Page 41 of Certified to Handle You 3

Toni shoved at his chest, but he ain’t move. “You need to stop. I mean it! Stop Kay’Lo! Fuckin’ stop! Oh my God!”

Kay’Lo looked down at her. “And you need to quit thinkin’ cryin’ gon’ change what I said.”

Toni’s eyes filled faster. “That’s my cousin.”

“And Renza mine,” he replied. “So now what?”

The two of ‘em stood there lookin’ at each other, and for the first time, I felt like my mess had reached inside the marriage and wrapped both hands around it.

Toni loved Kay’Lo. Anybody with eyes could see that. She would submit to that nigga in ways I ain’t even understand sometimes, but she wasn’t weak. She wasn’t gon’ let him step on me without fightin’ back. The problem was Kay’Lo wasn’t only her husband tonight. He was Renza’s cousin, and he was standin’ on that like blood came before everything else.

Kay’Lo looked back at me. “You need to get the fuck out my shit.”

The words hit me so hard that my eyes burned before I could stop it. “Really, Lo? That’s how you feel?”

“Fuck yeah,” he said without even blinkin’. “That’s exactly how I feel tonight.”

Toni turned toward him so fast her hair moved across her neck. “No, she not leavin’! This my shit too, and my cousin ain’t gotta go nowhere! And if that’s the case, I’m leavin’ too!”

Kay’Lo’s eyes stayed on his wife. “If she leave, she leave. If you leave behind her, you not takin’ my fuckin’ baby.”

Toni looked at him like he had lost his mind. “You really think you gon’ tell me what to do when it come to my fuckin’ baby?”

“I think you emotional right now, so I’m tellin’ you, my daughter not leavin’ this bitch ‘cause you mad at me.”

“I’m not scared of you, Kay’Lo.”

“I ain’t ask you to be,” he said. “But you ain’t goin’ no damn where no way.”

Toni’s tears fell then, and that broke somethin’ in me ‘cause I ain’t come here for this. I ain’t come here to have my cousin cryin’ in her own livin’ room while her husband looked at me like I was the reason the floor had cracked under everybody. I ain’t come here to make Kay’Lo choose between his wife and Renza. I came here ‘cause my heart was stupid enough to think love could still be fixed if I got close enough to touch it.

I wiped my face with the back of my hand and walked past both of ‘em before I said somethin’ else I couldn’t take back. Toni called my name, but I kept goin’ down the hall toward my old room.

I grabbed my bag from the floor and threw the strap over my shoulder. My hands was shakin’, but I refused to sit on that bed and cry like somebody had kicked me out of my own life. Maybe they had. Maybe that was what this was. Maybe comin’ back to Trill-Land showed me that every place I thought would still hold me had changed while I was gone.

When I walked back in the livin’ room, Kay’Lo was standin’ near the bar with a blunt between his fingers. He pulled a lighter from his pocket, sparked it and took a long pull while watchin’ me with a look I couldn’t read. It wasn’t hate, and that was the fucked up part. It was cold protection that said he might’ve loved me yesterday, but tonight I had crossed a line near somebody he would choose before me every time.

Toni rushed toward me, cryin’ harder now. “Nelle, you ain’t gotta go nowhere. Don’t let him make you leave!”

“I’m not doin’ this with him,” I said, tryna keep my voice from breakin’ too bad. “This already bad enough.”

Toni grabbed my arm. “I’m comin’ with you.”

“No,” I told her, shakin’ my head. “You stay with yo’ husband.”

“Nelle…”

“I’m serious, Toni,” I said while lookin’ at her through my tears. “I know you love me, and I know you tryna stand on that, but My’Love upstairs sleep. This y’all house, y’all marriage and y’all family. I’m not finna be the reason you walk out that door mad and make this shit worse than it already is.”

Toni looked over her shoulder at Kay’Lo, and the hurt in her face made my stomach twist. “He can’t just talk to you like that.”

“I talked crazy too,” I admitted ‘cause there wasn’t no point lyin’. “And I ain’t mad at you. I swear to God, I’m not mad. I love you for ridin’ with me, but I gotta go before this shit turn into somethin’ else.”

Kay’Lo smoked his blunt and ain’t say nothin’, but that silence said enough. It was dawnin’ on me that this was what happened when you crossed a Mensah in a way they couldn’t forgive right away. They could love you, feed you, protect you and make you feel like family, but when that switch flipped, they turned cold enough to make you remember you was on the outside of the bloodline.

I ordered the Uber with my hands still shakin’. Toni stood beside me the whole time, wipin’ her face and mumblin’ that she should’ve never called Kay’Lo in the first place. I told her to stop ‘cause none of that shit mattered now. The car was already on the way, and I had somewhere else I needed to go. I ain’t tell her that part, though.

Toni thought I was probably goin’ to a hotel or maybe back to the airport, but I had already put in Pluto and Pressure’s address. If I couldn’t get to Renza through Kay’Lo, I was gon’ find another door. I ain’t care how crazy that sounded. I ain’t come this far to turn around after one no.