Page 153 of IRL: In Real Life
Public was real.
The room was real.
How a woman felt standing beside you was real.
I picked up my phone. No text. Called. She didn’t answer.
My heart sped so hard it made me stand still. Because Talia always answered my calls. Always.
I looked at the screen like maybe it would fix itself if I stared hard enough. Nothing. Just her name.
Then voicemail.
“Damn,” I muttered.
Devon looked up from the couch. “She pick up?”
I shook my head once.
That made everything in me go colder than I liked, because when you were already standing in the doorway of a mistake, every small silence sounded bigger.
What if I fucked up enough that maybe not today turned into maybe not ever again?
I stood there in Devon’s living room with Madden still paused on the TV and my phone hot in my hand and knew exactly one thing for sure.
I was not sitting down again until I fixed it.
twenty-four
. . .
Kendra was waitingat the curb when I stepped out of the salon, her black Audi Q5 idling like she had somewhere important to be and had chosen my emotional instability as the detour. Oversized Celine sunglasses covered half her face, but her mouth was already shaped for trouble.
“Well?” she asked through the open window.
“Well what?”
“Did the saints at Mena’s save you or make it worse?”
I slid into the passenger seat and let out a breath. “Both.”
“That sounds correct.”
We ended up at Ross Park Mall because apparently emotional unrest still benefited from retail. Kendra said that was science, and I was too tired to fight her on it.
The mall was cool and bright and expensive in that polished suburban way that made women start spending money like they had something to prove to themselves.
Maybe I did.
I bought a butter-yellow A.L.C. midi dress with a waist that deserved its own thank-you note. A black SIMKHAI knit dress that fit like a threat. A pair of nude Gianvito Rossi pumps because suffering should at least have good heels attached to it. Then I wandered into Sephora and let a girl with flawless skin talk me into a fresh tube of Charlotte Tilbury Pillow Talk gloss, a new Pat McGrath lip pencil in Deep Dive, and a NARS blush I absolutely did not need but wanted on principle.
Kendra watched me swipe my card and shook her head. “You spend money like a woman trying not to text somebody.”
“I am not trying not to text somebody.”
Kendra looked over at me. “Okay. Then prove you’re not in love with that nigga and put your phone in your bag.”
That got me laughing in spite of myself.
