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Me: Ew. Do it when you see her.
Thi: …
Thi: …
And just like that, I’m ghosted. Never happened before. Not with him. I’ve had guys dump me because I wouldn’t give it up or because I never told them enough about me. I have too many secrets, I need to keep protecting my friendship with Mathias. Not that I mind. Thi has done so much for me. Took me in when I felt I had no one. Never judged me when I didn’t reach out to my family. He risked a lot. I just wish… Wishing doesn’t matter. Not now anyway, I think, looking around my things packed in the living room and ready to load in my car. The same BMW Thi hit me with that night six years ago, the night that started it all.
“Well, there’s nothing for it,” I mutter, grabbing one of the long garment bags I have my neatly pressed suits in, then heading to my car. I have interviews with several graduate programs and at least three law school programs. I passed both my GRE and LSAT with scores good enough to take my pick. I just have to make the best decision. I’ve been offered a paid summer internship at Creative Chaos. I’m taking it so I can see the inner workings of a corporation. This is the chance of a lifetime. I even get to shadow Mr. Takeda one day a week.
The six grueling interviews were worth it. If I take this position and it’s extended while I’m grad or law school, I can have my pick of jobs when I’m done. Maybe even a junior executive position at Creative Chaos.
My phone is chiming on the sofa when I come back in from my car. My hopes are dashed when I see it’s my cousin Joi instead of Thi.
“Hey, chick,” I say, putting it on speaker so I can get more bags. “Make it quick. I have to get my stuff loaded.”
“Are you coming out with us tonight to the Shack? Kandie says it’s her treat.”
Pausing for a minute, I consider texting Thi to see if he’s going to swing by. “Um—”
“Girl, fuck him.” She scoffs.
“Wha-what are you talking about?” My hands actually claw up my chest to my throat.
“I know it’s some guy, Nik. Ain’t no way you about to throw us off for some dude,” she all but yells.
“There’s no guy.” My heart stops racing once I realize she’s making assumptions with her nosey self.
“Uh-huh, then why we can’t come to your place? You’ve been there for how long?”
“I don’t know… Um, two years? Since I moved out the dorms,” I hedge, knowing I wasn’t even living in the dorms when everyone thought I was. Thi couldn’t come hang out with me in the dorms.
“Girl, I know you didn’t know, but you should’ve never gotten a place on the Shelby side. I know your daddy didn’t tell you how it is between them and us, but people on that side live to try to mistreat us,” she chides for the fifty-eleventh time.
“I know.” I roll my eyes, having long since decided not to try to argue with my extended family about the Shelbys or the Spencers, even though Mathias and his fiancée, Natalie, have been nothing but nice to me. My heart still hurts every time I think of them together, but then it stops, stands still and craters. I know I have no right to be upset, no real claim on him. He’s my best friend, nothing more.
I plop down on the sofa, dropping the duffel bag on the ground between my feet and the table. That’s where he is. He’s with his fiancée; that’s what—or rather who—came up. He’s with her, probably knee-deep in her. I’ve seen hickeys she leaves on him. Sometimes he just wears a T-shirt and joggers because he does all the upkeep around the little cottage since he didn’t want any of the workers or house staff coming here. I’ve seen purple bruises all over his neck like she was marking him, warning all the other girls to stay away or at least that she was his main thang.
And it worked for the most part. I still shudder, thinking about the one time I forgot to be careful and one of foremen saw me and mentioned to his dad. He came that night banging on the door, threatening to burn me out. I had to call Thi, and he came just in time to stop them from burning me alive.
I push the nightmare of that night down and the image of him being with Natalie aside. I have no right to be mad. Their relationship outweighs and outranks anything I have with him. He’s marrying her. I’m just a girl he hoped wouldn’t tell anyone he hit her with his car.
“Yeah, I’m coming. I can’t let my favorite cuz and my big sister down.”
“That’s what I’m talking about. Hey, you care to give me a quote about graduation? I have a really cute pic of you getting your diploma.”
“Sure, I will send it to you.”
“Good. It’ll be on the front page of the Sunday paper’sLivingsection.” Our paper may be small, but my cousin takes her job as a journalist seriously. She stays busy reporting on all the happenings in our community, not to mention keeping the local gossip blog section exciting with messiness going on in our small community. TheShelby-Love Chroniclewas struggling just like every local paper in the country until Joi came home during the pandemic after being laid off by some foreign news dispatch and joined the small three-person team. She single-handedly turned the little paper from reporting about the local games, PTA, and city council meetings into a hot sheet that reports all the local shenanigans. It was a stroke of genius putting all the juiciest bits of a paywall, including news about our outrageous city council, which has gone viral on several sites. We have whole memes about our council president, Digger Jones, who’s always cussing one of the snooty Spencers out.
After hanging up with Joi, I give the little house I’ve called home for the past six years another good perusal, making sure I have everything for this first trip over to my cousins Summer and Valentine’s house. That’s where my giant turtle Bernice Sanders is convalescing, and that’s where I need to be—with my emotional-support reptile.
Thi told me to take my time moving out, but after last night and him not coming to hang out after he looked me dead in my face and said he would—twice, I know without him telling me that yesterday was goodbye.
Thinking back on his hesitancy at the graduation reception, I feel like an idiot. He never answered when I said we could use that meeting as a catalyst to start an open friendship.
“Yeah right,” I chide, softly shaking my head as I pull the door closed. I’m incredibly dumb when it comes to this man.
“Hey, darling.”
