Page 59 of Tainted

My phone vibrated, and I tried to scoop it up so fast that it bobbled in my hands.

Brandy: How long are you going to be mad at me?

I threw the phone aside, leaning back against the pillows. I wanted to forget how good it felt when I was in his arms, how easily we fit together.

“Forget him.” I sighed, scooping my phone back up.

Me: Hey, I’m off early on Friday. Do you want to hang out?

Romello: Damn, and here I was holding off texting you because I didn’t know what to say, and you got straight to the point.

Me: So I’ll take that as a yes or. . .

Romello: Hell yeah.

Me: Cool, lol. I scheduled the date. Plans are on you.

Romello: Say less. I got you shorty.

I thought making plans with Romello would cure my itch for Kenyon’s cologne, but it didn’t. I was still staring at the ceiling, recalling how his fingers felt on my skin. How his tongue felt devouring my nipples when there was a knock on the door.

Shuffling down the hallway, I peered out the front window and rolled my eyes at Brandy at my door.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“So you are still mad?” Brandy asked.

“Did Otto give you the money back?”

“No,” Brandy’s head fell in shame. I tried to look past her pitiful expression, but it was wearing me down while Jewel’s voice replayed in my head. Brandy wasn’t malicious. She never had been, but that didn’t excuse the predicament she had put us in.

“But this is all I have,” she said, offering the folded-up bills.

The remorse in her eyes made me let her in.

“We’ll need a lot more money than this.”

“I know it was stupid. I just.” Brandy’s words trailed off as she shut the door. “He asked. I mean, what was I supposed to say?”

“No!” I yelled, turning around in a rage. She made it seem like rocket science when it was as simple as one plus one.

Brandy sucked her teeth, “Forget it.”

“Might as well say what you have to say. I have.”

“Otto needed help, and he didn’t have anyone else. You’ve always had someone. A mother who would move heaven and earth for you. Shana even found you a daddy that loved you like his own. The rest of us aren’t so lucky, so I let Otto hold something.”

“You have Aunt Misa and Nana.”

Brandy laughed, but there wasn’t amusement in her eyes.

“Misa,” she repeated. “I don’t have Misa. I never have.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, blinking in bafflement at her statement.

“Exactly what I said, but enough about her. What are we going to do about Nana?”

My memories were far from what Brandy alluded to. Yet, her words hinted at a different reality.

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