Page 12 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

“And I try, and I try, and I try!” Abby screeched off-key, as the three girls started a dance in the middle of the living room, belting along with the track.

“Why’d ya have to be a big pretender?!” Tahli pointed down in Dan’s face, making him laugh. They carried on about smoking purple haze, until Tahli had to scream it from her toes,

“You lie, you lie, and you lie!” Real therapeutic. Like she was getting something out that was still stuck inside of her.

“You know you wanna say that shit,” Paige taunted, when Abby only hummed on the lyric about not dating these “niggas” until you’re 43.

“Go ‘head. Say that shit. You been waiting 35 years to say that shit, tell the truth.”

Abby raised a pale middle finger. “Oh, go fuck yourself, Paige.” Tahli fell out on the couch, giggles drifting up to the miles-away ceiling.

After another passed blunt, the foursome sat in cozy silence. Until Paige got high enough for one of her mindfucks.

“Yo. Y’all ever thought about…how do you know a snake is a snake?”

Tahli stared off at the wall while Abby took the bait.

“Because they cross you?”

“Nah,” Paige drawled, eyes barely open. “I mean like the animal.”

“Aw, fuck, Paige,” Dan groaned. “Man, I’m ‘bout to call my nigga and head out.”

“Nah. Hear me out.”

Tahli tuned in, up for a brain detour.

“So, like…Tah. You’re smart, right?”

“Mm,” Tahli twisted her lips. “Debatable.”

“I’m saying…hear me out. When did the alphabet start?”

“Paige, don’t start this shit, man!” Abby groaned.

“When did the alphabet start, Tah?”

Tahli snickered at Paige. “…Like 1700 B.C. or something. I don’t know. I’m a professor, not an Encyclopedia.”

“Cool. And how long ago was Adam and Eve in that garden when that trifling bitch ate that apple?”

“Why she gotta be a trifling bitch?” Abby scolded.

“’Cause she jeopardized our whole fucking existence for a fucking apple. Niggas could be in a tropical garden right now fucking unicorns if it wasn’t for her ass.”

“There were no unicorns,” Tahli cut in.

“If there were, God would not let you fuck them, Paige,” Abby scolded.

“Whatever. Dinosaurs. Unicorns,” Paige blew off.

Dinosaurs. Vin used to always joke about the dinosaurs, asking where they were in the Bible.

“I’m just saying. When was Adam and Eve out this bitch?”

“Like 4000, 5000 B.C.?” Tahli shrugged.

“Boom! That’s what I’m talking about.”

“No, what the fuck are you talking about?” Dan exclaimed.

“Adam and Eve were before the alphabet,” she pointed at Dan, waiting for it to sink in.

It didn’t. “So how do we know that the snake that made Eve eat the apple…was a snake? Who said the slithering thing that crawled up to her was a fucking snake? When we didn’t even have the fucking alphabet, to spell the word snake? ”

Tahli struggled for clarity. It was like wiping mud from her windshield with dull wipers.

“Oh, shit.” Dan seemed enthralled. “Yo…we didn’t even have the fucking letters to make Adam and Eve. So how we know that’s their names?”

“Because the people who wrote the Bible figured it out.”

“But how?” Paige stressed to Tahli, tapping her temple.

“My eyelashes hurt,” Abby declared. After a moment, Tahli snorted.

“This conversation is so Vin. He used to say that time was an illusion, and how do we know that a minute isn’t a day, and a day isn’t a year? That’s it’s all manmade.”

Their silence revealed their uncertainty of what to say. Until…

“Man, fuck Vin!”

Tahli stretched stunned eyes at Paige, who leapt up from the couch. “I’m sick of talking about Vin. Fuck him! We ain’t singing, we bringing drama. Fuck Vin and his mothafuckin’ mama…’cause her ass knew, too!”

“Okay, Tupac, calm down,” Abby urged of Paige imitating Hit ‘Em Up.

“Nah. Fuck Vin as a husband, as a man, and as a mothafuckin’ homie, too, and if you down wit’ Vin? Fuck you, too. Munch? Fuck you, too. Wynter? Fuck you, too. Sophie? Fuck you, too! The kid–”

“Not the kid,” Tahli raised a hand.

“Man, fuck him, too. We bombing on all these mothafuckas! You think you the mob, we the mob. Matter fact. Abs, put that shit on.”

“Please don’t,” Tahli begged, hands flanking her face. But Abby was already switching on Hit ‘Em Up . It only took the intro before Tahli was pulled back on her feet with them, rapping along with Pac from the rip of “First off!”

They jumped around the room, Dan included, reciting the verse. Tahli realized she didn’t know the words entirely, so she slurred some, pretending to. They were shouting out the hook with Tahli standing on her $5000 couch when the music halted.

“It is one o’clock in the morning and I’m trying to sleep!” Dali, in her pink pajamas and bonnet, immobilized them. “You are grown…ass…adults.”

“No cursing,” Abby pointed a finger. Again, the only one not high enough to be delayed.

“You’re old,” Dali corrected insultingly.

“The fuck?” Paige voiced offense.

“It’s true. I’m going back to bed. Keep it down before you wake the kids.” When she was out of sight, she made their heads snap by calling out from the stairs.

“And stop talking about my father!”

Tahli’s hands shot to her mouth, collapsing into a ball of giggles on the couch.

“Nah, I gotta head out for real,” Dan said for the twentieth time.

“Just sleep over,” Tahli drowsily warbled. “You, too, Paige. Leave Ghetto…Bubble Butt and her Bebe’s Kids alone tonight. I’ll cook y’all breakfast in the morning.”

Paige snorted.

Thankful for her friends easing tonight’s serving of loneliness, Tahli couldn’t help but think of the two lost pieces to their puzzles.

Her mind jogged back to one of those simple-but-everything moments when they were all together.

Jay rambled on about some girl he was dating, and they were all high off Paige’s mystery weed…

“Yo, you know that bitch I’m fucking that’s scared of chickens? Shorty is like really fucking scared of chickens. Like I thought it was just live chickens, but we pulled up to KFC and this bitch started crying, and shit. Begging me to take her home.”

“Alektorophobia,” Tahli defined.

“Tahli would know that shit,” Dan had joked.

“Or chicken anxiety.”

“Fucking chicken anxiety. Stay away from Lex,” Paige teased, and Lexie threw a French fry at her.

“I knew a girl so afraid of throwing up, she decided she was never getting pregnant,” Abby added.

“Emetophobia,” Tahli named.

“I knew a girl so afraid of dick she turned into a lesbian,” Lexie got her lick back on Paige.

“I know a girl who needs to be afraid of a dick once in a while.”

Paige’s rebuttal made Jay laugh, which infuriated Lexie. It had been marvelous.

“He asked me, you know?”

Abby slapped Tahli from her mind’s rewind. “Huh?”

“He asked me if he should give up.”

“Who?” Tahli pushed, accelerated heartrate kicked on by intuition.

“Vin. He asked me if he should give in to the divorce. Show up to the meeting, sign the papers… Or if it was a shot you’d forgive him down the line. He asked me if I thought him giving you a hard time with the divorce would make it better or worse. If more time would give him more of a chance.”

Tahli gulped. Gulped and gawked. Wide and wet-eyed.

“Wha…what did you say?” She could hardly form words. What were words? Who was this person before her? Looking and sounding like Abby?

“I said the truth. That you were done. That you wouldn’t ever forgive him, and if he put you through hell and didn’t let you heal, that you’d end up resenting him. That you were done.”

“You…you don’t think this is a conversation you should’ve had with me before having it with him?” Tahli wrinkled up her face.

“How? When he asked me? I’m supposed to say, ‘Wait, hold on, let me check with Tahli on how she wants me to respond?’ You wanted a divorce. What difference does it make?”

“White people never know when to mind their business,” Paige grumbled, rolling another blunt.

“I was only looking out for you,” Abby shrugged. “You said more than anything you didn’t want him to fight you. If that’s not true-”

“Why wouldn’t it be true? Matter of fact, stop with the passive-aggressive shots like I’m so damn impossible, and it’s just so outrageous not to forgive Dalvin’s secret baby?

Stop acting like I left him only because I feel like I’m supposed to.

Or I care what people think so much that I won’t accept my husband’s lovechild.

I don’t give a fuck what anybody thinks. ”

“You kinda do,” Abby muttered.

“No, bitch! I care what I think.”

“Aw, shit. Here go that drunk female shit,” Dan murmured.

“If I know that I can’t forgive Dalvin, that’s all that matters.

If moving out of my house for a fresh start will bring me more peace, that’s all that matters.

It’s my fucking life, and a large part of it, I wasted on a man that was lying to me the entire time!

My whole life was a lie! So, stop fucking judging me.

You love Vin. I know you love Vin. Vin’s picked you up at your darkest times and he’s been like family, and he’s been real good to you.

But I can’t stay married to Vin just because you love Vin. Love me more! Shit.”

The room fell into an uneasy quiet. Abby twisted her crooked mouth.

“She told you, Paige,” Abby garbled, making them all release a delayed laugh. All but Tahli. Until Abby laid a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m wrong.”

“Her favorite words to hear,” Paige joked.

They told good old day stories until they conked out in the impromptu sleepover. When Tahli parted her lids sometime later, her head still on a couch pillow, she found Abby next to her, scrolling her phone.

“What time is it?” Tahli’s groggy question pulled Abby from her screen.

“3:13.”

“Mm. I’m getting old. I can’t just sleep on the floor anymore. A bitch got aches and pains.”

Abby snorted, still swiping her thumb. She was on her stomach, a throw pillow under her chin.

“What is that?” Tahli rolled onto her stomach, too, careful not to wake Paige and Dan. They had fallen asleep on top of each other, Paige snoring twice as loud. Abby flashed her screen in response.

“A dating app, Abs? Ew.”

“I know,” Abby smirked. “But I’m moving back to Jersey, and Paige has a townhouse to show me tomorrow. I might need a housewarming gift. Look…he’s cute.”

Tahli stole a glance, stomach souring. Is this what was left for women in their 30’s?

“Abby, he has painted on sideburns.”

Abby zoomed the photo, bringing her face closer.

“Damn. That is paint.”

“Swipe,” Tahli reached over and did it for her.

“Bitch, you did it the wrong way.”

They both giggled at that.

“Now I gotta go out with him.”

“He gon’ fuck up your pillowcases,” Tahli snickered.

“I just want you to be honest with yourself, Tah,” Abby confessed, in a sobering shift. “I wouldn’t be your best friend if I didn’t keep it real with you. I fucking hate what Vin did. I’m so pissed at him. But the thought of you being unhappy, I hate that even more.”

Tahli chewed her cheek.

“I get it. But it is my decision, Abs. It’s not an easy one.

When I was a little girl, my dad used to say my mother had a wandering spirit.

That if she sat still for too long, she’d go crazy.

Truth was, she just didn’t want to be a mother.

We hide things from the people we love all of the time, thinking we are sparing them.

So, I understand Dalvin. Nobody knows Dalvin like I do.

I understand everything about why he did what he did.

But I can’t forgive it. You think I wanted to end my marriage?

To the man I loved more than anything? You think I want to leave my home?

But…Vin is so big, Abby. He’s so woven throughout my life; the only way I can heal is with finality.

There can be no blurred lines because I don’t trust myself not to cross them.

I have two daughters, Abby. I have to set an example.

I love Vin. I really do. But Dalvin did not love me in the capacity that I deserved.

And looking around this place, with the daily reminders of what once was… , it’s literally killing me.”

Abby nodded, reaching over to push one of Tahli’s locs from her face. “I guess I just knew how much you loved him. Do you think he knows I left all of those 1-star reviews on Yelp and Google for his businesses?”

“What?”

“What?” Abby repeated quickly, playing dumb.

“Bitch. That’s my livelihood, too. But I appreciate the loyalty.” They bumped fists before crumbling into laughter.

“Y’all shut the fuck up. Y’all like two ten-year-olds at a slumber party,” Paige grumbled, lying out completely and pulling a pillow over her face, kicking Dan in the process.

Sharing a look, Tahli and Abby both shielded their mouths with their hands, giggling into their fingers. It was the therapy Tahli needed.