Page 13 of The Birthday Girl
The longer she stared, the more her stomach twisted. The mouth. The nose. The slight tilt of the brow. They were all Tyriq’s. She couldn’t escape the similarities that leapt out of the baby’s face and tied themselves to his.
It was impossible. It had to be impossible.
Yet the baby wrinkled her tiny forehead, and the resemblance heightened beneath Tahlia’s skin. Her throat locked as if she had swallowed fire, and her pulse thundered in her ears, drowning out the bass, the whispers, even the baby’s soft cry. Her gaze flicked once more between Tyriq’s smirk and the infant’s squinting brow, the resemblance hammering against her chest until something inside her finally broke.
She didn’t speak. She couldn’t. But she could move.
The champagne bottle swung in one clean, vicious arc, colliding with the side of Tyriq’s head. The sound cracked through the hall in a hollow, brutal thud that silenced the entire room. Glass splintered, fizz and foam exploding across his suit as he staggered sideways, the baby jolting in his arms. Danielle shrieked and reached for the infant just as Tyriq stumbled, barely managing to shove the child into her arms before he crumpled to the floor.
Gasps erupted, the crowd pushed back, and someone screamed her name, but Tahlia didn’t hear any of it. She stood over him, chest heaving, the jagged neck of the broken bottle still clenched in her fist, her hands trembling as champagne and blood dripped from the glass onto the floor.
Tyriq groaned, rolling onto his back, one hand clutching the side of his head. His eyes found hers, dazed and stunned, and for the first time since she had known him, the confidence was gone.
Danielle backed away with the baby, tears streaking through her makeup, her voice a high, panicked cry, “Tahlia, what have you done?”
The room swirled with chaos. Some relatives rushed forward, others froze with their mouths open in horror, but all Tahlia could see was him. The man she once loved. The man who now wears her heartbreak dripping down his temple, shining under the banquet lights.
Tahlia’s mother, Tisha, was first to reach Tyriq, her gold bangles clinking as she fluttered around his bleeding skull. “Lord, Jesus! Someone call 911!” she shrieked, but her eyes never left Tahlia.
In them wasn’t shock but accusation, as if Tahlia had finally proven her right. As if she’d always known it would end up like this because Tahlia was a woman with too much money and not enough sense.
Tahlia let the broken bottle drop, and the glass hit the tile with a sad tink, rolling until it caught on a discarded streamer. Her hands, still sticky with champagne and blood, hovered at her sides. She waited for the horror, the regret, but it didn’t come. Only a cold, heavy clarity that this was always her trajectory. This was the only ending available to a person such as her.
“No!” Tyriq winced, his voice ragged as he tried to push himself upright. “Do not call 9-1-1.” His palm, slick with blood, left a streak across the tile as he tried to steady himself.
The crowd froze, torn between obeying him and doing what common sense demanded. Someone’s phone hovered in midair, thumb poised over the call screen.
“Tyriq, baby, you’re bleeding—” Danielle’s voice cracked, her arms tightening around the infant.
“I said no!” he barked, the sound cutting through the shrieks and whispers.
Then he coughed, a wet, rattling sound that stole his breath. He grimaced while wiping his face with the back of his hand, leaving a smear of scarlet from cheekbone to jaw as his gazelocked on Tahlia. She stood motionless as a predator after the kill.
Her eyes, once warm amber, were now wild and disbelieving, yet somehow vacant of all humanity. Her spine had straightened to steel, shoulders thrown back, chin tilted upward in defiance. Everything about her posture screamed danger.
Her fingers were splayed at her sides, feet planted shoulder-width apart in four-inch Louboutins that could double as weapons. The broken bottle’s jagged neck lay on the floor beside her stiletto, with a thin rivulet of blood-tinged champagne snaking between the tiles, making her look even more menacing.
It was the first time he’d ever been afraid of her, and she was thrilled. Tahlia’s lips parted in a slow inhale, her chest still heaving, and the silence between them grew heavy and raw.
Tisha pressed a napkin against Tyriq’s temple, fussing as she tried to stop the bleeding. “You need stitches and could have a concussion! You need medical attention.”
“I said,don’t call.” His voice lowered, guttural. He shoved her hand away, leaving her clutching the bloodied napkin. “Nobody’s calling the cops.”
The room buzzed with tension, relatives whispering, eyes darting between Tahlia and Tyriq, waiting to see what would erupt next.
Tahlia’s gaze didn’t waver. She wasn’t ashamed, humiliated, or even sorry about what she’d done. For the first time in years, she felt seen.
Danielle shifted backward, her face streaked with mascara, her voice breaking into the silence. “You could have killed him, Tahlia.”
Tahlia finally moved, her chin lifting, eyes cold as ice. She moved toward her sister, and the crowd shrank back instinctively as Tyriq, blood trickling down his jaw, flinched despite himself.
“That was the point,” Tahlia replied, her words carrying to every corner of the hall. “And you should thank God I didn’t put this bottle through your skull, or listen to the voice telling me to pick up that glass and drag it across your throat.”
Danielle’s lips trembled, her arms tightening around the infant as if the child’s pink swaddle could shield them both. “You’ve lost your mind,” she spat, her voice hollow.
Tahlia barked out a laugh, the sound humorless. “No. I’ve finally found it, and you two…” She stabbed a finger at Tyriq first, then Danielle, her voice dropping to a razor’s edge. “Better run when you see me coming, because next time we cross paths, Iwillkill you.”
5- Run Away Love
