Page 76 of A Little Kissing Between Friends

“Oof!” He cringed, ducking his head for a brief moment before returning his gaze to mine. It was so full of sympathy that it made my chest hurt. “JuJu, them people weren’t gonna throw you away. They love you. I’ve seen that love with my own eyes.”

Again, I shook my head. “I mean, yeah, they love me, but that love only extends as long as I’m with Poppa.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I—” I paused, because, while my instinct was to immediately confirm, there was a second instinct, a less bold but equally sure instinct that said, “No.” No, I didn’t really believe that the love they had for me hinged on my relationship with Poppa, but I didn’t know for sure, and the lack of conviction was enough for me.

I just... I couldn’t risk it.

Seeing my internal battle, Samir shook his head.

“Let me ask you something else. Did you tell Cyn how you felt when y’all talked?”

Pressing my lips into a flat line, I gave him a blank stare. All he did was laugh.

“I take that as a no.”

“I said we talked.”

He ignored me. “JuJu, I know firsthand how you’ll retreat instead of saying what’s going on inside your head. Expressing yourself could save you a lot of stress.”

“Samir—”

He lifted his hands up as if he could hear my thoughts and wanted to protect himself against them. “Look, I’m not saying you have to forgive her—or even take her back. I’m just saying that you take things to the extreme when sometimes a softer hand is what’s necessary.”

Huffing a breath out through my nose, I stretched my legs out in front of me and leaned back against the sofa. There was a tiny, slight possibility that he had a point, but...

“You gotta be with someone first in order to take them back.”

Samir snorted, the goofy sound pulling my eyes from the ceiling and over to him.

“Be for real,” he laughed. “Y’all were so damn together that I already had my stepparent speech ready.”

I slapped a hand over my mouth to muffle the shriek his words incited.

“You’re a fucking nut, you know that?”

He nodded. “Yeah, and you’re stubborn as hell, and water is wet.” Tugging on my hand, he pulled me over to him and wrapped an arm around my shoulders when I dropped my head onto his chest. “I get it, JuJu. Cutting ties is how you protect yourself. You had to do that to survive and it’s your nature now, but babe, hear me out. You’re not in survival mode anymore.”

My heart rate sped up and I felt those unshed tears gear up to make an appearance.

“It isn’t you and your granny against the world anymore. You have community. Even if things with Cyn don’t pan out, her family isn’t your only family. You have me, and ’Mani, Morgan, Pooh, and LeeLee. And you already know how my family has been claiming you as their own since well before we got together—that hasn’t changed in three years and there’s nothing you can do about it. Not only that, you also have your Sanity fam. Mal, and Mercedes, and all of the girls up there. You have people, JuJu. You aren’t an island, never have been, and never will be.”

Wrapping my fingers into his t-shirt, I buried my face in his chest and sobbed. Samir had peeled back all of my layers and I was raw and exposed, vulnerable in a way I hadn’t allowed myself to be in a very long time. We’d known each other so long that I’d forgotten how well Samir knew me. In the blink of an eye, everything I’d known had been taken from me, and although my grandmother had swept in and saved me, I still went through life waiting for the other shoe to drop. The problem with that is I never allowed myself to fully enjoy anything because I was always waiting for the moment I lost it.

I was scared out of my mind, and he’d clocked that.

He didn’t have to say it, but I know that the main reason he recognized it is because I did the same thing with him. Of course, I didn’t realize it at the time, but after we split and I was able to examine what happened to us, and why we had to split, I saw my part in it. Just like Cyn had been trying to cushion herself because of past hurts, I’d been doing the same. It was wild that Samir had made that connection and I hadn’t, but I understood.

He let me cry, rubbing my back and murmuring words of support as I soaked through the thin cotton he wore. When I finished, I sat up and reached for the box of tissue on the end table.

“How you feel?” he asked, elbows on his knees as he peered at me, somber-faced and eyes searching.

“Better,” I answered honestly. That cry was long overdue and had unlocked a few things that I’d been holding on to when I should have let them go.

“Good.” He tilted his chin toward the back. “Go splash some water on your face. You’re looking a lil snotty and puffy.”

“Rude ass,” I laughed as I went to my room to do just that.