41. Azalea
41
Azalea
“Our investigation is complete.”
I stared at Henry with my heart in my throat.
This was it.
I was cooked.
There was no way around it.
“What did you decide?” I asked in the smallest voice I had.
“The board cleared you of any wrongdoing.”
“Okay.” I nodded and tried not to show how relieved and ecstatic and overjoyed I was. “Good. That’s—“
“I’m happy for you, Davis. This office would have been pretty dim without you around to brighten it.”
“Thank you, Henry. And I’m sorry for the confusion. How…how did you—“
He held up his hand. “Let me stop you there, because I think I know what you wanna ask. I strongly suggest you don’t.”
I nodded.
“As standard practice, you’re entitled to a copy of the reports. Here you go.” He handed me a manila envelope. “With that said, you’re free to go. I’ll see you back here in the morning.”
“I’ll be here. Bright and early.”
He nodded impassively. He opened his mouth to speak but closed it again, and something told me to tread lightly with him from here on out.
“I’m here.”
Patrick pulled me into a brotherly hug, ending it with a kiss on the cheek.
“How have you been?”
“Stressed. But things are looking up. Why did you call me over here? I don’t wanna talk to her right now.”
“No, come in here. We need to talk. All of us.”
I trudged into my sister’s house, irritated that this visit was cutting into my happy time.
She was lounging on the couch with her feet up like she was already big and pregnant. It would have been cute if I wasn’t so pissed at her.
“What happened with you and Rome?” was her greeting.
“Hello to you, too. Why do you ask?”
“Your boyfriend was here last week.”
“Isaac came here ?”
Pat nodded.
“What did he say?”
“He said something happened with Rome, but he wouldn’t be specific. And when I asked Rome about it, he just talked in circles.”
I let out a sigh. My secret was still safe. “It doesn’t matter now. It’s all in the past.”
“ What’s in the past?”
I shook my head.
“Azi…listen. You’ve spent your whole life avoiding conflict and keeping the peace. That should have never been your responsibility.”
“It wasn’t.”
Mina sat up, swinging her feet around until they were flat on the rug. “Who was in my room every night telling me everything was gonna be okay? Who told me they were yelling because they were excited? Who told me the silence was peaceful, and not them ignoring the fuck out of each other?”
“Okay, but none of that—“
“Who was always in the middle of me and Mommy, smoothing shit over? That was you , Azi. And it fucked you up.”
I gulped down the lump in my throat.
She leaned forward, catching and holding my gaze. “Ain’t nobody’s life about to be ruined because you acknowledge the truth, so just say it.”
“Maybe not their life, but their friendship…”
Pay sat up. “Wait…don’t worry about me and him. If he did something, I need to know.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t wanna be friends with a piece of shit if I can help it.”
Okay.
Here we go.
“We got into an argument. We were yelling. I was yelling. He got in my face and pushed me. Hard . I hit the wall. My…my head hit the wall.”
My sister’s eyes grew bigger with every word. Patrick was on his feet, pacing back and forth in front of us.
“Why the hell didn’t you—well, I know why you didn’t, but damn, Azi.”
“At the time, I blamed myself. I told myself he didn’t mean to hurt me.”
“What about now?”
“Now I think…he probably did wanna hurt me.”
Pat stopped in front of me. “Why didn’t you trust me enough to say something?”
“It’s not about trust,” Mina said. “This is what she does to keep everybody else happy.”
He walked over to the hall table and grabbed his keys. “Alright, well, I gotta go handle this.”
“Wait, what?”
“If I don’t do it, your boyfriend will, and I get the feeling won’t nobody be happy with that.”
“What did he say, exactly?” I said.
“He asked me to get him to leave you alone.”
“He said tell him to leave you the fuck alone,” Mina corrected. “And he said it with his chest.”
“Of course he did.”
“I’ll be right back.” He bent to kiss my sister on the lips. “Text me if you need anything on my way back.”
With Pat gone, the chasm between us seemed bigger somehow. Neither one of us spoke. It was awkward. Very much unlike us.
I hated this.
“How are you feeling?” I finally said.
“Like shit. Pregnancy sucks. I mean, I’m happy, but they don’t tell you how this shit feels. You know how when you’re sick and hugging the toilet and praying for it all to be over, and then you finally throw up and feel better?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, so imagine you throw up and then the baby says, ‘think again, bitch,’ and you’re still nauseous. It fucking sucks.”
“Aww, bookie. I’m sorry.”
“It’s whatever.” She sighed. “Are you okay?”
“I’m good.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Now y’all know why I ended it. It is what it is.”
She got back into her original lounging position. “I can’t tell if you’re strong, or just super delusional.”
“Why not both?”
She shook her head. “And you let us have him hanging around. You let us feel sorry for him. Do you not see how fucked up that is?”
I ignored that.
“So, you knew they were fighting?”
“Of course,” she spat. “Their marriage was stressful as fuck. The only one who didn’t know that was you.”
“I knew, but I just…I don’t know.”
“You were trying to protect me. You did it so much, you started believing the bullshit.”
“I don’t think it was that. I’ve always been an optimist.”
“Well, honestly, sis, at your big age, it seems more like denial.”
“Whatever, Mina.”
“Like, take this situation with your job—“
“Oh, you mean the job I still have? The one that cleared me of all wrongdoing? That job?”
She smiled. “I’m happy for you. I really am.”
“Thank you.”
“You still seeing felonbae?”
“We go together.”
“Lord. Okay. Whatever. Obviously, you won’t listen to reason, so do you.”
“Already done, bitch.”
She rolled her eyes. “I was gonna ask what you see in him, but I’m not even gonna lie…he has an aura. That man marched up in here on a mission. Seems like he don’t play about you.”
“Roman ran up on me the other day at my place.”
She sat up again. “Define ‘ran up on’ you.”
“I was walking the babies, and he came and started in on me about leaving. Isaac came in like Superman. I think the only reason he didn’t kill him right there is because he’s really trying not to go back in.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“As his girlfriend and as his former PO, I was proud of him. There’s so many black men out here making split-second decisions that cost them everything. He put more value on his freedom than on his pride. That’s important.”
“But didn’t a small part of you wanna see him beat Roman’s ass?”
I laughed. “A tiny part, yeah.”
“No, but that’s real. I might have let Pat crash out for me when we were young and dumb, but not now. Not with a baby coming and a mortgage and bills and shit. At a certain point, you have to grow up.”
“Exactly. But just for the record, you’re still young and dumb.”
“Whatever. So, what that dick do?”
“None of your damn business.”
“Ooh wee. He must be tearing it out the frame for you to risk it all like you did.”
The ding of my phone interrupted what was gonna be enthusiastic agreement.
hey sunshine. Are you smiling today?
I was now.
They cleared me, so YES!!!!!!
Congratulations beautiful. We’ll celebrate later
Did you have anything to do with it?
;)
“Look at your face.”
I raised my head and tried to make my face neutral, but it was too late. She caught me being in love.
“So, you accept this, then?” I said, watching her face for confirmation.
“I don’t know. On the one hand, you almost lost your damn job. On the other hand…look at your damn face.”
I laughed.
“I like that he’s so serious about you,” she admitted. “I liked Roman, too, obviously. Plus, he was good on paper. Not a criminal.”
I rolled my eyes.
“But I don’t know…something about him was always a tiny bit off. I can’t explain it, but—“
“No, I know exactly what you mean.”
“Well, look, I might be pregnant, but I’ll still whoop somebody’s ass about you.”
“Shut up.”
“Just be careful. And no more painting over shit. If something’s bad, it’s okay to say it. Use your voice.”
“That’s one way to do it. I don’t know. I’m okay to just leave. Some people talk, I remove myself and start over.”
I said that, but the thought of starting over after Isaac made my chest hurt.
“Call him,” she said.
“For what?”
“Because he got you smiling, and I like that.”
“I’m gonna need you to make up your mind.”
I dialed the number, smiling more when he answered the phone with, “There’s my sunshine.”
“And how exactly will we be celebrating?”
“You let me worry about that.”
I’d just sunk my teeth into my bottom lip when a female voice drawled, “Who is that?”
It wasn’t his mother. It wasn’t Savannah or Electra.
“Um, Isaac?”
He was quiet for a moment, then I heard muffled talking before he came back to me. “I’m here.”
“I’ll call you back,” was all I could manage to say.
“Wait—“
Hot shame coursed through my veins as I ended the call.
“What’s wrong?”
I looked at my sister and felt like the dumbest bitch alive. “Nothing. He had to go.”
How many times had I done that ? I was the patron saint of making up a little lie or smoothing things over with a well-placed deflection.
But this time, I couldn’t even sell the delusion to myself.
I said my goodbyes and retreated to my car to seethe. He couldn’t have a woman in his apartment. It didn’t make any sense. Then again, he’d done other things that weren’t good for him. He’d been impulsive. He’d made mistakes. He wasn’t immune, no matter how much I wanted him to be. No matter how much I believed him to be.
There had to be an explanation, but then again, he hadn’t made any attempts to call me back.
I turned the car on and sat there. Something made me pick up that envelope and read the report. What I saw at the bottom made my blood run cold.