Page 74 of Certified To Handle You 2

“They not excuses, Renza. They real reasons.”

“Nah, the real reason is you still worried about him,” he said as his voice got louder. “You worried about how that nigga gon’ feel when he come back and realize you gone.”

I looked at Renza and felt somethin’ inside me start hardenin’ ‘cause I wasn’t about to let him turn the whole conversation into Couture. Yes, Couture was part of the mess, and I still had to deal with that, but my decision wasn’t only about him.

“This is exactly what I’m talkin’ about,” I told Renza. “You don’t listen. Soon as I say somethin’ you don’t like, you decide it gotta be about another nigga instead of lookin’ at what you doin’.”

“I know where that nigga stay,” he said, and the way his tone dropped made every muscle in my body tighten. “I know what airport he comin’ back through too. Soon as his ass land, I can handle the whole problem.”

I stared at Renza ‘cause I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. “How the hell you know where he stay?”

“That shit don’t matter.”

“Yes, it do,” I snapped. “You been followin’ him or somethin’?”

Renza looked at me without givin’ me an answer, and that silence told me enough. He had found out everything he wantedto know about Couture while I had been laid up in this house thinkin’ we was finally gettin’ somewhere.

“You are out yo’ damn mind,” I told him, takin’ a step back.

Renza’s expression turned cold. “I’m out my mind behind you. It’s a difference.”

“No, it ain’t,” I replied, my voice shakin’ from anger now. “You sittin’ here talkin’ about killin’ somebody who ain’t done shit to you just ‘cause you can’t get yo’ way.”

“He in my way.”

“He ain’t in yo’ way, Renza. Yo’ behavior is.”

That hit him ‘cause his face changed, but he recovered so fast I almost missed it. His lips pressed together, and he looked at me like I was the one who had crossed a line.

“I’ll kill that nigga and anybody else attached to him,” he said. “I don’t give a fuck about him or his family.”

My eyes burned while I stared at him, but I refused to let the tears fall yet. “Then do what you feel like you gotta do, Renza, but understand somethin’. If you kill an innocent person ‘cause you think that’s gon’ make me choose you, you wrong.”

He ain’t move, and neither did I.

“I will never forgive you,” I continued, lookin’ dead in his eyes. “I would be miserable with you, and every time I look at you, I would think about what you did. So if that’s the way you plan on gettin’ me, do yo’ biggest one.”

The anger left his face so quick that all I saw undern it was hurt.

Renza looked away from me, ran his hand down his face and stared at the floor like he was tryna get control of whatever was goin’ through his head.

Part of me wanted to take my words back ‘cause I knew they cut him deep, but I meant that shit. I loved him too much to let him think destroyin’ somebody else’s life was the way to build one with me.

For a while, neither one of us said anything. Renza finally walked over to where his clothes was and started pullin’ ‘em on without lookin’ at me.

“If I leave this city without you, I ain’t comin’ back out here no more,” he said after he pulled his pants up. His voice was calm now, but that calmness hurt worse than all the yellin’ did.

My eyes filled with tears ‘cause all I wanted was time. I wanted him to let me deal with my life, talk to Couture and make my own decision without feelin’ like a gun was pressed against everybody around me.

Instead, Renza had turned it into another choice I had to make before I was ready.

“Okay,” I whispered.

His head lifted so fast that I knew he ain’t expected me to say it. The look on his face damn near broke me ‘cause for one second, Renza ain’t look pissed off or dangerous. He looked like I had just told him he ain’t mean shit to me.

But he did mean somethin’…

He meant too damn much, and that was exactly why I couldn’t keep lettin’ him pull me wherever he wanted without thinkin’ about what it was doin’ to me.