“It’s not to a degree, but it at least warranted some kind of public acknowledgment from us, and I didn’t say a word. But when my boyfriend got stopped l literally called on the cavalry, like Patrice said, it’s hypocritical.”

I could almost hear Pri thinking on the other end of the call. “But things had been going well. Right?”

I wanted to curl under the covers and not come out until I’d literally slept away all my feelings. “We were doing great.” I ran my hand over the satin-covered pillow that still had the imprint of Patrice’s head. The smell of coconut oil still lingering on the smooth surface. “I don’t know how to fix this, Pri. Patrice wants perfection, for every person in his life to interpret things the way he thinks they should and anything beyond that is betrayal. I can’t live up to that. I need him to be able to love me with the flaws I have. I can’t do with Patrice what I had to with my parents my whole life.”

“Fuck no.” Pri’s outrage, made a tired smile break out on my face. “Patrice needs to get his head out of his ass, for real.” She let out a long breath, deflated by the conversation. “Babe, I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too, but I’m not going to beg Patrice. I own that I fucked up, and I will make it right, but I can’t be in a relationship where I’m constantly one mistake from being iced out.”

“He’ll come around. This time he has something big enough to lose.”

I sighed again, getting up to go look down on the sidewalk behind the building.

“I’m not going to pretend I won’t open the door if he comes here with an olive branch, but I can’t keep bending myself to keep Patrice appeased. I have some things I need to take care of and for now I’ll put my energy on that.”

“Okay babe, that’s good. Put that energy elsewhere. If you do need me to come up there, just call, all right? I’m pretty sure I can still kick his ass like I did when we were kids.”

I laughed at that and kept my attention on the sidewalk as I saw a figure that looked a lot like the man I loved coming closer to the building. “Thanks, Pri.”