“You forgive me?”
“No. Now go lay down so I can finish my shower.”
“Man, fuck this shower, you ready to forgive me or you wanna talk about this shit some more. And stop tryna talk to me like I’ma bitch, Caya.”
I closed my eyes and dropped my head back. He couldn’t be fucking serious. Of course he was.
“I’m not talking to you like you’re a bitch. I’m talking to you like you need to be lying down instead of interrupting my shower, Rennix.”
He sucked his teeth, then, just when I thought he would stop interrupting my shower, he opened the door wider. In the dark I watched him back up and take a seat on the toilet. “Now when Adonis comes up here and asks why we ain’t watching the movie yet, don’t get mad when I tell him it’s your fault.”
I wanted to claw my eyes from my skull because he was purposely being a bug. “Rennix.”
“Nah, don’t talk to me. Finish your fucking shower.” By now he had yet to close the door and indeed had his phone out, scrolling through it. Safe to say my shower wasn’t peaceful. As a matter of fact, the only time his stubborn ass left the bathroom was when Adonis came in and asked him to help with his TV. Bythat time my shower was over and I was getting out. As much as I didn’t want to cook for his ass, I had to cook for my baby. So once my body was moisturized, I tied my hair up and put on a sleep set. To my surprise when I made it downstairs not only was the food I intended to cook put up, but so were the extras. When I glanced toward the couch, Rennix’s angry bird ass was looking right at me.
“I put it up and ordered pizza. Now come chill, thug.”
I wanted to tell him no, but my lips never uttered the two letter word. Instead my legs carried me in his direction, then my mind questioned how I was supposed to sit, seeing as how he was indeed injured.
“Just sit in the corner.” He apparently read my mind.
I did as he said, and of course his head found its way between my legs, resting, just like my hand found his head. Shit came naturally, even though I was supposed to be mad at him. In no way was I standing on any type of business.
“Where is Adonis? I thought y’all were watching a movie.”
“Soon as I told him I wasn’t watching thatLilo and Stitchshit no more he decided I was no longer invited to his movie night.”
It took everything in me not to laugh because that indeed sounded like my son. It was always either his way or the highway, absolutely no in between. That’s why he and I didn’t watch movies together because I wasn’t watching the same movie a million times. “Oh.”
A brief silence filled the space before he broke it. “You still mad at me?”
“Yeah.” Instead of looking down at his head in my lap, I looked at the TV. He wasn’t watching sports like a normal man, he was watching talk shows. It wasn’t a normal talk show either, but the one I know came on earlier in the day. If I wasn’t mistaken, ol’ girl was a doctor and she brought all types of people and celebrities on her show to talk through their issuesand situations. It was like TV therapy. I had caught a few episodes but could never stick with it since my schedule was all over the place.
“Why? I said I was sorry and I meant that shit.”
“Because even your initial thought of me doing something like that bothers me. Even though it was a split second thought.”
“I wasn’t. My reaction was out of nowhere. Out of t?—”
Trauma.Ol’ girl on the TV said the word before I could, except she was talking to another woman and not the man lying in my lap.
“Trauma.”
He nodded, probably not even catching the correlation, because he paused the TV a second later. “Yeah. I wasn’t thinking, I was jumping to conclusions and feeling. I fucked up.”
More silence.
I continued to massage his scalp, it felt good under my fingertips. “I forgive you.”
“I’mglad to hear things with Rennix are going well and you are seemingly forming healthy bonds. That is wonderful. However, I want you to make sure you are not building the home we discussed inside the heart of another. Your home has to reside inside of you, Caya.” Dr. G’s controlled tone filled the room around me as I sat back on the sofa giving her a rundown of my last few weeks. I mentioned Rennix a lot, but only because we had kind of been inseparable, even before he got shot. It got worse after. If I wasn’t doing hair, then I was under him.
“What do you mean?” I tilted my head to the side for her to explain her statement.
“You can’t find or build your home within others, because it’s your home not theirs.”
“I never said I was. Yes, I like Rennix and the time we spend together, but I know that all the work I am doing is within myself. I understand that.”
She nodded. “Good.”
