The silence stretching after my little word-vomit wasn’t long but dammit it still made me fidget and flutter with worry. I hadn’t meant to say all that I had—it had just blurghed out and now it was in Tembovu’s lap and I was suddenly super-duper nervous as to what he was gonna end up doing with it. They were fragile words with fragile things behind them and I wasn’t sure if he was gonna notice the “Handle With Care” label they were packaged with. I didn’t know him well enough to be sure of what he was gonna do. And I didn’t know that he was gonna just whiplash my ass with a simple question.

“Does he know your name?”

UH—

I clamped my mouth shut, hard, when he asked that question because it was a hard one to face from the outside. I mean, sure, I had asked myself that same shit plenty of times, but there was an extra dimension of absurdity when someone else voiced it out loud, the kind that you can’t really ignore outside of your brain pan.

And he just kept coming with those questions, though, like forreal. Does knowing another's name is mean knowing them? I don’t fucking know. My eyes drifted away from Tembovu as I thought about his implications, and I bit down on my lip as I did so cuz I guess I needed something else to hurt while I was thinking about shit that had to potential to be painful. Because what Tembovu was talking to me about—trying to teach me in that moment, I realized—had a lot more to do with me than it had with Lee. I hadn’t expected to be faced with these things like this, these insecurities and faults that I’d never acknowledged before (and that I doubt Tembovu was aware he was showing me). It somehow seemed incredibly petty of me to just focus on the shit I didn’t know instead of helping my friend with the things I did. And I knew some real shit about him, and looking at it now it wasn’t something to be proud about.

And it was worse because the next point Tembovu made—I wouldn’t begrudge them ’dozens’ of others who, also, care about them; especially in an hour of need—caused a real sick, swooping in my belly as I realized how awful it made me really feel when I thought about all those others swooping in alongside Lee. And Tembovu had a point that I would’ve gladly jumped on board with—like, say, if Bro decided he wanted to start a family and found a down bitch, there’d be nothing inside me against that shit. Or if Jiji found herself a man (or woman idk man) then rock the fuck on Ji I was gonna root my ass off for that shit to happen. And Ma? Well…okay, ya’ll know how I felt about that particular situation, but hear me out, it has nothing to do with Ma actually finding herself a man.  Like okay, the circumstances are a little sour but shit if Shapes can hit it right and keep it tight I can’t really complain, can I?

It was just Lee’s ass that made acid pool in my stomach for some reason—imaging others with Lee, extending the same kind of heart I had risked to give, cuz that shit don’t come free or easy for me. And like…it wasn’t conjecture or anything, either. He had a daughter. He had had relations before anyway.

How did I know he had only had one daughter?

How did I know he didn’t have a lover?

(Where the bitch at tho—)

And I didn’t know what I meant as I stood there, biting my lip even harder and harder by the minute and feeling so awful about this dude’s potential happiness. And feeling even worse for it, realizing that I didn’t have that kind of selflessness that Tembovu gently encouraged. I didn’t know why I didn’t have it, either. So I didn’t know where to find it.

”Perhaps just needs to be—talked about?”

I didn’t respond immediately—I couldn’t quite meet his eye, and my lip was lodged firmly between my teeth. “Y-yeah…” I kinda mumbled, rolling his words over in my head. I felt so young in that moment, like I do sometimes—except the flashes are becoming a lot more rare and a lot more stinging as time went on. But this was a lesson I had needed to take, regardless of the sickening crunch in my belly. It was something that needed to be said. Out loud.

“I, uh..” I stammered for a second, flailing for shit to say—then I finally heaved a huge sigh, my eyes finding Chico’s traitorous ass waddling towards the elephant shawty with grinning furry eyes. “…Thanks for listening,” was all I was able to mutter out.

Quit Hollerin' "Why God?", he ain't got shit to do with it.