I watched her as she spoke. I noticed the way she spoke, and how her shoulders sat lower, and her face wasn't guarded. Her eyes looked like they had finally found something to rest on. That kind of love looked different. “I don’t doubt it. Motherhood will do it to you." I said, nodding my head. My voice came out steady. But something inside me shifted when I said it. Motherhood had done something to me too. It had made me strong. But it had also taught me how to disappear inside of what other people needed. How to give so much of myself that I stopped recognizing what was left.
"Speaking of motherhood." Amina said before putting grapes in her mouth, "y’all could've told me girls were hard. The smart mouths about to make me go to jail for child abuse." She said, rolling her eyes. A laugh moved through the group, light and easy.
"Oh you haven't seen nothing yet." I giggled, making Chiana agree. It felt good to laugh.
"Have you talked to the kids yet about what's going on?" Amina asked seriously. Her tone shifted slightly. She wasn't asking out of curiosity. She was asking because she cared.
"Yeah, I did this morning. Everybody seem to be fine except Jezel, but that's expected." I explained. I could still see her face in my mind. The way her eyes filled up, and she tried to understand something she wasn't ready for.
"My poor soft-hearted girl," Chiana said. She shook her head slightly, like she could already feel it for her. Jezel reminded me of her in that way. Willing to believe in things working out. Parts of me used to be like that, too. “You need us to fill you in, or you already know what’s going on?" Amina asked Ayida.
"I’m aware." Ayida smiled. Of course she was. She didn't need details. She felt them.
"Well, since you got a sixth sense and know everything, can you tell me when that mutha fucka gon sign those papers?" I joked with Ayida, making all of us bust out laughing. The words came out easy.
"Oh, hush that man gon sign them papers, he’s just upset right now," Chiana said through a laugh. Her tone carried reassurance. Like she was trying to soften something for me.
"Ion know about all of that, but we can definitely be hopeful." Amina chimed in.
Being with them always made me feel whole. That part hadn't changed. If anything, it felt deeper now. More intentional. They were my family. Not by blood. But by everything else that mattered. We’d seen each other through things people don't come back from the same.
Loss.
Love.
Pain.
Decisions that changed the direction of our lives without asking permission. We'd grown together. Even when it didn't look the same for all of us. We'd be bound together as sisters for the rest of our lives. Sitting there with them, it felt like a connection. Support that didn't ask me to shrink to maintain it. We had an unbreakable bond that I would forever cherish. I now understand the difference between a bond that holds you and one that confines you.
I lifted my glass slowly, taking a sip. The wine was warm now. Not as crisp as it had been earlier. But still good. The fire popped again, sparks rising up into the night before disappearing. I watched them for a second. The way they burned bright for a moment before fading out. There was something about that that felt familiar. The way things could feel intense. Like they would last forever. Until they didn’t. “You quiet over there," Amina said, nudging me lightly with her foot.
I looked over at her. She was watching me the way she always did when she knew I was somewhere else in my head. “I’m just...sitting in it," I said. It was the simplest way to explain it. And the most honest.
"Sitting in what?" Chiana asked. Her voice soft. Like, she didn't want to disrupt whatever space I was in.
"Everything," I said after a second. That was the truth. Not just the divorce. Not just Jules. But everything that had led me here. Everything I had carried. Everything I had let go.
Amina leaned back in her chair, studying me for a moment. “You good?" she asked. I nodded.
"Yeah," I said. "I am." And I meant it.
JULES
I sat back on the couch, watching the smoke fog up the room as the light flashed through it repeatedly. The lights hit different in a place like this. Flickering through haze, bouncing off skin, mirrors, and money. Everything looked distorted. Like nothing in here had to be real if you didn't want it to be. Money floated down through the air as I continued to throw it out of my hands. It didn't feel like spending. It felt like getting rid of something. Like if I threw enough of it, I wouldn't have to think about what was sitting heavy in my chest.
I inhaled from the blunt that was hanging from my lip before throwing out the rest of the money in my hand to the redheaded bitch that was shaking her ass in front of me. She moved like she knew exactly what she was doing. I could tell she had done it a thousand times. Like she didn't see me at all. Just the money. That was fine. That's all I was here for anyway. To not be seen and to not have to see myself.
I sat back on the couch, picked up the bottle of Hennessy, and turned it up to my mouth. The liquor burned going down. I buried myself deep inside this strip club on the outskirts of New Orleans since I left the house. Because places like this didn't ask questions. Seeing those divorce papers, reading that letter had my brain haywire. But you wouldn't know it looking at me.
I was moving off instinct. I buried my thoughts. Did what I always did. Kept it contained. Kept it moving. The crazy part was that I sat in that cell contemplating divorce, knowing I'd never go through with it. That wasn't real to me. Wasn't something I would've ever actually done. Nia had pulled a cardon me I never seen coming, and I knew she was dead ass serious. That part sat different.
I saw it in the way she moved. The way she treated me over the last few months. The distance I never really paid attention to. That quiet space she had started building between us while I was too busy thinking everything was still in my control. caught up in my own feelings and bullshit instead of being a man, the man of my house, made me miss a lot. That’s what it was.
I missed it. I didn't see it or look for it. Because I didn't think I had to. Nia was my ride or die. My girl since we was kids. That part felt solid and Unmovable. Something I didn't have to question. Reading that letter, and seeing these papers, realizing the next part of my life looked different because I didn't have it like that anymore. I didn't have her like that no more. Shit, I lost my forever girl.
The thought came. I sat around plenty of times and told niggas I knew Nia was never going anywhere, no matter what I did, no matter how wrong it was. I said it like it was a fact. Like it was built into the structure of our life.
I molded Nia into exactly what I wanted in a woman, and somewhere along the way, I stopped seeing her as someone who could choose me. I showed her a different life. Gave her things she didn't have before. Taught her how to move in my world. And somewhere in that, I convinced myself that meant she would always stay. I took her life and showed her what it looked like without her past. That's how I used to think about it. Like I gave her something. I loved her to death, I'd kill anybody for her. That part had never been a question. Still ain't. But the man in me played on the fact that I felt like I could manipulate her emotions to stay with me through whatever. It was owed in away. That's what I told myself. Little did I fail to realize, Nia ain’t owe me shit, especially after giving me life as many times as she did. That realization didn't come with noise.