Chapter 7 #2
She disappeared back toward the kitchen, and I wrapped both hands around the mug, letting the warmth seep into my palms. The coffee smelled like it had been sitting since yesterday, but I didn’t care. I needed something to hold onto, something real and present.
I was halfway through my first sip when the hairs on the back of my neck began to rise.
Setting my mug down, searching for whoever was watching me, and that was when I noticed Booda.
He sat three booths down, on the opposite side of the diner, partially obscured by a support column, and his attention was fixed on me.
He hadn’t moved or done anything but sit there, but somehow his presence still found me.
It crept in, slow and sure, slipping past every wall I had put up and settling into the parts of me that remembered him best. My fingers tightened around the mug without me meaning for them to, and my breath caught, just for a second.
It didn’t matter how much space sat between us or how hard I tried to shift my focus to anything else. He was there. Not across the diner, not in another booth, but right here with me, pressing in on my thoughts, and pulling at parts of me that I wanted to keep hidden.
And that was the problem.
I held his stare for a second, then looked back down at my coffee, dismissing him without a word. Hopefully, he got the hint, because I didn’t want, nor did I need, him thinking I wanted him in my face. I’d had enough of his bullshit yesterday, and after the night I had, I wasn’t in the mood.
For a second, it seemed like he understood. Then he slid into the seat across from me without checking to see if I wanted to be bothered.
I exhaled through my nose and set my mug down. “Sit somewhere else. I’m not doing this with you right now.”
Booda leaned back in the booth, taking his time looking at me. “You good?”
“I was before you came over here.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t look good,” he replied, his dark, assessing eyes taking in every detail of my face. “You look stressed. When’s the last time you slept for more than two hours?”
I wiped my palms on my pants legs and found something else to look at other than his face. “That’s not your concern.”
“Everything about you is my concern,” he said so matter-of-factly that I pictured myself punching him in his face. “What’s bothering you? Let me know so I can handle that shit.”
“Maybe it’s the company I’m keeping.” I stared him down, but even as I spoke, the distance between us felt like a chasm I didn’t want to cross.
I was angry, yes, but beneath that was a desire to bridge that gap.
“Look, I’m not here to fight. Just trying to understand what’s going on with you.” Booda stretched out in the booth, legs spread, one arm resting across the back.
Even though we weren’t sitting close, it felt as if he’d reached across the space between us and found me anyway, touching places I had tried to lock down and leave alone.
Heat from the mug pressed into my palms, but it did nothing to ground me. He was still there, not across the diner, not in another booth, but right here, crowding my thoughts, pulling my attention back no matter how hard I tried to keep it elsewhere.
That had always been his gift. Or his curse.
I leaned back and folded my arms. “No. I’m good. You can go now.”
“No,” he said simply, that one word spoken with finality as I watched him settle deeper into the booth, making it clear he wasn’t going anywhere.
“You’re being difficult.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I’m persistent,” he corrected. “There’s a difference.”
“Whatever,” I replied, my attention moving past him to the booth behind his shoulder.
Two girls sat there, watching us without shame. One leaned in, whispering under her breath, her eyes never leaving our table. The other tucked her hair behind her ear, trying to look casual, but the other bitch didn’t bother pretending.
I followed their gaze back to Booda.
I caught it all.
The interest. The curiosity. The way their attention stayed on him.
I looked down at my coffee, then back at the girls, then at Booda, then back at my coffee. My lips pressed into a flat line, and my nostrils flared as I took a slow breath in and let it out, forcing myself to stay still.
It didn’t matter what I told myself or how much distance I tried to put between us. Some things don’t disappear just because they should.
The girls were still watching him, and I was still watching them watch him, and no amount of telling myself it didn’t matter seemed to be doing anything useful.
I had always been territorial about Booda. Obviously, that hadn’t changed.
“You have people watching you,” I said loudly enough for them to hear.
Booda glanced over his shoulder, then looked back at me. “I don’t give a fuck about them, and you shouldn’t either.”
“I don’t, but I do want to know what those bitches keep looking at. Is it you or is it me?”
Booda smirked, his dimple creating a crater in his cheek that would’ve been distracting had I not been focused on those hoes.
“Obviously you. You the sexiest muthafucka at this table.”
I slammed my mug down as I slid out of the booth. “Hold that thought.”
“Koko,” Booda dragged my name in warning, but I ignored him.
The girls straightened when I stopped at the edge of their table, but neither of them looked sorry for the disrespect.
“You see something you like over there?” I asked, folding my arms, so I wouldn’t prematurely reach out and touch a bitch.
The one doing most of the whispering leaned back in her seat. “Maybe, I do.”
Her friend let out a nervous laugh. “Please don’t start talking shit. She might be a little too crazy, even for you.” She grabbed her friend’s arm, trying to rein her in.
My lips pressed together. “If you bitches stop watching us, you won’t have to find out how crazy I am.”
“Wasn’t nobody watching you, bitch!” the first one said, dragging her straw through her drink.
A frown pulled at my face, and I pointed at Booda. “If you weren’t looking at me, then who were you looking at? It better not have been him.”
“I can look wherever I want and at who I want. These are my muthafuckin’ eyes,” the one with the slick mouth replied.
“Well, these are my muthafuckin’ fists,” I said, lifting my hand between us. “And I’ll introduce them to yo’ muthafuckin’ eyes. Correct them bitches.”
Her friend grabbed her arm. “Alright, that’s enough. We don’t need no problems.”
The one with the slick mouth shrugged her off. “I’m good. That crazy bitch the one with the problem.”
“Koko,” Booda called my name as I pulled my fist back, getting ready to punch that young hoe in the mouth. “Put your hand down. The laws just walked in the door. She’s not worth you going to jail. You proved what you needed to prove. Now sit down.”
I lowered my fist slowly, my jaw clenching so hard I felt my bones pop. The cops were standing near the register, one of them scanning the diner for a seat.
I turned back toward our booth without another word, but not before catching the smirk on that girl’s face. She thought she’d won, but she had no idea what she’d almost lost.
When I slid back into the seat across from Booda, my hands were trembling. He reached across the table and grabbed my wrist, his thumb rubbing slow circles inside of it to soothe me.
“You good?” he asked quietly.
“No. I need to go.” I pushed back from the table. “Being around you is too much.”
I stood and threw enough money down on the table for my coffee, then headed for the exit, never giving Booda a second glance.
That didn’t mean I stopped feeling him.
By the time I made it back to my apartment building, my legs felt as though they weighed as much as concrete. I climbed the stairs slowly, each step a small rebellion against the weight sitting on my chest.
Inside, I locked the door behind me and leaned against it, letting my eyes adjust to the dim interior. The apartment was exactly as I’d left it, sparse, functional, devoid of anything that suggested a life worth living. But that was fine. That was safe.
I moved to the window and opened the blinds, peering down at the street below. My mind wouldn’t stop circling back to the diner. To Booda sitting across from me like he had every right to be there. Like the last few years hadn’t happened.
Still, to be honest, I didn’t know how much longer I could keep running from him. I still loved that man.
That realization hit me harder than any punch I could’ve thrown at the diner, and I slid down the door, my head dropping into my hands. The migraine was still there, pulsing behind my eyes, but it was dull now, almost manageable compared to the other things clawing at my insides.
Booda had hurt me. That was the truth I kept circling back to, the one thing that didn’t change, no matter how many times I replayed the past in my head. He’d done what he had to do, or so he’d claimed when everything fell apart.
But he was back now.
And I could feel myself softening. Could feel those walls that I’d built crumbling like they were made of paper instead of steel.