“Now, you doing too damn much,” Solar snapped, holding him back with one hand and pointing at Malik with the other. “How you mad our baby picked a nigga who act just like you?! Huh?! Look at him! He broke just like you was. He hurt like you was. And he in love with her just like you was with me when you was ready to die behind my name.”
French squinted. “You comparing me to him?”
“Hell yea!” she yelled. “’Cause you forgot who you used to be before you became this bougie ass version of yourself. That boy would walk barefoot to hell, if it meant Aku got to heaven safely.And I know that ‘cause I used to love a boy just like that…still do.”
French’s face softened.
Malik was still kneeling on the floor, staring up at Aku who hadn’t said a word in the last thirty seconds. Her face had gone pale.
“I don’t feel good,” she mumbled, hiccupping a sulfur burp.
Malik reached for her. “What’s wrong, Dorothy?”
Aku tried to get up. She didn’t make it, puking all over the hardwood. She felt dizzy. “I need to lay down.” Her hand swiped across her mouth. “And Daddy…don’t put your hands on him again.” She rolled her eyes.
Solar rushed to find something to clean up the mess, with a knowing look on her face.
Malik helped Aku up to get her cleaned up and in the bed. His day had started off bad and was ending even worse. He didn’t want to meet her Daddy like this—hated they had to talk with their fists, but that was the mirror looking in the mirror and anytime he faced a nigga just like him, it was on sight.
Aku leaned against the edge of the kitchen island, arms folded across her chest. It was the only thing keeping her from breaking. The room was quiet. Her parents left while Malik washed her up. When she was supposed to be laying down, they were in the kitchen with so much lurking on the tip of their tongues.
Malik was pacing, still a little wired from his meeting.
Shirt half-tucked, knuckles bruised, the adrenaline still boiling in his blood from the fight with French. His chest rose- heavy, jagged, but he hadn’t come down yet. His eyes kept cutting to her, but she wasn’t looking at him.
“You alright?” he finally asked.
Aku blinked, still a bit shaken up and not feeling well. Her eyes were wet but not spilling over. She bit her bottom lip, and it trembled slightly.
“Was it her?” she asked, her voice almost calm. “The girl?”
Malik froze.
“Was she the one you killed for?”
His breath caught. He swallowed hard, the lump in his throat refusing to move. He turned to face her fully, hands balled at his sides, then relaxed when he saw how still she stood. His silence was loud.
“You ain’t gotta lie to me,” she added, softer now. “Just…I need to know who I’m in love with.”
He stepped closer. “Aku, it wasn’t supposed to go like that. I ain’t mean for none of that to touch you.”
She blinked at him. “So itwasher.”
Malik’s jaw clenched, then loosened. “Yea, it was her. But that version of me? That nigga died that night too. I just ain’t have the balls to bury him till I met you.”
Tears rolled down his face without permission. “She was toxic. That love was survival—not real…not this.”
He reached for her hand. She didn’t pull away.
“This right here? With you?” His voice cracked, barely making it past his throat. “This feels like peace…like home…like shit I thought only existed in dreams.”
Aku’s heart thudded loud in her chest. She felt it in her ribs, in her knees…in the way her hands trembled at her sides.
This man she loved so loudly and so quickly, it scared her…and not because he was wild, or street, or rough around the edges. But because when she looked at Malik, she saw everyversion of herself reflected back - the soft parts, the woman she wanted to be, the girl she thought she lost when she lost Devin.
“Then why you never said that before?” she whispered in that syrupy sweet tone she’d got from her mama.
Malik looked away, jaw clenched tight. His next breath sounded like it hurt. “’Cause I ain’t think I deserved you…still don’t.”
