Chapter 10
Ten
Dy
“ I think getting them will inspire me to bake something today,” my mother said with a grin.
I laughed loudly. “Momma, I think you can find inspiration from any of the five sets of measuring cups you have at home.
My mother was an amazing cook, and she had an obsession with kitchen utensils. Her cabinets were already looking crowded, so the last thing she needed was more measuring spoons.
She rolled her eyes and held up what was definitely about to be her sixth set. “Yeah, but I don’t have gold ones,” she said before placing them in our shopping cart.
“Do your thing, Ma,” I said, shaking my head.
I had really been enjoying my time with my mother.
We had spent most of the day shopping, and retail therapy with Dana was always the best. This was supposed to be our last store before we headed home to cook dinner, but she couldn’t take two steps without putting something new in the cart.
When we were finally making our way to the checkout counter, I heard my name from a familiar voice that I wasn’t able to place. Once I turned toward it, I chuckled.
LaShontae.
I couldn’t say I was excited to see her, but I wasn’t upset either.
I hadn’t seen her in years, and the issues we had in middle school were just as childish as we were.
She did apparently date my man after I moved away, but all that was ancient news.
As long as she was respectful now, I had no problems with her.
“Hey,” I said and gave her a smile. She returned the gesture, but I didn’t miss how her eyes observed every inch of me as she sized me up. I couldn’t care less; I looked good, and I knew it.
“Hey. It’s been a while,” she replied.
“That it has.”
“How are you, Miss Dana? It’s good to see you, too.”
My mother smiled and said, “I’m good, shugga. It’s good to see you, too.”
LaShontae then turned toward me. “So, what have you been up to all these years?”
I gave the bullet points of my life but didn’t go into much detail. She showed genuine surprise when I told her who I worked for, but she said nothing else, so I spoke up.
“What about you?”
LaShontae bit her lip and glanced at the ground before meeting my eyes again. She was now beaming.
“Life for me is better than I could have ever imagined. I mean, my mom passed away a few years ago, and it was really hard, but I’m so blessed to have someone like Brixton to help me through it.”
Huh?
Her smirk was barely there, but I clocked it. I doubted that she knew anything about Brick and me reconnecting, but she clearly wanted me to know he was off-limits.
I’d be lying if I said her little admission didn’t piss me off, but because I had never been the type to let another woman see me fold, I schooled my face and maintained eye contact with her.
“I am so sorry to hear about your mother.”
“So am I, shugga. I had no idea,” my mom said.
She nodded. “Thanks. It’s pretty much just Brixton and me now. We moved here shortly after she died.”
The fuck?
It took real effort to keep my cool. Brick made his relationship with LaShontae seem like something that happened when we were in high school .
. . when we were all still kids. If what homegirl said was true, they were locked in well past school days—locked in enough for him to move her out of the hood the second he made it. This was some bullshit.
As unbothered as I wanted to seem, I couldn’t even form words at that point. Luckily, my mom took over the conversation.
“Brixton from your guys’ middle school, right?”
Everything about LaShontae changed when she nodded. “Yes, ma’am. He’s been the best support system I could ask for,” LaShontae replied before turning to me.
“Well, I have to get going, but it was so good seeing you again. Enjoy the rest of your visit.” With that, she blew me a kiss and walked away, leaving me fuming in the middle of the store.
“Don’t let her get you worked up, baby girl. I know a liar when I see one.”
I turned to my mother with a frown. She was already looking at me with concerned eyes.
“You think she’s lying about Brixton?”
We resumed our trek to the checkout counter before my mom continued.
“I do. I know a bluff when I see one, Dylan. She said they’re together like she was tryin’ to convince herself. Either way, it’s something you should talk with him about before you jump to any conclusions.” She gave me a knowing look as she placed her items on the counter in front of the clerk.
I shook my head because she knew me well.
I had always been quick to cut a man off the second I detected bullshit.
I wasn’t one to care about closure when I felt played.
Instead of wasting my time with pointless arguments that would only hurt my feelings more, I tended to block numbers and remove myself from unfruitful situations.
“I hear you, Ma,” I said, pulling out my phone.
For the first time since I’d reconnected with Brick, I looked him up on social media.
I found his Shutter profile fairly quickly, and there wasn’t much to see.
There were four photos on his page, and none of them included LaShontae.
He had about thirty thousand followers but was only following one hundred people, so I clicked on the list and began typing LaShontae’s name.
When I immediately noticed LaShontae’s photo next to the name @LaShontaeBee in the list of people Brick was following, my heart rate quickened.
I tapped her account and began scrolling down her timeline.
At first, there was nothing to see. It seemed as if LaShontae posted photos of herself several times a day, because there were several dozen photos from the last month alone.
We had accumulated several items in that store, so the clerk was still ringing us up when my mother tapped my shoulder, forcing me to look up from my phone.
“Brixton is a good guy, baby girl. I see the way he looks at you, and I haven’t seen you as happy around anybody as you were with him. Don’t disappear without letting him explain. Talk to the man.”
“I hear you, Ma.” She observed me silently for a few seconds before turning toward the counter, allowing me to resume my snoop session.
I had made it through at least thirty pictures, and was about to close out of the app, when the one that I had been looking for—but hoped didn’t exist—came across the screen.
It was a photo of LaShontae sitting on Brixton’s lap. He wasn’t smiling in the photo, but he had his arms wrapped around her waist, and she was kissing his cheek. The picture was from four months ago.
“Come on, baby girl,” my mother said softly.
I looked up and realized she had already paid and had two of our shopping bags in her hands.
I grabbed the other one and followed her out.
I wanted to close out of the Shutter app and put Brixton and LaShontae off my mind until I finished enjoying the day with my mother, but I couldn’t.
As we walked out of the store and into the main area of the mall, I continued to scroll.
There was another one from four months ago of them at an art gallery. And another one at a nice restaurant. And another one from Halloween in the Jai City Square.
A small breath hitched in my throat.
Eleven months ago, she posted a photo of them in the middle of Times Square. I slowed my pace as I read the caption: Six years in and as solid as day one. Happy Anniversary, Baby.
I felt an aching behind my ribs as my eyes scanned the caption for the hundredth time.
Six years?
There were more pictures of them, but I ended my search there. I wasn’t the girl who obsessed over another woman’s Shutter feed, and the fact that I was doing it now annoyed me. The fact that tears were stinging the back of my eyes annoyed me.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
I looked up at my mother, and she was holding the exit door of the mall open for me.
I had been mindlessly following her and hadn’t even realized we had made it here.
The concern in her expression made me even more emotional, so I avoided her gaze and stepped outside, before responding with, “I’m fine. Let’s go home.”
I knew she didn’t believe me, but she didn’t push. I was grateful because I had yet to process my own emotions.
As of at least four months ago, Brick and LaShontae were together. I trusted my mother’s judgement, so I wasn’t discounting the fact that LaShontae could be lying about still being with him, but she wasn’t the only person telling lies.
Not once had Brick said that his relationship with LaShontae stretched beyond high school. Never had he mentioned that they moved to this city together, or that they were a couple only months ago.
Every conversation, kiss, and touch we had shared in the last week felt real. It felt like we were moving toward forever together.
But this right here . . . felt like betrayal.
Why would he lie?
I clenched my jaw and locked my phone as we made it to my mom’s car. I slid into the passenger’s seat before grabbing my sunglasses from my bag and slipping them on.
Once my mother drove off, I silently allowed the tears that had been building up to fall. Behind my shades, images of them together haunted me. Recent images.
My mother started up a conversation about what we were going to cook for dinner. I replied to her questions, but my mind was somewhere else, caught between the potency of the love I thought I had rediscovered with Brick and the sharp pang of uncertainty I now possessed where he was concerned.