Page 51 of Saint Baptiste 2

“This,” I gestured towards the food. “Is bullshit.”

I laughed harder. Laughed until tears filled my eyes and rolled down my cheeks.

“Damn, straight up?” Chase somberly said. He grabbed the tray, slid it toward him, picked it up and roughly stuffed it inside of the bag. A brown paper bag bitch. A big one. with handles with the restaurant’s name on the side. Fancy. Too fancy.

“I didn’t ask you to bring me coney island, Chase. I would have never asked you to bring me coney.” I took a deep breath and tossed my head against the back of the couch. Placing my hands on my head, I dragged them back with a light sigh. “I apologize. I’m—that was rude. You don’t deserve that. The chili cheese fries just... really made me realize something. And for a while, I thought I didn’t like you because I was stuck in a cycle but... I do like you Chase. You’re a really sweet guy but... I don’t like you, like you.”

“Because I bought you the wrong type of fries? You said chili cheese fries. Had you said cheese fries with chili I would have?—”

I laughed. This time until my stomach hurt. I just... my God! What the fuck was wrong with me? I couldn’t do this shit. I couldn’t be that. Couldn’t pretend. This whole thing... me letting go and trying to heal... it had been about embracing my true self. I was, once again, wearing a mask. This one was pathetic. This one let a nigga she just met buy her chili cheese fries. And not the good kind neither. Where in the fuck were my standards? In the dirt. Mmmhmm, that’s exactly where they were. I just couldn’t believe it took chili fries for me to see just how far from myself I had veered. I had never felt so out of touch myself in my life.

“Yeah, you can go ahead and head out, baby girl,” Chase said, as if I really wanted to be there in the first place.

I took a deep breath and shook my head. I was being rude. He didn’t deserve rudeness. Chase had been the gentleman I knew he would be. This entire time.

“I am going to go,” I said with a pause before turning to face him. “I do apologize. I’m not really laughing at you I’m?—”

“Come on now, don’t pull that on me,” he interrupted with this boyish smirk that made me feel a tad bit worse.

I swiped a piece of hair from my face and lightly laughed. “Okay, I was laughing at you, but I wasn’t making fun of you. I was just... we’re so different. This,” I paused to gesture at myself. “isn’t me. I don’t do this. I don’t watch TV with men I just met over chili cheese fries from family restaurants. I think you’re a good guy, Chase I really do. What I’ve been doing to you... stringing you alone, it’s not fair. I don’t do that neither. I’m not a mean girl. I don’t take advantage of people for my own personal gain. And while it might not look like it, that’s what I’ve been doing. I told you I wanted to be friends, but I see you fall for me more every day and do nothing about it because,” I swallowed and decided, fuck it. I can be real with him, while finally being honest with myself. “I didn’t want to be alone. I needed someone to occupy my time with. And I—I don’t do that. I’m not that type of woman. I don’t want to become that type of woman. Not just that... I’ve been fucking miserable. And.. I can’t be miserable anymore.”

CHAPTER 12

SAINT

I woke up to the sound of my phone ringing. After knocking a few things off the nightstand, I finally found it. “Yeah, hello?” I answered without paying much attention to the name on the screen.

“He’s gone, Saint,” Natasha cried.

I took the phone from my ear, closed my eyes, and pressed it against my forehead. “I’m on my way,” I grumbled into the phone.

Hanging up, I checked the time. It was after ten. I was supposed to be there at eight. Had I been there when I was supposed to be, I would have been there. But I fucked up. Last night... seeing her... it threw me off. So much that I almost drove down to Pandora’s. decided not to. Instead, I laid in this bitch all fuckin’ night thinking about her. Overslept because I couldn’t pull myself from that fuckin’ fantasy.

I dropped the phone on the nightstand, brought my hands up to my head and ran them back and forth over my face with a growl. Samuel was dead. My father was gone. How was I to feel? What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t cry. Didn’t know what that felt like anymore. Honestly couldn’t remember the last time I cried. Probably was a little nigga. Had to be younger than ten. Yeah, I was. I could remember. Took a minute. I just had to dig. I buried the memory for a reason. I was eight. Me and Blaise got into a fight. I cried and Samuel beat my muthafuckin ass. Beat me so bad I couldn’t cry. At the end, the only thing I could feel was pain.

Like now. Couldn’t feel anything but it. I wondered if he wanted tears now. Wondered if he wanted us to mourn him. Wondered if having the feelings he hated now was okay. It was. It most definitely was. I could say that shit with confidence. Because at the end, that’s what he wanted most from us. Called for Jah. That nigga never answered. Gave him his ass to kiss every single fuckin time. Called for B. Could count on one hand how many times he visited him. And when he called for me? I answered. Not every time, but more than not. Tasha didn’t fall under the same category as we did. She was the princess. When he called, she answered every time. But... he rarely called for her. It made sense now. All of it did.

Shortly after, I was parking at my parents’ house. Pulling up at the house was different. I didn’t sit in the car. Didn’t toss my head against the headrest dreading the walk inside. Just got out and walked up to it. I already knew what to expect. I didn’t need to prepare for grief. Preparation had never been about Samuel. It had always been about my mother. The only reason I sat in the car when I pulled up and waited was because I had to prepare myself mentally for the denial. Now, there wouldn’t be any more denial. Now we had to deal with reality. And the reality of it was that Samuel, her husband of over thirty years was dead. Now we dealt with the next stage.

Devastation.

Grief.

Heartbreak. The heart break… scared me. I wondered who my mother would become without him. They had been married for over thirty but together longer. So much of who she was, was because of him. Graciela didn’t have a life separate from the one she created with him. She didn’t own any businesses. Didn’t have any hobbies. A homemaker was the only thing she ever had been. Wife and mother. Once we grew up, she homed in on that wife title. Without him, she was a widow. And who in the fuck would want to home in on that?

The quiet that greeted me upon entering was unsettling. The air felt different again. Over the course of five years, the house had gone through many changes. None of the changes had been cosmetic or structural. It was all energetic. It was in the air. It was stuck on the walls. It followed me through the foyer, and up the stairs too as I followed the only sound that filled the space. Soft cries from my mother.

That dull ache that hit me in the chest earlier after Natasha’s call grew. Nothing hurt a man that loved his mother more than hearing, seeing, or simply knowing she’d cried. It was a gut-wrenching pain. Especially if the tears were brought on by something no one could change.

I was a kid again. Back in that lil’ house in the hood. I wondered how long it would be before I heard Boukman. Wondered if I’d ever hear him again, at all.

The door to the bedroom opened with an obnoxious squeak. Kneeling at an empty bed, I found my mother with a face full of tears. As loud as the door was, she didn’t hear me. She was a million miles away, I could imagine.

I massaged the nape of my neck with a shaky sigh. Treading over, I kneeled beside her and grabbed her by the hand. She didn’t respond to my touch. Didn’t take my face in her hands, smile and say ‘sonson’. She didn’t do any of the things she used to do. She just sat there with her face pressed against the bed he died in and continued to softly cry.

I didn’t know how long we’d been kneeling, me in silence, her someplace else, steady crying before there was a knock on the door. I pushed up from the floor, dusted my aching knees off, and walked over to answer it.

It was Blaise. His eyes were bloodshot red and not because he’d been crying. He wreaked of weed. Shit, I needed to burn a few too.

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