“Nina?”
She was no longer baby or pretty girl.
“Yes Jio?”
“If I ever decide to stop being understanding about this situation…” His eyes dragged over her slowly. “You really not gone like how it ends.”
He shut the door behind him and for the first time since meeting Jio, Nina wondered if she was standing too close to the line that she’d been warned about by everyone who loved her.
SIX
“BEEN SO PARANOID THAT NOTHING IN THIS WORLD SEEMED COINCIDENTAL.” DRAKE
“I need a VACATION!” she screamed in the mirror. She was two seconds from pulling her hair out of her head.
She wanted to go out of town but she was a big girl now and she ran a big girl business and she couldn’t run off to Miami at the moment. If she wasn’t in a meeting, she was working on a proposal or approving a budget for an upcoming one. If she wasn’t at the office, she was either at church or the bookstore. She’d missed her last few sessions with her therapist, but to be real, she was growing tired of talking about Jio, especially when she wasn’t taking any of her therapist's advice. Nina didn’t want to keep wasting that lady’s time. Maybe one day she would find the balls to leave Jio for once and for all.
Nina needed air but not the kind that came from cracking a window or stepping outside for a few minutes. She missed the days when she knew how to properly exist outside of everybody else’s bullshit. Work. Her family. Kobie’s injury and the blogs and her fuckin’ cousins calling to be messy and the constant ache in her chest that came from loving a man who could make her feel protected and imprisoned in the same breath.
Lately, her life felt messy and she didn’t like it.
Her thoughts were loud when she tried to sleep. Her loft was designed carefully down to the last marble finish and it felt loud with memories of Jio coming and going like she was a place he owned but didn’t always live in.
The expensive gifts sitting untouched in her closet bothered her. Even the ache in her chest that pounded every morning when she opened her eyes and realized she had survived another night without peace was heavy too. Even now, weeks after their latest blowup, Nina couldn’t stop checking her phone at random times. She’d been anxiously waiting for his name to flash across the screen. It irritated her and the thought of her being so thirsty for him felt embarrassing. Because despite everything he’d put her through like the emotional exhaustion and possessiveness, she’d painfully realized that she was in love with a man who loved her deeply but only knew how to show it through control. Sadly, she still missed her baby.
The version of Jio who laughed quietly against her neck in the middle of the night and who happily bought her special edition books because he knew how determined she was to have the best at-home library one day. The man that she loved was dangerous, yet and still, Nina believed that he would change one day.
She spent the morning pretending to work. She was one of those people who convinced themselves that just because she kept busy, she was automatically being productive, but she was only fooling herself.
On the outside looking in, she looked like she had her shit together. She had the title. The degree that gave her accolades that sounded impressive. She had the corner office on the top floor. She signed folks’ checks. People saw the tailored blazer and trouser pants, the carefully combed and pinned hair. The polished nails and pedicured toes. The glowy skin and big smile. They assumed she was fine and her life was perfect, but on thereal, it was the complete opposite. She was suffering internally. Vogue recently wrote,“Nina Marcelle represents what new-age power looks like.”
What the fuck did that even mean? She read that one line a hundred times, and even with all of her degrees and her expanded knowledge due to her being a proud bibliophile, she just didn’t get what new age power looked like. Secondly, why did she have to represent it? What the hell was everyone else doing?
People just knew that she was a composed chick, but the reality of it was that she was one unanswered call away from losing her mind.
By noon, Nina closed her laptop and accepted the truth.
She was not going to get anything done. Not until she heard from Jio. He was making her eat her words and she didn’t like it. The man that she fell in love with two years ago was long gone. Nina swore the honeymoon stage had ended a while back and he didn’t agree, but how could he not? He barely answered the damn phone.
She grabbed her work bag and told her assistant, “I have an off-site that slipped my mind. I’m headed out.”
“Ma’am, we didn’t have any appointments on the cal-”
Nina stepped onto the elevator before she could finish her sentence. “Are you okay? I just want to make sure,” the young hopeful girl asked.
She deserved the truth. Plus, Nina didn’t feel like lying today. “I just need some air.”
When she hopped in the awaiting truck, Roberto confirmed where they were going like he always did.
“Should we head home?”
“No.” Home was the last place she wanted to be. Nina had so much anxiety when she was there and it was because she feltlike she lived in limbo… waiting on Jio to walk through the front door. She hated the anticipating feeling of hoping to see his face.
“Anywhere in particular, Miss Marcelle?”
“Just drive,” she murmured, looking out the window.
Nina watched Manhattan move around her. People with places to be made her envious. She’d been all work no play for months. Nina was overly determined to prove her worth to her parents. It hurt her to know that they were expecting her to fail. She was gonna make them eat their words. Every time they turned around, she wanted her family to hear nothing but accomplishment after accomplishment.
