Chapter 12
CHAPTER
TWELVE
In the daytime with a flashlight.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
I pounded on Hyphen’s door, regretting the day I returned her key. It had been nearly a full four weeks since she’d left my home. I’d been fucked up from that day forward.
While I wanted to give her space to sort through her emotions, I felt like she was getting over a nigga. That was not sitting well with me. Neither was the look on her face or the tears in her eyes or the brokenness etched in her posture.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
“Hyph,” I called out.
Silence coated the air.
“She ain’t there.”
I peered across the street, seeing Hyphen’s elderly neighbor, Mrs. Edwards, sweeping the curb.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Hyphen’s car was in the driveway. I could hear her television playing in her bedroom window. She was home.
“I said she ain’t there.”
Ignoring Mrs. Edward, I continued banging.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
“You must’ve really fucked up,” Mrs. Edwards tittered.
“I did, but I love her. Tell her that. Tell her I’m in love with her stubborn ass and I’ma be back every day until she opens.”
I didn’t bother knocking again. Instead, I left the flowers I’d brought her on the porch. I shoved my hand in my pocket and pulled out my wad. I didn’t separate a dollar. I left it on top of the flowers and exited Hyphen’s yard without a dollar to my name.
Two days later…
Desperation had led me to Saga’s crib. Still, Hyphen was nowhere in sight. It took twenty minutes of persuasion to get Saga to turn over her digits, but I’d succeeded. I was down a couple of dollars but that shit didn’t matter.
I pressed the call button for the third time in a row. The phone rang. Nonstop, eventually ending with the voicemail. I scratched my head as I waited for the beep.
“Ayo, Hyph. It’s me, baby, Flocco. Listen, I know it’s been a minute. I wanted to give you time to collect your thoughts. I know I didn’t handle our shit the way I should’ve and I need to apologize. I did then but it was different that night. Emotions were high. You know. I’ve been unfair to you.
“I could’ve been better. I should’ve been better.
Shit, I still want to be better. I ain’t gave you enough reasons to believe me.
But, I never want to give you another reason not to.
I’m sick without you, Hyph. Life feels pointless.
All the things I’ve been wanting to do, I’m finally able to do and it just doesn’t feel right.
“It doesn’t feel good. Cause you ain’t right here to celebrate with me. Pride aside, I miss you. I miss you day and I miss you night. Your smart mouth. Your smile. Your laugh. Your heart. I dreamed you lended me a moment of your time last night. I didn’t want to wake up. I didn’t.
“Cause for the first time in weeks, I didn’t feel like a failure. I felt like shit might just be aight. I don’t Hyph, I’m down bad, baby. Call me back. I just– I just need another chance. I ain’t gone fuck this one up. I want you back…”
“To replay your messa–”
I ended the call. Another attempt was at the tip of my fingers, but I refrained. Instead, I open a thread between Hyph and I, fully prepared to talk to myself.
Pick up, Hyph.
I miss you.
I love you.
Let me come and get you.
I watched as message after message was delivered. Staring at the screen, I saw the message status change.
Read.
She’d opened the messages. She’d read them. Yet, there were no gray bubbles. No vibration in my hand. Nothing. Silence. Agonizing silence.
Please.
Read.
Baby.
Read.
Her point had been made. She was still fuming. To clear my head, I made my way onto my porch. No blunt. Just emotions and a shitload of them motherfuckers.
“Look who has come up for air,” Nevaeh yelled over the fence before my ass could hit the concrete.
I hated the idea that we’d caused Hyphen pain. I’d never forgive myself for slipping. For being so careless. For being so foolish. That shit wasn’t worth it. Nothing was.
“Make this the last time you say anything to me. Don’t come near my fence and don’t bring me shit over here to eat. You feel me?”
“Understood,” she claimed, hands in the air as she backed away from my fence.
I opened my phone and tried Hyphen once more, hoping I had luck. I didn’t.
Sighing, I cut my losses and ended the call before the voicemail came on.
I stared down at my vibrating cell. It was him again. For the three days he’d been calling multiple times a day, disrupting my nervous system. I silenced the call as I stepped into class where my professor and two other students were waiting.
Class didn’t start for another ten minutes, but I was anxious to review the notes I’d taken the previous week in order to replenish my knowledge bank.
The constant calls were a distraction. I could hardly remember what I’d studied the day before, so anything that happened the week before was a blur.
My phone vibrated. I tapped the screen to find a new message. It wasn’t the first. I doubted it would be the last.
Pick up, Hyph.
Can I see you?
Can we talk?
It’s all gone.
An image accompanied his last message. It was all gone. Every piece of furniture in his living room had been replaced.
Just tell me what to do, Hyph, and it’s done.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I need you. You need me.
My nostrils swelled at the thought of that night and the fact that I knew Flocco would do anything I asked of him. No hesitation. But, I didn’t need him and he didn’t need me. It was better if we stayed far away from each other.
Another call came through. Unable to stomach the idea of sitting through class with my head and heart in another place, I stood and headed out of the door I’d come into. Tears stained my cheeks as I walked to my car.
I powered my cell down. Flocco was overwhelming.
He was consuming. And, he was trying. That’s what I hated most. I could survive as long as he was quiet.
As long as he was silent. Like the last few weeks.
But, the voicemails, calls, and text were too much.
I wasn’t emotionally equipped to handle them. To handle him.
The drive home was torture. I climbed out of my car, onto my porch, and into my bed in what felt like one step.
I removed my clothes and brought my knees to my chest underneath the covers.
In the darkness, I powered on my phone and accessed the voicemails.
I pressed play on the one I’d heard at least twenty times already.
It would be another twenty times before I stopped listening.
“Ayo, Hyph. It’s me, baby, Flocco. Listen, I know it’s been a minute. I wanted to give you time to collect your thoughts. I know I didn’t handle our shit the way I should’ve and I need to apologize. I did then but it was different that night. Emotions were high. You know. I’ve been unfair to you.
“I could’ve been better. I should’ve been better.
Shit, I still want to be better. I ain’t gave you enough reasons to believe me.
But, I never want to give you another reason not to.
I’m sick without you, Hyph. Life feels pointless.
All the things I’ve been wanting to do, I’m finally able to do and it just doesn’t feel right.
“It doesn’t feel good. Cause you ain’t right here to celebrate with me. Pride aside, I miss you. I miss you day and I miss you night. Your smart mouth–”
My phone rang, interrupting the voicemail that made my eyes leak and my heart heavy. It was the man of the hour. I couldn’t avoid the elephant in the room anymore. It was time to address it. To address him.
I held the phone against my ear. Words wouldn’t come to me. I breathed on the line. Flocco sighed.
“Hyphen.”
The way he called my name… I missed it. I missed him. But, he was poisonous.
“Can I come get you?”
“No, Laurence.”
“Why not?”
Silence.
“I apologize. I need to tell you that to your face. I didn’t– I shouldn’t have done what I did. I just– I just need to see you.”
“Stop calling me, Flocco.”
“Why you doing that, Hyph?”
“It should’ve been done. We wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be hurting.”
“I–”
“Lose my number. Move on with your life, and I’ll do the same. Goodbye.”
I mustered the strength to end the call. My lips pulled into my mouth as I suppressed a belly-curling scream. I edited the new contact, blocking him as promised.
He was a distraction.
He was destruction.