Chapter 5
“Koko!”
I barely made it through the breezeway when I heard both Tink and Giani calling after me, but I didn’t stop. My heart was pounding too hard and too fast. The proposal. The ring. Booda’s face. All of it clung to me so heavily that it was difficult to separate the memory from reality.
“Koko, wait,” Giani called again, but I kept walking anyway.
The night air hit my face the second I stepped out of the crowded section of the apartments, but it didn’t help. It felt like a vise was clamping around my heart, and my thoughts were all over the place.
Footsteps hurried behind me. Tink reached me first, sliding in front of me with concern written all over his face, while Giani stopped a step behind him, breathing a little harder from trying to catch up.
“You good?” Tink asked, studying me closely.
“I’m fine,” I lied quickly. “Just got a little headache. I’m about to head back home.”
Giani frowned immediately. “You sure? You just walked off outta nowhere.”
“I said I’m okay,” I replied, softer this time because I could tell she was genuinely worried.
Tink looked between us before setting his cup down on the ground. “I can’t let you leave before you dance with me.”
Despite everything swirling around inside my head, I laughed a little. “Boy, what?”
“My friends bet me a hundred dollars that I couldn’t get you to dance with me,” he explained, pointing toward a group of boys nearby who immediately started laughing when they realized he’d exposed them. “All you gotta do is stand there and look pretty. I’ll do the rest.”
“Tink,” Giani warned, though she was laughing too.
“I’m serious,” he insisted. “I’m tryna make that huncho.”
“A hundred dollars?” I asked, and Tink shrugged, grinning.
“Hey, at least I’m not trying to rob nobody,” he said, and I had to agree. “Plus, that’s easy money. All you have to do is stand there and look pretty. I’ll do the rest.”
I laughed again, but it didn’t feel as joyful as it should have. That heavy feeling was still pressing on me with every breath, but I hid it. I couldn’t fall apart in the middle of his mom’s party.
“Nah,” I said, stepping around him again, giving his shoulder a light nudge as I passed. “You gon’ have to take that loss.”
“Aight, but you ain’t right,” he called after me. “I would’ve danced with your crazy ass.”
“I know,” I shot back over my shoulder.
This time, Giani fell into step beside me instead of letting me walk off alone.
I took a slow breath, trying to calm myself as the night air hit my face. My apartment building was right next door, separated only by a narrow strip of grass, so I didn’t have far to go.
The party noise faded the farther we walked, leaving behind nothing but a faint thump of bass that blended into the pounding in my chest. The engagement ring.
The garden. Booda on one knee. Those images kept forcing their way back into my head, no matter how hard I tried to push them down.
Dr. Reeves, the physician Mrs. Mary had forced me to see, warned me that memories could come back suddenly and feel stronger than the present moment itself. He told me not to fight them.
That advice sounded good in theory, but in reality, every memory left me feeling like somebody was reaching inside my chest and rearranging parts of me before disappearing again. That was too much. I could’ve gone the rest of my life without remembering the proposal if this was what came with it.
“You okay?” Giani asked quietly beside me.
“Yeah,” I lied automatically.
She didn’t call me out on it.
We reached my building, and I climbed the stairs with my key already in my hand. The second I unlocked the door and stepped inside, I pushed it shut behind us and locked it immediately, then checked the handle once more to make sure it caught properly.
The apartment was dark except for the faint light bleeding through the blinds.
I reached for the light out of habit, then stopped halfway through the motion, embarrassment suddenly creeping up my neck.
But if Giani really was who she claimed to be to me, then there wasn’t much point in pretending she hadn’t already seen me at my worst.
I went ahead and turned on the lights.
Giani looked around, and for the first time since moving into my apartment, I became painfully aware of how I’d been living. The place looked sad with somebody else standing inside it. I didn’t have anything, not a couch, a table, or even a bed. It was at that moment that I knew I had to do better.
“I know it ain’t much, but—”
“Girl, stop.” Giani cut me off, her eyes snapping back to mine as she waved me off.
Still, I caught the way her gaze moved across the bare walls, the empty corners, and the floor where a couch should’ve been. She recovered quickly, but I could still tell she was surprised by what she saw.
“How long you been staying here?” she asked gently as she lowered herself onto the living room floor and crossed her legs.
“A few months.”
“A few months?” Her brows pulled together. “And you been living like this the whole time?”
I shrugged because I didn’t know what else to do with the question. “I don’t have a job, so money’s been tight. Can’t furnish an apartment on faith alone.”
“Where Booda been through all this?” she asked, and the question caught me off guard.
I looked away, ashamed to even repeat what Mrs. Mary told me out loud, but this was my friend. There was no reason to hold back or lie to her.
“Mrs. Mary told me he locked up somewhere outta state, and don’t wanna see or talk to me.”
The second the words left my mouth, Giani made a face. It happened fast, but I caught it.
“What?” I questioned, ready to go on the defense.
Giani blinked and laughed softly, though it sounded forced. “Nothing.”
“That face wasn’t nothing.”
She leaned back against the wall and shook her head. “I’m just pissed off for you, that’s all. That nigga dead wrong if he really handling shit like that after everything y’all been through.”
A strange feeling crept over me at the way she said it.
After everything we’ve been through?
I opened my mouth to ask what she meant, but a horn sounded outside, cutting through the quiet. Then again. Then a third time. It was clear that whoever was outside was trying to get someone’s attention.
A minute later, the horn sounded again, and every muscle in my body tensed. Without thinking, I whipped my gun from my waist and crossed the room, heading straight for the window.
“Koko?” Giani asked behind me. “What’s going on?”
I ignored her and cracked the blinds only wide enough to glimpse outside without being seen.
A man leaned against a car parked across the street, shrouded in shadow. His face remained obscured, but the way he stood made it clear he wasn’t just passing through. He was there for a reason. I just didn’t know why.
His gaze swept up the building, studying each window with a predatory calm until it landed on mine. A bone-deep chill slithered up my spine, and the weight of his stare pressed down on my shoulder. The hairs on my neck prickled one by one, each a warning that something was terribly wrong.
The man pushed off the car and stepped into the streetlight. The moment I saw his eyes, I recognized him. He was the same man who had threatened me the day the memory of how Booda and I met clawed its way back into my mind. I wasn’t prepared to confront him then, but this time, I wasn’t unarmed.
And I was tired of living in fear.
“He found me,” I whispered, fingers tightening around my weapon.
“What?” Giani asked, and I didn’t answer her.
I turned and headed straight for the door instead.
“Koko, wait—”
By the time Giani called my name again, I was already outside, adrenaline surging through me.
I barreled down the stairs, the cold metal of the gun gripped tightly in my hand, my mind racing as I zeroed in on the man across the street.
He leaned against a car, an ominous silhouette in the dim light.
The moment my feet hit the pavement, I noticed him sliding into the driver’s seat and slamming the door shut with a finality that sent a shiver down my spine.
I took off running, each stride fueled by fear and determination. Behind me, I heard Giani’s voice rise in panic.
“Koko, wait!” She screamed again, the urgency in her tone swallowed by the pounding in my chest.
The man’s engine roared to life the second I stepped off the curb.
At first, I thought he was trying to get away.
Then the headlights flickered on, swinging in my direction instead of toward the street.
The tires bit into the asphalt, and the grille filled my entire field of vision as two thousand pounds of steel came straight for me.
My mouth went dry, and I tried to cut to the side, but my body was carrying me forward too fast.
“Koko!” Giani screamed my name as she slammed into me from the side.
My feet left the ground, and my shoulder hit the pavement hard as the car flew past where I’d been standing. I pushed through the pain and rolled onto my side, bringing the gun up at the same time.
I fired.
Aiming low, I tracked the car’s movement, squeezing the trigger again in a desperate bid to hit the tires before he cleared the block.
The deafening crack of my gunfire echoed in the night, but even louder was Giani’s voice, laced with urgency as she cursed and raised her weapon, joining the fray as the vehicle tore down the street.
The vehicle swerved, then sped around the corner, its taillights retreating as I pushed myself up off the pavement, my shoulder burning from the impact.
“Fuck!” I screamed, staring at the corner where the car disappeared.
That bastard had just tried to kill me, and he would have had it not been for Giani, who was breathing hard beside me, her gun still raised while anger flashed across her face.
I hadn’t even known she was carrying. That detail lodged itself in my brain as another piece of information about my friend that I didn’t remember.