Page 4 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

Yo, no lie—straight tunnel vision.

‘You really gon’ talk about my fiancée like she’s some side-street slut?’

He held up a hand to stop me. ‘Yo, yo—hold up,’ he said with a fuckin’ grin. ‘You mean ex-fiancée, right?’

Bro. I lost it. Never even felt my arm move. Only the aftershock, the pop in my elbow. Harding’s head swung sideways, and his body followed, shoulder slammin’ the side mirror on pump six, snappin’ it off.

A cop car cruised past but didn’t slow.

Newark after dark—nobody gives a fuck.

I lit him up again. Hard. Fist to face. Cheekbone to Civic.

He slammed the taillight, plastic shattering, metal crumpling, before his body hit the ground. Bro ain’t swing at me once. He chilled right there.

‘Feel better, bro?’ he asked, cocky as fuck, givin’ me a smug-ass stare, brows up: ‘That do it for you?’

My fist was itchin’ to break every bone in his face, and I threw it into the side of his car, right by his ear. Metal popped and my knuckles stung. ‘Say her name, bitch.’

He ain’t say shit, so I grabbed his hoodie at his chest, yanked him forward. ‘You remember it, right? Black Camry. Popeyes. Half-hour smoke break. You remember.’

His smile didn’t fade. Shit grew with a shrug. ‘Nah. Never got her name. Ate that juicy-ass pussy and called her sweetheart.’

Yo—I ain’t never been so mad. When I say I almost caught a fuckin’ felony that night? It’s the truth. Two seconds from twenty-five to life.

I headbutted him right in the bridge of the nose, feelin’ the crunch before I heard it, like a stepped-on Coke can. His head snapped back and dented the metal of his car. ‘Say one more thing. I dare you. Say one more fuckin’ thing.’

But I ain’t give him a chance. I kept goin’, kept throwin’ until my knuckles went numb. Didn’t let go ‘til he fell limp in my fist and his body dropped, slidin' down the back of his Civic, face lookin’ like roadkill.

Did I feel better? Nah. I ain’t feel shit.

Some lady was yellin’ two blocks down. Then off to the side of the buildin’, some crackhead laughin’ to himself. World kept movin’ as I stood there, busted hands twitchin’, waitin’ for God or Karma or the asphalt to split and eat this motherfucker whole.

Never happened.

So I crouched down in front of him.

‘See you all lovey-dovey with some bitch you care about? I swear on my fuckin’ life I’ll take her. I’ll rip her outta your arms and fuck every hole right in front of you. You’ll never be able to kiss her or eat her pussy again without tastin’ my cock.’

I hawked one right in his face before leavin' him there, busted up, a pile of bones, lookin’ more dead-body than man under the busted Sunoco light.

You wanna know the sickest part?

I swear t’God, he ain’t even sorry.

That smirk told me one thing: he’d do it again.

And again. And again.”

NO. 07: THE FANTASY TURNED FUCKBOY

// TONI - MARCH ’23 - THE CLOVER - EAST VILLAGE, NYC //

“I know exactly who Andrew Harding is.

If I could lobotomize the part of me that remembers him, I would.

No hesitation.