Page 50 of Saint Baptiste 2

“How about we start again today?” She paused and looked down at her watch. “I don’t have another client until?—”

“No thank you I?—”

“You mentioned a few things I’d at least like to touch on, Naoki. Is that okay with you? Just... ten minutes. Something I’d like for you to take home with you.”

I rubbed my lips together, looked off and shuffled my feet a bit. I was already on edge. Didn’t really want to revisit any of the shit we talked about. I didn’t need to anyway. I’d already said what I had to say. I just?—

“You don’t have to answer me. I just want to ask you a couple of questions to reflect on.”

I swallowed and waited.

“When you look in the mirror... Do you love the person looking back at you? I mean, truly? The same way you love Sienna? The same way you love your sister? Saint? Even the way you loved Denim? Do you love Naoki that way, too? Without conditions?”

She told me I didn’t need to answer. Told me she’d asked because she wanted me to reflect. But I didn’t need to reflect.

“No.”

I left therapy feeling different today..

Heavier than I was when I arrived.

The weight of the next session was heavy on my shoulders. I was supposed to see her in two days. Decided to call in and cancel. Still had to see her next week though. That terrified me. That… it weighed me down. And today… today I needed to be lighter. I had to be lighter. I was drowning and all Eboni did was push me further below. How was that helping me? How would talking, answering questions about feelings and shit helped me? Why couldn’t I just talk and why couldn’t she just be okay with listening? I didn’t… she would ask the hard questions and I didn’t want to answer them. Therapy was supposed to fucking help me.

After therapy, I found myself in bed... until Chase called and got me out of it. It wasn’t him that got me out of bed though. It was the mention of food. The smile in his voice made me cringe but... I got out of the bed, threw something on, and carried my ass next door anyway. He wanted to chill.

I did that now. Chilled with niggas in their grandparents’ house as a thirty-one-year-old-woman. Did whatever I needed to do to stay out of my own shit. Settled by chilling with this nigga because I knew I wouldn’t get back on that fucking merry-go-round if he was the only option I had.

Couldn’t talk. I was afraid that if I did open my mouth up to talk, that I would cry. I was miserable. Had been miserable since the gala. Nope, that was a lie. I was miserable then, too. Even as I danced naked, after my quick kiss from the sun. I wasn’t just miserable. I was lost. Even during my darkest days I had never felt as disconnected with myself sitting on the couch with him, staring down into a tray of mediocre ass chili cheese fries.

“You sure? You been quiet all evening,” Chase pressed with a mouth full of lettuce.

Again, I nodded. Kept my eyes fixed on the tray of food sitting in front of me. We were having ‘coney’. He ‘surprised’ me with it. I told him it was my guilty pleasure and... he surprised me with coney. From a couple of blocks over. The fries were skinny, and the chili was made with kidney beans. It wasn’t a coney island. It was a ‘family restaurant’. There was a server. They had fancy menus, and people actually sat down and ate there for dinner. They served steak, meatloaf, and fucking smothered porkchops too.

Oh.

And there wasn’t a bulletproof window separating the customer from the cashier. It was just... open. If he was like that, he could reach right over and snatch her and all of the money right the fuck up out of there. At the core, I was a hood bitch that liked coney from the hood. Not the shit that served us out here. When I walked inside of the restaurant, I needed to be greeted by Keke with the bad attitude, standing behind the bulletproof glass. Not blonde hair, blue eyed Amanda standing at a kiosk.

The food was ass. Disgusting. I didn’t want it. This wasn’t my guilty pleasure. This was a muthafuckin joke. But, I smiled and pushed the food around with my fork anyway. Didn’t spit it out. Didn’t tell him to get this shit the fuck up out of my face. Didn’t do any if the things I wanted to do because I was changing. I was trying something different. I was trying not to do what I always did.

When he caressed my arm I cringed. It had been two months since we became friends and I still cringed when he touched me. I didn’t even look for fireworks anymore. He couldn’t give me anything. No one could. That was why I could sit with Chase and do nothing because I was safe here. There was no risk because if he hadn’t given me fireworks yet, he never would. Fireworks didn’t take time.

Saint didn’t need time. He gave me fireworks on that rooftop. He gave me everything before he gave me anything at all. Before the rooftop. They were in any room we stood in together. He made me feel, then. Just… with those fucking eyes. They penetrated me. Deep. Soul deep. Made me feel in places not even that glorious dick of his could reach.

But. He was a magician, and Chase was… he was just a man.

For a while, I thought Saint was too. Thought he could go in the same category as them, but he couldn’t. He was truly in a category of his own.

“Chase,” I mumbled.

“Yeah beautiful?” He answered, dabbing at his mouth with a napkin.

I leaned forward and picked the remote up, to turn the TV off. “I—” I paused and looked down into the tray of food. “I like... cheese fries with chili.”

“Cheese fries with chili? Isn’t that the same?—”

“No,” I laughed, pursed my lips and shook my head, as I closed the tray. “Fuck no.”

He drew back. Either offended or caught off guard. I exhaled. My God, that shit felt good.

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