Chapter 6 #2
“He’s right. You look a lil’ pale in the face,” Booda added before the pharmacist could finish his sentence.
“I said I’m fine,” I repeated harshly.
The tech flinched and went back to what he was doing, but I could feel him watching me out of the corner of his eye.
“That shit wasn’t even necessary. Nigga was just checking on you,” Booda said, shaking his head.
Returning my attention to Booda, I snapped, “Fuck what you talking ’bout. Are you gon’ keep wasting my time or answer my damn question?”
Booda stepped closer until there was barely any space left between us. Heat rolled off him, wrapping around me in waves so thick it even made my irritation feel crowded.
“Ko,” he said quietly, “I know you mad, but this shit you doing ain’t even about us no more. I ain’t never played with you in public, and you not finna do it to me.” He tilted his head toward the front of the store. “Come walk with me.”
His hand moved toward mine, and I stepped off before he could make contact. I wasn’t about to give the people in the store anything else to watch, but I damn sure wasn’t about to let him touch me. So, I turned around and walked out with him following close on my heels.
The second we were out of the store and away from the other customers, I turned on him, fists balled at my sides. “Your momma said you were locked up out of state. She said you didn’t want to see or talk to me, and that you even told her to tell me to move on with my life.”
Standing there looking at him, I felt the same heartbreak that tore me to pieces back then come rushing back, like all those months I spent trying to close myself back up hadn’t meant a damn thing.
“Never mind. Fuck that.” I held my hand up between us. “I took heed and moved the fuck on like you suggested, so help me understand why you’re talking to me now.”
That was a lie, and judging by the look Booda gave me, he knew it too.
Booda leaned against the wall, one arm crossed over his chest, the other hand working through his chin hairs like he was thinking real hard about something. Then, after some time passed, his mouth did that thing it always did when he was trying not to smile.
“I don’t believe you,” he finally said. “You ain’t acting like somebody who moved on.”
“Tell that to my pussy. She’s been getting fucked a lot better since you been gone.”
He tried to hold it in, but the laugh burst out of him anyway. Booda bent forward, laughing so hard he had to drag a hand across his face to wipe away the tears that gathered in the corners of his eyes.
“I know your body better than you, and not once have those hips ever lied to me.” He shook his head, still laughing at me like he thought I had truly lost my damn mind. “I can tell by how you move that you bluffing. You ain’t gotta make shit up for me.”
“Fuck you, Booda! I don’t see anything funny. You wanna talk about everything but the issue at hand.”
“Nah, you wanna fight, and you know I don’t do that. You gotta talk to me, not at me.”
“How do I do that when you keep changing the subject? Then, you got the nerve to laugh in my face.”
Booda shook his head. “Nah, I would never laugh at you. You just look real cute when you mad. That’s what got me.”
“Whatever.” I waved him off and turned around before he could see my face. “I don’t have time for this shit.”
“Stop,” he ordered, and all it took was one word from Booda to make my feet forget what they were doing.
“For what?” I asked, lip quivering. “Did she lie? Was everything made up to keep me away from you while you did your bid?”
I needed to hear it from him because there was a difference between him walking away on his own and somebody making that decision for him. A difference between me being somebody he could throw away without looking back and me being somebody he never stopped thinking about.
For months, I had held on to the smallest piece of hope that his mother lied to protect him, or maybe to protect me. I wanted to believe there was another explanation for why he disappeared without a word after everything we had been through together. Something that hurt less than the truth.
Because if Booda really meant what she said he did, then loving him had been the stupidest thing I’d ever done. And judging by the way my heart was starting to crack all over again just standing in front of him, I wasn’t sure what that said about me.
Booda looked at me, and for a second, something shifted across his face. His mouth parted, then closed again, like he was reaching for the right words and coming up empty.
Against my better judgment, a small piece of me still hoped there was another explanation for all of this. If his mother lied, then maybe he hadn’t abandoned me the way I thought he did.
But the longer he stood there silent, the more my heart sank.
And then I knew.
Not fully. Not because he had said the words yet. But because people fighting for you wouldn’t stand there looking guilty. They wouldn’t search for softer ways to break your heart.
They’d tell the truth immediately.
The hope I’d been carrying around for months started slipping through my fingers right there in the middle of this parking lot, and judging by the look on Booda’s face, he saw it happening in real time.
“I didn’t say that,” he finally said, and those words hit a lot differently than I expected them to.
Months. That was how long I had been walking around with a hole in my heart, crying over a man who was too much of a coward to tell me himself. I wanted to scream in his face, break something, maybe even break him, just to see him bleed the way I had.
“Then what are you saying?” I pressed, trying not to jump to conclusions and do something stupid before I had the whole picture.
“I’m saying you took what she told you and ran with it. That ain’t on me.” He shrugged, and a hollow laugh left my mouth.
“So now you blaming me?” I yelled. “Nigga, I was out here homeless, sleeping in my car, barely eating, and moving day to day, not knowing who the fuck I was. I woke up in the hospital with no memory and nobody sitting beside my bed. What else was I supposed to do? I couldn’t spend my time chasing you down when I was trying to figure out where I was gon’ bathe, or where my next meal was coming from. ”
“My momma would’ve helped you!”
“That wasn’t my place anymore!” I snapped before I could stop myself. “Not after what she told me. You think I was about to keep sitting up in that lady’s face after she made it clear you ain’t want me around? I already felt pathetic enough.”
Tears threatened to spill, but I forced them away.
“She was being nice because that’s the kind of woman she is, but I’m not stupid, Booda. I wasn’t about to become the girl your mama felt sorry for and had to help because up and disappeared on me.”
“I ain’t disappear, so stop saying that. I just wasn’t where you could reach me.”
“Same shit,” I spat, forcefully wiping a tear away from my cheek.
“It ain’t,” he replied as nonchalant as ever, and we both went quiet.
After a few intense moments had passed, I realized I wasn’t getting anywhere, so I decided to stop trying.
“Booda, what’s the point of this conversation? You wanna fuck? Need some money? You wanted to see if you still had me brainwashed?”
He frowned as if I’d offended him with my questions.
“One.” He held up a finger. “Pussy ain’t never been hard for me to come by.
You know that better than anybody.” He held up another.
“Two, I provide. I don’t get provided for.
” Then he lifted the last. “And three, ain’t nobody brainwash you,” he said as a cocky smirk lifted the corner of his mouth.
“You just had enough sense to recognize a real nigga. I can’t help it, I’m him. ”
“Whatever,” I scoffed. “You said all that, but it still doesn’t explain why you felt the need to talk to me.”
The amusement faded, and his expression shifted to one of sincerity. “I wanted to see you.”
“You could’ve done that from afar.”
“It’s better when we’re close.”
I shook my head, irritated all over again. “I could’ve gone my whole life without speaking to you again. Just say what you need to say, so I can go.”
“You still think you run shit.” Booda chuckled.
“I do.”
“We’ll see.”
I let out a short, humorless laugh. “Yeah. We will.”
Before he could get another word in, I turned around and walked off, refusing to give him another second of my time.
“Koko—” he called my name.
“Leave me the fuck alone,” I threw over my shoulder without slowing down.
“I’ll never do that,” he said with conviction.
I kept my eyes ahead and kept walking because if I looked back, I knew I’d see him standing there, watching me, like he always did when he thought he had the upper hand.
And I wasn’t about to give him that.
By the time I made it to my car, my head was still pounding, but now it had competition. I kept hearing his voice, kept seeing that smirk, kept feeling the way my body had betrayed me the second he said my name. And he still had the nerve to look at me like he owned every part of me.
I tossed my bags into the passenger seat and slid behind the wheel.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I shouted, banging my hand on the steering wheel.
I sat there for a second, hands gripping the wheel, eyes on nothing. There was no way I was supposed to be feeling like this. He had shown up out of nowhere, said everything and nothing at the same time, and now my emotions were all over the place over a man I had no business still caring about.
I gave myself enough time to pull it together before I started the car, pulled out of the lot, and headed back toward my apartment.
By the time I made it home, my nerves were completely shot. I dropped the pharmacy bag on the counter, grabbed the bleach from beneath the sink, and started cleaning my already spotless home.
I sprayed everything in sight. Counters. Sink. Stove. Cabinet handles. If my eyes landed on it, I cleaned it. The rag dragged across the counter in hard circles while my thoughts spiraled right along with it.
“Stupid,” I chastised myself. “I should’ve never given him the time of day.”
I scrubbed harder.
The same spot.
Again.
Again.
I hoped that if I kept going long enough, I could wear the whole conversation outta my head.
My breathing picked up, but I didn’t stop scrubbing. I moved to the sink next, spraying it down and scouring the edges while every word Booda said replayed in my mind.
I hated how easily he got under my skin. Hated that hearing his voice still did something to me. Hated that after everything, my feelings for him still weren’t dead.
By the time I finally stopped, my arms ached, and the apartment smelled heavily of bleach. I tossed the rag into the sink and braced both hands against the counter, lowering my head.
“He ain’t shit,” I whispered.
But standing there alone in my kitchen, I knew the problem wasn’t just Booda.
It was me too, because no matter how angry I was, some part of me still loved him anyway.