Page 15 of Certified to Handle You 3

She was quiet for a second, then she said, “Okay.“

After we got off the phone, I sat here for a few seconds with it in my hand, and then I called Renza again. My hands was shakin’ so bad I almost pressed the wrong shit. It rang, and I prayed. I prayed he would cuss or would say anything that let me know I ain’t already lost him for good.

I pulled the phone close to my mouth and cried before I could even start talkin’ on his voicemail.

“Renza, please pick up the phone. Please. I don’t even know how many times I done called you, but I can’t stop callin’ ‘cause I need you to hear me. I love you. I love you so much it hurt, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry for how everything look. I’m sorry for hurtin’ you. I’m sorry for makin’ you feel like I could just move on and be okay without you ‘cause I can’t. I been tryna breathe through this shit, and I can’t. I need you, Renza. I need you to answer me, even if you mad. Even if you cuss me out. Even if you don’t wanna hear nothin’ I gotta say after this. Just pick up the phone and let me hear you. Please.”

I wiped my nose with the back of my hand ‘cause I couldn’t even find the tissue no more. “I been layin’ here all night and mornin’ tryna tell myself that maybe I made my choice and I gotta live with it, but my heart won’t let me settle in that.”

I stopped ‘cause I was cryin’ too hard, and for a second all he would’ve heard was me tryna pull myself together. I hated that shit. I hated knowin’ he might listen and hear me this broken, but I needed him to know and hear every ugly part of it ‘cause I ain’t have nothin’ pretty left to give him.

“I’ll marry you,” I cried into the phone, wipin’ my face even though more tears kept comin’. “I will marry you, Renza. I wanna marry you. I love you. I love you so much, and I’m sorry. Please pick up the phone. Please just talk to me.”

The voicemail cut off again, and I stared at the screen with my lips pressed together while tears kept slidin’ down my face. I called again. Then again. Then I sent a text from a different number even though I knew it probably wasn’t goin’ through.

Then I called until my phone got hot in my hand. I called until my throat hurt from leavin’ messages. I called until the sun shifted across the room and the house got louder outside my door ‘cause my mama was movin’ around and people had lives to live. I stayed in bed with my knees pulled up, my hair all over my shoulders, and my face so swollen I ain’t even wanna look at my damn self.

Minutes kept stretchin’ into more minutes, and then them minutes turned into hours. Renza ain’t call back. He ain’t text, and he ain’t answer from no number I tried.

By the time the room started feelin’ too quiet again, somethin’ in me got tired in a way cryin’ couldn’t fix. I had begged, told the truth and put myself all the way out there, and he still ain’t reach for me.

Maybe that was my answer. Maybe I had waited too long to realize what I wanted, and maybe Renza had finally got tired of bein’ the nigga I ran from and ran back to when my heart got too heavy. Maybe he decided that if I could say yes to somebody else, then I could stay there too.

I looked at Couture’s ring on the dresser and cried again, but this time the cry felt different. It was quieter, and somehow that made it worse ‘cause it felt like my body was startin’ to understand somethin’ my heart ain’t wanna accept. I had made a choice in front of everybody, and now the choice I should’ve made might not even be waitin’ on me no more.

I reached for the ring and held it in my palm. It was pretty, but it felt heavy as hell. I stared at it until my eyes blurred again, and then I closed my fingers around it ‘cause I ain’t know what else to do. I wasn’t ready to put it back on, but I wasn’t bold enough to throw it away either. I was stuck between the life I had agreed to and the life I had just found out Renza had been buildin’ without tellin’ me.

For the first time since all this started, I let myself think the one thing I had been too scared to say.

Maybe I had lost him…

Maybe this time, I had really lost him…

Two weeks later

Ever since Couture proposed to me a couple weeks ago, our lives had been movin’ like everybody around us had already decided what the next step was supposed to be.

I said yes in front of his family, and after that, it felt like the word fiancée had started followin’ me around before I even got used to hearin’ it. His mama was already callin’ me her daughter-in-law, his aunties had hugs for me every time I came around and every time somebody grabbed my hand to look at the ring, I smiled and let them.

I ain’t know how to explain to nobody that a ring could be beautiful and heavy at the same time, so I kept my mouth shut and tried to grow into the moment everybody else was so excited about.

The first few days after the proposal, I barely knew what to do with myself. I had took the ring off more than once, but then I put it back on ‘cause I was the one who said yes.

Nobody grabbed my hand and forced me to. Nobody made my mouth open and give Couture that answer. So when I looked at the ring too long and started feelin’ sick from everything sittin’ under my ribs, I reminded myself that sometimes a woman had to stand in what she chose, even when her feelin’s hadn’t caught up fully. That might not have sounded pretty, but it was the truth I had been livin’ with.

I still hadn’t heard from Renza. I ain’t heard his voice, ain’t seen his name pop up on my phone and got nothin’ from him that told me he was somewhere thinkin’ about me the way I had been thinkin’ about him.

The first few days, I had to fight myself bad. I would pick my phone up, go to his number, and stare at it until my thumb started feelin’ weak. Sometimes I typed a whole message and erased it. Sometimes I opened my call log and just sat there, mad at myself for even wantin’ to try again after he had made it clear that silence was all he had for me.

By the next week, I stopped keepin’ my phone so close. Not necessarily ‘cause it got easier, but ‘cause I got tired of watchin’ myself lose the same fight every day.

Couture ain’t know how bad I had been battlin’ with myself, and I kept it that way. Around him, I moved the way a woman with a ring on her finger was supposed to move. I went to his people’s houses when he wanted me there. I sat beside him at cookouts, birthday dinners, and random Sunday get-togethers where everybody was already askin’ about colors, dates, bridesmaids, food and who was gon’ sing at the wedding. His family had a way of pullin’ me in without askin’ if I was ready. One cousin had started sendin’ me dress pages before I even saved her number right, and one of his aunties told me she knew somebody who made cakes so pretty nobody wanted to cut them. I laughed when I was supposed to, answered what I could and let Couture’s hand stay on my thigh under tables while everybody talked around us like the wedding was already on the calendar.

My side wasn’t no different once they got over not bein’ at the proposal. My mama had questions at first ‘cause she wanted to know why he ain’t do it with us there too, and Grandma Glo had her mouth poked out for a good day and a half like Couture had personally robbed her of a front-row seat. Couture handled it better than I thought he would. He came over with a bottle for my mama, and flowers for Grandma Glo, and enough respect in his voice to cool down what could’ve turned into a whole family court case in my mama’s livin’ room.

After that, he was around more. It wasn’t in a way that felt forced, but in a way that made my family start leavin’ room for him without thinkin’ about it. My mama would ask if Couture was comin’ over when she cooked. Grandma Glo started savin’ him plates and tellin’ him he was too skinny even though that man was nowhere near skinny. My cousins would ask him to help lift stuff, move stuff, fix stuff or taste somethin’ on the grill and he would do it like he had always belonged there.

I noticed it even when I tried not to. I noticed how easy everybody was makin’ it for him to settle in. I noticed how my people had stopped actin’ like he was just my man and started treatin’ him like he was already tied to us for real.