasn’t even sure what I felt no more—anger, heartbreak, numbness, humiliation, all of it twisted together.