Get Ready for War by Ni-Ni Simone Page B

You don’t have time to be driving fifty and sixty miles just so I can duck and dodge cameras. The only thing you have time for are condoms and lectures to tell me about how you can’t do me. So cool. Since you don’t have time then, what are you standing here for? Why don’t you step? As a matter fact you’re moving too slow.” I walked over to the front door and swung it open.
    Knox shook his head. “You’re pathetic. Do you even hear how you sound? You are really buggin’. I’ve been calling you for five days straight, leaving four and five messages a day. And you would have four or five more if your inbox wasn’t full. I came here because I was feeling like dirt, and bad—”
    â€œYeah right, Knox. Only reason you’re here and the only thing you want to know is if I plan on ruining your lil precious life. Well, I don’t, college boy, so you go run along and play with your frat brothers, ’cause I’m good. Now. Get. Out!”
    He chuckled in disbelief. “You got some serious issues.” He shook his head. “You don’t have to tell me twice to get out. I’m not gon’ sweat you. I told you what it was. I told you how I felt, but you only hear what you want to hear. Did you hear me when I said that I wanted to be with you all the time? That we had to take it slow because we had the rest of our lives to be together? But you didn’t hear any of that. So skip it, you’re right. You do you, and while you’re doing that, grow up. Little girl!” He walked swiftly out the door and before I could think about what to do next, he was revving out of the driveway and reversing down the hill.
    Immediately my heart shattered, pieces of it flying in different directions, pricking my skin and making me feel sick to my stomach. My head ached. My heart ached. My body ached. I was confused. I didn’t know what to do. All I knew is that I was leaning back against the wall, sliding to the floor. Tears raced from my eyes.
    â€œNow that’s a shame,” my mother said as she came in and stood over me. She shook her head. “Thought you were grown. At least that’s how you brought it to me. But a grown woman knows how to handle her relationships and how to keep her man. Not chase him away.” She rolled her eyes. “But. Then again. When you treat your mother like dirt you get what you get.”
    â€œMa—”
    â€œOh please. We’re on a first-name basis, remember? Now get up off my freshly waxed floor and go to your room—excuse me, my room, that I’m still kind enough to let you sleep in. I don’t want to hear all this crying and carrying on for another moment.” She snapped her fingers. “Now let’s go. Take that to your bedroom, the one you need to start paying rent on. Because that’s another thing grown women do—pay their own way.”
    I couldn’t believe this was happening. This trick was at it again. All about Logan and nothing about Rich. Here I’d just lost my man, was throwing myself a pity party, and there she was adding piss to my punch. If I had the strength I’d kick her...
    I wiped my eyes, stood up from the floor and regained my balance. Just as I’d gotten myself together enough to walk without my legs feeling like willow branches, I looked my mother over and headed straight to my room.

8
    London
    I watched as Rich snatched up her oversized Balenciaga bag and stormed toward the door in dramatic fashion. And for a hot second, I could have sworn she threw an extra shake in her thick hips just as she slammed the door. Skank!
    What in the hell just happened here?
    This is not how the meeting with the two of them was supposed to go down!
    I blinked my eyes, totally dumbfounded at what had quickly unfolded in front of me. My best friend literally whoring herself out to my man! So what if she didn’t exactly know that’s who he was. The