Naomi let herself into Jada’s apartment again. The air was thick with quiet and the sour tang of takeout containers long forgotten.
“Still living like a ghost, huh?” Naomi said, gently moving clothes off the couch.
Jada looked up from her spot on the floor. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
Naomi sat beside her, thigh to thigh. She handed Jada a smoothie she brought from the café.
“You know you can’t keep hiding in the wreckage,” Naomi said. “You survived the car crash. Stop pretending you’re still bleeding.”
Jada sipped the smoothie without tasting it. “I don’t know how to move on.”
Naomi was quiet a moment, then asked, “Do you want him back… or do you just want not to be alone?”
The question punched her in the gut.
“I don’t know,” Jada whispered.
“You do.”
Naomi looked at her with something softer than judgment but sharper than pity. “I love you, J. But you’ve been chasing the same man in a different body since college.”
Jada winced. “Micah wasn’t like the others.”
“Did he stay?”
Silence.
They sat in it. The silence. The truth.
Naomi reached for the remote and put on a movie they used to love. Jada leaned against her friend’s shoulder and closed her eyes.
Maybe she didn’t know how to move on.
But maybe she didn’t have to do it alone.
Baawa Unfiltered 