Page 53 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

“Vin caught me masturbating.” Tahli placed her Venti Cinnamon Dulce latte on the table after the revelation. Abby pursed her lips. Paige smiled wide, seated across from her at an outdoor Starbucks table; Abby to her left.

“I like you divorced,” Paige confessed. “The conversation was not this juicy when you were married. Shit was lowkey kinda boring.”

“Today me and Vin stared into each other’s eyes, and recounted all of our years of bliss,” Abby teased.

“Today as I packed Milo peanut butter and jelly, I realized it was Dali who wanted the peanut butter and jelly, and Milo wanted turkey,” Paige joined in.

“We didn’t have turkey. But Vin went and killed one for me.”

“He’s my hero…that Vin,” Paige added on top of Abby. Tahli flipped them off.

“Fuck you both. What does it mean?”

“What? That you’re jerking off to your ex-husband?”

“Paige, I don’t have a dick. Neither do you. There’s nothing to jerk.”

“Hitting the kitten,” Abby worded instead.

“Shucking dat oyster!” Paige exclaimed, and Tahli giggled into her hands.

“I need new friends. For real.”

“Remember you tried to go out with those white soccer moms for dinner, and you called us crying after.”

“Bitch was in suburban distress,” Paige chuckled.

“Um, hello! I need help.” Tahli veered from that grueling, boring night.

Even the Black professors she’d tried to befriend at work felt forced.

They were all judgy, uppity women who talked about their sororities and didn’t understand why black people had to use “the N word”.

They even called it that–the “N word”. They spoke down on urban books and movies, and how everyone wasn’t a thug or drug dealer.

Then Tahli’s extra Black, very thug accentuated, nigga-dropping husband would pull up in a car worth their salary, usually blasting the rap music they hated, hop out, and tongue-kiss Tahli in front of them with more passion than they’d ever experience in their lifetime… combined.

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Abby shrugged. “You guys were married for like a hundred years. He’s what you’re used to. I mean, Meg’s boyfriends always tried to fuck me, so I get off on old man, young girl porn. My shrink says it’s normal.”

“How old?” Paige pointed her chin at Abby. Paige took her porn seriously.

“Old , old. Gray hair. Like 50-year age gaps.”

Paige grimaced. “Sounds about white.” Tahli never needed porn. She’d had porn in 4D.

“He sent me this text after.” Tahli cut off the gross porn talk and held up her phone, before she deleted the message for good.

Where was your boy today? Cause I would’ve had your ass bent over that dresser. He don’t know how much you like it in the morning?

“He’s crossing lines. And…and boundaries, right?

He’s being disrespectful,” Tahli frowned.

“We were doing good, but now…he’s back to being disrespectful.

And he thinks just because he thinks I was masturbating to him, that I want to have sex with him.

But he can think that all he wants. He doesn’t know what I was thinking.

I could’ve been thinking about Drew. But knowing how Vin thinks, he definitely thinks that I was thinking about him. ”

“My brain hurts,” Abby frowned.

“It’s too early for all this thinking,” Paige condemned, massaging her temples.

“But…” Tahli shut her eyes, lifting her face to the sky. “I was fucking thinking about him. And Drew is really good. Like…he knows what he’s doing. But…” She shook her head. “Vin and I were so in sync. And he’s just....”

“Get Em Wet Vin.”

“Don’t talk about my husband like that,” was Tahli’s instinctive, cat-like defense to Paige’s joke. Then her brows folded under the weight of her inner turmoil.

“It’ll go away, right? It has to. With time. Because it’s normal to think about your ex when he’s all you’ve known. But…it’s just sex. He’s still the same deceitful…lying...heartbreaker-ass Vin,” Tahli rambled, gnawing on her thumb skin. A fleeting thought raised her brows.

“Unless…” she hardly wanted to say. But Bianca’s little departing speech was gum on the bottom of Tahli’s shoe—the shit wouldn’t go away.

“Unless…he’s all healed and better and…” Tahli wet her lips, “and she’ll get that shit. She’ll get the great man he was minus the flaws that broke us. You know in my overthinking, I’ve replayed that night so many times. The night he made DJ.” Tahli tasted the bile from the confession.

“Do you know what I said to him, y’all? Not that it’s an excuse for what he did.

And not that postpartum is an excuse for what I said.

But I know now what I was going through, and why I was so bitter.

Neither of us understood that shit at the time,” Tahli reflected.

“We were babies. But I told that black man who had left his fast lifestyle for me…who was trying to man a house and a baby while I studied… who was trying to keep his dead father’s business afloat for our family…

I told him that he always falls short. I told him that Drew wouldn’t want me.

And I saw it…I watched something break inside of my husband that night. ”

Silence layered over distant patron chatter. Her friends exchanged a cryptic look.

“What? What the fuck was that and why do you guys do it all the fucking time?”

Paige shrugged sluggishly. “I just thought when you got divorced, that shit didn’t matter.” Paige frowned. “Divorce is final, Tah. You should be at the I don’t give a fuck who that nigga’s with or how he is with her point once you go there. If you’re not…”

“Then what?”

Abby removed the buffer.

“Then you shouldn’t have gotten fucking divorced.” With a shrug, like she hadn’t shaken the whole table with that.

“I couldn’t forgive him. Regardless of my understanding. He hid a whole fucking baby from me for my whole marriage. It’s the damage from the lie. Why y’all acting like that shit wasn’t a big deal?”

“I’m not saying it wasn’t a big deal,” Abby defended.

“I’m just saying I know you, I know what you and Vin had.

And I think you underestimated it. For most people, that situation would have made them completely disgusted, turned off, all love lost, fucking done.

You were never there. So, you should’ve just chilled until you were there.

Until you knew if you wanted to try to work it out or not.

I’m just saying…you shouldn’t have gotten divorced.

Bitch, you tell me not to send an email when I’m mad.

But you ended a whole-ass marriage in the heat of the moment. ”

“You had to be all Teacher Tahli,” Paige joined in. “Carry yo’ ass down to the courthouse like, there will consequences for your actions,” Paige imitated a strict teacher voice, making Abby laugh. It didn’t make Tahli laugh.

“I was there. I…am still there. I’m with Drew. And Vin is with Strawberry Shortcake.”

“You need therapy,” Abby fired off.

“Right. Take it from her.”

“Why? Because I’m a recovering addict?” Abby accused of Paige. “I know that’s what you were thinking.”

“No. well…,” Paige angled her small head, her blond locs a shade brighter than Tahli’s. “I was thinking crackhead. But you’re not a crackhead. Which…why you ain’t never do crack, Abs? I mean, you did heroin. So, why not smoke a little crack? You got nothing to lose?”

The blank stare Abby gave lingered for a moment.

“I can recommend you my therapist,” Abby turned to Tahli.

“Bitch, your therapist that just told you it’s okay to watch Granddaddy porn? I know a therapist,” Paige suggested instead. “Matter of fact, I’m fucking a therapist. I can get you a discount.”

Tahli shook her head. “I don’t need a therapist. You know why?

Because if they heal you, they stop getting paid.

Vin’s going to therapy, and he just offered to fuck me on my dresser, knowing I’m engaged.

So how healed is he? They cure problems and create new ones so that you can keep coming back. I’m good.”

“Or they make you see the problems you can’t see,” Abby hiked a brow.

“Yo, if I knew the day I was gonna die…I would smoke crack,” Paige theorized.

“Oh, Paige, just smoke crack already!” Abby spat. “You know…I spoke to my therapist about you, Tah,” Abby revealed, shocking Tahli.

“You talked about me, you whore?”

“I did. I told my therapist how great you are. How many times I disappointed you. How many times I said I was going to get clean but lied right to your face.”

Tahli’s face sunk as Abby continued.

“I deceived you. I used you. That’s what addicts do.

I stole from you…you know it. I stole your diamond earrings at Dali’s birthday party.

I stole that Cuban link necklace Vin bought you when we were younger.

You forgave me. You have this unconditional love for us.

For your kids. For your dad. Even for…” Abby’s eyes crept over to Paige and Paige threw both hands up.

“We don’t talk about Cree, no, no, no, no…” Paige channeled the Encanto song, striking a nerve.

“But your husband…the person you vowed in front of God to at least try to work all shit out with. Sickness and health and all of that morbid shit. You just threw that shit away in a flash.”

Tahli’s mouth fastened, fury surging.

“I bet I could tell you I literally did anything to you, and you would forgive me. Apart from hurting your children which you know I would never fucking do.”

Tahli’s glare never left Abby.

“So, what if I told you the worst shit that I’ve ever done to you? What if I told you…” Abby tossed her hand, “That one night when Vin was driving me to rehab, I tried to suck his dick for twenty dollars to score?”

Tahli’s stunned eyes swamped with rageful tears. Her chest heaved as she played the next five seconds, grabbing Abby by her hair and smashing her face into this glass table.

The gasp Paige gave dissipated into the summer heat. Abby must have sensed Tahli’s tested sanity because her straight face cracked into a half-smile, deflating Tahli’s chest in relief.