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He got up. “I just liked how she looked on my arm but I never stopped loving the sisters.”
I folded my arms. “No, you mean you never stopped fucking the sisters.”
Brent smiled and slipped on his coat. “You are one tough nut to crack, girl, you know that?”
“Yup.”
Brent snapped the ring box shut. “I got someone else anyway who’ll appreciate this ring a whole lot more.”
“Lula? Good. You and that psycho bitch deserve each other.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Lula is a private investigator. Amanda hired her to keep tabs on you and then she fell in love.”
His eyes were practically popping out of his head. “What?”
“Yup! She fell in love with you and refunded Amanda’s money.”
He just sat there, frozen with shock.
“Get out, Brent, and please make sure you tell Lula that we broke up tonight. I don’t want her harassing me.”
He looked like he was going to say something else but then he just smiled. “Good-bye, Asha Mitchell.”
“Good-bye, Brent.”
He stood in front of me with his arms outstretched. “Aren’t you gonna give me a hug?”
I shook my head. “Nah, that’s all right.”
&n
bsp; His smile faded and I walked him to the door.
As soon as Brent was gone, it hit me. I was now responsible for my own rent and other basic bills. On top of that, I was feeding and housing my sister.
Something had to give.
Chapter 42
SAUNDRA
I’m going to pieces. My fiancée doesn’t try to contact me anymore. My father is a closet homosexual. Evelyn will never be my stepmother. Asha and I are going to be murdered one of these days by one of the men or women that she is playing games with. I can’t go back to Queens and I have no money of my own to escape Asha’s dangerous crazy house. I feel like I have no foundation, no anchor. I’m just free floating from day to day and it will be at least another month before school starts again. What do I do in the meantime?
I felt like calling Yero. Maybe he could help me figure out what my next step should be.
But I can’t talk to Yero because he will only have one thing on his mind: Getting back together. And I’m in no shape to be in a relationship.
I’m on my own. A solitary figure walking the streets of downtown Manhattan in the frigid weather with my hat pulled low on my forehead, my gloved hands shoved deep into my coat pockets.
I ambled on. Up one street and down another.
I peered from beneath the hat and saw homeless men and women shivering on the sidewalk, a piece of cardboard their only defense against the icy wind. I saw the drug dealers, their eyes shifting from side to side because they had to make on-the-spot decisions—a prospective buyer was either a junkie or a cop. The wrong decision could cost them twenty years of freedom under New York State’s stiff drug laws.
I saw fear in the eyes of the working poor and anger in the pupils of the unemployed.
In the beginning I believed that walking would release some precious endorphins that would act as a balm on my wounds but that didn’t happen.
