Page 58 of Color Me Broken
“A’ight. Go head. Do all that shit.” He looked her up and down, disgusted by the words she let spill off her tongue. “I bet that fucked up uterus still won’t getcha a baby,” he shot back, turning to leave.
She gasped loudly. She couldn’t believe he went below the belt like that.Literally. Out of all the shit Juelz could’ve said, this nigga chose those words.Fucked up. Uterus.Baby.All in one sentence. His words stabbed her deeper than the knife Shyann had in her back. They found a deep place within her that was already bruised by doctor’s offices, the whispered damn maybes, and quiet prayers she never said out loud.
That wasn’t just anger he used. That was knowledge. That was facts turned into a weapon. For a split second, the room disappeared, leaving just Tasha and the truth he’d thrown at her like it was nothing more than a bad habit he was tired of holding in.
Her chest tightened. Her vision blurred. Tears spilled before she could stop them, hot and humiliating. Of all the places he could’ve cut her, he chose the one she protected the most. The one she pretended didn’t ache. The one she carried alone. Juelz didn’t take it back. That hurt her worse.
Her hand went for the first thing she could reach. The biscuit was still warm when she threw it, all her rage and heartbreak. She couldn’t put into words what was packed inside that single motion. It hit him square in the back of the head, soft, but it said everything that she couldn’t.
He turned back one last time, brushing the biscuit crumbs off his dreads. He stared at her for a beat. His eyes searched hers. He knew what he said was hurtful, but her letting another man be with her intimately hurt worse. The thought alone tore him up inside. Breaking their stare, Mar pulled Juelz toward the door, and the restaurant guests parted like the Red Sea around them as Meeka followed them out. The heavy oak door swung shut, leaving Tasha standing in the center of the wreckage.
Silence swallowed the room.
Kenji steadied himself, hand interlocked behind his head. “Tasha,” he said, quietly, “You good?”
Tasha wasn’t breathing. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably. Juelz had exposed her. The whole restaurant now knew about her failing body.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. She stood frozen, as if she were naked in a room full of people.
Kenji stepped close, not touching her, just standing in front of her like a shield.
“Come on,” he said softly, his hand hovering at the small of her back. “We gotta get you outta here.”
And for once?
Tasha didn’t argue. She let him lead her out past the phones, the whispers, and the stares, leaving her old life bleeding on the restaurant floor.
Juelz sat slouchedon the black sectional, with an ice pack pressed to his bruised knuckles. They were already swelling, split right across the bone. He kept flexing his hand, trying to force the blood back into the places that felt dead. Mar let Meeka trail him to Juelz’s penthouse in their car while he drove Juelz, lecturing him the whole ride, but he hadn't heard a word.
His mind was stuck on the image of Tasha, casually sitting with another man. It was a loop he couldn't turn off. He was brought out of his daze by a knock at the door.
One that cut through the silence of the penthouse. Juelz’s head snapped up. His heart did something he’d never felt before, jumped, then twisted. He dropped the ice and made his way to the door, not wanting company.
“Mar, nigga…Ion wanna hear no more of that shhiii?—”
He stopped mid-sentence. The air left his lungs.
“Tash…” he breathed.
She stood there, frozen. Her chest was rising and falling in jagged rhythms, her eyes rimmed with the kind of red that only comes from a long, lonely drive. She wanted to curse him out for the shit he said back at the restaurant, but seeing him there with his man bun and tatts exposed, her body made a different choice for her.
She grabbed his face with trembling hands, crashing her mouth against his. It wasn’t romantic at all. It was sloppy and desperate. It was the taste of salt, sorrow, and months of silence all spilling out at once.
Juelz stumbled back a step from the force of her, his hands instinctively catching her thighs, picking her up like muscle memory. He kicked the door closed with his foot.
“I can bite your fuckin’ lips off right now, Jue,” Tasha said, biting down on his lip.
“Fuck…Tasha… I’m so sorry, stank,” he whispered against her lips, she kissed him harder, fingers tangled in his dreads, breath shaking like she’d break if she stopped.
He pressed her against the wall, breathing her in, kissing her like he’d been dying for it.
“I need you, Jue,” she moaned, pulling him back, looking into his eyes. “I—I need you.”
He groaned low in his throat, forehead against hers, both of them gasping. “You sure?” he asked, even though he was already falling apart in her hands. “You was just with that lame ass nigga.”
The jealousy hit him fast, cutting through the lust. “Did you give that clown nigga my pussy, Tasha? Huh?”
She stopped mid-kiss, lips still touching his, but the warmth had evaporated. “No! Juelz?—”
