Butterfly

by Ashley Antoinette

  Ahmeek placed eyes on Morgan. The way the outer corners of his eyes creased and his forehead relaxed as the corner of his mouth lifted in appreciation made Morgan look away. She couldn’t figure out where these fucking butterflies were coming from. He had never made her feel like this two years ago. Her entire stomach disappeared when he marked her with that stare. Out of nowhere, she became antsy, nervous. Her chest lifted as she drew in a breath.

  “You’re home.”

  She shrugged, lifting her shoulders as if it were no big deal. “I am.”

  “How long?” he asked.

  “Who knows?” she said. “At least until graduation.”

  He nodded. “Congratulations on all that. It’s crazy that you finished in two years, Mo. You’ve been working your ass off.”

  “I like to keep my mind busy, so I can’t think about other things. School is a distraction,” she said in a low tone that held so much sadness that Ahmeek didn’t know how to respond.

  “We’re up,” Aria interrupted.

  “Okay,” Morgan said with a heavy sigh. “I guess this is really happening.”

  Meek smirked. “I guess so,” he answered.

  The pair followed Aria and Isa into the courtroom. Morgan aligned herself behind Aria, and Meek stood behind Isa.

  “I’m Judge Franklin. I’ll be administering the ceremony today.” The white man stood in a black robe. “Do you have the marriage license?”

  From his back pocket, Isa pulled the folded piece of paper that he had purchased in the lobby and handed it to the judge.

  “I’ll need both parties to sign. Both witnesses too,” the judge said, holding a pen out for them. “Then we can begin.”

  Aria took the pen first and bounced on her tiptoes, her anxiety eating her alive as she stared at Isa.

  “You’re going to break me, aren’t you?” she asked.

  Isa shook his head. “Nah, Ali. I ain’t gon’ never do that,” he said.

  They stared at each other for a moment, and then Aria leaned down to sign the marriage license. Morgan felt her eyes mist. The dysfunction of Aria and Isa was a power struggle between the two. Two people terrified to love each other, going through the motions of pushing and pulling to see who would fall in the middle first. Today, they were taking the plunge together and Morgan was overwhelmed with an emotion she couldn’t identify. She was happy for them—ecstatic, in fact—but envy lived in her. She had jumped into love before; jumped headfirst without a life vest, and she hadn’t survived. Seeing her friends make this leap into the next phase of their lives without thinking twice reminded her of the reckless ways in which Messiah used to love her. It reminded her of the days and nights they had spent doing things that others wouldn’t understand, because they no longer lived in the real world. Their love had resided in an alternate world. M&M-ville where the only rules that applied were the ones they set for themselves. Messiah … Morgan didn’t even realize she was crying until the air-conditioning inside the room hit the tear on her face. She swiped it away and shook old memories from her mind as she gave a flat-lipped smile. Isa took the pen next, and his hand lingered over the paper. A beat passed. Another. Then another. He set the pen down and stood.

  Aria recoiled, and her entire body tensed as Morgan placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder.

  “We not doing this,” Isa stated, shaking his head as he swiped one hand down his face. He pulled the velvet box from his pocket. “Man, this is some corny shit,” he uttered before lowering onto one knee. “If we gon’ do it, I want to do it on some G shit. Some real proper shit. My niggas in suits, you in white. This courthouse ain’t good enough for you, Ali.”

  Aria smiled, and one tear fell from her stubborn eyes. She didn’t require much. Aria was young. A fourth-year undergraduate with a fetish for bad boys. She didn’t need Prince Charming, she didn’t need romantic. This courthouse and the spontaneity of it was enough for her, but the notion that he wanted to give her more, that he wanted to try to give her a standard that he thought she wanted was enough to make her heart swell. She didn’t want to change him. She didn’t want to grow him up. She didn’t want a man in tailored suits and a briefcase in hand. She wanted the shooter. She wanted the man that would pull triggers behind her, that was so tatted up that he had to turn city blocks into a million-dollar enterprise because no way was he ever sitting in anybody’s boardroom. She wanted a hood nigga. A gangster that could tame her mouth and ignite her body. This indecent proposal was perfect for her. She was bourgeoise enough for the both of them.

  “The fact that you’re willing to do it like this tells me this ain’t a mistake. I ain’t shit, probably won’t ever be shit, when niggas speak my name they gon’ remember one of two things. That I’ll shoot the shit out of a nigga and that I get money around this bitch. I’m good with that. It is what it is. I wasn’t trying to change a thing, then I stepped into that small-ass college club and saw you. You fuck me up, Ali. Make me feel like if I look at you too long, a nigga can touch me because I get weak like a mu’fucka. You’re better than I’ll ever be. You make me look like I’m worth something … like if you fucking with me, I got to be worth something. Got niggas looking at me like, ‘Damn, how he bag that?’ You wanna take a nigga name and hold on to it for a while? Maybe do something good with it, Ali? Make it worth something?”

  It was the best worst proposal Aria had ever heard. The vulnerability in his voice left room for only one answer. Aria’s smile broke through her coffee-colored skin and lit up the entire room. “Yeah, I can do that,” she whispered.

  Isa rushed her. “My nigga!” he shouted, causing her to scream in surprise and delight as he picked her up, hands under her ass while she wrapped her legs around his waist. She laughed as he carried her out the door.

  6

  It was a brisk spring morning—barely morning, in fact. The darkness from night had yet to retreat, and Messiah was the only person in the park. He was three miles into a five-mile run. Every morning. It was necessary. It was hell, and the burning in his lungs felt like fire, but the pain also reminded him that he was alive. He was here to feel the pain, and he was grateful. Sweat drenched him as his feet conquered the pavement. Five miles was a feat because there had been days when he couldn’t take five steps to cross a room. He had withered away to a mere one hundred pounds of nothing. He had felt like a child, too weak to do anything for himself. Months of being carried to the bathroom by nurses, of having his body rubbed down with soapy sponges because his legs wouldn’t hold him up in the shower. The physical pain had been unbearable, but that mental pain had been worse. The emotional pain indescribable. So, these five miles, while hard, were a privilege to run. Every morning, because if he was going to go back for his girl, he had to be the man she remembered. He couldn’t be weak. He couldn’t look like what he’d been through. When she saw him, he wanted her to see the same man that she remembered. He knew their goodbye had been a bitter one. It played in his mind every night before he closed his eyes to sleep. She had cried so many tears. She had begged him to stay. Messiah wished he had handled things differently … that he had handed her with care. It was too late to take it back. He couldn’t change the mistakes he’d made. He only hoped she would be the same … that the damage he had done hadn’t stolen the light from her eyes because that light helped him find his way out of the darkness every time he saw her.

  He pushed himself all the way to the finish, and when he burst through the door of his loft apartment, he had to sit at the bottom of the stairs. He’d pushed himself too hard. He always pushed past his limits, and his limbs shook as he gulped in air. He felt the bile building in the back of his throat, and he burst back out the door as a mixture of food and poison raged from his mouth. The chemotherapy treatments had lessened, but they were still needed—one a month, a lower dosage—and still it was the only thing keeping him alive. Cancer multiplied in him. The cells flipped like Messiah used to flip bricks. He could turn twenty to forty, forty to eighty. Give Messiah a b
ag, he would always double that shit. Apparently, cancer was the same. Always doubling, always bouncing back, always multiplying. The shit was destroying him, but he was alive. He was breathing, but it was getting harder and harder to live without his reason. Without Morgan.

  He struggled through his door and climbed the stairs to his loft. The loft he could barely afford. He had sent Morgan every dime he had to his name two years ago. A million dollars. Every penny he had ever made in the streets. She deserved it. She deserved the world, and he hadn’t been in a position to give it to her because of his diagnosis. Leaving had been easier than telling her. Abandoning her had been simpler than taking her through unbearable pain. Messiah had been facing death. He didn’t want to make a widow out of Morgan. She had only been eighteen years old. She was too young for such grief. He didn’t want the images of what cancer would do to his body to be ingrained in her mind forever. No, he had left her to remember him as he was. Her king. He realized she would hate him. He knew that it had hurt, but it hurt less than watching him die, so he was okay with that. He wanted her to live, and if she watched him die, a piece of her would become infected with that image and it would rot her slowly until she took her last breath. He didn’t want that for her. If she lived, if she smiled, if she conquered the world, it would mean he was doing all those things too, because one place where he would never die was in her heart. So he walked away. It crushed him. The bruise to his heart had been unbearable, but still he did it. Then medicine had saved him, had prolonged his life, and he couldn’t stay away. If he had more time, he wanted to spend it with her because Morgan Atkins was the love of his life.

  Messiah made his way to the bathroom and shed his clothes before stepping into the shower. The water streamed over his body. If it weren’t for the scars that the surgeries had left him with, no one would be able to tell he had been through hell. He peered down at the artwork on his inner forearm.

  M&M

  His entire body was a tribute to Morgan Atkins. In addition to that piece, her face was etched over the defined muscles of his back. Her first name and his last name over the left side of his chest. And a butterfly was lost in the art-filled sleeve on his leg. Every single time he thought of a new way to pay tribute to her, he did it. It made him feel close to her; it made him remember what he’d felt when in her presence. He hoped one day her lips would grace them, because Morgan had been infatuated with kissing his body, with tracing his tattoos with her tongue as she made her way south to his dick. Head wasn’t just head with her. It was a trip to an art museum, and Morgan appreciated every single exhibit before wrapping her pretty lips around his flesh. Just the thought made him go brick.

  Two years without a woman was torture to a man like Messiah. Before Mo, random pussy would do just fine. After her, it wasn’t even an option. He wanted Morgan so bad he dreamed about it. His hand around his need. Her image in his head. Messiah lowered his head and gritted his teeth as he came off memory alone. He needed Mo like he needed air, and his body was begging him to reunite with her. Messiah’s heart raced as he climaxed, and he closed his eyes, bracing himself, both hands against the tile as the shower rained over him. He felt so much angst in his soul. Being away from Morgan was unbearable. Knowing she was out there in the world without him hollowed him. He just wanted his girl back. God could keep the rest. The money, the status, the power … he could do without it all, except her. He lathered twice, rinsed, and then stepped out the shower, knotting a towel around his waist and grabbing his phone. He stepped out onto balcony, and the sun sat bright in the sky, knocking off the chill of the early-morning hours. He sat at the table as the wind kissed the beads of water that still lingered on his body, sending a chill down his spine.

  He slid the lock bar on his screen to the right and opened his Instagram app. He had never been so concerned about another person in his life, but in the past two years, he had become obsessed. He kept up with Morgan from afar, often using her pictures as focal points during the times he felt like he wouldn’t make it. She had no idea the ways she sent him strength. On days when she posted her man and her kids, those images tore through Messiah like a bullet. She had two angel-faced kids, and each time he saw them, jealousy seared him. Those faces that matched hers exactly should belong to him. It was a dream they had shared, but she had fulfilled it with someone else. Another man had proved that he deserved her more, and Morgan had given him what Messiah craved most. Family. And not just any family. A bloodline to her. A connection to Shorty Doo Wop. A family with anyone else just wouldn’t do. He clicked on her profile, and the black-and-white selfie penetrated him. Her eyes were different from how he remembered. Morgan Atkins put up a good front for everyone, but he knew her, and the sadness he saw in the windows to her soul was undeniable. The hurt he had put on her had changed her. Scarred. By him. Morgan’s eyes told the story of their tragic end. The caption read, There’s no place like home.

  Was she talking about him? She had told him he could always come home … that she would always be home. He wondered if it were still true. If he returned, would she unlock her doors, unchain her heart to let him back in? He tapped the little heart beneath the photo and went a step further to leave a comment.

  A shot to a nigga heart.

  A butterfly landed on his phone screen, and Messiah stilled, not wanting it to fly away. His eyes lifted to the many more that bounced their beautiful wings nearby, floating over the small rooftop garden that grew just a couple of feet away. He rented the place from his trainer, working in the gym, speaking to the young boys that came in and out from the neighborhood, and tending to the garden. It was how he kept a roof over his head, and the butterflies were his roommates. What at first was a nuisance had become a source of peace for him over the past two years. They reminded him of Mo, and he took pictures of them every day. An odd habit, but one he was unable to stop. The butterfly flew to his knee, and Messiah slowly opened his camera and focused on the orange beauty that sat fluttering. It was so delicate, so fragile, that even the slightest disturbance could harm it. Even if unintended, Messiah had the power to kill something so beautiful. That butterfly was Morgan Atkins. She was fragile and beautiful all at the same time. Messiah clicked the picture and then posted it to Instagram, adding it to the collection of other butterfly pictures he had taken. It was the only thing present on his account. A symbolic image of the love of his life. Messiah’s heart was shattered. It was severed because Morgan had it in her possession. Those butterflies were his best attempt to turn the pain into something beautiful … to turn those broken pieces to art because their love had been a masterpiece.

  The notification went off, and he felt like a clown when his heart lurched in his chest. Every little interaction with her moved him. Even something as simple as a comment.

  I hit my target every time.

  Messiah snickered. Cocky ass, he thought. The type of crazy that made Messiah both grateful and angry that she was flirting online. He slid into her DMs.

  MURDERKING810

  You should stop being so friendly to niggas online. Might fuck around and get caught up.

  He stood and walked back into his room, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  SHORTYDOOWOP

  Nah, I keep a couple shooters handy so that’ll never happen.

  Messiah’s brows lifted. Cocky-ass Morgan Atkins. He snickered because he knew she wasn’t lying. Ethic could call out an entire army on Mo’s behalf on any given Sunday. He had no idea of the true shooters she spoke of. The crew he’d left behind that were loyal to her off general principle alone. He had disappeared from her life, but Isa and Ahmeek were present. Two killers who were just a phone call away and would step it to anybody that crossed her path with the intention of doing harm. Morgan would never be short of shooters whether Ethic was involved or not.

  MURDERKING810

  Pretty girls like to talk tough.

  Messiah waited, and he wondered what had distracted her. His chest tightened, and he grew possessive at
the thought of Bash interrupting their conversation. Three entire minutes passed before she replied.

  SHORTYDOOWOP

  This pretty girl know how to walk tough too. Be careful with me.

  Messiah’s dick bricked. Little Morgan was big Morgan behind the safety of her social media. The anonymity of it had given her moxie, and Messiah wanted to fuck her. He liked that shit. The confidence … the borderline arrogance that she had developed. He remembered she would get that way after performing onstage, when she felt most in control, she would exude a power and poise that was so strong he would need to tame her instantly. He bit his bottom lip and tossed his phone onto the bed before dressing. Witcho pretty ass.

  It was time to go home. He couldn’t keep watching from afar. If his doctor didn’t clear him, he would just have to transfer his treatment back to Michigan. The distance was killing him. The solitude was agonizing, and he was ready to run down on little Morgan and shake shit up. He didn’t care about anything but her, and he was determined to get her back.

  7

  “King me, bitch,” Meek said as he slid the king of spades onto the table. He slouched in the chair of Mo’s dinette set. The Nike jogger’s set hung from his black skin perfectly as one hand finessed his beard. The other held his hand of cards deceptively, facedown against his knee as one leg stretched out comfortably in front of him.

  Morgan’s manicured hands scooped up the books.

  “I swear y’all be using sign language or some shit. Mo ass be cheating,” Isa complained.

  “I have a sign for you, Isa,” Mo said as she stuck up her middle finger.

  Aria burst into laughter and tilted the shot glass to her lips.

  “But I’m a G. We’ll hit the shot with you losers since you’re talking cash shit,” she said.