"I'm gonna kill Jamar one of these days." Reina announces before downing her tequila.
"I'm surprised you haven't done that yet. Do you guys ever stop fighting?" I ask, playing with my beer. Oscar might be right about it being the devil's piss but I need just the right amount of alcohol to put up with Reina and her endless complaints without getting so drunk that I start spilling my own tea.
She called this afternoon to ask if I would like to hang out with her. Had I known we would be talking about Jamar and his unwillingness to be an amazing boyfriend, I would have stayed at home. My head is pounding.
"Do you think I wake up everyday and start a fight just like that? He's the one who keeps fucking up. Am I supposed to just let him?" Oh man...
"If he's so much trouble, why don't you leave him?" I ask what everybody else never dared to. We all think the same. These two are not meant to be.
"Cause I love him too much." She mumbles, dropping the anger.
"Sometimes love ain't enough. This looks like a soul tie." I know something about it. I might have one with Danny.
"How dare you say that? I really love him. I'm always present, always doing stuff he likes for him, always giving him my all." She argues.
"My point, exactly. You're always there. He's a man, Reina. He gotta breathe. Just let him breathe."
"I would if breathing meant breathing air that's around him and not sucking it out of a hoe's mouth." She is mad now. It feels useless to talk to her.
"Then fucking leave him. If he really loved you and respected you, he wouldn't be doing those things. But you gotta admit you're not helping either with your attitude. You're always on his back, always picking up a fight about just anything, always being jealous when he's not even doing anything. I don't know about the other girls, I only heard it from you but if that's true, you two gotta have a serious talk about it and if he is not willing to get himself together, just love yourself enough to leave the situation. But for fuck sake, stop dragging us all in your drama. We've had enough. We've got problems too." I burst out, having attained my limit to tolerating bullshit.
"Whoa! So this is what you've all been thinking? A bunch of hypocrites pretending to care. I can't believe it." Poor soul is taken aback as if all the signals we sent never reached her mind.
"We do care and that's why I'm taking time to talk to you when I'm not well myself. Reina, we love you and Jamar. But you go to war against each other constantly and we don't want to take sides or stare at you bringing each other down like that without being able to help. It's tiring. We want both of you to be okay. And we want to be okay too." I explain. I have had enough of this drama. Drama without Danny here to enjoy it with me doesn't feel good.
"How would you know how I should act in a relationship? When was your last serious one? You don't ever allow yourself to get attached to people. Maybe that's cause you are scared to lose them like you lost your mom or something like that..." The rest of her sentence is muted in my head. She did not just say that. She did not just talk about mom. She absolutely didn't.
I should have known that when people don't ask for advice, I shouldn't give them one and just let them stay in their shit. What was I thinking?
"If Danny was not such a good puppy, you'd have no one. It's only out of pity that he's your friend. The guy literally quit living his own life just to help you live yours. It's like he thinks he owes you. Everytime we ask for something or invite him, he says he has to see with you first. All the opportunities he let down just to stay here with you. He never said anything but we all see it. His loyalty is totally absurd. Poor guy can't even get a girlfriend with you always on his back. It's a man, Aiden. He gotta breathe." She throws, leaving me speechless as she gathers her things before leaving.
