Still, regardless of our differences, Blaise continued to see things simplistically when he offered, “So she fucked up. We all fuck up. I mean, if anyone is familiar with the concept, it’s you.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It means exactly what it implies. You fucked up. She forgave you. Now she fucked up and the ball is in your court. So what are you gonna do?” he asked as if our infractions were even remotely the same.
And while I had no idea who had truly done “worse”, I still had no problem telling him, “It’s not that simple, Blaise.”
“But it is, Knox. Especially when you care about someone the way you claim to care about her. I mean, it wasn’t like her intentions were malicious.”
“Just because that wasn’t her intention doesn’t mean it doesn’t fuck with me just as much,” I admitted, knowing that was the only explanation behind my madness.
To have shared something so personal with her and have her turn around and share it with Blaise - share it with the world- was… damning in my opinion. Though it was clear Blaise didn’t exactly see it my way, only frustrating me even more when he replied, “Alright, fine. Feel the way you feel. I’m not choosing sides in this shit.”
“Well it sure seems that way. I mean, you said she got the next vote of confidence automatically, right? Well you proved your point, bruh. I’ll talk to you later.”
Instead of listening to his attempt at saving face, I ended the call, tossing my phone into the passenger seat before resting my head against the headrest. I was hoping a conversation with Blaise would make me feel better about it all, would bring me some clarity. But it only made things more complicated to the point that I had to close my eyes in an effort to relieve the throbbing in my temples.
Unfortunately, my moment of silence didn’t last long as the sound of someone knocking against my window startled me to the point of irritation once I realized who it was.
“Yo, why you sittin’ in your car like this on some horror movie shit? Come in the house, Knox,” Elijah yelled, his voice slightly muffled from the window between us.
I leaned a little closer to it, hoping that may help him hear me clearly when I replied, “Nah, I forgot I have an… appointment. With Kim.”
“Appointment with Kim? But it’s Friday. Don’t you see her on Tuesdays?” he asked with a confused expression on his face. One that didn’t surprise me since he was absolutely right.
But since I wasn’t interested in explaining to him why I needed to pay her an emergency visit, I opted for a lie when I told him, “Yeah, but we had to... reschedule. I’ll be back later.”
Elijah waited for me to turn the car on before signaling for me to roll down the window so that he wouldn’t have to yell, “Aight. Well do you and Amerie wanna do dinner with me and Miranda? She gets in town a little later tonight.”
Now that he could see my face and hear me clearly, I tried to keep my voice level and my face plain when I answered, “Uh… nah. Y’all go ahead without me. I’ll probably just pick somethin’ up on my way back.”
But it was clear I hadn’t done a good job as Eli leaned into the window, taking a closer look at me before asking, “Hey man, you aight? Something seems off about you.”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I mean, I am fine. It’s just… it’s just one of those days I guess,” I replied with a heavy sigh.
One that was enough for Elijah to offer me sympathy when he asked, “We all have ‘em, don’t we?” Watching me nod before he smacked his hand against the car door and continued, “Well aight. Tell Kim’s fine ass I said what’s up. And that the dinner invitation I gave her the last time I saw her is still valid.”
“Nigga, didn’t you just say you’re goin’ to dinner with Miranda?”
He shrugged, stepping away from the car as he asked, “What’s your point? I mean, she’s only here for a couple of days. I still gotta keep my options open for the rest of the calendar month.”
I shook my head at his poor logic, finding it all too familiar. “Yeah, aight man. Just don’t be out here hurtin’ women. Whatever you do, don’t be that guy.”
What I thought was sound advice only made Elijah laugh before he replied, “First of all, she’s the one who hurt me with that shit she pulled at the awards show, so now I’m just staying in my lane. Second of all, what’s with this whole anti-playboy shit? You forget that was your whole persona up until… a few weeks ago? Don’t act like you’re all reformed now just because Amerie is back. You’re still the same nigga who taught me everything I know.”
My eyes tightened along with my jaw and my fists as I played his words over and over again, feeling overwhelmed as I opened the car door and stepped out. And even though it was obvious Elijah was intimidated by my approach, he didn’t back down as I got right in his face to ask, “That’s what you think, huh? That I can’t change? That I can’t grow the fuck up and settle down with one woman? Who you think I am? Pops?”
I shoved him in the chest, making him stumble back as the fear in his eyes finally decided to show up. And he held his hands up as he reasoned, “I didn’t mean it like that. Relax.”
“So what did you mean then, huh? Make it clear for me you bitch ass nigga,” I snarled, the anger inside of me boiling over yet again as I stared down at him and waited for his explanation.
And he was sure to create space between us when he started, “Yo, chill. I wasn’t... calling you Pops, man. I was just saying that everything I learned about dealing with women, I learned from the two of you. Obviously I wasn’t gonna follow in his footsteps, but… I trusted yours. And maybe I shouldn’t have.”
Instead of allowing his words to be the gut punch they should’ve been, I turned around and headed back to the car, knowing I didn’t have to deal with his shit. But he didn’t make it easy for me when he yelled, “Running away has never solved your problems, Knox! You and I both know that.”
He was right.
Running away did nothing but delay having to deal with the mess later. But in the moment, running away felt like the only viable option, especially since I knew I had a safe place to go. And even if it didn’t make sense to Elijah in the moment, that didn’t stop me from getting in the car and driving straight to Kim’s office.
Amerie
Being in his home felt completely sobering. But unfortunately, I had no choice since we still had one week left of filming. And since I didn’t have the option of righting my wrongs with Knox considering he had decided to spend his final week with the camera crews following him up the coast as he taught dance classes, the only true outlet I had was in the studio. Though even that felt different now that I didn’t have my favorite dance partner by my side.
Every time I thought about what Knox had shared in the elevator, tears began to well up in my eyes. How a child could experience something so traumatic and have his perspective of love be screwed up long before he even had a chance to experience it for himself. How a man could mosey through adulthood avoiding what most considered a precious entity all because of his father’s poor decisions. And while there was no way in the world I would ever give Knox a pass for how he treated our situation, I also knew it would’ve been foolish for me to ignore how much sense it made.
I mean, how could I really expect him to get it right with me when love had been the cause of the most painful thing in his life? Why would anyone want to love after that?
Then again, he did love. He admittedly loved me through his own reservations even if he didn’t know what to do with it. He still loved me even after I had betrayed his trust. And that only made me love him even more in return regardless of how much I had tried to train myself to think otherwise. But there was no escaping the way he made feel, no escaping the butterflies I got in my stomach just thinking about him, no escaping the desire to be… his.
Because that’s what it all boiled down to. I wanted to be with Knox the same way he once wanted to be with me.
But not anymore.
; Now the possibilities would only be a figment of my imagination since he no longer wanted anything to do with me as proven by his urgent teaching tour. Considering it hadn’t been on the original shooting schedule for the show, I could assume he had done it all to avoid dealing with me. And while the old me wanted to say fuck him for taking the easy way out, the me that knew Knox better than I ever had before, the me that cared deeply for Knox, didn’t allow for it.
So instead, I danced.
Song after song, I channeled every emotion I felt about the situation - good and bad - into my moves until I was completely drenched in sweat. And even then, I simply changed clothes so that I could go at it again, dancing longer than the camera crew was interested in filming. But I wasn’t dancing for them, or for the viewers, or for anybody other than myself. Because even though dance was my profession, the money I made from it was purely a bonus.
Dancing was really about my sanity.
Though it was clear my commitment appeared anything but sane when Miranda showed up to the studio in a fury and asked, “Amerie, are you crazy? You’re gonna fuck around and hurt yourself dancing all day like this. What’s the matter with you?”
“I’m fine,” I snapped, returning to the sound system to find a new playlist to dance to.
But before I could press play, Miranda blocked my hand and scolded, “You are not fine. You’ve been down here since before the sun came up and the sun has been gone for hours now. I mean, have you even eaten anything today?”
“I’m not hungry,” I told her with a roll of my eyes, though my stomach decided to out me when it growled in response to my lie.
And while I pretended to ignore it, Miranda only shook her head as she said, “You need to get something in your system. If nothing else, it’ll give you the fuel you need to keep on dancing through whatever the hell is going on with you.”
“Nothing is going on with me, Miranda. Dance is what I do. It’s who I am. How can me dancing all day possibly look out of the ordinary?” I asked, trying to normalize the ache in my muscles, the blisters growing on my feet, and my second set of saturated clothes.
Still, the only thing that mattered to Miranda when she stepped to me was, “Your face is stained with dried up tears, sis. Something is definitely up.”
“Shit,” I whispered as I moved away from her, scrubbing at my cheeks in the mirror as if that would change her opinion.
But instead of chastising me about it, she held up a doggie bag I hadn’t even realized she was holding in the mirror, offering it as a peace treaty. And I could only offer a half-hearted smile in return as she plopped down on the floor and patted the space next to her.
She was already busy pulling out the food by the time I joined her, handing me a Styrofoam box as she tossed out, “So tell me. Whose nappy ass tracks will little sister be yanking from the scalp?”
“He doesn’t wear tracks. He… dances to them,” I muttered as I cracked open the box and found it halfway filled with chicken fried rice, my mouth watering instantly at the sight.
I wanted to dig right in, but my appetite receded when Miranda groaned, “Oh God. This has something to do with Knox? How can you be crying over Knox and he’s not even here?”
I picked around at the food, pushing the chicken chunks into a pile as I chose my words carefully. “Before he left, we… we got into it. And it was ugly. Really ugly. And even though I want to be mad at him, I’m only mad at myself which is an incredibly shitty place to be in.”
“Well… what did you do? I mean, Knox is cool as hell. I didn’t even know he was capable of getting mad. Wait! Actually, I take that back. When I went to dinner with Elijah the night I got in town, he was upset because Knox had gone off on him about something. He didn’t tell me what though. Just that he was really, really mad.”
My head dropped instantly as I admitted, “That was the same day we got into it.”
While I didn’t know Knox’s anger towards me had developed into anger towards everybody, I still felt bad that Elijah had to catch the wrath that I had caused. But Miranda didn’t exactly let me sulk in regret when she asked, “Well, are you gonna tell me what happened? Or you just gonna eat my food?”
“I... can’t. I mean, the reason we got into it was because I shared his personal business, even though it was only with Blaise. And maybe on camera,” I whispered before finally shoving a bite of food into my mouth.
But my aggressive chews weren’t enough to drown out Miranda repeating, “On camera? You were spilling tea on camera, Amerie? Come on. You know better than that.”
Even though I had already acknowledged how wrong it was, I still defended, “I told them to delete the footage! And Knox told me he was going to go on camera and share the same thing so… I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
I took another full bite, chewing through my guilt and hoping my little sister would at least consider my point of view. But the second I glanced over to see the look on her face, I could tell she wasn’t falling for my avoidance tactic when she asked, “If you trusted me with some big, exclusive news, would you be mad if I shared it before you did?”
That was easy to brush off since I knew, “I would never share exclusive news with you. You have a big ass mouth.”
“Stay focused, Amerie!” she screamed, making me sit up a little straighter as I really gave her question some thought.
Without a doubt in my mind, I answered, “Well, yeah. Of course I’d be mad.”
“So now you know why Knox was mad,” she replied as if her conclusion was anything new.
“I already knew why he was mad. And I apologized. But it didn’t really fix anything. Hell, it honestly seemed like it made things worse,” I admitted as I took another bite of the food, finding it a little harder to swallow now that the feelings from the elevator were resurfacing yet again.
And it must’ve been obvious to Miranda as well as she wrapped a loving arm around my shoulder, pulling me into a half-hug as she assured me, “The hard part is over with, Amerie. Now you start the healing. Well… unless he avoids you the way you did to him.”
For whatever reason, I chuckled at that, feeling confident when I told her, “He can’t avoid me. We still have show stuff to do together, clips to review, reasons to be around each other. And he lives right next door. I mean, he has to come home eventually, right?”
By the time the question actually left my tongue, my confidence had completely dwindled. And Miranda didn’t exactly make it any better when she asked, “Before you move out this weekend? It’s not guaranteed. But like you said, y’all still have stuff to do and if he really cares about you like I think he does, he’ll come around.”
I pulled away from her, picking around at the food again as I told her, “You’ve always been on his side. It’s kinda annoying.”
This time, it was her brushing me off when she insisted, “Girl, I am not on his side. I just know what’s good for you. And these past few weeks have been the happiest I’ve seen you in a really, really long time.”
She was right.
Ever since I had gotten over my reservations when it came to being around Knox, everything had been… perfect. We were having fun together, getting to know each other, reconnecting in a way that was truly long overdue. And once the sex was reintroduced...
“Yeah, until now,” I muttered, dropping my fork into the box since my appetite had once again gone missing.
Still, my sister didn’t let my pity party last long, taking the food from me before offering me a hand up from the ground. And through her grunt to pull me up, she said, “Just because an encore is called for doesn’t guarantee it’ll be pretty, Amerie. But that also doesn’t mean you should just let it go to waste. You still have to finish out the performance.”
I rolled my eyes, dusting off the back of my sweatpants as I processed her logic. And while I knew there was a lot of truth in her words, I couldn’t help myself in teasing, “Okay. I want my shallow ass little sister back.”
“You
do? Cause I need you to take a couple Snaps of me breaking it down in this exclusive ass studio while we still have access,” she said, following it up with the most dramatized twerk I had ever seen and making me burst with laughter.
“Miranda, you haven’t danced since mama caught you kissing on your instructor back in middle school,” I reminded her, shaking my head at the memory since for whatever reason, Mama had decided to ground us both over the incident even though we were in different classes.
And leave it to my sister to still be defending her innocence all of these years later as she reasoned, “First of all, he was a high school volunteer which… I was only a year shy of being his prey anyway. And second of all, he was fine as hell. Mama was just being a hater, per usual.”
“Anyway! Give me your phone so I can hurry up and get your little Snaps,” I told her with a wave of my hand.
“You’re not gonna be in it? I wanna brag to my fans about my bomb ass, dancing ass big sister,” she said, emphasizing her words with a dramatic series of pops in her back, making me laugh yet again.
Since Miranda was clearly making an effort to make me feel better, I figured I could return the favor as I took a peek at myself in the mirror, fluffing my sweated out hair around. “So you’re gonna wait until I get all greasy in the face from eating that Chinese food to put me on your Snapchat? You play too much.”
“We’ll just throw a little filter over it. It’ll be fine,” she insisted as she tapped away at the screen of her phone before putting it in front of her face and adding, “Guess who’s in the dance studio with her favorite sister? Say Hey Amerie.”
I turned around and plastered on a pleasant smile as I gave a little wave, holding it until Miranda pulled her phone down which meant she had gotten the footage she needed. And after pressing upload, she handed the phone to me and said, “Put on somethin’ hot. I’m tryna get casted for someone’s music video off of this shit.”
“You do realize I do casting for music videos, right?” I asked as I made my way to the sound system, scrolling through the options before turning on a foolproof playlist; Favorite Beyoncé songs.
An Encore for Love Page 18
