Chapter 30 #2
“Because when we first met we had nothing in common except track and our competitive spirits,” I said. “You liked Boosie. I liked B.O.B and Kid Cudi. You liked them thugged out and I was as preppy as they come. I figured I wasn’t your type.”
“That’s not true,” she said, a little too quickly.
I raised an eyebrow.
She sighed. “I liked you. I just felt like I was too much of a ‘ghetto girl’ for you. Like you were going to end up with somebody bougie and polished and I was just.” She shrugged. “Me.”
I looked at her for a second. “So we just spent all those years judging each other wrong.”
“I guess we did,” she said quietly.
The water moved around us. Neither of us said anything for a moment.
“That’s why I needed Howard,” I said eventually.
“You told me to apply and you were right. I needed to be in a place where being dark skinned and smart and from the South wasn’t something to explain or apologize for.
Where excellence looked like me. I walked onto that campus and something just settled. For the first time.”
Nique was watching me with that soft expression she tried to hide behind everything else.
“I know,” she said. “I could hear it in your voice the first time you called me after move in day.”
“You remember that?”
“I remember everything about you Dex,” she said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. Then she reached for a pastry and looked back out at the jungle like she hadn’t just said something that hit me harder than anything else that morning.
I watched her for a second.
“You ever think about what would have happened if you had come to Howard?” I asked.
She got quiet. The kind of quiet that meant she had thought about it plenty and wasn’t sure how much of it she wanted to say out loud.
“All the time,” she said finally. “Especially after.” She didn’t finish the sentence.
She didn’t have to. We both knew what after meant.
The night that took Prez. The bullet that took her scholarship.
The future she had mapped out dissolving before she was old enough to have a backup plan. “I had a full ride Dex. A full ride.”
“I know,” I said.
“And I threw it away staying with somebody I knew was going to get me hurt.” She shook her head slow. “I just didn’t think it was going to touch me like that.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“I knew enough,” she said quietly.
The water moved around us. A bird called somewhere above the trees.
“You know what’s crazy though,” she said, her voice softening. “If I had gone we probably would have fell in love in college. Like Paris and Kyson. Been married by now. Had babies.”
“Probably,” I said.
She smiled, small and a little sad. Then something shifted in her face and she sat up straighter. “Speaking of babies.”She looked at me. “Can we stop at a pharmacy on the way back? I need a Plan B. My window is closing.”
I looked at her for a second.
“What if I’d rather you not take one.”
She stared at me. “What? Dex you’re crazy. We’re not even together. We are not ready for a baby.”
“Let’s be together then Nique.”
“It’s not that simple,” she said, her voice firm but not unkind.
“We’re taking things slow. We have to get to know each other again, actually date, I need to form a real relationship with Demi.
You need to stop going to war with Amina.
And then there’s my personal life.” She looked out at the water.
“I can’t be somebody’s mama when my own relationship with my mother is in shambles.
And don’t even get me started on Kel. Everything I own is still in her house. ”
I nodded slowly. “We’ll get the Plan B.”
She looked relieved.
“But I need you on birth control or something after this.”
She smiled. “You could just use a condom.”
“Every time we end up together condoms are the last thing on either of our minds and you know that.”
She laughed. “That’s exactly why you have a baby right now.”
“On my daddy’s grave I used a condom every single time with Amina.”
She looked at me for a long moment. “I believe you,” she said.
I nodded, appreciating that more than she probably knew.
The water moved quietly around us. I reached for my juice and chose my next words carefully.
“I know what happened with your mom is heavy,” I said.
“And I’m going to be here for you and Nel however you need as you figure all of that out.
” I paused. “I was talking to Eli and he was telling me how much therapy helped him and London work through everything. I was thinking maybe me and you could do couples therapy. And I also think family therapy for you, Nel, and Stella might be worth looking into when you’re ready. ”
“I did therapy after I got shot. Hated every second of it.”
“I remember you telling me that,” I said. “But will you give it one more shot? For me?”
She looked at me.
“Eli and London saw somebody named Lapri Dallan. I looked her up last night. She’s Black, late thirties, seems like somebody you could actually talk to.”
Nique looked at the hammock for a moment then back at me.
“I’ll agree to trying it with you,” she said finally. “Couples therapy. I’m not ready to commit to the family piece yet.”
“Baby steps,” I said. “That’s all I’m asking.”
I leaned across the tray and kissed her. She kissed me back without hesitating, her hand coming up to my face, warm and certain.
When we pulled apart she stayed close. Close enough that I could see every detail of her face in the morning light. She looked at me for a long moment like she was deciding something.
“I don’t know what I would have done this week without you,” she said quietly. “I mean that Dex.” She searched my face. “After all these years you’re still my person.”
I didn’t say anything. I just looked at her and let that land where it needed to.
She settled back against the edge of the pool, her shoulder brushing mine, and looked out at the jungle around us.
Neither of us rushed to fill the silence.
We just sat there in that clear water with the trees overhead and the morning stretching out in front of us like we had all the time in the world.
For once it felt like maybe we did.