“Fine, I’ll get the fuck out of your crib. I don’t need you or your funky ass crib.”

He grabbed my arm as I started toward the bedroom to change back into my own clothes.

“Fine,” he agreed. “Fine, I’ll do it, but I’m not doin’ it till later on. When everybody sleep.”

“But she lookin’ for me now …”

“You want me to do it don’t you? That’s the only way.”

With my back against the wall in more ways than one, I couldn’t argue with his offer. And for the first time since we had met, I let him see me break. There was no way to determine whether or not someone would stay. That was a decision they made on their own, with or without your help. Men were scared off without anything significant happening to do the scaring. In his eyes, the pressure of his grip, I felt what couldn’t yet be called love. I preferred to at least think it was the beginning of caring, an act I had seen taken advantage of too many times and by too many people. Including me, who had betrayed a woman who had put pocket change in my pockets for almost a year. I decided to tell him before things went any further between us.

“Look Rasul, I’m pregnant.”

He didn’t release me quickly as I thought he would, though I felt him softening right after I spoke. My hold on him was already slipping away. I wiped my face on his shirt.

“Before you start thinkin’ I’m a hoe, I’m not,” I shouted in defense of an accusation I was sure he was waging in his mind. He must have been replaying the previous night, mistaking my affection for simple lust, and wondering how many other strange men’s apartments I had slept in.

“I only been with one person but I wasn’t careful about it,” I explained further. “And he was married but I thought he loved me and I didn’t think I was doing nothing wrong at the time but now his wife wanna kill me and I just can’t go home ’cause I know she told my ma and that mean now my ma wanna kill me too and my aunt gonna be disappointed and I just really don’t know what to do …”

He shushed me, either not wanting to hear any more or needing time to take it all in.

“Damn, Shivana,” was all he said while I shut up and cried. “Damn …”