Chapter 3 #4
I nodded, hiking that bag over my shoulder again. “Yes, I’m sure.”
He locked eyes with me, leaning forward on the island. “Your decision got anything to do with what happened earlier?”
“What?”
“Something happened today,” he pointed out. As if he needed to.
He stood up straight, crossed his arms over his chest and stared at me, quiet, waiting for me to respond.
I didn’t say anything for a good ten seconds.
Shifted my eyes over at the TV. The Bernie Mac Show was on.
Looked back over at First Lady. Her hands were moving fast. She was knitting.
What? I didn't know. Something. The yarn was teal. Reminded me of a time where I would sit up and watch my momma crochet. Growing up, I didn’t know there was a difference.
But there was. Momma only used one needle—First Lady used two.
“Something did happen today,” I said, twiddling with my crystal. That black onyx.
I really, really didn’t want to talk about what happened.
I really, really just wanted to forget about seeing Sabrina like that.
Wanted to escape the thought of her children.
Wanted to forget about the pink tint to my socks and the squishiness of the hallway carpet.
I’d been—we’d been… stepping on Sabrina.
Her kids ran back and forth down that hallway… running and crawling over their momma.
The shit made me sick to my stomach.
Shifting my eyes up at the high ceiling, I thought back to that moment on the toilet, watching my ceiling leak, without a fucking clue.
I wanted to escape.
Needed to escape.
Tearing my eyes away from the ceiling, I put them back on Exodus.
He felt good. His arms, when they were around me…
felt… magical. He was like a big grizzly bear.
One that when hugged by him, took a bit of pain away.
I closed my eyes briefly, thinking of the time at the hospital, when I melted into his arms.
God I needed that now.
I needed it bad.
But instead, I took a deep breath and shrugged it off, putting on a tough face. “Sabrina… my neighbor… she was killed. People die in The Woods all day, every day. Nothing new about that.”
I twiddled with the crystal again.
Exodus’s eyes shifted there. His face softened a bit.
“You don’t want to talk about it.”
I shook my head. “Mm, mm. Nothing to talk about. Did you go to the grocery store?” I asked, shifting the conversation, turning around towards the refrigerator.
Bending down, I looked inside, taking notice to how little food was there.
The last time I was here, Solomon mentioned going grocery shopping, but it didn’t look like they had.
At all. There were only a couple of jars of pickles, cucumbers, and a tomato that needed to be tossed.
Off in the corner, in the back was a partially finished bottle of ketchup.
Lunch meat that was unopened, and a bag of cherries. Where in the hell was all of the food?
“Solomon didn’t go grocery shopping?” I continued. He was quiet. Just… watching me. I hated it because I felt like he wanted to ask about Sabrina again. Feeling his eyes on me made my heart race, I was so uncomfortable. I didn’t want to talk about Sabrina. I wanted to forget.
What I wanted to do was to cook.
Hadn’t cooked in a while. Cooking… it always put me in a place of solitude.
Plus, it felt like First Lady could use a nice home cooked meal.
I didn’t know if her kids cooked much but judging by the emptiness of the refrigerator and the breakfast Solomon brought in the other day, I’d say no.
Glancing up over the refrigerator, I took a look at Exodus.
His big ass didn’t cook. I could tell. Probably had a chef at the crib or something.
Looking away, I put my attention back on the refrigerator. Pulled a drawer out. Frowned at the can of sardines. They needed to go shopping... Bad.
“Was waiting for you,” Exodus said, the sound of his voice closer.
I looked up and he was behind the refrigerator door, looking down at me.
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. I didn’t know what to fill it with. I was waiting for you.”
“Your mother eats—”
“The same shit every day,” He interrupted. “What she needs is there. Sardines. Cucumbers. Shit like that. I didn’t know what to get you. So… I waited.”
“Waited? Waited for what?”
“A yes,” he flatly said, eyes on me, matter-of-factly, as if he was actually waiting for me to say yes to the live-in position. “Make a list. I’ll send one of them niggas to get it.”
I bit down on my bottom lip, closed the refrigerator door, and sized him up, defensively.
Why? I didn’t know. I just… I wasn’t used to people taking care of me.
So much was happening so fast and I couldn’t really wrap my mind around it.
The last and only person who’d honestly, truly taken care of me since the stuff with my parents had been Meech.
So… I was a little timid. Defensive even.
Slow to take help because to me, a helping hand meant charity.
And I didn’t need that. With Meech’s death, it felt like pity to.
This job… the money… it felt like Exodus was doing all of these things because he pitied me.
Now he was talking about make a list. Make a list for what? I didn’t need people shopping for me.
I took in a deep breath and fiddled with the string dangling from the sleeve of my hoodie. “I’m cool. I have food at the house that I can bring,” I lied.
I barely had food there. A carton of eggs I’d been eating off every day, a pack of off brand American cheese, and ham I needed to throw out.
I was talking like I had food in that bitch, knowing good and damn well a trip to the grocery store was needed.
I planned on taking one—I just didn’t want him to do it.
He squinted at me, crossing his arms over his broad chest. Slowly, his eyes swept over me. As if he was trying to figure me out. “Why would you bring food from the crib if you’re about to be staying here? As a matter of fact… you might as well call buddy up and put in a notice about moving.”
I swallowed. Wringed my fingers and looked off into the distance.
I had to move. It was necessary. I could not and would not sleep another day in that apartment but my God it was hard to let go.
It was crazy. How much I desired change just to be hit with so much of it and end up afraid.
What if… what if this didn’t work out? What if something went really wrong with this arrangement and I needed to leave?
What if I needed to go back to Coney? I wouldn’t…
I wouldn’t have any place to live. Nowhere to call home.
Maybe… I… I needed to call Marvin to see if he could relocate me?
Maybe I could… I don’t know… sage the space?
Clean the ceiling? Scrub the floor where ‘she’ puddled?
Giving into this… Settling in to this… this new life… it was scary. It was almost as if God was pushing me out of my comfort zone. It was almost as if He was giving me exactly what I’d been asking for, for years. Except He was giving it to me in a way I wasn’t comfortable with.
“I don’t know,” I whispered. Not to him. Kind of to myself. When he responded, I rolled my eyes, hating he’d heard me.
“You don’t know what?”
I looked up at him and fiddled with my crystal. “Nothing.”
He sighed. “If you don’t know what you wanna do, you need to tell me that.”
I looked down at the tiled floor. Was it marble?
“It’s not that,” I said with a slight attitude.
Taking a deep breath, I checked myself. My frustration had nothing to do with him, but everything to do with life itself.
“It’s not that,” I repeated, fixing my tone.
“I just… I don’t know about this. What if it doesn’t work out then… I won’t have anywhere to go and—”
“Why wouldn’t it work out?” He interrupted, eyeing me up and down again.
I shrugged. “Life is unpredictable.”
“Nah… facts,” he said. “I understand. The Woods ain’t for you tho’. I’ll get on with Rocc… see if he can find you a spot out here—”
“I can’t afford Wildermere.”
“Three racks a week… you can afford Wildermere. If you want to waste yo’ cheese on a spot, by all means make sure it’s outside of the fuckin’ Woods, shorty.”
I wrapped my arms around my body again and thought about what he said.