Relief flooded me. I didn’t have much experience with this, but I’d watched enough TV to know what to do… or not, I guess.
“Are you hurting? You want a heating pad or something?” I offered.
She shook her head, sandy colored spirals spilling everywhere.
“Do you want chocolate or… I don’t know… do you have cravings when this happens?”
Another head shake.
“Do you want a back rub?”
“You so stupid!” she lashed out.
I tilted my head. “Damn. Is verbal abuse part of the monthly cycle? A nigga just wanna take notes.”
“Targen!” she sobbed. “I got my period.”
And then her shoulders shook as she started sobbing in earnest. My shorty sounded like someone died. I didn’t care about all the shit I’d ever heard about women being emotional during their periods, I knew this wasn’t right. I racked my brain for what it could be, what I was missing. I kept thinking about the pitiful way she told me, “I got my period.”
“Baby…”
“I got my period.” Not once but twice. My voice trailed off as a new possibility dawned. I slid out of my outer clothes and shoes and pulled on some lounge pants before easing into bed behind her. I pulled her toward me. She resisted for all of three seconds before allowing her trembling form to curve into mine. I closed my eyes, trying to choose my words carefully. I just hoped I was right.
“Theory,milaya, I thought you didn’t want that right now?” I asked softly.
“I don’t. I just… maybe… I don’t know. I’m stupid, too,” she wailed.
I decided to let that “too” ride. “You not stupid. You know, we can try as soon as you ready.”
Her crying picked up, broke my heart with the desire to take away her pain.
“It’s not gon’ work,” she wept brokenly.
“Don’t say that,milaya. It will.”
“It won’t. He ruined me. You don’t understand. You don’t know?—”
“I do.”
“You don’t?—”
“Baby. I do.”
Something in my voice stopped her, made her realize the truth in what I was saying. The thing that I’d been searching for words to make better since I’d been back, the thing that I would never fully be absolved from… my reckoning had come. I sighed.
“I know,milaya. I know you not just angry with me for leaving. I know you angry because of what happened while I was gone. I didn’t know then, when it happened. I swear to you that I didn’t. Maxim told me when I got back, then Real. I’m sorry, Theory, so damn sorry baby. Sorry that I wasn’t here. Sorry for our loss?—”
“I wanted her s-so bad, Targen,” she interrupted. “I wanted some part of you, because you were gone, and I wanted to believe… I felt like God was giving me something of you to make it easier til you came back. To make what happened between us so fast and so hard make sense. I h-held her four months. And then, she was just… gone… Emory had her baby, and Ev was pregnant, so I didn’t want to seem selfish. I had to smile and celebrate and be happy… And I really was for them, I promise, I was—” she dissolved into sobs again.
“Baby—”
“I got so low. I didn’t think I could do it by myself. I wanted you. I asked for you. I went to Real. I fucking begged for you. Hetold me that you were alive, but that you couldn’t come. Not even for me. Not even then. I wanted to fall apart, but I knew, if I did, there was no coming back together. Not again. I'd barely done it after… afterthe incident. If I went under again, I’d drown. So, I took everything I felt, and I put it into hating you… I thought. Now look at my weak ass,” she scoffed.
“You the last person who shouldevercall herself weak,” I murmured.
She cried harder at that, like the soft words hurt worse than anything else. I held her through it, my hand spread over her stomach while she shook against me.
“I loved her already,” she whispered. “I never saw her or held her, but I loved her.”
