I didn't answer the number right away.
I stood in the doorway with my phone in my hand, looking down the road even though Crystal's car was already gone.
This JC?
Stack gave me your number.
Ten minutes earlier, Crystal had been standing in the house telling me exactly what was happening.
They were using me.
Not in the way people normally mean when they say that.
They were paying me.
Pretty damn well, actually.
But they were using what I had.
My car.
My license.
My clean record.
My house.
My willingness to not ask questions.
And now apparently my phone number was being passed around like I had started some kind of fucking taxi service.
I looked at the message again.
Then typed:
Who is this?
The answer came back.
Xai
I didn't know a Xai.
What you need?
Ride tomorrow
There it was.
I should've said no.
Crystal had barely made it out of the neighborhood.
Instead, I asked the question that mattered more to me at the time.
How much?
Depends how long
I stared at the screen.
Then locked my phone without answering.
That felt like progress.
It wasn't.
Crystal didn't call that night.
Neither did I.
That was how we punished each other.
We'd both sit around waiting for the other person to prove they cared more.
Sometimes she'd win.
Sometimes I'd win.
Nobody really won.
Around nine, Dre called.
"You busy?"
"No."
"Crystal there?"
"No."
"She leave?"
"Yeah."
"Again?"
"Yeah."
He laughed.
"That girl stay leaving your ass."
"Fuck you."
"What happened?"
"Same shit."
"Me?"
"Not just you."
"Who else?"
"Smoke."
There was a pause.
Then Dre laughed harder.
"How the fuck Smoke get you in trouble?"
"Because I drove him around today."
"You told her?"
"She asked where I was."
"JC."
"What?"
"You gotta stop telling women everything."
"I didn't tell her everything."
"Apparently you told her enough."
I sat down on the couch.
"She thinks I'm getting too involved."
"Are you?"
"No."
The answer came fast.
Too fast.
Dre noticed.
"You sure?"
"I'm driving."
"That's what I told you."
"Yeah."
"Then what's the problem?"
I didn't answer.
Dre had a way of making everything sound simple.
Maybe that's why I liked being around him.
Crystal made me think about consequences.
Dre made consequences sound like something that happened to other people.
"Stack give my number to somebody named Xai?" I asked.
"Probably."
"You know him?"
"Yeah."
"He cool?"
Dre laughed.
"Why everybody gotta be cool with you?"
"Because I'm not trying to end up somewhere with some crazy motherfucker."
"Xai ain't crazy."
"That's not what I asked."
"Yeah. He's cool."
I leaned back.
There was that word again.
Cool.
Smoke was cool.
Xai was cool.
Everybody was cool.
Apparently I was the only person who worried about anything.
"How much he offering?"
"He didn't say."
"Then make him say."
"I haven't told him yes."
Dre went quiet.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Why'd you get quiet?"
"Just surprised."
"About what?"
"You considering saying no."
"I can say no."
"I know."
The way he said it bothered me.
Like technically I could.
Like nobody was forcing me.
Which was true.
That's what made all of this harder to explain later.
Nobody forced me.
Nobody put a gun to my head.
Nobody threatened me.
Most of the doors I walked through, I opened myself.
"Look," Dre said. "If you don't wanna do it, don't do it."
"I didn't say that."
"Then what are we talking about?"
"I don't know."
"Exactly."
He changed the subject.
Within five minutes we were talking about football.
By the time we hung up, the conversation about Xai barely seemed important anymore.
I opened his message.
Naa bruh, I'm working all day tomorrow, sorry.
I did work the next morning.
That part of my life didn't change.
Alarm.
Shower.
Work clothes.
Clock in.
Do my job.
For eight hours, I was just me.
Nobody at work knew what I had done the day before.
Nobody knew there had been a grocery bag tied shut on the floor of my car.
Nobody knew Smoke had handed me two hundred fifty dollars.
Nobody knew five hundred more was sitting at my house.
I liked that separation.
It made everything feel manageable.
Whatever happened outside of work belonged to a different version of me.
Then I would clock in and become normal again.
The problem was, the two versions were starting to know each other.
Around lunch, my phone buzzed.
Crystal.
You working?
I looked at the message.
It almost made me laugh.
She knew I was working.
She knew my schedule.
What she was really asking was whether I was still doing at least one thing she recognized.
Yeah
A minute passed.
What time you get off?
130
Can I come get some more clothes later?
That one bothered me.
You moving out?
Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
I didn't say that
Then why you need more clothes
No answer.
I waited.
Nothing.
Crystal
Still nothing.
My lunch ended.
I put the phone away.
For the rest of the shift, I thought about that bag she'd packed.
Not Xai.
Not Dre.
Not the money.
Her.
That probably should've told me where my priorities actually were.
But knowing what matters to you and acting like it matters are two different things.
She was at the house when I got home.
Her car was in the driveway.
I walked inside and found her in the bedroom.
Another bag was on the bed.
"Seriously?"
She looked at me.
"What?"
"Another bag?"
"I need clothes."
"You have clothes here."
"That's why I'm getting them."
"So you are moving out."
"I didn't say that."
"Then stop packing shit."
She stared at me.
"You don't get to tell me what to do."
"I'm not telling you what to do."
"You literally just did."
"Crystal."
"What?"
I didn't know what to say.
So I said the simplest thing.
"Stay."
Her expression changed.
Just a little.
"What?"
"Stay."
"Jay..."
"I'm serious."
She looked down at the clothes.
"Nothing's different."
"I know."
"Do you?"
"Yeah."
"Because yesterday I told you exactly what the problem was."
"I know."
"And?"
"And I'm working."
She gave me a look.
"What?"
"That's your answer?"
"I'm at work every day."
"That's not the point."
"I know it's not the whole point."
"Then what's the rest?"
I sat on the edge of the bed.
"I don't know."
She shook her head.
"Exactly."
"I don't want you gone."
"Then stop doing shit that's gonna get you locked up."
"I'm not doing anything that's gonna get me locked up."
She laughed.
There was that same tired sound from the day before.
"You don't know that."
"I'm not selling anything."
"It doesn't matter."
"I'm not carrying anything."
"It doesn't matter."
"I don't even know what they're doing half the time."
"That definitely doesn't make it better."
I looked away.
She sat beside me.
For a while, neither of us talked.
Then she said something I wasn't expecting.
"I don't hate Dre."
I looked at her.
"Okay."
"I don't."
"I didn't say you did."
"And I know he's your friend."
"Yeah."
"But everything around him is always something."
I couldn't argue with that.
"There's always somebody at the house. Somebody needs a ride. Somebody's calling you. Somebody's got something going on."
"I can handle it."
"That's what scares me."
I looked at her.
"What does that mean?"
"You think because you can handle something, you should."
That one landed harder than I wanted it to.
She stood up and went back to the bag.
I watched her fold another shirt.
"Stay tonight," I said.
She didn't turn around.
"Why?"
"Because I want you here."
"Until Dre calls?"
There it was.
"That's not fair."
"It's exactly fair."
"I'm not going anywhere tonight."
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do."
She turned around.
"If he calls?"
"I'll tell him no."
She studied my face.
I could tell she didn't believe me.
Honestly, I wasn't sure I believed me either.
"One night," she said.
I smiled.
"What?"
"I'm staying tonight."
"Okay."
"Don't make it a big deal."
"I'm not."
"And I'm still taking clothes to my mom's."
"Why?"
"Jay."
"Fine."
She zipped the bag.
But she didn't leave.
Not yet.
Dre called at 6:17.
I remember because Crystal looked at the clock.
Then she looked at my phone.
Then she looked at me.
I didn't answer.
The ringing stopped.
Neither of us said anything.
Thirty seconds later, it rang again.
Dre.
Crystal reached for the remote and turned the television up.
"You can answer it."
"Nah."
"Answer it."
"I said I'm staying here."
"I don't care if you answer your phone."
I picked it up.
"What?"
"Why you ignoring me?"
"I'm not ignoring you."
"You just watched that motherfucker ring."
"How would you know?"
"Because you always answer."
I looked at Crystal.
She was pretending not to listen.
"I'm doing something."
"With Crystal?"
"Yeah."
Dre laughed.
"She back?"
"She's here."
"Tell her I said what's up."
"I'm not telling her shit."
"What you doing later?"
"Nothing."
"I need—"
"No."
Silence.
It was probably the first time I'd cut him off like that.
"No?" he repeated.
"I'm staying here tonight."
"Okay."
That was it.
No argument.
No pressure.
No guilt.
Just okay.
It surprised me.
Maybe part of me had expected him to fight me on it.
Instead, he said, "Hit me tomorrow."
"Aight."
I hung up.
Crystal was looking at me.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You got something to say."
"Nope."
She turned back toward the television.
But I saw her smile.
Barely.
That little smile made me feel like I'd accomplished something.
And maybe I had.
The problem was what I learned from it.
I learned that Crystal didn't necessarily need me to stop.
She needed proof that she still mattered.
That was a very different thing.
We ordered food that night.
Watched a movie.
Had sex.
Went to sleep together.
For the first time in a while, the house felt like it used to.
The next morning, her bag was still by the bedroom door.
Packed.
But still there.
I went to work.
When I got home, it was gone.
So were some of her clothes.
But her toothbrush was still in the bathroom.
Her shampoo was still in the shower.
Her phone charger was still plugged into the wall beside the bed.
She hadn't moved out.
Not really.
She had just created another place she could go when she'd had enough of me.
For the next couple weeks, that became our routine.
Some nights she stayed at her mom's.
Some nights she stayed with me.
Sometimes we'd go out to eat.
Sometimes we'd sit around the house doing nothing.
Sometimes Dre called and I left.
Sometimes Dre called and I didn't.
Those nights mattered.
Every time I chose Crystal, it seemed to buy me a little more room on the nights I chose Dre.
I don't mean that I was doing it intentionally.
At least I don't think I was.
But relationships have their own kind of math.
You learn what causes an argument.
You learn what prevents one.
You learn how much you can take before you have to give something back.
Crystal was learning too.
She stopped asking where every dollar came from.
I stopped talking about how much I was making.
She stopped asking exactly where I went.
I started giving her better estimates of when I'd be home.
If I said eleven, I tried to be home by eleven.
If I knew I'd be later, I called.
That sounds like basic relationship shit.
Back then, it felt like a system.
And for a while, the system worked.
I kept my job.
I spent time with Crystal.
I helped Dre.
Everybody got a piece of me.
Including me.
Because the money kept coming.
Fifty dollars.
A hundred.
Two hundred.
Sometimes more.
Not every day.
Not enough to quit working.
But enough that I started keeping cash in places around the house.
A few hundred in a drawer.
Some in an old shoe box.
Some folded behind cards in my wallet.
I never added all of it together.
I didn't want to.
Adding it together would've made it feel like income.
Income would've made it feel like a job.
And if it was a job, I'd have to admit what kind of job it was.
So I kept telling myself the same thing.
I just drive.
Crystal came back for good on a Sunday.
Except neither of us called it that.
She showed up with two bags.
Then went back outside.
Came in with another.
I was sitting on the couch.
"That's a lot of clothes for one night."
"Shut up."
"You moving in?"
"I already live here."
"Oh, now you live here?"
She gave me the finger and walked toward the bedroom.
I smiled.
A few minutes later she came back out.
"Help me."
"With what?"
"There's more stuff in the car."
I laughed.
"More?"
"Are you helping or not?"
I got up.
There were two more bags in the trunk.
And a laundry basket.
I picked up the basket.
"You sure you're only staying one night?"
"Keep talking and I'll leave."
"No you won't."
She looked at me.
I smiled.
Eventually she did too.
That was it.
No conversation.
No promise.
No apology.
Crystal moved back into the house the same way she'd left it.
One bag at a time.
That night, we were lying in bed when my phone buzzed.
I reached for it.
Dre.
What you doing tomorrow after work?
Crystal saw the name.
I waited for her to say something.
She didn't.
I typed back.
Depends
Dre responded.
Need a ride
I looked over at Crystal.
She was scrolling through her phone.
"You working tomorrow?" she asked.
"Yeah."
"What time you get off?"
"One-thirty."
"You wanna get something to eat tomorrow?"
"What time?"
She looked at me.
"Why?"
"No reason."
"Jay."
"I told Dre I'd probably help him after work."
She stared at me for a second.
Here it comes, I thought.
Instead she asked, "How long?"
"I don't know. Probably an hour."
"Then can we go after?"
"Yeah."
"What time?"
"Like four?"
"Okay."
That was it.
No fight.
No lecture.
No questions about where Dre needed to go.
Just:
Okay.
I should've been happy.
Instead, something about it bothered me.
Six months earlier, Crystal would've lost her mind.
Now she was scheduling dinner around it.
I told myself that meant she trusted me.
Maybe part of her did.
But looking back, I think something else was happening.
Crystal wasn't accepting that world.
Not yet.
She was accepting pieces of it because the alternative was losing me to it completely.
And I was making the same mistake from the other direction.
I thought I could divide myself evenly enough that nothing would collide.
Work got eight hours.
Dre got whatever time he needed.
Crystal got the rest.
As long as I kept those worlds separated, I thought everything would be fine.
What I didn't understand was that Dre's world didn't stay where you left it.
It followed you home.
And before long, it wouldn't just be calling my phone.
It would be sleeping under my roof.