He wasn’t tryna admit it—not even to himself—but that silence she left behind was loud as hell. Her perfume was still in the fabric of his clothes. Her laugh kept looping in his head like a hook on a track. She hadn’t even been gone a full week and he already felt unbalanced, like the gravity she gave him was just out of reach.
By noon, Zaire pulled up bumping Roddy Ricch, windows down and jewelry dancing in the sun. He was a Crip nigga no matter how much they tried to whitewash him.
“Aye, hop in,” he called out. “Got a lil’ play lined up, but I need your help.”
Malik sighed, but slid in anyway. The streets didn’t wait for nobody, and bills didn’t care if you was caught up over a girl.
They rolled through the Crescent slow, nodding to old heads and ducking under street cameras. Malik barely spoke. He just leaned back, eyes scanning the sidewalks like the ghosts of his past might come out the cut at any moment.
“You good?” Zaire asked, glancing over. “You been quiet all morning.”
Malik didn’t look at him. “I’m chillin’.”
Zaire raised a brow. “She left town or somethin’?”
Malik smirked, chewing the inside of his cheek. “She with her people.”
“Damn. That why you ain’t been poppin’ shit on the app lately?”
“Just got other shit on my mind.”
Zaire gave him a look like he knew exactly what kind of shit Malik meant. “You know you don’t gotta be scared to be in love, right? Niggas fall in and still get to be hard.”
“I ain’t scared of shit,” Malik mumbled, voice sharp. He was tired of people throwing that word at him.
“I know. I’m just sayin’…she make you smile different.”
Malik finally turned, eyes low. “You watchin’ my mouth now?”
“I’m watchin’ your growth, cuh. You ain’t the same no more.”
Malik leaned his head against the window. “Yea, I feel it too. But what I’m supposed to do with that?”
“That’s for you to figure out. In the meantime, I just wanted to chop it up with you about that meeting. They want you, cuh.”
Malik rubbed his hand down his face. “I gotta see.”
“See what?” Zaire looked over at him when he pulled up to the wing spot. No matter how much money he got, he still loved the food in Crescent. “Let’s get some food.”
“You pulled up on me to eat?” Malik looked him upside his head.
Laughing, Zaire pushed out the corvette. “Just come on, man…ain’t nothin’ wrong with a lil company while you chow down on some of the best wings on the world.”
Malik shook his head but got out anyway. Wasn’t like he had been doing anything. Besides, a few drops later, his schedule was wide open.
Later that evening, he was back on his porch again. Hoodie pulled over his head this time, pills tucked inside his sock just in case the weight on his chest got too heavy. Granny was inside watching her soaps, Mama frying something loud, and his daddy was already knocked out from the night shift. The sky over Crescent was orange and bleeding, streetlights humming to life one by one.
Malik unlocked his phone, thumb hovering over Aku’s thread.
He didn’t text.
He just stared at the messages…that last FaceTime. The way she’d whispered, “I’m fallin’…
He closed his eyes, leaned back in the metal chair, and let the gravity of her linger in the air around him, heavy and holy, like he was still trying to believe she really meant it.
Then he went to Pharoah’s messages and decided to pull up over there just to see his friend.
The house was quiet except for the dull murmur of a cartoon playing on low volume and the sound of Pharoah breathing—deep, slow, and slightly wheezy. He sat by the window in his chair, blanket over his lap, head tilted back just a little, lips parted. His hands rested on the arms of the chair.
