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Aj POV

It's too early for me to be awake right now, but I am. Every time I'm at my Uncles house it's like I can't sleep past eight in the morning. I think it got something to do with the fact that he got these big, bright ass windows in all the rooms making the sun shine all through my eyes. That shit be bothering me, but it doesn't seem to interrupt anybody else's sleep. Especially not Zyier who's still sleeping in this bed even after I got showered and dressed.

Last night was the first time I spoke to let alone seen Zyier in a minute. After what had happened, I been trying to reach out to him for days to apologize for what I did, but he clearly been ignoring me because all of a sudden when Taleah messages him is when he knows how to message back. I don't know how Taleah got his shit in the first place and how she figured to reach out to him. I don't think she knows anything about what I did, Zyier wouldn't tell her especially since they don't even know each other like that. Even though I would rather Taleah and Zyier to stay separate from each other, my family and Zyier in general, I'm tryna look at the bigger picture and just be happy he's speaking to me now.

I guess since Zyier came through, my birthday was alright. It was more about Taleah, but I don't care. She got more to celebrate than I do so it makes sense—and I don't like parties. But I appreciate Zyier being here. If he wasn't I woulda went into one of the rooms and wait out the rest of the night in there by myself. I'm still sorry about what I did to him, but when I tried to talk about it he kept dodging the conversation and then saying he don't want to talk about that right now. I don't want to talk about it either but the way Zyier is, he would still be mad but act like he's not. Whatever. I'm not bout to stress myself.

Like I said, he's sleeping like everybody else in here probably is. I wasn't expecting my uncle to let us sleep in the same room, especially because he got more than enough space for everybody. But he didn't say nothing when Zyier followed me into the room last night, he just said goodnight and that was it. It wasn't even nothing to worry about in the first place because we didn't think about doing nothing, and we didn't. Literally he went to sleep then I went to sleep and that was it. The nigga ain't even kiss me or nothing yesterday, so of course. I don't care about that and neither does he, I'm just happy he came.

I'm starting to get hungry though, so I'mma just leave him sleeping and make myself something while everybody else is sleeping so I could just wait in until Uncle Tyler brings us back to the apartment.

I leave the room quietly and go to the kitchen. I don't expect to see the nigga that keeps popping up from nowhere that be with Taleah, though. He makes eye contact with me and gives me a head nod. "Wassup. I just stopped to get some water," he holds a water bottle up. I look away from him and continue to go about my business. I open the fridge, and as much as I want to continue doing what I'm doing in peace this nigga just standing there and looking at me, looking away and looking stupid taking little ass sips of water. It's a fucking bottle he coulda carried it to wherever else that's not this kitchen. I don't like when people all awkward around me, it's suspicious and uncomfortable.

I look at him, "Nigga you got something you wanna say? Stop fucking staring at me," I say. The fuck. It's too early for this.

"I ain't mean to stare bro, my fault. I just been meaning to ask you something. I know you don't really know me but—"

"Yeah, so don't ask me nothing." Like, what? He tryna have a conversation and shit. He Taleah's company, not mine.

"No but see, that's what I mean. I just wanna know why you got a problem with me. I ain't even did nothing. You was mad at me the moment you seen me...like, why?" he asks. I ignore his question. I don't feel like talking right now, especially not to this nigga. I'm tryna make a sandwich or some shit, I don't have the time.

"Taleah is my friend, that's it. I got no ill intentions with your sister. I respect her and Mr.C too much to hurt her, but I'm not even that type of nigga to begin with. You could ask anybody."

I stop him before he could go any further.

"I don't got a problem with you. Now leave me alone." It's the truth. I don't have a problem with him. He just popped up during the worse time and that's my papa's fault for bringing him around.

He laughs, "You so hostile for no reason. But we good though. Happy birthday by the way, didn't get the chance to tell you."

"Thanks." I respond, ignoring everything else. I have every reason to be hostile, but I'm not bout to argue with this nigga for that. He don't know me.

"Yeah, you welcome. I'm bout to be out though...gotta get to it so I could live like this," he laughs. If he was smart he woulda waited here until my uncle wakes up so that he could get back to Brooklyn easier, but that's none of my business. I continue to make this wack ass sandwich as he's walking away. Unfortunately he stops again and looks at me. "You got snap? Or Instagram? I don't be on that Facebook shit."

I don't want to be mutuals with this nigga. "No."

He kisses his teeth, "Why you lying? I already know you do through Taleah."

So then—I narrow my eyes, "So why you asked?"

"To play dumb and see if you was warming up to me," He laughs. "I don't be on that Facebook shit." He mocks himself and I laugh under my breath. He chuckles again, "I don't though. It's boring. Not that that other shit any better, but I just try to stay to myself nowadays to be honest."

"Yeah."

After a few moments of silence, he sighs. "Aight then, I'ma miss my bus. See you." He waves and then finally leaves. Once he's gone I take a bite of the sandwich I made. This shit kinda good, but I've had better. Imma still eat it though.

I scroll on my phone while I'm eating, watching videos. I don't know when everybody gonna decide to wake up but I'm not in no rush for them to. I been perfect keeping myself company these past couple days. Every now and again my daddy would say something to me, but I been able to keep my distance for the most part. So I been fine, it just needs to stay that way.

I continue to scroll through my phone coming across stupid shit. It's only a few amount of times I find myself stopping because something is catching my attention, but everybody is just so corny it makes my head hurt.

I put my phone down Zyier walks into the kitchen all showered and dressed, standing beside me. "Hey."

"Hi." I say back. I feel bad because I can see the bruising right where I hit him at. I feel the need to keep apologizing because of how much I regret doing that to him, but he keeps shutting me down every time I try to talk about it . Like I said, he's talking to me all regular but Zyier the type to still be mad and just hide it well. He sits down next to me and in my mind I'm tryna search for something to say to him in the silence, but I got nothing. But of course, he manages to find something to say.

"I got work at twelve. I might leave early if y'all still here in a hour. I'll get a Uber or something."

"Don't go then. Call out."

"I called out mad times already," Zyier says. "It's whatever. This is what I signed up for." He takes out his phone and starts texting somebody. I look away from for a second and it gets silent again. I'm bout to bring it up again, I can't help it. Things is still not how they used to be and I just want to get back to that because whatever this is is awkward and there's too much tension. If we could have just moved on like regular I wouldn't have to keep saying the same thing.

Before I bring it up Zyier speaks again, "What you doing today? Just gonna be at home?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Just asking."

"You want to come over later?" Maybe he wants to smoke or something. I don't know.

"No. I can't. You know my mother be acting like I'm outside all times of night and it's not even like that. So after staying out for the night I gotta go home straight after work."

"Oh." I'll probably smoke by myself then. Imma have to try and sneak past my daddy though, he just gonna get mad. Nigga already threw out my shit when he first got back. I just find it funny how this the same nigga who smoke like ten blunts a day, but it's a problem when I'm not even doing half of what he's doing.

Zyier takes the seat next to me and continues to text on his phone while I finish my food. If people could see what's going on inside my head they would see how stupid I look tryna search for something to say to Zyier. Things need to go back how they was, I cant do this awkward shit. We sitting right next to each other and talking about nothing. I feel like we ran out of everything to talk about yesterday.

"Aj." He says suddenly.

"Yeah?" I answer almost immediately like a fucking feen. Mad ugly.

"Damn nigga, I barely got the 'j' out." Zyier laughs at me. I look away from him out of embarrassment. "I just wanted to show you this nigga who look like you." He turns his phone to me and shows me a picture of some dude. I don't give a fuck about that, I thought he was ready to talk about what happened. I look at the picture he's showing me and shrug. I don't see what he's talking about. Or I probably just don't care, I don't want to talk about random people.

"I don't see it." I look away from the phone.

"Oh, well. I see it. Nigga fine."

Aight so I guess he just trying to make me mad. Is that what's going on? I'm not even about to feed into it then. If he tryna be petty or some shit this is a stupid way to do it. I'm not saying shit back.

Zyier laughs after I don't respond, "You boring. I'm just playing but you wanna be all serious."

"What you want me to say?" I make a face at him. He must get a kick out of me being angry. That shit is not funny. And I would think after seeing what happens when I go overboard with my anger he wouldn't be playing with me like this.

"What you would say had it been any other day. I'm just tryna start a conversation with you."

"Do it in a different way then. Telling me you think niggas is fine is not a conversation starter."

"Okay, but I'm not getting where all this energy is coming from. I've joked like that before and you just played along. We was good yesterday so I'm not understanding why you throwing a fit." He puts his phone down.

"It's not a joke. We going through something and I'm feeling like I'm already bout to lose you so no it's not a joke."

Zyier laughs at me like something is funny. This is annoying now. I feel like I'm the only one taking this serious. First he don't want to talk about it and now he wants to joke about thinking the next nigga is attractive. I don't like being laughed at like I'm doing too much, especially with something like this.

"I don't think you have the right to be getting mad though. If I want to joke about the shit I joke about on the regular, then I'm gonna do that. You more in your feelings about this than I am. Cant you tell I just wanna move on from it?"

"Zyier, do you not understand that I hit you though?" I ask. I literally punched him mad hard in the face, twice, and he's acting like this isn't a big deal.

"It's not that shocking. And it's not that serious. You tried to fight me and I let you get away, because I know you going through things. I'm not pussy, I'm just over it, so get over it."

"Bro what? You ignored me for like a week but now you over it and I'm supposed to be over it too. Okay."

"Yeah, exactly. What's confusing about that. This was my issue to get over, so move on. Ion wanna talk about it."

None of what he's saying makes sense. You telling me I couldn't get in contact with you for how long because I hit you, but without talking about it or nothing I'm supposed to 'move on'? I didn't even get the chance to fully apologize. Acting like it didn't happen is not gonna do me no good, especially if he over here 'joking' like he's interested in other niggas. I feel like he testing me just so he could hold what I did over my head and I don't like that.

"Ok." I say back. He knows what he's saying don't make no sense, but ok since this is his problem to get over. I feel Zyier staring at me getting ready to say something else. I don't want to hear nothing else he got to say, we clearly not on the same type of time.

"Aight, you wanna talk about it? Fine. You hit me. Just apologize."

"It's not that simple." He just doesn't get it.

"I'm not giving you the heart to heart intervention that you want. It's not that deep. So apologize and move on. End of story." He shrugs and raises his eyebrows expectantly. "Go head."

I keep my eyes on the table. It is that deep to me, but who cares about what I think. First it's I don't take accountability for my actions and now it's not that deep. I cant be the only one seeing what's happening. I can never win no matter what it is that I do, I'm always gonna be wrong. I don't know why I be acting so shocked each time.

"Sorry for hitting you Zyier. I shouldn't have did that," I mumble while looking at him.

"Alright then. I forgive you. I already did." He says. I nod and look back at the table. I don't believe him, but it's whatever at this point. I'm not gonna force it anymore, I tried. "Just don't do it again because I'm not sparing you next time. This not no abusive relationship, I could've fucked you up and you know that—"

"I get it." I interrupt. I get that he's not letting me walk away again, but I have no plans on doing that again. I'm not abusive, I was just frustrated so it was a one time thing. Zyier gets out of his seat to stand closer to me, and he hugs me from the side.

"Damn nigga, you so difficult," he kisses my cheek, "and you mean to tell me you never seen a nigga who wasn't me and thought he looked good? Try lying." He laughs. I wanna move on from this topic if I'm being honest. We could talk about anything else, I don't want to talk about this.

"Never." I respond.

"One more time."

"Why you want to know? I thought you was just joking." I frown. He just went on a whole rant about how that's always how he jokes, so I'm not understanding the point.

"Tell the truth, I won't get mad. Seriously."

I sigh and look at him as he's standing here with a smile waiting for me to answer. What's the point in knowing this though, I don't get it. "I guess, but that don't mean nothing—"

"Wow, you're really a bum ass nigga," he laughs. I should've known that was a set up. It's not even like that, that's why I didn't really want to answer the question in the first place. It's just like, I got eyes and I can clearly see if a nigga is cute but it doesn't mean nothing to me. Especially not recently because I've been so caught up in Zyier ignoring me.

"Chill out," I laugh. I don't want to talk about this no more. How Imma be talking about other niggas and I just got mine to talk to me.

Zyier grabs my face in his hand and kisses me without a heads up, and I say that because I haven't kissed him since before I went to his house. I obviously kiss him back though. I push him away from me when I see my uncle walking into the kitchen. That would've been awkward as fuck, it's why I'm glad I don't do that eye closing shit. I always asked myself when I be watching movies, why people eyes gotta close when they kissing? They gotta be doing that shit on purpose.

My uncle looks at us, "Good morning guys." He stretches then goes into his pocket. He pulls out a lighter which means he's probably about to go outside, so we probably leaving soon. "I got so much shit to do. I don't even care, I'll do it when I get to it...fuck—" at this point uncle Tyler is just talking to himself because he walks off continuing to complain about something under his breath. Before he's out of sight he says, "I'm bout to do something and then when I come back we'll leave in like thirty minutes. So wake Leah up."

Like he said to do, I go wake Taleah up. I haven't been talking to her like that so I just tapped her and then left the room. While waiting for uncle Tyler to come back and Taleah to be done, Zyier and I sit and wait in the living room on our phones. While sitting here, he tried to take a picture of us together so he could put it on his snap but I told him no. I don't want to bring our relationship to social media, especially because Zyier knows too many people. As far as everybody on the outside knows, I'm just Aj. If they find out that I'm gay then that's the only thing they gonna look at me as, so I don't want no speculations no matter how true it may be. In the same breath I'm not DL. I don't mess with females no more and I could kiss Zyier in public and everything, so if someone happens to see us then whatever. But I'm not making no subliminal statements with a picture of me and Zyier together.

Uncle Tyler comes back and then once everyone is ready we get into the drivers car. Taleah, Zyier and I sat the back and then Uncle Tyler and Auntie Zaniyah sat up in the front. For the ride back, Zyier ain't pay me no mind, he decided to speak to my sister the whole time and keep laughing at shit that isn't even funny. Taleah got more than enough people in her life, I would like if I could be stingy with the only person I got. They interacting too much for my liking. Zyier already be pissing me off when it comes to what he says about my issues with my family, I don't need him to be all buddy buddy with them now.

We drop Zyier off at his house first so that he could get ready for work and see his mom before he leaves.

"Hopefully I see y'all soon. Thank you Tyler for taking me home."

"See you soon," Taleah and Auntie Zaniyah wave.

"Anytime," My uncle says from the front. I get out of the car so that Zyier could get out since he was sitting in the middle. When we're both out of the car he hugs and kisses me and then he kisses me again and I start feeling my face heat up. This kind of feels like I just kissed a nigga who I been talking to for the first time, but I think it's because Zyier has really been ignoring me, and I didn't think he would've ever forgave me for what I did. We haven't even had the title of being in a relationship until not too long ago, even though we been talking for a few months. So, it really felt like he was just gonna leave and never talk to me again, especially because he usually threatens to leave me every other day.

"You blushing?" He pats my cheek when he backs up from kissing me. "You probably thinking of them other niggas you said you thought was attractive."

I lick my lips and look away from his eyes. I'm not thinking about nobody. Should've never told him that because Zyier the type to keep bringing it up. He be playing, but still he be collecting the shit I say to use it against me. All the time. "No. I'm not." I mumble.

"Yeah okay," he laughs. "FaceTime me later. If I can't pick up you know why." I really wish he could stay with me.

"Yeah...See you." I sigh to myself as I watch him walk away and disappear into his house. I always feel better when he's around, and then when he's not I just feel bored all over again. I get back in the car and don't make eye contact with nobody because the thought that they could've seen me through the window flashes in my mind, and now I'm embarrassed. I put my headphones and hoodie on, and listen to music on the rest of the way