Page 21 of Mahogany 1

“You not cooking?” He questioned with raised brows.

I eyed him up and down with a snarl, getting ready to get into the car. “Nigga, hell naw I’m not cooking. I’m tired as hell.”

Emotionally tired. I couldn’t remember how many times I had to quickly swipe away at tears I didn’t want anybody to see earlier. I felt like I’d gone unnoticed enough but wasn’t no telling. Nicole was attentive as hell and probably noticed every forced uncomfortable giggle and quick rub of my eyes too. I didn’t know much about her but by how sharp she was at thetongue, and quick with that Apple Pencil, I knew enough to know she was for no games at all.

I had plans to cook. Before Nicole and Duke pissed me off. The fucking beginning. Fuck the beginning. Yes, I was still on that and would be for a minute. Talking about who I was, and the innocence I had before it was stripped away from me was painful. I missedher. Fifteen-year-old Mahogany. Sassy, smart, witty, church girl Mahogany.

It was the beginning that pegged me. I might’ve been fifteen, but the delusion made me sick to my stomach. I needed to let it go. Tried to. Had been trying to let that go for years. For the most part, I did a pretty good job coasting through life barely thinking about it. However, today that reality taunted me. Made me mad at life all over again.

And then there was next week…

Next week we were going to divulge deeper into the story of when Duke met Mahogany. Yep… when Duke met Mahogany because that nigga was on my ass! I didn’t want anything to do with him. He was too popular. Too… Duke. And to be Duke Morris was to be a smooth-talking ho. I did not want to talk about any of that shit. But hey… we were taking it slow. Molasses on the pavement on a cold, frigid, winter day, slow. At least that’s what it felt like. Every word that muthafucka spoke, I wanted to go upside his head. It was cute, and reminiscent for him. He smiled his way through the story. I wondered if he’d smile, proud, when we talked about what happened when I was pregnant with Aubry. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he did. He looked at every hard stage in our relationship as a triumphant moment we got over when in reality it wasn’t. I was the one forced to overcome. Forced to push my feelings down and carry on while he, for the hundredth time, got away with something he should’ve been sent to the pits of fuckin’ hell over.

But that was neither here nor there right? I was supposed to just move on, right? Brushing my hand over my forehead, I sighed and told myself that I’d unwrap old wounds when it was time to unwrap them.

“Fuck it then,” he said with a nonchalant shrug. “What we eatin? Popeyes?”

“I don’t want Popeyes. I’m getting me and the kids hibachi,” I dismissed, before flipping my sun visor down to check my eyeliner. “I promised it to them last week.”

“Aight bet,” he replied, leaning on the car, most likely going over the menu at the hibachi restaurant all of a sudden.

How relaxed he was after therapy annoyed the hell out of me but instead of addressing it, I ignored him. After about five minutes of him rambling about a bunch of nothing, he kissed me on the cheek and told me he’d meet me at the crib. No, I love you, no drive safe… nothing that would soften me up a bit. Just Duke being Duke. The mask he wore during therapy, completely off.

6

DUKE

With a sigh,I dragged my hands down my face, watching Mahogany pull out of the parking lot. She was heated. And me? Shit, I was doing what I thought would help. Trying to lighten the mood but that shit was a fail. She wasn’t with it. Honestly, it felt like me and my jokes only made things worst. I couldn’t for the life of me understand what the fuck she was so mad about anyway. To me, therapy was straight. The only thing we talked about today was the obvious shit. Why we were there and the beginning. And from where I stood, the beginning was the best place we’d ever been in our relationship. It might’ve sounded crazy, considering we got together when we were teenagers, but love was easier back then. Life? Not so much. But my baby was a lot easier to love and hell, I felt like I was too.

My phone rang, pulling me out of my thoughts. Turning the car on, I shifted it in drive and then answered my nigga Cecil’s call.

“What up doe?” I answered.

“What up doe, nigga? You pullin up?”

“Pullin up? Pullin up where, fool?”

“I told you he didn’t check the group chat, nigga. I told you he didn’t,” said my other boy, Leland, in the background.

“Tank crib.”

“On a weekday? You niggas wylin’,” I said with a laugh.

“Here this nigga go,” Tank complained. “Boy got a curfew and shit. He gotta ask mommy if he can come out.”

They laughed and I said, “Fuck y’all. It’s the principles, bitch. I got work?—“

“Boy act like he the only one with a job and shit,” Cecil cut in. “Pull up, nigga. Just for a couple hours. We tryin to get a game goin and I’m not playin with Bubba’s fat ass.”

“Fuck you, bitch,” Bubba, Tank’s cousin, huffed in the background.

Shit, cards and liq didn’t sound too bad. There was nothing waiting for me back at the crib besides silence, an attitude, and probably a conversation I didn’t want to have anyway.

Me, Leland, Cecil, and Tank all grew up and went to school together. We played ball at Osborn High School and neither of us had played professional. Lee was in tech, Cecil worked at Chrysler, and Tank was still on street shit. It worked for him, so I didn’t knock him. Shit was dead end to me. I got in and got out right after. I tried it after NeNe had Aubry and quickly found out that the street, hustlin’ shit wasn’t for me. I still liked the hood though. It was home despite staying in the suburbs. The hood is where I felt most comfortable so any time they called about cards or shooting dice, I was with it.

“Let me hit you back in a lil’ bit?—“

“Told you niggas he gotta check in with mommy first,” Tank continued to joke.

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