I replied with a slight smile. “Yeah.” I looked back out the window. When I looked over at him again he was deep in thought, so I looked in the back seat to talk to Toya, but she wasn’t there.
“Where’s Toya?” I asked.
I’d pulled his mind from his thoughts. He ran his hand across his eyes. “Oh, yeah, I dropped her off. You was over there, asleep. She said she has to work in a few hours. We had been sitting in the police station for over five hours.” He yawned.
“Wow, I didn’t know that. You guys are such good friends.”
He nodded and kept driving. There was some tension in the air between us. We hadn’t really talked since the gun incident.
“So, what’s wrong? Why aren’t you talking to me, Kev?”
“What you mean? I do talk to you.”
“Yeah, but it’s different now. I knew sooner or later we would have to have this conversation.”
“Reese, you actually stopped talkin’ to me when you found out about the business we were in. I couldn’t make that man tell you what or who he really was. It wasn’t my place.” He kept driving, looking over at me every few minutes. “So? If I might ask, how did you think I was supposed to handle that fact?”
He laughed. “Why do you care, Reese? Huh? Why do you care what I think? That’s been almost a year ago. You haven’t left Jason and he dogs you. You don’t talk to me, you got yo’ sons here and there, and we pickin’ you up from a police station for assaulting yo’ best friend! Anything in this picture make sense to you? Huh?”
“But, Kev, we supposed to be better than that. You could have said somethin’ instead of smiling in my face like everything was everything!” My voice cracked as I spoke.
Kev stopped the car and pulled it over. “Okay, you wanna know, really know, how and what that man think about you?” He looked over at me. He was yelling at the top of his lungs. “Huh? You think you ready for this wakeup call?” He lowered his voice and calmed down a little. He waited for me to reply.
“Yeah, I’m ready,” I said softly.
Kev pulled out his cell and dialed a number. “Shh, don’t say nothing, Reese.” He looked me in my eyes.
“I’m not, I promise.”
He dialed. “What’s up, Kev?” It was Jason. He blew smoke out when he answered the phone.
“Man, why you ain’t go get Reese? That’s foul.” Kev looked over at me.
“I wasn’t goin’ to get her! She clowned at the movies, Kev!”
“Jay, you wrong. You was supposed to be in Detroit for one, and two you sittin’ in her house right now! That’s grimy, Jay, real grimy.”
Jason laughed. “Yup, I am sittin’ right in her crib wit’ my feet up. She better be glad I didn’t bring skanky girl back here instead of takin’ her to the motel,” he yelled.
“Jay, you a dog. You know that’s shady!”
Jason laughed. “Whatever, man. Reese needed to sit in there for embarrassing me and herself! Maybe she will think next time.”
Kev looked over at me. I was moving around in my seat, and as much of an embarrassment the call was, it was still very painful. Kev could see I was irritated by the call. Jason was still talking when Kev interrupted him. “All right, Jay, I’m headed home so I can get some sleep.”
“Aey!” Jason yelled.
“Yeah?” Kev answered.
“Where she at?”
Kev looked at me before answering. I shrugged my shoulder, raised my eyebrow, and told him with my eyes the answer to that.
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, all right. She must be on her way here. I’ll talk to you later, one,” Jay said.
Kev watched me; then he nodded his head and poked out his lips as if he was disappointed. “One,” Kev replied. Kev hung up.
I sat there feeling so stupid. I was a fool to believe Jason cared, when in actuality all he cared about was himself. Kev looked over at me. He started his truck.
“I only shared that wit’ you ’cause I want you to make some changes, Reese. Listen, that’s my boy but . . .”
I couldn’t believe Kev was talkin to me like this. Who gave him the right to tell me, even if it was the truth? And it was. I couldn’t even respond to him ’cause I knew he was right. So I just sat there and listened.
“Look, Reese, I’m sorry, but you need to get it together. You are special and beautiful, inside and out. You don’t deserve to be treated like this!” Kev’s voice was starting to rise. I could tell he was passionate about this situation. “I love, Jay, I do, but he ain’t worth what he taking you through, baby. You need to cut yo’ losses and move on.”
I didn’t have anything to say. I stared out the window the whole time he spoke.
“I’m not tryin’a tell you what to do, sweetheart, but I’m out. I’m leaving Ohio real soon and getting myself out of this life. It’s not worth it. I know better than this.” He looked out the window. “My moms tried to tell me.”
He pulled into the parking lot of the movie theatre where my car was and drove up to it slowly. “I look at what happened to Shy while I was out of town. He had just turned eighteen, on his way to college wit’ a full ride, and they still ain’t found out who killed him.”
He had tears in his eyes. He wiped his eye before the moisture could spill over. “Reese, I can’t be responsible for no more of these young boys’ lives. I don’t have the heart for this anymore.”
I looked at him and my eyes got big. I realized he didn’t know that Jason killed Shy. And just like he’d told me, it wasn’t my place to tell him.
I reached over and gave him another hug; then we looked at each other and I closed my eyes and kissed him on the lips. I smiled. He smiled back.
