Page 92 of Certified to Handle You
The look she gave me after that let me know everything I needed to know, and instead of goin’ back and forth with her about it, I just shook my head and walked off toward the bathroom to start the shower. I stood there, lettin’ the water run while I gave both of us a second to cool off.
When I stepped back out, I looked at her where she was still standin’. Her energy was closed off in a way I couldn’t ignore, and I asked her if she was comin’ to the shower with me.
“I’m good,” she replied, not even lookin’ my way.
I stood there for a moment, watchin’ her, then let out a low, frustrated breath before turnin’ back toward the bathroom, already knowin’ she wasn’t budgin’ and I wasn’t about to keep pushin’ the shit.
By the time I got out the shower, brushed my teeth, tied my hair down, and threw on some black sweatpants, she still hadn’t said nothin’. She got off the bed, walked past me, and started her shower.
Twenty-five minutes later, she came back in the room and slid in bed without sayin’ a word.
Her body was turned away from me like she had already made up in her mind that she wasn’t dealin’ with me tonight. When I reached for her outta habit, tryna pull her closer, she stayed stiff under my touch to the point where I could feel it immediately, so I let my hand drop back to the mattress and just lay on my back. I stared up at the ceilin’, my mind runnin’ while the silence between us stretched longer than I really wanted it to.
In my mind, I had been showin’ up for Reni. I brought her around my family when she said I didn’t. I started bein’ more consistent when she said I wasn’t. I brought her here to spend days with my family and celebrate my mama’s birthday, which was somethin’ that actually mattered to me.
Somehow, after all the adjustments I had made and the way I had been showin’ up for her, we was still right here in this same space, dealin’ with another moment where she pulled away and shut down on me like I did somethin’ wrong.
I let out a slow breath as I kept starin’ up at the ceilin’, my hands restin’ on my chest while my mind kept runnin’ through everything I had done to meet Reni where she said she neededme to be. Instead of this shit feelin’ like progress, it started feelin’ like I was constantly fallin’ short no matter what the fuck I did.
And the more I laid there thinkin’ about it, the more it started settlin’ in that maybe it wasn’t even about what I was doin’ no more, ’cause for whatever reason, I was still endin’ up in a position where she felt unsatisfied. I was left tryna figure out how to fix somethin’ that ain’t feel like it had a clear answer.
That shit didn’t sit right with me at all, and whether I said it out loud or not, it had me startin’ to feel like maybe I just wasn’t enough for Reni in the way she needed me to be.
Yacht Nyori
Two days later…
This was my third day with Renza’s family, and at this point, I wasn’t even questionin’ what I was feelin’ anymore because it had been sittin’ on me the whole time we’d been out here.
It wasn’t nothin’ I had to figure out or sit and think about. I knew exactly what it was, and it kept showin’ up in little ways that made it harder to ignore the longer we stayed out there.
Pluto was the problem…
To most people, and her damn family, it might not have been in an obvious way, but I peeped it.
It was all in the way she carried herself like everything was supposed to move through her whether she said it out loud or not. It was the way plans changed dependin’ on how she felt. Itwas the way she could say she didn’t feel like doin’ somethin’ and suddenly nobody else felt like doin’ it either. It was the way Pressure hovered over her like she couldn’t breathe without him adjustin’ somethin’ for her, and after a while, it stopped feelin’ like we were all just out here enjoyin’ ourselves and started feelin’ like everybody was movin’ around her.
I didn’t care that she was pregnant, and that wasn’t my issue.
My issue was how everything kept bendin’ in her direction like she was the center of it, and nobody ever checked it or even looked at it like it was somethin’ worth questionin’. They just moved with it like that shit was normal, and after three days of watchin’ it, I was tired of actin’ like I didn’t see it.
The more I sat here payin’ attention, the more it started rubbin’ me wrong, because I wasn’t built to just fall in line behind nobody like that.
I ran my own shit. I made my own decisions, and I moved how I wanted to move, so watchin’ everybody shift their plans, their energy, and the whole direction of the day around one person just because she said so wasn’t somethin’ I was ever goin’ to be comfortable with.
I didn’t care who she was to them or how they chose to move around her because that shit had nothin’ to do with me at the end of the day.
Pluto might’ve ran how shit go when it came to them, but she didn’t run me, and that was the part that kept sittin’ in the back of my mind every time a plan got switched up or redirected.
I wasn’t about to sit here and let a pregnant, unemployed woman who did nothin’ but lay up and have babies back-to-back try to make me feel like I was supposed to follow behind her. I had my own life. I had my own responsibilities, and I moved how I wanted to move. Listenin’ to someone like Pluto wasn’t how I was built, and it wasn’t the type of woman I was.
On top of that, she had been movin’ like I wasn’t even here on the damn yacht.
She wouldn’t look my way unless she had to. If I spoke, she heard me, but she only responded when it involved everybody else. Other than that, it was like I didn’t even exist, and that type of shit got old real quick with me because I saw it for exactly what it was.
I had been keepin’ it cool for Renza and for his family, because I wasn’t about to come out here and start problems, but that didn’t mean I was about to keep sittin’ here actin’ blind either. At some point, that shit started spillin’ over whether I wanted it to or not, and me and him had been feelin’ it without really sayin’ too much about it.
We wasn’t sittin’ the same. We wasn’t sleepin’ the same. It had got to the point where we was layin’ in the same bed with our backs turned like we both knew somethin’ was off but neither one of us was tryin’ to be the one to push it there.
