Good god, what was I doing? I knew better than this. Love wasn’t supposed to feel like this.
It was supposed to feel safe. It was supposed to feel like home. So why was I accepting something that was so clearly less than that?
From my vantage point on the bed, I scanned the room for our clothes, finding my nightdress pooled on the floor below me. I sat up, pulling it back over my head. When my bedroom door finally opened and Ricky stepped back inside, it was to my tear-stained face.
“Whoa,” he said, taken aback by my expression. “Angie, are you crying?”
“Who was that?” I asked, swiping at my face with the heels of my hands.
Ricky raised his eyebrow.
“One of my aunties,”* he said slowly, taking a cautious step toward me.
“You have an aunt?” I asked. “Isn’t your dad an only child?”
Ricky folded his arms across his chest, suddenly defensive. Gingerly, he placed his phone facedown on my nightstand.
“I call my family friends my aunts and uncles, same as you,” he said. He furrowed his brow, delving his hand into his hair. “Okay, Angie, where is this coming from?”
“Where is it coming from?” I asked, aghast. “Ricky. You just told me that your ex is pregnant, and that you just spent the last week ‘helping her out.’ And now, you’re leaving me in bed so you can take a super sketchy phone call. Am I not allowed to feel some kind of way about that?”
“No, you’re not. Because you should know me better than to think that me just getting on the phone is ‘sketchy,’” he said, his voice saturated with frustration. “Come on, Angie. Don’t you trust me?”
Did I trust him? I thought about that question, watching his expression slacken with every second of my silence. If he’d asked me this same question a week ago, when we were still passing our days cracking jokes at my dining table, I would have answered with an emphatic Yes, of course. But too much had happened since then. We had regressed.
“I don’t know,” I said. I brought my knees to my chest, looking down at the crumpled sheets where he’d lain only a few minutes before. “I want to. But I don’t think I do.”
Ricky didn’t say anything for a long time. I could feel the frustration waft off him in waves, hear the crack of his knuckles as he stretched and flexed his fingers. When he finally did speak, it was in a hushed, strained tone.
“I don’t know what you want me to do about that,” he said. “Because the way I see it, I haven’t given you any reason to feel that way.”
I sputtered, taken aback.
“No reason? Not one? Really?” I said. “I never know what you’re feeling, Ricky. The last time I decided to trust you, you disappeared. And now, you can’t even stay in my bed for ten minutes after we’ve fucked in it before you’re running out of it.”
“Look, I’m sorry,” he said, in a way that suggested that sorry was a generous term. “Next time I talk to my family, I’ll make sure I’m still naked in bed with you.”
Maybe if he’d been truly apologetic, I could have been assuaged. If he loved me, if there was nothing to hide, why the defensiveness? Why not just laugh, why not just hold me, why not say something like, “Why you bugging, girl?” and tell me stories about this “Auntie” of his? I wished Tabatha could stop being right all the time. She’d called it herself—if I had no doubts about Ricky, if he had no doubts about me, if we could come to my family as a clear, united, star-crossed front, then it would be worth it. If Ricky were stalwart, I could be sure that choosing him over a top residency program wouldn’t end in tragedy. If his affection was consistent, if it was predictable, I could give him the deed to my heart.
As it was . . . Ricky was too much of a risk.
I must’ve muttered the last part out loud, because Ricky wound back like he’d been stung.
“A risk?” he said. His eyes widened, and he laughed darkly, shaking his head. “Yo, what the fuck? Is that what you think, that I’m too much of a risk?”
I grit my teeth, not answering, knowing that would be all the answer he would need.
“Ah,” Ricky said. “No. Don’t bother. I get it.” His smile was acerbic. “I know your sister doesn’t think I’m good enough for you, right? And you don’t think I’m good enough either.”
I recoiled. “That’s not true—”
“Yes it is, Angie,” Ricky said. “That’s why you’re doing this, right? That’s why you’re making this hard for no reason. Because you’ve decided that I’m not, what, rich enough or something? Like you’re slumming it with me.”