Chapter Twenty-Three: I’m Done with You
706 Words
Lyric
Monday morning started off regular.
I wasn’t even thinking about Zay, school, or work.
But the second Janiyah sat down next to me in homeroom, I could feel the energy off.
She threw her phone on the desk.
Didn’t say hi.
Didn’t even sip her iced coffee.
I leaned over. “Girl, what’s wrong with you?”
She gave me a side-eye that could slice a throat.
“Smoke got a f*ckin' message while he was in the shower this morning,” she hissed, low but furious.
My eyes widened. “What kind of message?”
She unlocked her phone and showed me the screen.
A text from some girl saved under “Bri w/ the good hair”:
“You still sliding thru tonight or nah?”
Whewwww 😮💨
I blinked. “Damn.”
“That’s all you got? Damn?”
I leaned in closer. “Did you ask him about it?”
“Nope,” she said, popping her gum. “He came out the bathroom like everything cool, kissed my cheek, told me to hurry or we’d be late. Dropped me off like I ain’t see that sh*t.”
I stayed quiet. She was on 100 already.
“Lyric,” she said, wild-eyed, “this boy been eating at my mama’s house, sleeping in my bed, blowing my back out — and he got the nerve to be linking up with other bitches?”
I whispered, “You not even his girl tho—”
“Shut the f*ck up,” she snapped. Then sighed. “I know. But still.”
After school, I didn’t feel like going home.
I ain’t have work that day and Janiyah looked like she was seconds from exploding, so I rolled with her.
We got to her house and she slammed the door behind us.
She dropped her bag, ripped off her wig, and threw it on the couch.
“I’m done,” she said out loud, to no one.
“You sure?” I asked carefully.
She nodded hard. “Yup. Sending the text now.”
She typed with speed and violence.
You can keep texting Bri or whoever else. Don’t come back to my house. Don’t call me. I’m done.
She hit send.
And then… we waited.
Ten minutes.
Fifteen.
Then—
HONK HONK.
“Girl—” I said, peeking through the blinds.
It was Smoke’s car.
He didn’t text back. Didn’t call.
He pulled the hell up.
Janiyah opened the door before I could stop her.
“What you doing here?” she barked, arms crossed.
Smoke stepped inside like he owned it.
Tall, tatted, hoodie halfway zipped.
“You good? Or you trippin’ off that text?”
She scoffed. “You getting messages from Bri with the good hair, and you asking me if I’m trippin’?”
He licked his lips and stepped closer. “That was old. Ain’t even linked her in weeks.”
“You ain’t delete it,” she snapped.
“Didn’t think I had to,” he said calmly. “You never said we was exclusive.”
That shut her up for half a second.
But only half.
“So I gotta be your girlfriend for you to respect me now?”
“Janiyah,” he said, his voice low, “I been respecting you. You the one flipping over some sh*t you saw while I was washing my damn hair.”
“You the one who had me out here thinking we building something,” she shouted, voice cracking just a little. “You f*cking me like I matter, but moving like I don’t.”
Smoke stepped in even closer.
His hand brushed her jaw.
“You do matter.”
Janiyah’s eyes glistened, but she didn’t back up.
“Then act like it.”
I sat on the couch real quiet, pretending to scroll while watching everything unfold.
This sh*t was giving toxic soap opera, but I felt bad too.
Janiyah was my girl. And seeing her care so much?
That hit different.
Smoke didn’t say another word.
He just took her face in both hands and kissed her like he was trying to prove something.
Deep. Messy. Passionate.
And she let him.
- Writer
