Page 33 of Certified to Handle You 3

“I need to see Renza.”

“Sha’Nelle.”

“I know,” I said, my voice gettin’ lower. “I know how it sound. I know who I’m engaged to. I know all of that, Toni.“

Toni was quiet again, but she ain’t judge me. That was why I called her. Toni could fuss, but she knew me. She knew what Renza was to me even when I wished nobody did.

“I just need to see him,” I said. “If he tell me to leave him alone to my face, then I’ll have to figure out how to live with that. But I can’t marry Couture with Renza still in my heart like this. I can’t move in no house and act like I don’t feel what I feel. I just need him to tell me he want this and I will leave all this shit behind. I just need to know he still care.”

Toni breathed out. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Okay. If you comin’, then come.“

My hand tightened on the steerin’ wheel again, and this time the tears did come, but I wiped ‘em fast before they could fall too far.

I ain’t know what the hell was waitin’ on me in Trill-Land. I ain’t know if Renza would look at me, talk to me or walk right past me like I was somebody he used to know. I ain’t know if I was about to make everything worse.

All I knew was that Couture had shown me a house today, and instead of my heart settlin’ into the future he was buildin’, it had started runnin’ straight toward the one nigga I couldn’t get out of it.

“I’mma book it tonight,” I said. “Couture leave on the seventeenth, so I’ll book for the eighteenth.”

Toni’s voice got softer. “Send me the flight when you do.”

“I will.”

We stayed on the phone until I pulled in my mama’s driveway, and after we hung up, I sat in the car with the engine still runnin’.

The house in my mind was beautiful. Couture had been beautiful in it. The life he wanted with me looked good enough from the outside for any woman with sense to step into it and be thankful. But my heart ain’t care about how good it looked.

My heart wanted answers from a man who had stopped givin’ me any. My heart wanted to stand in front of Renza and see if what he felt was still there when he was right there breathin’ the same air as me. My heart wanted one chance to say what all them calls and texts hadn’t been able to say.

I looked down at the ring on my finger and swallowed around the tightness in my throat.

Then I picked my phone back up and opened the airline app.

My hands was shakin’ a lil’ while I typed in Trill-Land, but I ain’t stop. I was tired of callin’ Renza from numbers he wasn’t answerin’. I was tired of textin’ words that sat there with nowhere to go. If I was gon’ fall apart behind that nigga, I needed to do it where he could see me, hear me and tell me whatever he needed to tell me to my face.

So I booked the flight…

Once that confirmation came through, I sat back against the seat, stared at it for a long second and let out the first real breath I had been holdin’ all night.

I was goin’ back to Trill-Land.

One week later…

It was early as hell but I was already up, movin’ around my room with my nerves sittin’ so high that I barely felt like I had slept.

The sun wasn’t even all the way up yet, and the house was quiet.

I had been layin’ here for a while before I finally got up, starin’ at the ceilin’ and tryna talk myself through what I was about to do.

I wasn’t packed heavy. I ain’t have no big suitcase sittin’ by the door or a bunch of outfits laid across my bed like I was goin’ on vacation. I had one carry-on bag, two outfits, one pair of shoes and the kind of nerves that made me keep checkin’ the same shit over and over like my mind couldn’t hold on to nothin’.

I zipped the bag, unzipped it, then looked inside again even though I already knew what was in there. I had clothes, underwear, my charger and the stuff I knew I needed for a few days.

Couture had left yesterday and I dropped him off at the airport with his suitcase. He kissed me before he got the car out like everything between us was where it was supposed to be. He told me he wouldn’t be gone more than two weeks, and I nodded like my mind wasn’t already runnin’ somewhere else.