Page 46 of Color Me Broken
She shook her head, breathing fast, hands trembling. “You can go live with that bitch Shy for all I care. Don’t worry about me.”
“Bae—”
“Don’t.” She took a step back from him, shaking all over. “Don’t call me that.”
Sirens wailed faintly in the distance, getting closer.
Niyah rubbed her forehead, pacing. “Girl… this is some shit I can’t even get you out of. You gon’ need Jesus and a lawyer.”
Juelz looked back at the burning house, then at Tasha. Her expression was hurt, broken, but still trying to act like she wasn’t falling apart.
“Tash?” he said, bending over, out of breath.
She was tired of the back-and-forth with him. She just wiped her eyes, chin high, breathing hard.
“Fuck you, Jue and everythin’ about you,” she cried. “I’m done.”
Before he could respond, Tasha turned and started walking past the yard, past the mailbox. Then she stopped at his car. TheOld School that he was crazy about. His 1971 Chevrolet Chevelle Coupe with the blue exterior and peanut butter interior.
Juelz froze, realizing a minute late what was about to happen.
“Tash, don’t you fuc?—”
The sound of glass shattering cut him off. One, two, three blows from the bat. Each swing was a heartbeat, each crack louder than the last. She smashed the front windshield next, glass spraying everywhere under the orange glow of the flames.
“Fuck you, Juelz!”Tasha screamed, swinging again. The bat crashed down on the hood of his Chevelle, metal denting deep before she burst out both headlights with two more hits.
“Tasha! Ta Ta, Tasha,”Juelz called out, stepping forward, gripping his hair. “This muthafucka crazy, yo. C’mon girl!” He was hysterical, jumping up and down. “That’s a fuckin classic. You know how much that shit gon’ run me?”
That car was the least of her worries, and she couldn’t care less how much it was to repair the damage.
Tasha kept swinging, taking every ounce of her anger out on his car, wishing with each hit it was him instead of metal. The bat clanged, glass shattered, and her breath came out in sharp, broken gasps.
When she was finally done, she stood there for a second, chest heaving, face wet, fingers tight around the bat. Then she dropped it, letting it roll across the concrete with a dull clank.
Tasha slipped her engagement ring off her finger. His ring. The one that used to mean forever and threw it straight at his forehead. It hit hard, then dropped at his feet, catching a glint of orange from the fire.
“Keep that,” she said coldly. “It's obvious it didn’t mean shit, no way.”
Without looking back, she headed for her Mercedes, slamming the door and driving off into the night, leavingJuelz standing there in the midst of his mess, surrounded by everything she’d destroyed. The house. Shyann’s car. His car.
Niyah grabbed his arm before he could chase her. “Let her go, Juelz…”
The flames behind them grew higher, lighting up the whole street. Tasha never looked back once. Not at the house. Not at him. Not at the life she had just set on fire with her own hands. She drove off into the night like a woman scorned, a woman done, a woman who wasn’t sorry for a damn thing. Not then. Damn sure not now. Hell, not ever.
Juelz wiped his face and stepped down off the curb. “I’m goin’ to get her.”
Niyah stepped in front of him, blocking him with her whole chest. “Juelz…please just stop. She’s gone!”
“Move, Niyah. That’s my fuckin’ whole world?—”
“She’s sick, Jue.”
“She what?” He froze, stunned by the words Niyah had spilled out of her mouth. “Run that shit by me again, yo.”
Niyah swallowed, eyes shiny, voice dropping low. “Tasha… she’s got cancer, Juelz.”
The word hit him harder than the fire, harder than her punches, harder than anything she said all night. The color had left his face. Leaving him pale as a saltine cracker.
