Page 68 of You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty
Feyi turned to Denlis and put a hand on his arm. “Thank you for calling me. Can you give me a minute with him?”
“Hmph.” Denlis gave Nasir a suspicious look. “Leave the door crack open and call if yuh need me, you hear?”
“I will.” She smiled reassuringly until he left the room, then pulled up another chair and sat in front of Nasir, leaning forward. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
He looked at her, and his eyes were bloodshot. Feyi grabbed his chin and tilted his head up to get a better look at his face in the dim light of the office.
“Are you fucking drunk?”
Nasir jerked his face away from her hand. “I wish I was fucking drunk. Maybe that would make this shit easier to deal with. Maybe I should try that.”
“What were you doing here, Nasir?”
“I told you! I wanted to see if you were here, so we could, you know, talk.” He spat out the last word and gave her a sickly smile. “And look, Denlis so nicely called you for me. How did you get here so fast?”
“I was already in town.”
“Ah, I’m guessing Dad is your chauffeur now. It must be nice, having a Blake man around all the time to help you with shit. When one doesn’t work out, fuck it, just go for the other one.” He chuckled bitterly. “At least you didn’t have time to get around to Lorraine.”
“She’s not my type,” Feyi shot back. “Denlis said you were making a scene in the gallery. Right by my piece.”
Nasir waved a hand. “I may have said some things, but hey, none of them were lies. You all into excavating yourself for these people’s money, don’t you want them to know the truth about who you are? Shit, I helped you get this show, I figured I’d help a little more.”
Feyi’s fingernails bit into her palm as her hands curled into fists. She wanted to hit him, to knock that smirk off his face, choke the shit he was saying till it rotted in his throat. The anger was boiling so white-hot inside her, she was surprised he was still intact across from her, not burning and crackling in a melted black. Denlis had said Nasir kept calling for her, asking people where she was hiding, saying she didn’t have to hide from him. He’d walked through her piece, pushing the gold rings aside roughly, as if she was crouched in a corner of the mirrors, trying to avoid him. Denlis had recognized Nasir from all the pickups, so he’d jumped in quickly and gotten him out of there, but not before Nasir had yelled to some of the people that they wouldn’t be so impressed if they knew what he knew about the artist. Feyi couldn’t even look at him without the rage calling itself up from her bones, where it was always sleeping, where it had been simmering for years, since the dark road and the broken glass and the utter outrage of Jonah’s absence from his own body. And now Nasir had the unmitigated fucking nerve to sit across from her with a challenge in his eyes, as if he had punished her, as if he had done something.
What he didn’t understand was that it had taken years for Feyi to become the girl he’d screamed at in his father’s house, someone he could intimidate because she had chosen to be soft, chosen to care, chosen to allow her heart to shed the deep rot-dark scales it grew on that road. Men like Nasir didn’t see the other parts, the fork in the road, the thing she was before she decided to live again. He didn’t respect her, he thought she had no power because she had wept under the onslaught of his words, and so he felt brave enough, safe enough, to fuck with her work. The rage unfurled like a bonfire and Feyi let it wash over her, wash away the soft girl, coat her in the widow who would gladly burn the whole fucking world down. Some of the challenge drained out of Nasir’s face as he watched the steel form under her skin, the liquid iron pool in her eyes.
Feyi’s hand lashed out and seized his face, pulling it toward her, her fingers digging into the flesh on the sides of his mouth and pressing painfully against his teeth. Nasir was too shocked to react. She leaned close to him till her breath was raking across his face and her eyes skewered him in place.
“Listen well, because I’m only going to say this shit once, Nasir. Don’t you ever, ever in your fucking life try to fuck with my work or my career again. I don’t give a fuck how you feel when it comes to this. I don’t give a fuck if I sucked Alim’s dick in front of you and Lorraine or if I fucked him in front of all your friends. Nothing and I mean nothing gives you the right to come to my exhibit and pull this shit.”
Nasir tried to pull his face away, but Feyi tightened her grip.
“Oh, I’m dead-ass about this, my nigga. I don’t give a fuck about anything other than my work. You touch that, you try to come for that, and I will fuck you up so thoroughly that you will never remember a time when you were anywhere close to okay.” She let go of his face, shoving him away roughly and leaning back in her seat. “You think you’re the only person who can come and make noise?”
Nasir rubbed his face and looked at her, opening his mouth to say something, but Feyi interrupted him before he could even start.
“And you wonder why I didn’t want to be with you? When at the end of the day you can come and try to scatter my fucking work? My wedding ring is in that install, Nasir, and you know what’s on it?”
A shadow of shame passed over his face and Nasir looked away to the side.
“Nah, you probably read the artist statement while you were out there acting like a fucking fool, so tell me what’s on it. Go ahead.”
Nasir looked up at her from under his lashes, his head still bent. “Feyi—”
“Blood, Nasir. Mine and Jonah’s. You wanna walk in there and fuck with something like that? Are you kidding me right now?” The rage had reached her lungs now, burning her air, expanding her with heat. “Do you know what it was like when I retrieved that from our effects? Of course not. You have no fucking idea what it’s like to exchange rings with someone, look into their eyes as they promise to love you forever, then wear that ring every day of your life together, until you have to fish it out of a fucking plastic bag of bloodstained shit!”
In the back of her head, Feyi realized that she would be crying while saying this, while remembering this, if she was still the soft girl. But she wasn’t, so her eyes stayed dry and hot as they burned into Nasir, who was shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
“That’s what my fucking work is about.” Feyi stood up because being in the same room as him was making her skin crawl. “You think about that next time you try to fuck with me.”
“I’m sorry.” Nasir looked up and his jaw was locked tight, like it physically hurt him to say the words, but he got them out anyway. “You right, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here, and it won’t happen again.”
Feyi stared at him, then nodded once. “Okay,” she said.
“Don’t think this means we’re cool, ’cause we’re fucking not,” he replied, his eyes flashing with resentment.
A corner of Feyi’s mouth curled down. “No,” she agreed. “We’re fucking not.” She turned and left Nasir in the room, slamming the door as she walked out.