Page 2 of Merci

The Next Morning

Feeling David’s beard and lips on me annoyed me, when it usually would have made me smile. Pushing him away, I groaned and groggily opened my eyes. I didn’t even know when I’d fallen back asleep, but I’d gotten up long enough to shower and handle my hygiene before crawling back into bed and crashing. It was around four in the morning when I’d gotten back home from Rocko’s party, and my alarm didn’t care about that at all. That annoying buzz started like it always did, right at 7 AM.

“Get up, boo. You gon’ be late,” David said softly, as if I needed the reminder.

“That’s the great thing about being your own boss. You can go to the office whenever you want to,” was what I said, but I sat up anyway.

“Yes, but didn’t you tell me you had a meeting with a potential new client today?”

“Shit, you’re right.” Panicking, I hopped out of bed and headed to my closet, regretting not setting my clothes out for work last night before I went to the party. “What time is it?”

“Eight fifteen.”

“Oh God. I have fifteen minutes to get dressed and out the door. Otherwise, I’m going to be late for this meeting.”

“You’ll make it, Merci. Don’t panic. You know that only makes you later somehow.”

I didn’t want to agree with him, but I couldn’t help but smile. If I rushed, I couldn’t think, or I would overthink and become indecisive and forgetful, and I’d always end up being later than I would have been if I’d gone slower and simply taken my time.

“Yeah, yeah. Where were you last night?” I asked, grabbing a pair of black slacks, since they were the first thing my eyes settled on, and a black silk blouse to match.

“With my brothers,” he muttered, and I rolled my eyes.

I couldn’t stand David’s brothers. Thankfully, we weren’t in a committed relationship, because I couldn’t see forever with a man if I didn’t get along with his family. That was super important to me. Well, it wasn’t that I didn’t get along with David’s brothers. They were just corny and fake to me. Growing up around the solid men I did, made it hard for me to entertain certain things. My guards were up heavy with David because I felt like he could be just as flawed as his brothers, but since we were just having fun, it was cool for now.

“You didn’t see me calling you?” I confirmed, putting the clothes on my bed.

“I did. It was loud at the lounge, so I said I was going to call you on my way home, but I forgot. By the time I got there, I knew you were at the party. That’s why I came over this morning.”

“Mhm. Don’t do that shit no more. If I call you, go outside and answer.”

He laughed, but I was dead serious. One thing I didn’t play about was requirements and boundaries. If I felt like I couldn’t get in touch with and depend on David to answer my calls, that would be a strike against him. I could have been having an emergency, and he wouldn’t have had a clue.

I dressed as quickly as I could, pulled my braids up into a bun, and decided I had no time to try and do a makeup look. Instead, I put on my signature brown liner, pink lipstick, and clear lip gloss. After giving David a quick kiss, I told him to make sure he locked up on my keypad when he left and then headed out.

The good thing about me falling back asleep and rushing to the office meant I had no time to check my phone notifications. Even without me looking, I felt in my gut that I had several notifications regarding Emmy’s shenanigans last night. Though her posts hadn’t gotten as much motion as I believe she wanted them to, over twenty people had shared them, and a lot of messy people were in her comments, hyping up her erratic behavior.

For a brief moment, I felt bad for her. Something was clearly wrong with her, and the one person who would usually check in and reel her in when she was spiraling, she’d made her target. I reminded myself of my hurt from last night and refused to give her grace, though. Even if she was spiraling, that didn’t excuse her bad behavior directed toward me. It was her responsibility to prioritize her mental health, and if she didn’t, it would have been what she expected to be an excused weapon against me.

This wasn’t the first time Emmy had been paranoid and making up false narratives in her head. It was actually the third.The other two times, she went ghost on me, did what she said was inner work, and chalked it up to her anxiety, paranoia, and depression. Last we talked about it, she’d been on medication for her anxiety, so I still wasn’t sure what the hell was going on.

Shaking thoughts of her out of my head, I made my way into my conference room after speaking to my receptionist, Tandii, and confirming my potential client was already here. I’d already made up in my mind to give them 15 percent off my services for the inconvenience of me being late if they decided to book me. I would have never allowed hosting a party to have me late, but I was so fucked up over Emmy that I drank more and stayed longer than I usually would’ve. Ma was right, though. I couldn’t give Emmy any more of my thoughts and energy.

Regardless of how much her actions hurt me, I’d have to take it to the chin, never the chest, and move on.

2

HAMMER

Funerals always had a way of forcing you to face how fast life goes by. In retrospect, the years rolling by seemed slow, but when it was time for someone you loved to be in that casket, you never seemed to have enough time. Pops would always tell us death was a part of life, and what mattered most was what you did while you were here.

I didn’t realize how crazy his family and lifestyle was for that to be something he ingrained into my and my brother’s brains at such a young age. Back then, we’d go to a family member or friend’s funeral at least eight times a year. And before my pops died, he expected both my brother and me to follow in his bloody footsteps.

As I followed behind the hearse to bury my oldest friend, guilt consumed me. When I left the hood and denounced my family’s plans for me, I lost touch with a lot of my first friends. Nathan was at the top of that list. He was a hood legend who had no plans to ever leave… or stop selling drugs for that matter. Out of all the violent, crazy, illegal shit the fifty-one-year-old had been getting into since he was a kid, it was cancer that claimed his life. That was one enemy he was unable to beat, unfortunately.

About two years had passed since the last time Nathan and I had seen each other, and even then, it was at another homeboy’s funeral. He looked significantly different… smaller, darker, hollow in the cheeks… but I chalked it up to him aging. It never crossed my mind that my boy was sick and would be transitioning soon. Though we hadn’t seen each other in years, we still checked in with each other twice a month and sent each other monetary gifts on Christmas and our birthdays. But now that he was gone, I realized that wasn’t enough.

I’d rather him be on Earth and we not talk or see each other by choice, than to know he was gone, and we’d never be able to see each other again. That was a different kind of pain when you couldn’t talk to or see someone because they were no longer here. I replayed his sister’s words of comfort at the funeral—grief was just leftover love that you can’t give to that person physically—as tears filled my eyes.