“I do.”
“Stop fucking lying.” He said all confident before he placed a wet kiss on my mouth. I abruptly jerked my head back.
The garage suddenly felt too small as my phone started vibrating on the ground, and both our eyes dropped toward the sound. Tasha’s name popped up across the screen before it disappeared again, then she called right back.
Rome looked at the phone, then at me. “You got everybody in our business now?”
I didn’t answer him because I knew if I opened my mouth, I was either going to scream or cry, and I refused to do eitherone in front of him. Rome finally let me go pushing me so hard it sent me stumbling sideways. I caught myself against the hood of the Benz and caught my breath. My damn cheek burned, and my throat hurt. I already knew tomorrow there would probably be fingerprints somewhere on my skin again. My phone kept vibrating because Tasha refused to stop calling. Rome looked down at it with annoyance before picking it up off the floor.
“Don’t answer my phone!” I snapped.
He ignored me and declined the call instead before tossing the phone onto the passenger seat. “You not leaving tonight,” he said like it was nothing.
“Yes the fuck I am.” I groaned.
He shrugged. “No, you not.”
“You can’t keep me here!”
Rome laughed, but there wasn’t shit funny about it. “Navy, look around. Your money gone, your car blocked in, and it’s damn near midnight. Where exactly you think you about to go?”
I hated that he was right and that was the worst part. I hated that no matter how much I wanted to run out that garage, I didn’t have nowhere to go tonight without money and without him finding me eventually anyway. My eyes started burning harder, and I looked away before he could fully see it. Rome noticed anyway like he obviously noticed everything else.
“That’s what I thought,” he muttered.
I wanted to spit on him. Instead, I grabbed my bag off the floor and walked past him toward the door leading back into the house.
“Navy.” He called.
I kept walking.
“Navy, I’m talking to you.”
“I don’t give a fuck.” I spat.
When I made it into the kitchen, the hot, angry tears finally ran down my face. I wiped them away quickly because cryingafter arguing with Rome always made me feel weak even when he was dead wrong. My chest hurt from holding everything in, and all I could think while climbing the stairs was that I was going to kill this man one day if I stayed here long enough. Not literally, or at least I didn’t think literally, but I understood now how women snapped. I understood how somebody could wake up one day tired enough to poison a drink, stab somebody in their sleep, or hell, even set a whole damn house on fire.
Rome had a way of pushing people to limits they didn’t recognize in themselves. By the time I made it back to the bedroom, my breathing was shaky all over again. I snatched my clothes out the duffel and headed straight for the bathroom, slamming the door behind me harder than necessary on purpose before turning the shower on full blast. I stepped under the water without even waiting for it to fully heat up. The cold water hit me first and then the warm water followed. It only took a few seconds before everything I had been holding in came pouring out.
I stood there crying so hard my chest started hurting, as I pressed my hands against the tile while water ran down my face and mixed with my tears. My cheek still stung from where he slapped me, and every time I thought about my money being gone, I got mad all over again.
“That bitch ass motherfucker,” I whispered to myself, crying harder. “That…bitch…ass motherfucker!”
I already knew Tasha was still blowing my phone up, but I couldn’t answer right now though. I couldn’t let her hear me sounding like this because then she was really going to panic, and I still didn’t even know what I was going to do next. All I knew was I meant what I said. I was leaving him one way or the other even if it wasn’t today. I didn’t care about none of this shit. I was getting away from him if it killed me. I stayed in the shower until the water started getting cold again, mostly becauseI didn’t feel like facing him yet but eventually I turned it off, wrapped myself in a towel, and wiped my face before looking in the mirror.
My eyes were swollen already and just like I thought, my cheek was red as hell. Around my throat the faint marks were starting to show up. I stared at myself for a long time before laughing under my breath, but there wasn’t a damn thing funny. “You look crazy,” I said to myself.
I didn’t mean in an ugly way, I meant crazy for staying. I changed into one of my oversized shirts and opened the bathroom door slowly. Of course, the master suite smelled like weed. Rome’s ass was stretched out across the chair near the window like nothing had happened, with one arm resting against the side while smoke circles filled the air from the joint sitting between his fingers. The TV was on low, with the Dolphin’s game while he looked way too relaxed for somebody who had just put his hands on his wife.
I rolled my eyes and walked right past him without saying anything. “Navy.”
I ignored him and climbed into bed, immediately turning my back toward him. For a minute neither one of us spoke and then I heard him sigh behind me.
“Come on, man,” he muttered. “You know I hate when shit get like that.”
I stared straight ahead at the wall in silence while anger burned all in my chest all over again. I don’t even remember falling asleep, one minute I was laying there staring at the wall listening to Rome trying to talk like we had just gotten into some regular little argument instead of him putting his hands on me again, and the next thing I knew, loud banging had me jumping awake so hard my heart started immediately racing. Shit, I thought somebody had called the laws.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
