CHAPTER NINE
NAE
By six o’clock Friday evening, I had pawned my graduation bracelet, sold the television from my bedroom, and learned that desperation had terrible resale value.
The bracelet my grandmother bought me cost almost five hundred dollars.
The man behind the glass offered one forty.
The television was three years old, but it still worked and had all the apps signed in. He gave me one forty-five for that.
I walked out with two hundred eighty-five dollars and a receipt telling me I had thirty days to buy back a piece of my life for more than I had just received.
My mother kept Amir while I ran around. I told her the television had started flickering and somebody from work knew a repair shop. She looked at me the way mothers looked when they knew a lie had been built but hadn’t decided whether to knock it down.
“On your birthday weekend plans?” she asked.
“It’s not my birthday.”
“You know what I mean.”
I kissed Amir’s forehead and left before she could ask another question.
At five forty-two, Malik finally sent seventy-five dollars.
The note said FOR MY SON like he had made a charitable donation and needed documentation.
TWO MONTHS EARLIER:
The last time I slept with Malik, he had come over after Amir’s second birthday carrying leftover cake and acting like fatherhood was something we had built together instead of something I managed while he visited.
Amir fell asleep before nine, exhausted from balloons, sugar, and screaming every time somebody touched his new truck.
Malik stayed.
That alone felt unusual enough to soften me.
We sat on the couch eating cake from paper plates while a movie played low. He made me laugh about the way Amir had cried during Happy Birthday because everybody sang too loud.
“He get that dramatic shit from you,” Malik said.
“He gets disappearing acts from you, so I guess we both contributed.”
His smile faded.
I should have left it there.
Instead, he reached over and wiped frosting from my bottom lip with his thumb.
The room changed.
“Don’t start,” I said.
“You keep looking at me.”
“I live here. Where else am I supposed to look?”
Malik leaned closer. “You miss me.”
Co-parenting kept putting him back inside the rooms where I had learned him. He knew which cabinet held the cups, which side of the bed I slept on, how tired made me quieter instead of mean. Some nights, that history felt like family. Other nights, it felt like a door I forgot to lock.
I kissed him first.
Malik’s hand slid around the back of my neck, and the years between our worst arguments disappeared too easily. He tasted like buttercream and the mint he always chewed after smoking outside.
“Nae,” he murmured.
“Do not make this more than what it is.”
“You saying that to me or you?”
I pulled him back before he could see the answer on my face.
We moved to my bedroom quietly, stopping once when Amir shifted across the hall. Malik closed the door but left it cracked enough for me to hear if my baby called.
He undressed me slowly, hands familiar on the body that had carried his child. There had been a time after giving birth when I could not stand anybody touching my stomach. Malik kissed the soft skin there without making it a conversation.
That tenderness was dangerous.
It made me remember the version of us who had picked baby names in bed and believed love would become responsibility on its own.
He pulled a condom from his wallet. “You sure?” he asked.
I nodded.
When he entered me, I closed my eyes and let memory do too much of the work. Malik moved slowly at first, one hand beneath my thigh, the other braced beside my head. My body still knew his rhythm. I hated how quickly it welcomed him.
“Look at me,” he said.
I opened my eyes.
For a few minutes, he looked like the man I had wanted him to grow into. Present. Gentle. Watching me instead of the clock.
The pleasure built low and deep. I covered my mouth when I came because Amir slept across the hall. Malik followed with his face pressed into my shoulder, holding me like leaving had never been his favorite part.
After, he tied the condom and sat on the edge of the bed.
I pulled the sheet over myself. “You staying?”
He reached for his jeans. “I got work early.”
The softness left the room before he did.
“Daycare due next week,” I said.
Malik paused with one leg in his pants. “Send me the amount.”
“I sent it yesterday.”
“I’ll look.”
He kissed my forehead, checked on Amir, and left before midnight.
The next morning, there was no payment.
*****
Now, his seventy-five-dollar Cash App note said FOR MY SON like he needed a receipt proving he had remembered us at all.
I added it to the Cash App balance.
Seven hundred forty remained from the trip money.
Two hundred eighty-five from the pawn shop made one thousand twenty-five.
Malik’s seventy-five made eleven hundred.
The payment due was twelve fifty.
I was one hundred fifty dollars short.
At five fifty-eight, the host messaged me.
Payment has not been received. The reservation will be released at 6:00 p.m.
I typed so fast, I hit the wrong letters.
Please give me until midnight. My bank froze the transaction.
The reply came at six oh-three.
I’m sorry, but the dates have been released. If they remain available, I can reinstate the reservation through Monday at noon after the full balance and a $95 reinstatement fee are paid.
I stared at the message from the driver’s seat of my car.
The dates were still there on the listing.
So was the house Ari had sent us twenty-seven times. Four bedrooms. Pool table. Firepit. A kitchen with white counters she said would make our pajamas look expensive in pictures.
Now, I needed two hundred forty-five dollars by Monday instead of one fifty by Friday.
Probably.
An extra shift Sunday would bring part of it, but not until my next check. I could sell my laptop, except I used it for online training at work. My mother had a little money but asking meant explaining. Jori might have something saved.
The thought came and made me feel worse.
Jori worked like rest was a luxury she hadn’t earned. Asking her to pull me out of a hole would mean taking money from whatever hole she stood beside.
I opened the group chat.
ARI: We about to leave Kye’s. Is everything straight?
My fingers hovered.
I could say I used the money because Amir’s daycare was about to put him out and my landlord put a notice on my door.
Ari would be mad. She had every right.
She might also understand.
Understanding wasn’t what scared me.
ARI: Nae?
I typed: Yes. They had to cancel and rebook because of the bank, but the dates are held. I’ll have the new confirmation Monday.
KYE: Why Monday?
NAE: Because customer service don’t work weekends apparently
JORI: What bank doesn’t have weekend support?
I locked my phone.
Jori needed to mind the business she pretended not to have.
My mother called while I was sitting there.
“Amir keeps asking for you. You coming back before your dinner?”
“I’m on my way.”
“You alright?”
“Yes.”
“Brenae.”
“I said I’m good.”
The sharpness in my voice made me close my eyes.
Everybody who loved me had started sounding like another bill collector.
“I’ll be there in ten,” I said, softer.
When I got back, Amir ran toward me wearing one sock and holding a plastic dinosaur by the tail.
“Mama! Rawr!”
I crouched before he reached me. He crashed into my chest and roared against my neck.
“Scary,” I told him.
He pulled back, grinning. “You cry?”
“No.”
He touched beneath my eye with one finger anyway.
Children didn’t always understand words, but they understood faces before adults gave them credit for it.
My mother stood in the doorway. “He ate. His bag packed. I can keep him tonight if you don’t want to rush back.”
“I’ll get him after dinner.”
“Leave him. You don’t go nowhere.”
“I go places.”
“You go to work, daycare, and Target.”
“Target is outside.”
She smiled, but her eyes moved past me toward my bedroom.
“Where the TV?”
“Getting fixed.”
“That bracelet getting fixed too?”
My wrist felt naked before I looked at it. “I took it off.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Mama, please.”
She held up one hand. “I ain’t ask. Yet.”
That yet followed me into the bathroom while I changed for dinner.
At Vela, everybody looked beautiful. Ari most of all.
She had always been pretty, even in middle school when her eyebrows were too thin and she wore a different colored rubber band on every brace bracket. But, tonight, she looked like the woman she kept trying to prove she already was.
Happy.
Loved.
Certain.
Every time she smiled at me, the empty place on my wrist felt bigger.
I laughed through dinner. I told stories. I took pictures. When Cam gave his toast, I clapped with everybody else.
Then, Ari touched my knee beneath the table.
“You coming to the bathroom?” she asked. Her face didn’t.
Inside the restroom, she checked every stall before turning to me.
“My period is three days late.”
The money problem left my head for one clean second.
“Okay. When did the condom break?”
“Three weeks ago. I took the pill that night.”
“That can mess with your period.”
“I know.”
“You take a test?”
“No.”
“Then, don’t scare yourself before you have information.”
She folded her arms. “That’s easy for you to say.”
“It’s not.”
My voice came out harder than I meant. I turned toward the sink and washed hands that weren’t dirty.
At seventeen, I had taken my first pregnancy test in a grocery-store bathroom because I couldn’t wait until I got home. I remembered the sound of the hand dryer, the woman in the next stall talking on speakerphone, and those two lines appearing while the whole world stayed disrespectfully normal.
Ari came closer. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant.” I dried my hands. “We’ll get a test tonight.”
“We?”
“You think I’m letting you stand in a bathroom by yourself staring at a stick?”
Her eyes filled.
“Don’t do that,” I said.
“Do what?”
“Start leaking. Your makeup cost more than my electric bill.”
She laughed and wiped beneath her eye before anything fell.
Then, she looked at me in the mirror. “Were you scared?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know you wanted to keep Amir?”
“Yes.”
I leaned against the counter. “Knowing I wanted him didn’t mean I knew how I was gonna raise him. Those were two different questions.”
“What if I don’t know what the hell I want?”
“Then, you find out if there’s something to want first.”
She nodded.
I should’ve been taking my own advice.
Instead, I checked the time. The Airbnb had been canceled for forty-three minutes. My son’s father had sent seventy-five dollars like it was enough to quiet me. The bracelet my grandmother saved for was sitting behind glass with a price tag.
I didn’t have room to judge anybody else’s secrets.
When we returned to the table, Jori was watching me. Her message waited under the group chat.
JORI: How much of the trip money did you use?
My breath caught. I looked across the table.
She didn’t lift her phone. Didn’t raise an eyebrow.
She took a sip of water and waited.
I typed: Mind your business.
Her answer came immediately.
JORI: It became my business when I sent you $365.
I locked the screen.
Across the table, Ari leaned into Cam while somebody took another picture of them.
The flash lit her smile.
I sat there with her missing money in my account and a canceled house in my phone, wondering how long love could keep looking like love when the truth finally arrived.