Page 24 of Only a Gemini Will Do

“You’re carrying my seed, shawty. You think I didn’t deserve a real conversation? You don’t get to erase me from the picture like I’m some bad edit. So, here I am. I risked it all to come back for you. For y’all,” I declared.

“Including risking both of us going to jail too? Then who the hell will take care of our daughter, Kareem? This is the same impulsive bullshit that got us into this mess in the first place!” Sawyer said, voice rising as her hands shot up in the air.

Her reply was followed by silence as I looked at her. I mean, really looked at her—from the unmistakable curve of her belly to the angelic glow that surrounded her as if she’d been hand-delivered from Heaven. I exhaled a deep breath and rubbed my beard while allowing the news to sink in past the surface and soften me up a bit.I hated feeling like a soft ass nigga, but she brought that shit out of me. Sawyer was the only person I’d consider softening my edges for.

“Daughter? We’re having a little girl?”

She nodded slowly. “Yeah. I found out at my last appointment.”

I started pacing her living room with my Gemini energy in full fuckin’ swing—emotions spilling out left and right like I was allergic to bullshit.

“If I’d never shown up here, then what? We would’ve never spoken again? I would’ve never known I had a daughter out there in the world somewhere growing up without me thinking I never gave a fuck about her?”

Sawyer huffed. “Kareem, can we not dwell on shit like that? You came on too strong in Brazil. It was too much for me, but you’re here now, so let’s just deal with the present.”

“How are we supposed to deal with the present when you never wanna talk about shit? I didn’t come on too strong in Brazil. I came correct. I came honest. I came ten toes down like a real nigga is supposed to do. I asked you to move to Brazil because I saw us building a life together for our family. You ran because you were scared, point-blank.”

“I wasn’t scared.”

I scoffed. “Cut the bullshit, Sawyer. If you wanna keep playing in my face and dancing around all the shit that scares you, we can do that, but I’m not goin’ nowhere. I let you walk away once, shawty. That’s not happening again,” I declared.

She rolled her eyes. “Please stop acting like you know me.”

“I will when you stop acting like you don’t want a nigga to care about you when you carrying my baby.”

“I never asked you to care about me.”

I brushed off her comment, knowing damn well she ain’t mean it. “Admit it, you want a nigga. You just don’twantto want a nigga.”

“This isn’t about what I want. It’s about what’s best for the?—”

I cut her off. “Say it. Say you want me.”

She smacked her lips. “Why? So you can have something to use against me? No thanks.”

“I’m not the enemy. Never have been.”

“We live in two different worlds that just happened to collide for a blink in time, Kareem. Nobody expects us to make it work,” she replied pessimistically.

I cocked my head to the side, trying my best not to flip out. “You ever stop to ask yourself why it’s so easy for you to throw a nigga out of your life when you and I both know it wasn’t supposed to end the way we left it?”

Sawyer made her way back into the living room and sat down slowly on the couch, hand resting on her belly. “I hate this.”

“Which part?”

“All of it.”

“Why?”

“Because contrary to what you may think about me, I’m not a heartless bitch. I don’t move through life feeling numb. I just don’t always know what to do with what I feel,” she admitted.

“And how do you feel? Be real with a nigga.”

“Trapped,” she answered. “I’ve fought so damn hard to be independent—to be my own person and stand on my own two feet. And when you asked me to stay with you, it was like an alarm went off inside my head and my heart. Moving to Brazil meant needing you and giving you a power over me that I still don’t think I’m ready to give.”

I continued to soften on the inside but refused to back down when I felt like we were at a breakthrough or a breaking point. I wasn’t sure which.

“You think I like involving you in this shit? I hate it. That’s why I wasn’t trying to take it there with you from the beginning.”