“Now who’s, right there/ every time, you cry?/ Gonna sleep, and wake up/ on your side?/ End-less love, I’ll al-ways provide/ They hatin’ on us/ and you should know why…”
The Monday after Spring Break. I had just finished my last class for the day and was now sitting in my car, listening to the The-Dream and Mariah Carey duet, “My Love,” as it played on my radio. I had always bumped The-Dream when I had a lot on my mind, and I was certainly hoping the music might either clear my head or give me a sign of what to do; so far, it wasn’t working. I stared down at my phone, half-hoping it would dial itself and make the call I was still debating.
Between the time Kandyce left Dallas up until yesterday,when I’d returned back to Georgia for school, I’d had a lot on my mind. Kandyce’s revelation had been, to say the least, grounding. It made me feel a lot worse that I had been silent at the dinner. Honestly, I hadn’t been silent because I didn’t want to stand up for Kandyce. It wasn’t that at all. I just… I can’t explain it. But her story had me worried. So worried in fact, that I had broken one of my cardinal Graham-isms: Relationships are partnerships. When you ask people other than your partner about problems in your relationship, the partnership becomes a party. And what that third-party THINKS – as opposed to what you and your partner should KNOW – comes to set the terms for your relationship.
I had needed a truly objective opinion as to where I stood with Kandyce. I couldn’t consult my parents. Pops had pissed me off to no end (in fact, I wouldn’t talk to him for the rest of the week until it was time for me to go), and I knew my mother would spend more time trying to reassure me as opposed to answer any questions I might have about Kandyce. So, on Friday evening, I’d called two people.
***
“Graham, we had this conversation before, dawg.”
“No, bro, we definitely did not,” I had told Lloyd, and I knew I was right. I certainly would have remembered a conversation about me doubting in Kandyce.
“Yeah, bro, we definitely DID.” I heard him suck his teeth on the other end of the line. “Don’t you remember, at McDonald’s that night?I told you not to let distractions fuck up your opportunity with a quality girl. I’m trying to get you to not repeat my history.
“Besides,” he continued, “why are your panties so in a bunch behind this girl, anyway? I thought you and Kandyce were straight now. You brought her down to meet the fam this week, didn’t you?”
***
“Yeah, but… look, we had this family dinner, right? And I love my Pops, I really do, but he did the absolute damn FOOL back at home. He actually invited some girl I knew from high school to family dinner, too.”
“Oooh! That’s scandalous!” she’d said, laughing on the other end of the line.
“That’s not funny. Last I checked, your name was Wendy, not Ashley.” I’d called her Saturday afternoon.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist,” she’d replied. “You know Recess was my cartoon back in the day. The phrase was fitting for this occasion.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I’d said dismissively, trying to get us back on topic. “Anyway, like I was saying… so Pops invited her to family dinner and Kandyce was there, too. So needless to say, my ass was trapped and I’m sure Kandyce was pissed off at some of that. Pops rode her all night, too. I tried to stand up for her as best as I could, but somewhere along the way, I just froze up.”
***
“ ‘Froze up?’ ” Lloyd repeated. “Nigga, you a grown-ass man. If your pops insults your girl, then you need to remind him WHY she’s your girl.”
“I know, I know,” I conceded.
“So she was mad at you, huh?”
“Hell yeah. Even though she didn’t really say it out loud, I could tell. She had that face. You know that face all chicks put on when they’re pissed, with the lip pouting out and their eyes all narrow…”
***
“I don’t have that face!” Wendy had objected. “Or rather, I don’t have that face when I’m mad. I make that face when somebody makes me-”
“Angry,” I cut her off. “You make that face when somebody makes you angry.”
“Among other things.” I heard her giggle like she was up to something on the other end of the phone. “Anyway, where were you? Kandy got mad at you, right?”
“Ah, that’s right. KANDYCE seemed mad at me afterwards when we were in my bedroom.”
“You let her sleep with you in your bedroom? Back home?”
“Why is that so surprising?” I’d asked her, unable to ignore that something extra I’d heard in her voice when she’d asked that question.
“It’s not. Never mind. Go on.”
“Well, I was trying to get through my frustration with my father over the whole dinner thing, and also trying to cheer her up, so I was… you know… but she didn’t want to. She shut me down.”
***
“So that’s what this is about? You mad at her because she didn’t get let you get some?”
“No, Lloyd,” I’d told him. “I mean… I’d be lying if said that didn’t matter. She shut me down that night, and she shut me down last night when I tried to go over her place.”
“Okay, and? Nigga, you can live without a nut. It’s not like she went celibate on your ass, and if it’s that crucial, you can always use your own resources.” He’d laughed at his own joke. “But for real, dawg. You can’t be mad at her just because she didn’t let you smash, what, twice? Did she at least, you know…”
***
“No. Not that, either.”
“Damn! Sucks. No pun intended.” Wendy had laughed her devious giggle again. “I mean, not that it counts for anything, but even if I was mad at you, if you were my man, that wouldn’t have been a problem.” Not the greatest time for her to bring back old memories, I had thought to myself. Stay down, you…
“But really, the sex thing wasn’t that crucial. The biggest thing was what happened the day after, when I took her to the airport.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. I brought her to DFW to catch her flight, right? And she still hadn’t been talking to me since the night before. I took her to lunch and everything beforehand, still nothing. So anyway, we get there and just before it’s time for her to go, she tells me this story…”
***
“Well, damn,” Lloyd had replied after I’d recounted to him what Kandyce had told me.
“My sentiments exactly.”
“But it’s…” He had trailed off a moment before continuing. “Okay, wait, wait, correct me if I’m wrong, but what’s the big deal about this? I mean, okay… she dropped a bomb on you about her family life, and this is the second one. But I mean, shit, dawg, that means she trusts you. That’s a good thing.”
“Is it?”
***
“I mean, Graham, honestly,” Wendy had started, “when a girl is opening up to you about something that deep, it’s usually because you mean something to her. Opening up about your parents doing you wrong like that, it’s not something we do on the first date. You have to EARN the right to that.”
“What if…” I’d hesitated before asking the question, trying to make sure that I used the right words. “What if I don’t want to earn the right, though?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Alright, just… hear me out, right? I like Kandyce, a lot. We got real close a lot faster than I expected us to. She and I just FIT. But it’s like… okay, we have a song, right?”
“Oh, Lord…”
“And our song is that Keri Hilson song, ‘Knock You Down.’ There’s a part in that song, right, where Kanye says, ‘tell me now can you make it past your Caspers, so we can finally fly off into NASA?’ That’s how I feel about me and Kandyce. I care about her, Wendy. You know that.”
“I do.”
“But I’m just worried that all the stuff she has going on with her fam… I’m worried that it’s too much baggage. I can’t be trying to get close to her and she’s shutting me out or that she has these family issues going on that’s going to prevent her and me from being something. So I really kind of just want… some time to reflect on how I feel about that.”
***
“So wait, wait… lemme get this straight.” Lloyd had paused on his end of the phone for a minute, as if to go over everything I had said. “So you want to basically step away from Kandyce because the girl has issues.”
“Not because she has issues, because she has baggage,” I corrected him. “Baggage that’s not going to be solved overnight. I mean, hell, her family issues, the whole thing with her dad not looking out for her… her pops may singlehandedly have screwed it up for me whereby she’s not going to trust me because she couldn’t trust him.”
“Nigga, that’s EVERY girl! What the hell? We all got skeletons in our closets, man, things we don’t want people to know for whatever reason. You see it as baggage, but that’s her ass opening up and trusting you. Do you know how hard that shit is, bro? To get a girl to trust you these days?”
***
“I mean, I told you, it’s not like every girl just opens up herself like that to any random nigga. Niggas make it hard to trust them. You think you can’t put up with her baggage, Graham?”
“No, Wendy,” I had said, shaking my head. “It’s not like that at all. I can handle her past and shit, no problem. I’m worried that her past is going to keep her from… I don’t know, not letting me close enough to her or what have you. I mean, she’s told me stories about her family twice, Wendy. This is like shit she’s harbored that clearly bothered her. What if she’s like that with me? What if she harbors shit from me about the way she feels? I don’t think she’s ever even told her father about how she feels about those instances.”
***
“Dawg, that’s even BETTER then,” Lloyd had tried to reassure me. “Look… nigga, stop making excuses. For some reason or another, you want to take a break from what appears to be a damned good girl. A break, nigga, like spending some time apart from her. And why? So you can think about whether or not you can deal with her issues? That’s problematic for you in SO many ways, bro. That’s the perfect time for some nigga to scoop her up or, more than likely, for you to get distracted.”
“I won’t get distracted,” I had assured him. “I know how good of a woman Kandyce is. I just want to be certain that she and I can click in spite of her issues. And besides, this is the last week before the probate, right? I definitely want to make sure I get through this without losing any focus.”
“Man, I’ll tell you one last time. Don’t put yourself in a position to make my mistake. Shit, I’ll be honest with you right now JUST so history doesn’t repeat itself. Clarity was quite possibly one of the best things to happen to me at GSU. If there’s one thing I regret most, it’s what went down with her. And you know why it went down that way? Because I let myself get distracted.”
“Distracted?” I’d asked. “What are you-”
***
“I mean, you have a lot coming at you, right?” Wendy had asked, with what sounded like genuine concern in her voice.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Then maybe this break might be good for you.”
“You would say that…”
“Umm, Graham, who told ME back in February that he was losing this number? Who said we were breaking things off? You. Not me. You’re the one calling me now.”
“Yes, because I want an objective female opinion!” I’d retorted.
“Which I’m trying to give you. Maybe you need some time away to get your thoughts together and wrap your head around what Kandy to-”
“Kandyce.”
“Fine, what Kandyce told you. I mean, it was quite a bomb, and that plus what happened at that dinner, it can be a lot to come at you at once. I feel like Kandyce will understand, if she cares about you, about your need to take a break. Besides, it’s not like you’re breaking up with her, right?”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “I’m not breaking up with her, just trying to mull over what she’s told me.
***
“Nigga, lemme finish. If I had stayed focused on what Clarity and I had had, and not on… things would probably be different. For me, and for her. And at the time, I didn’t think about that. At the time, we always think about what we think is good for the right now. We don’t realize until later just by how slim a margin we could have avoided that fuck-up. Just by an inch or a second.
“So, no, nigga. I don’t think you should do that shit. I think if it bothers you, then you should tell Kandyce that. Work the shit out, don’t dance around it for the sake of ‘clearing your head.’ You’re going to ruin a good thing just because you were afraid to say, ‘Hey, I’m worried a bit about what you have going on at home. Is that going to affect me and you.’ But take a break because of baggage? Psh. When Kandyce has a kid by some Asian dude at U-Georgia and another one on the way from some dude at Morehouse, THEN say she has baggage.”
***
I opened my eyes, not realizing I had closed them while I was recalling my respective conversations with Lloyd and Wendy. I leaned my head back against the headrest of the driver’s seat. I really did care about Kandyce, but I just wasn’t sure what the right course of action was with regards to her. Ask her about issues? Or take a moment to ask myself if her issues might keep me from reaching her? I thought. I looked down at the phone again and sighed deeply.
“… They don’t love me, let them wonder why/ I’m here to stay, and they goin’ ‘bye-bye’/ Who’s, the one callin’ you baby?/ Who’s, in love with your ass like crazy?/ Who, who, who’s tryna flag our ship?/ They’re just tryna get the love you give…”
As Mariah Carey’s verse of “My Love” continued to play in the background, I dialed Kandyce’s number and brought the phone up to my ear. I had reached my decision. I just wasn’t entirely sure if it was a good one or a bad one.
—
“Hey, you!” I didn’t know what to be more surprised about – the cheerfulness in his voice, or the fact that he had called at all.
“Hey, back,” I replied. “Well, this is a nice surprise.” He’d chuckled on the other end of the phone.
“You told me to call, and I said I would. I’m a man of my word.”
“Okay, Stokely,” I replied, rolling my eyes at him but happy he couldn’t see the smile that was spreading across my face. It was Monday evening now, roughly three days since my slip-up with Stokely. I had gotten over getting my feelings hurt. Mostly, anyway. The fact that he’d called me like I asked him to made it easier for me to forget about Friday, too.
“So what’s up?” I asked him.
“Well, honestly, I wanted to talk you about something.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, really,” he’d replied. I heard him take a deep breath on the other end of the line. He didn’t say anything for almost a minute.
“Stokely?” I asked. “You alright over there?” I laughed nervously, though I really was kind of worried since he hadn’t responded.
“Nah, I’m good. It’s just… just trying to figure out how to say what I want to say.”
“How about you just, you know, say it?” I suggested.
“You make it sound so easy, Clare,” Stokely said, the sarcasm in his voice all too apparent. “Alright, I’m just going to come out with it. Look, me and you, we’ve go back, right?”
“To Summer Orientation ’05.” We’d both chuckled at that.
“Yeah, Summer ‘O’ ’05. I’m surprised you remember that.” I remember a lot of things you’ve probably forgotten, I just barely prevented myself from saying aloud.
“Well, this whole time,” Stokely continued, “You’ve been just great to me, you know. I mean, you’ve been around for me longer than even Graham. You were the first person I knew at GSU. You always supported me. When I needed something, I always knew I could count on you to give it or help me get it.”
Wait! I thought to myself. Is this… no way. No, Stokely’s not giving me ‘the speech.’ Is he?
“I couldn’t really have asked for a better friend, Clarity. I probably wouldn’t have made it this far at GSU, and especially not in Black GSU, without you.” Part of me hoped he’d just get to the point. I knew what I wanted him to say. I just wanted to know if he was actually going to say it.
“Well, after all this, I wanted to ask you something.” Uh-oh. “And it’s been on my mind for… well, definitely, since last week. And I knew I had to ask you about it now or I’d feel bad about it later, like I missed out on something. Before I put it out there, I want you to just hear the question first, alright? Like don’t get mad or sad or anything, just hear me out first.” Aww hell. He couldn’t be asking me this, not after what happened Friday.
“Clarity…” Yes, Stokely?
“What do you think I should do for Kandyce’s birthday?”
I don’t know what dropped first: my phone onto my bedroom floor, or my heart into my stomach. My eyebrows furrowed as my mind tried to process what had just happened. Did this nigga, I thought, and yes, this time he IS a nigga, just lead me on to ask me about Kandyce? I just KNEW this shit was going to happen! Clare, you pathetic idiot. I can’t believe you let this happen to your ass twice…
A faint mumbling somewhere pulled me out of my thoughts. I suddenly remembered that Stokely was still on the phone. I took a deep breath to regain my composure, picked up my iPhone and brought it back up to my ears.
“Clarity, you still there?” he asked. Hell no, I’m not there, and I’m not going to be there for you anymore for the rest of my life!
“Yeah.”
“Are you okay?” he asked. Well, you’ve pretty much confirmed my suspicions and broke my heart for the second time in three days, but other than that
“I’m fine.”
“Good,” he said, sighing in what sounded like relief. “Anyway, like I was saying, Kandyce’s birthday is Thursday…”
Stokely’s words faded into the background. I sidestepped his conversation with me to have one with myself. What were you THINKING?! Were you even thinking at all? I mean, I don’t know. I honestly had thought that maybe Friday night was a mistake, that maybe Stokely HAD wanted to kiss me on the lips and was just trying to be a gentleman like always.
I just had really, really hoped there was something there between the two of us. I mean, we can’t have been friends for so long and he didn’t feel even the slightest attraction to me? Didn’t he realize that my being there for him and trying to encourage him the first time he went out for Kappa and coming out to United Nations meetings… didn’t he see those signs? Could boys, especially boys who were supposed to be your close friends, really be THAT oblivious? I mean, damn, I still needed to keep my dignity so wearing a “Hey, you! Yes, you! I like you” sign around my neck wasn’t happening. But could I have been any more obvious?
I accepted in that moment that Stokely and I were only meant to be friends. He would never see me in the way he saw Kandyce White, and I would never understand that. It was SO unfair to me. What had Kandyce done to deserve him? I couldn’t help thinking. But I was through with it, for real this time. I had been down that road before a long time ago, changing myself and doing everything for a guy in the name of feelings and getting hurt in the process. At least with Stokely, we’d always only been friends. He’d hurt me, too, but at least Stokely hadn’t so on purpose. I don’t think… it didn’t matter. I would simply be the friend he’d always relied on, the friend he could always count on, everything but the girlfriend.
“So what do you think, Clarity?” Stokely’s question snapped me back into reality. I shook away my thoughts and wiped away the two silent tears I hadn’t known had been falling from my eyes.
“I think that’s a great idea, Stokely.” It was all I could think to say, because the truth was, I hadn’t heard a word he’d said at all. I’d been too lost in my mind. But I hoped my answer would suffice.
“Clarity, you have NO idea how happy I am to hear that,” he replied, and it was easy to catch the happiness in his voice. “Man, your support is just… you always come through for me when I need it, Clarity. That really means a lot to me.” Apparently, it doesn’t mean enough…
“What was that?” he asked. Oh shit!
“Nothing,” I quickly recovered. “Just thinking aloud.” Damn my mouth-mind coordination! I thought.
“Ah, okay. Well, yeah, I’m going to call Kandyce RIGHT now and ask her. And then I’ll let you know what she tells me. Okay?” Not really.
“Okay.”
“Alright, I’ll talk to you soon. Take care, Cla-”
I hung up the phone before he could finish. That made me feel like I had at least a little bit of power in the situation. It was the seventh rule of war: there is always a price to be paid for friendship. Between Stokely and my feelings for him, and his feelings for Kandyce, and Kandyce and Graham, and my history with Graham that I set aside for Kandyce… I hated feeling like I was the one footing the bill for everyone else. If I had my way, that would change VERY soon.
—
“… And he can’t do this/ and he don’t do that/ Shawty need a refund, needta bring that nigga back/ and like a refund, I make her bring that ass back/ And she bring that ass back… ‘cause I like that…”
I extended my arms behind me, wrapped both of my hands around the pole, and slowly gyrated my way down into a squat in my heels. I leaned back on my arms then, placing my hands flat onto the stage, and lifted my hips, thrusted my pelvis up into the air and moving my legs in a “butterfly” motion in keeping with the rhythm of the song, Lil’ Wayne and Static Major’s banger,“Lollipop.” Dollar bills pelted my body and the stage around me. I rolled over onto my stomach then and slithered to other side of the stage like a snake, keeping my body flat and narrowing my eyes at my target, a somewhat heavy-set guy with a thick black beard. He was holding a huge wad of bills in his hands. I pulled myself up off the ground slightly so that my head was up against his stomach… well, I should say, his gut. But I kept my head down and swayed it left and right, feeling the top of my head rub against his shirt and slightly damp dollar bills cascade on top of my back.
“Shawty want a thugggg/ Bottles in the clubbbbb/ Shawty want to humppp/ And ooh, I like to touch ya’ lovely lady humps/ Call me, so I can make it juicy for ya’/ C-call me, so I can make it juicy for ya…”
I pulled myself up into a squat, then laid flat on my back. I inched my body closer to his across the stage until I was up against him, felt his hardness up against my neon-green thong. I lifted my legs straight up into the air and wrapped my heels around his neck, then proceeded to press myself into him in a slow but hard grind. As the song reached its breakdown, I pumped myself into the man, faster and faster with the song’s beat, watched his eyes shut tight and his face contort as I went to work on him, saw him struggle to to pull single bills out of his wad of cash and drop them beside me until he just plain gave up and let the whole thing fall down to the stage. As disgusted as I was, I forced my lips to form a dirty grin. And then, thankfully, the song ended.
“Ladies and gentlemen, y’all give it up for the beautiful Kandy Reign, y’all,” the DJ announced over the loudspeaker as I gathered up the bills, cheers and applause filling the air and drowning out the transitional music that followed my set. I carried all of the money out with me down the ramp and backstage into the dressing room.
“Well, damn, Kandy! The crowd sounds like you went to WORK with them!” Willow said, smiling as I walked back in. “It’s never sounded that live on a Monday night.”
I tried to return her smile, but I was too tired. It had been such a long Monday, between having to start back up with classes and then come to the Creamy Peaches tonight. I just wanted to go home. I counted through my bills once again, separated the money between what was mine and the cut I’d have to give Antonio, and dropped Antonio’s money into a drop box on the side of one of the dressing room walls. Then I took my jeans out of my locker, pulled my phone out of my jeans so I could check the time. Instead of seeing the clock on the phone display, however, I was met with a message saying I had new voicemail. Curious, I sat down on the bench next to the locker and dialed my voicemail, trying to put on my jeans at the same time.
“Greetings, Kandyce,” the automated voice said. “You have two. New. Messages. First message…”
“Kandyce! Hey, how’s it going? Of course, this is Stokely. It’s kind of been a minute since I actually got to catch up with you and everything, but… well, of course you know, Thursday’s a big day. We have a paper due in Professor Williams’ class then! Ha, no, really, we do, but more importantly, Thursday is your birthday. And I wanted to see if maybe, you know… you’d let me do something special for you. Nothing fancy, really, but if you don’t have any plans with your sorors or anything like that, I talked to Clarity and she said you hadn’t set anything yet, so… I’d like to take you out to dinner. Just me and you. I’m not trying to be disrespectful to you and Graham, but I just wanted to do something special for you. So if you want to, just, you know, hit me back and let me know. Take care, and hit me back!”
I couldn’t help chuckling at Stokely’s message. It was funny because it was kind of random. Stokely, asking ME to dinner? I thought. I didn’t know what to make of it. And it was just MONDAY and he was already thinking about me for my birthday… I was definitely flattered. It was really sweet of him, but I guess we’d have to see. I pressed a button to save Stokely’s message, and the voicemail proceeded on to the next message.
“Hey, baby.” Graham! I thought. Just the person I’d wanted to hear from. “I guess you’re busy right now. Umm, damn… there’s no easy to way to say this, but… look, you know I care about you, right? You know you mean so much to me. But after what happened in Dallas, with my pops and all, and what you told me in the airport, I really think that we should take a breather.” What?!
“WHAT?!” I repeated aloud, accidentally attracting the attention of Willow and Sindee, who had come back into the dressing room and was at one of the vanities.
“I’m not breaking up with you, I promise,” Graham’s voice continued. “It’s just, that put a lot on my mind, you know. So that, plus returning to school, plus the guys, you know we’re bringing em out next week… I’m just concerned, baby, that I may not… I don’t know, I can’t explain it. But I think, if you can give me a week to get myself together, by next week, I’ll be more certain. And I mean, if you want to talk about it, you can call me and we can, but it’s NOT like we’re breaking up. I still want to be with you. And I’m really sorry, but you gotta understand, I just need time to clear my head and get right about me and you. You know? I hope you understand.”
And with that, the message clicked off. I was stunned. Wait, WHAT?! I thought in my head. Take a breather? A week to get himself together? What the hell kinda bullshit was this? And not only that, but the nigga left me a damn voicemail! He couldn’t even tell me one-on-one?! I stared down at my phone for what seemed like forever, convinced that I had just been dreaming or imagining things. I closed my eyes and waited for time to rewind itself, for me to open my eyes and find myself walking off the stage with my set tips bundled up in my arms like nothing after that had ever happened. For good measure, I even clicked my heels three times. But when I opened my eyes, I was indeed still sitting there on the bench looking down at my phone.
“Got damn it!” I exclaimed aloud, again attracting the attention of Sindee and Willow.
“Kandy, you alright over there, girl?” Willow asked. I looked up at her, and there was a concerned expression on her face. I tried to smile at her.
“I’m fine, Willow,” I told her. “Thanks for asking. Just… the usual. Dude problems.”
“With that Kappa guy you were telling us about a while back?” Sindee piped up, and I nodded slowly. “Man… well, what happened?”
“We just had kind of a fall-out this past week. I went home with him and his parents didn’t like me and he got all frustrated with me.”
“So, wait… you didn’t want to smash with him?” Her question had caught me completely off-guard.
“Wait, what? Where’d that come from, Sindee?” I couldn’t help asking.
“You’re saying he got frustrated, right? Well, most times a dude gets frustrated with a chick, it’s because she didn’t put out when he expected her to.” I’d had to raise a skeptical eyebrow at that.
“I mean, I’m just saying,” Sindee continued. “If my man were frustrated, it would be wanting him to get out of that funk, by whatever means.”
“Okay, Sindee,” I replied. “Not like it’s ANY of your business what I do with my man, but no, he was not frustrated because I wouldn’t have sex with him.” I heard her mumble something from the other side of the room. I couldn’t make it out entirely, but the end of it definitely sounded like “… not what I heard.”
“I’m sorry, Sindee, what was that?” I asked, my voice pretty much laced with my irritation.
“Nothing, I was just talking to myself,” she said dismissively. “Don’t worry about it.” Nah, fuck that! I thought. I got up from the bench and started walking towards Sindee.
“Apparently, it’s more than nothing since you had something to say, though. You’re a grown woman, right? We’re adults, right?”
“Hey!” Willow must have sensed what was about to happen, because she had practically dashed to get to the center of the room between the two of us. “Look, don’t start no shit, y’all. It’s not even that crucial.” But by now, Sindee had gotten up from her seat at the vanity, and I was not a fan of the expression she had on her face.
“Okay,” Sindee spat out. “Fine, Kandy. You asked, and you shall receive. What I said was, ‘Funny, that’s not what I heard.’ You want to come at ME about the problems you’re having with your so-called boyfriend? Ha. It’s funny because fighting me ain’t going to make up for the fact that you’re STILL not doing what you’re supposed to do putting it down on him. I mean, hell, that’s how you keep ‘em once you’ve got ‘em, girl, I don’t have to remind of you of that.
“But you apparently think this nigga is worth fighting for,” she rambled on. “And you know what, that’s okay. That’s a good thing, it means you care about him. Why don’t you apply that same fighting spirit to fucking him?!”
The only reason I didn’t lay Sindee’s ass out right then and there after her tirade was because of Willow. The look in her eyes and the subtle shaking of her head at me as she stood between the two of us, seemed to tell me it wasn’t worth it. And of course, I also couldn’t afford to lose this job, but Sindee… Ooh, shit! If she only KNEW how lucky she was… I retreated back to the locker area and finished getting dressed and packing my stuff up for the night. But I was on fire. I saw Sindee and Willow gesturing like they were arguing, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying over the sound of the flames burning inside me.
FUCK Graham, then, I thought to myself as I walked out of the Creamy Peaches and out to my car, then drove off onto the main road. Fuck Graham, wanting a ‘break’ the week of my fucking birthday. AND FUCK Sindee’s cocky ass, too. That… Where the fuck did she get off asking me about Graham like that?! Damn near everyone I knew was turning their back on me now, it seemed like. No one seemed to be who I thought they were. I needed to talk to someone, but there was no one for me to talk to. I wasn’t used to this. For the first time in a long time, I felt like Kandy would truly have to Reign alone.