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“Bring it on.” A malevolent grin spreads across my face. “You name the place and time.”
Bishop’s jaw tenses. His hands ball into fists. He eyes me, sizing me up, weighing his chances of getting his ass beat if he decides to throw down right now.
I lean forward, inviting him to throw the first punch. Begging him to be the spark that leads to the firestorm and ends with me laying this motherfucker out.
Anitta pulls on Bishop’s arm. “Come on, baby. You promised me you were going to get me a cheesesteak.”
“All right, all right,” Bishop mutters. He points at me. “I’m going to see you around. Make no mistake.”
As he turns away, I call, “Can’t wait!”
He fires back, “Can’t wait to see you at our baby shower, Pearl!”
I flex my fists and sneer at him. “Motherfucker.”
Pearl swallows, her eyes shiny. Having grown up with two sisters, I know the signs of incoming tears when I see them. She needs help right now.
I put my arm around her shoulders and lead us out of the circle of food trucks with her sheltered against me, shielded away from the curious gazes of the still hushed onlookers.
We make it as far as my truck before she really begins to cry.
I open the driver’s side door wide and lift her up into the seat. She wipes at the tears that stream down both sides of her face but doesn’t make a sound other than the gentle shuddering of her breath.
She also looks away into the distance, as if my presence isn’t helping.
I can’t stand her tears and I am itching with the need to put a stop to them, however I can.
At length, she says, “I knew that Bishop and Anitta were going to announce something sooner or later. They’ve been trying to conceive since they got together.”
“You handled it well, if it makes any difference.” I screw up my face. “Bishop is way too excited about getting to tell people. We get it dude, you had sex. Not that you can tell from looking at Anitta. If he wasn’t acting like an idiot, no one would know.”
“He’s trying to rub it in my face.” Pearl sighs. “I guess you don’t know the whole story. I broke up with Bishop for a lot of reasons. He was a liar and a cheater. I caught him sexting half the town. God knows who he actually met up with in the three years we were together.”
“He deserved to be dumped by you. You’re magic. He’s trash.”
She looks guilty for a second. “That’s actually not why I broke it off. My family liked him. I would have stayed with him, I think. The bigger issue that we couldn’t tackle was that he is sickle cell carrier.”
I squint. I think she’s talking about some disease, but I don’t really know that much about it. “Sickle cell? That sounds vaguely familiar.”
Pearl chuckles humorlessly. “Sickle cell anemia. It’s a horrible disease and it causes sufferers a lot of pain. My mom and Malik both have it.”
Whoa. That’s a lot of information. It takes me a minute to let it sink in.
“But not you?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “For someone to have the disease, both their parents have to be carriers. I’ve been tested and I’m a carrier. When I was with Bishop, I wanted to get pregnant. Because the disease mostly runs in Black families, I asked Bishop to get tested for the gene.” She blows out a breath. “It turns out that he is a carrier too. And he wouldn’t hear anything about adopting or using a sperm donor. So… I broke up with him.”
She turns away and wipes a tear from her face. This took a toll on her.
“Ahh.” Things suddenly click into place. “And because Bishop is a fucking asshole, he couldn’t wait to tell you that he’d gotten his girl pregnant.”
Pearl looks at me, swiping away a tear from her big brown eyes. “Not any girl. My cousin. A girl that could very well be a carrier too. They have both decided not to get tested. It makes me want to scream. I would say that they deserve each other… but I don’t wish sickle cell on anybody.”
“I see.”
Pearl's lips twist. “Do you?”
I think, anyway. Pearl has more valid reasons than most for her breakup. And now her recent ex has knocked up her cousin instead. It’s a two-fer.
