Page 69 of Buy Back My Love

I looked over and found her holding up my pink-and-white plaid flannel, watching me over the top of it with that nosy-ass look she got whenever she thought she knew something about my life before I did.

“Girl, please. He’s my friend.” I took the shirt from her and held it against myself in the mirror. “You think this too much?”

“For a date?”

“It is not a damn date, Anika.”

She hummed and reached into the closet again. I should’ve known better than to call her over. All I wanted was help figuring out what the hell somebody wore to a pumpkin patch because I’d never been to one in my life. Somehow, she had turned that into an investigation of me and Van.

Anika pulled out a white ribbed tank and tossed it onto the bed beside the light-wash jeans I’d already picked. “You don’t gotta lie to me, Lee.”

“I’m not lying. I like being around him, but we’re friends.”

“Okay.” She gave me a look that said she didn’t believe me. “I’m just saying, if you did start liking him, that wouldn’t make you a bad person.”

“I got a man.”

“I know you got a man.”

“Then what are we talking about?”

Anika sighed and sat on the edge of my bed. “I’m talking about you acting like being with JB means you ain’t allowed to notice nobody else for the rest of your life.”

“Because I’m not trying to notice nobody else. I could never cheat on JB.”

“And I ain’t telling you to cheat on him. I’m saying if you ever wanted something different, you could leave.”

I straightened and looked at her. “Leave JB?”

“Why you saying it like I told you to cut off your right arm?”

“Because I been with that man fifteen years, Anika. That’s half my life.”

“I know how long y’all been together.”

“Then why would you even say that?”

She watched me smooth the front of my jeans. “Because sometimes I wonder if you know you got choices.”

That made me turn around. “What the hell that mean?”

“It means you and JB got together when you were young as hell. You been with him so long that every time you talk about y’all, it’s like being together is just the natural order of things. Like there ain’t no other possible ending.”

“There ain’t.”

“How you know?”

“Because I know my man.”

Anika was quiet for a second. “Okay. Then how you know he the one?”

I frowned at her because I didn’t even understand the question. JB had been the one for so long that asking me how I knew felt like asking me how I knew my own name.

“I been with him fifteen years.”

“That tells me how long y’all been together. It don’t tell me how you know.”

“Because I love him.”