CHAPTER 11
Miley’s POV:
The steam inside the bathroom didn't feel like a luxury anymore; it felt like a trap, a heavy, suffocating fog that clung to the tiles and filled my lungs with the bitter taste of my own regrets. I stepped out of the glass shower enclosure, my skin raw and red from the scalding temperature I’d dialed up in a desperate, failed attempt to scrub the sensation of Terra’s lips from my thighs.
I grabbed the heavy white bath towel, snapping it around my torso and tucking the edge tightly over the swell of my breasts.
My hair, a heavy mass of damp box braids, hung over my shoulders like lead weights.
I stepped up to the sink, my bare feet sticking to the wet bath mat, and used the palm of my hand to aggressively wipe a clean circle into the fogged-up oval mirror set over the brass faucet.
I stared directly at my own reflection, and the sheer irritation boiling in my chest made my jaw lock.
"Stupid," I muttered, the word hitting the cold glass and instantly vanishing. "You are so fucking stupid, Miley."
I was absolutely pissed off with Terra and her sudden, unhinged flip into boyfriend-girlfriend sentimentality.
The candles, the rose petals, the whiny, desperate look in her eyes when she said she was falling in love—it was entirely too much.
It was toxic. But as I stared deeper into my own dark eyes in that mirror, the real truth hit me like a slap across the face: I wasn't just mad at Terra. I was fucking furious with myself.
I should have never crossed that line. I knew the rules of engagement.
I knew the roommate boundary was there for a reason, carved into the very foundation of how we survived in this expensive-ass city without killing each other.
And yet, what did I do? I didn't just step over the line—I obliterated it.
I slept with her. Twice in twenty-four hours.
I handled her like she was my private property, unlocked parts of her body she didn't even know existed, and now—lo and behold—a bitch is attached.
A cold, heavy knot of pure anxiety tightened in my stomach.
I wasn't just running from attachment because I liked being single or because I wanted to keep my options open for elite corporate women like Helisa Smith.
I was running from attachment because I knew exactly what happened when a woman lost her mind over me.
My mind flashed back, completely against my will, to the dark, broken place I had spent the last two years trying to bury Alicia.
The mere thought of her name made the air in my throat turn to dust. Alicia had loved me with a frantic, obsessive, consuming intensity that I didn't know how to handle.
And when I tried to pull back, when I tried to establish boundaries and breathe, she didn't just break—she shattered.
The finality of her choice, the quiet messages she left in her journal before she took her own life, was a ghost that still sat on my chest every single night when the lights went out.
Suicide.
That was the price of letting someone get too close.
That was what happened when you let the walls down and let a girl build her whole entire world around your heartbeat.
I had sworn to myself, on everything I loved, that I would never let another soul get that kind of leverage over me again.
I was an island. I was a machine. I was Miley Palmer, the girl from Harlem breaking into the forty-second floor of corporate America, entirely unbothered and completely untouchable.
I reached over with a trembling hand, grabbing the heavy black hairdryer from the vanity drawer and flipping the switch to high.
The loud, deafening roar of the motor filled the small bathroom, drowning out the sound of my own ragged breathing.
I looked back into the oval mirror, lifting my heavy braids, letting the scorching hot air blast through the roots to dry the sweat and shower water away.
As the heat hit my scalp, my frustration shifted focus. Beyond the ghost of Alicia, the sheer absurdity of Terra’s behavior started to make my blood boil.
"The nerve of this bitch," I muttered under the cover of the hairdryer's roar.
Why the hell was Terra acting like she wasn't in a whole-ass, locked-down relationship with her man? She’d been laying up on her boyfriend, Malik, for the last year and a half.
Malik was a straight-up hood cliché—a loud, insecure, territorial hothead who walked around the block like he had something to prove to the world.
God, I fucking hate drama. I lived my life to avoid the chaotic, low-vibrational nonsense of the streets, and here was Terra, trying to turn our apartment into a daytime talk show set.
Miley knew exactly what Malik was capable of.
If that man ever found out that his girl was in her bedroom getting her back cracked, squirting like a broken fire hydrant all over my face while I tongue-fucked her G-spot, he wouldn't just be mad. He’d probably pull up to our building and slacken my jaw with his bare fist. I wasn't scared of a block boy, but I was entirely too classy, too focused on my career, to be getting into street altercations over some roommate coochie.
I clicked the hairdryer off, the sudden silence in the bathroom feeling heavier than before.
The air in the apartment felt toxic as fuck.
I needed to get out of here, and I needed to do it immediately.
I should have followed my own damn intuition.
The first rule of survival is never fuck where you sleep, and I had broken it twice.
***
I opened the bathroom door, the remaining steam billowing out behind me into the dark hallway like a cloud of smoke.
I marched straight into my bedroom, my bare feet clicking against the floorboards, and threw open my closet doors.
I needed my corporate armor today. I needed to look like money, to feel like the untouchable professional who belonged at E-Tech, far away from the emotional swamp of my apartment.
I pulled a crisp, tailored ivory silk blouse from its hanger and slipped my arms through the fabric, buttoning it all the way up to my throat, deliberately hiding the faint red mark Terra’s teeth had left on my collarbone.
I slid into a high-waisted, black pencil skirt that hugged my hips with a sharp, disciplined structure.
As I was zipping up the side of the skirt, a sharp, clattering sound broke the silence of the apartment. Someone was violently rummaging around in the kitchen cabinets.
I paused, my fingers resting on the metal zipper. I stood up straight, stepped quietly to the edge of my bedroom door, and peeped my head out into the hallway.
There she was. Terra was standing by the kitchen counter, her wild braided curls piled loosely on top of her head, wearing an oversized graphic tee that barely covered her thighs.
She looked completely beautiful, but her entire posture was radiating a tense, aggressive, malicious energy.
She grabbed a box of Honey Bunches of Oats from the shelf with a rough, impatient jerk, shaking it violently before pouring a massive mountain of cereal into a ceramic bowl already filled with milk.
A sudden wave of petty irritation washed over me. I wasn't about to let her think she could freeze me out of my own kitchen.
"You can leave some of that cereal for me, bitch," I said, my voice cutting through the quiet kitchen, smooth, cold, and dripping with an intentional, unbothered arrogance.
Terra froze. She didn't turn around immediately. She slowly lowered the box of cereal, her knuckles turning white around the cardboard. When she finally turned her head to look at me, her eyes were filled with absolute venom—a dark, burning malice that felt like a physical strike across the room.
"Fuck you, Miley," Terra said, her voice dropping into a low, vicious hiss that cracked with raw emotion.
She didn't wait for a response. She stuffed the cereal box back into the cabinet with a loud, aggressive slam that had the wooden doors rattling on their hinges.
She snatched her ceramic bowl up off the counter, a little milk splashing over the rim onto her fingers, and marched straight past me down the hallway.
Right as she reached her bedroom door, she paused, lifted her right hand high into the air, and showed me her middle finger with a slow, deliberate intensity before slamming her door shut behind her.
The heavy thud of her deadbolt locking echoed down the corridor like a punctuation mark.
I stood there in the hallway, my jaw tightening as I let out a long, hard hiss through my teeth.
"Malignant-ass energy," I muttered, shaking my head as I walked into the kitchen.
I was entirely pissed off with all the attitude she was giving me.
The whole house felt contaminated by her spiteful, childish behavior, and I needed to dip quick before the air completely suffocated my mood.
I wasn't going to let her ruin my day, though.
I reached into the cabinet, pulled out a clean bowl, and poured the remaining crumbs of the cereal into it, splashing a bit of milk over the top.
I walked out onto our small concrete balcony, leaning my hips against the rusted iron railing, looking out over the crowded, noisy streets of Harlem below. The morning traffic was already starting to choke the avenue, horns honking, people rushing toward the subway entrances like ants.
I took a slow bite of the cereal, chewing thoughtfully as I stared out at the city.
It was crazy how fast things could turn.
Just yesterday, things were going so wonderful between me and Terra.
We were best friends, roommates who held each other down, building a life together in a city that didn't give a fuck about either of us.
We had a good groove going—until I tasted her coochie.