Chapter 19 The Reef
Chapter nineteen
The Reef
I stabbed a piece of melon a little harder than necessary, the sweet juice hitting my tongue but doing nothing to settle my nerves. Nel was sitting across from me, leaning on the table with a look that said he wasn’t letting me off the hook until he had the full story.
“So we’re just gonna act like you weren’t treating the man like he was invisible last week?” Nel grilled me, the smirk already forming. “How do you go from ignoring his existence to him waking up in your villa? Are you just trying to make Amina’s head explode or what?”
I set my fork down. “Nobody is thinking about Amina, Nel. Seriously.”
I took a breath, the last few days rising up all at once.
“Dex was there for me in a way that goes beyond just showing up. He got me a lawyer when I needed one. He paid for my stay at the Battle House so I could get my head right. He bought me clothes for this entire trip so I wouldn’t have to go back to Kel’s place before we left. ”
Nel’s smirk softened into something more serious.
“The man has really had my back,” I finished quietly.
“Who?”
I recognized Paris’ voice before I even turned around. She stepped up to the table, eyes moving between me and Nel like she was piecing together a case.
I stayed focused on my fruit. I already knew where this was going.
Nel, messy as always answered for me. “Dex.”
Paris let out a long dramatic exhale and pulled out a chair. “Nique. Really?”
“Paris, don’t start,” I said without looking up.
“Oh, I’m starting,” she said, leaning in. “Because it seems like a little sand and some ocean waves make you forget that he slept with you and Amina on the same day. Knowing y’all were friends.”
I finally looked at her. “Amina has never been my friend. She’s your friend. I was cool with her because of you.”
“Key word was cool. Now y’all beefing over the same nigga,” Paris shot back.
“Look, P,” I said, my voice dropping to that warning level. “I know you’re Team Amina and that’s your bestie, but I need you to just stay out of it, okay? You don’t even know the half.”
Paris didn’t move. “I’m not Team Amina. I’m Team Both of Y’all. I want you both to stop being fooled by him and do better. The difference is she has to deal with him because of Demi. I don’t know why you keep choosing to.”
That one landed somewhere tender. I opened my mouth to respond but the words got swallowed up by the sound of Whitley’s voice cutting across the lobby.
“Hey, big sis!”
She was already moving toward me at full speed, that bright easy energy she carried everywhere arriving before she did. She wrapped me in a hug before I could even stand up fully.
“Hey, little sis,” I said, and felt some of the tension leave my shoulders without my permission.
She pulled back, eyes wide. “You smell so good. Is that one of your products?”
“Just my tropical coconut body wash. I didn’t put anything else on besides sunscreen.”
“Why don’t you have a website? I’ve been wanting to order from you forever.”
Stella stepped in gently behind her. “Baby, give your sister some room.”
I caught Stella’s eye just long enough to let her know I had it, then turned back to Whitley.
“It’s fine. Honestly, I don’t have a website because I’m still figuring the business side out.
I went after my passion without a solid plan and my first year hasn’t been what I hoped.
I never got the chance to go to college so I’m learning ownership as I go.
” I paused, the decision I’d been sitting with finally forming into words.
“Once my lease is up I’m going to close the shop, go back to school, and get a real foundation under me.
Business classes, marketing, all of it. Then when I graduate I want to open again the right way, with the knowledge to back it up this time. ”
Nel’s brow furrowed. “Why didn’t I know your business wasn’t doing well?”
“It’s not doing horrible, but I’m not really making much of a profit,” I admitted, the truth feeling heavy. “Just enough to re-up on products and keep the lights on. Now that I have to find my own place again, I need more stability.”
“You can stay with me as long as you need,” Nel said immediately, and I knew he meant every word of it.
I also knew the reality. Our childhood home was small. He’d already turned the second bedroom into a walk-in closet and had been sleeping on the couch since I arrived just so I could have his bed. We were grown. We both needed our own space.
“I want to help too,” Stella said, her voice quieter than I expected. “I know breakups are hard. I can help you find a place and cover rent while you get settled.”
I just looked at her. I didn’t know what to do with that proposal.
The offer was sitting right there in the open and I couldn’t tell if I was allowed to touch it or if picking it up meant something I wasn’t ready for.
Luckily London’s voice boomed across the lobby calling everyone to the vans and I took the exit without having to figure it out.
On the ride to the cenotes Whitley slid into the seat beside me before anyone else could.
We talked the whole way, and I kept finding myself caught off guard by how much depth she had.
She didn’t talk like someone half my age.
She talked like someone who had been paying attention to the world for a long time.
“Can I ask you something personal?” she said, somewhere between the resort and the jungle.
“Go ahead.”
“Do you actually love making your products or do you just love that other people love them?”
I thought about it for a real second. “Both. But the making part came first. I started because I needed something that worked for my skin and nothing on the market was doing it. Then other people started noticing and wanting what I had and it just grew from there.”
Whitley nodded like that confirmed something for her.
“Then the business isn’t broken. The packaging around it just needs work.
” She shifted in her seat to face me more fully.
“I can build you a website. A real one, with a store, product pages, everything. You could keep selling while you’re in school without needing a physical location at all. ”
I leaned my head back against the headrest. “I’ve always done everything face to face. The flea market before the shop, then the shop. I don’t know if I know how to sell to people I can’t see.”
“You already do,” she said simply. “Every time you post about your products people respond. You just don’t have a place to send them. Give them somewhere to go and they’ll go.”
I let that sit. I had been so locked into the failure of the physical shop that I hadn’t considered the business could exist without the lease, without the overhead, without any of the weight I’d been carrying. The product was good. I had always known that. Maybe that was enough to build from.
“I didn’t think about it like that,” I admitted.
“That’s what little sisters are for,” Whitley said, patting my hand. “To see the stuff you’re too close to notice.”
As the van slowed and the entrance to the cenotes came into view through the jungle I felt something loosen in my chest. I had spent sixteen years being stubborn about this girl and she had just spent forty minutes on a van ride giving me more useful perspective than most people I’d known my whole life.
She had reached out to me years ago wanting to connect and I had done her exactly what Stella had done to me. Made a promise I never kept.
Looking at Whitley now, I realized Stella might have been the enemy, but my siblings were innocent.
They shouldn't have had to pay for a debt they didn't owe. Now, my mind was racing, trying to figure out how to keep them in my life without having to deal with Stella’s shadow hanging over every moment.
I wanted a sisterhood that was mine, built on my own terms, away from the mess of the past.
I stepped out into the Tulum heat and looked back at Whitley one more time. She had just spent forty minutes on a van ride giving me more than most people I’d known my whole life ever had. That was on me. That was completely on me.