I can’t exactly say I didn’t know what I was getting into, but I was still a little surprised when I pulled into the driveway of a particularly decrepit Family Dollar.

“Uh,” I said as I stepped out of my car, “Family Dollar?”

Belinda was leaning on the side of her car with her arms crossed. I couldn’t tell if her smile reached her eyes or not, what with her sunglasses, but it seemed genuine enough.

“Usually I go the Walmart on Corbin but here’s closer so I thought I’d try it out.” She said.

“Ah,” I put my hands in my hoodie pockets as I walked over to her, “so we’re grocery shopping.”

She chuckled as she removed her shades (it did reach her eyes). “Kinda, we’re just buying supplies before we go to our real destination.”

“I see, I see.” We walked to the entrance. “What’re we buying?”

She smiled as I held the door open for her. “Nutella.”

“Do they even sell Nutella at Family Dollar?”

Belinda chuckled. “You’ve never been in a Family Dollar, have you?”

“Pfft. I live in this bitch.”

“Mhm, typical Nigerians. Shelter their kids so they never gain any sense of the streets.”

I turned to her, unable to conceal my smile. She was teasing me back. That was good right?

“Ha ha,” I said, “if we don’t find this Nutella I swear to God I’m going to belt the Nigerian anthem.”

“Jesus!” She covered her ears, “My ears are bleeding just thinking of that shit.”

“Yeah well, let’s see how they handle the real thing.”

We scoured through the run-down store, but if it did have Nutella, that bitch was going out of it’s way to avoid us.

“You gotta be shittin’ me,” Belinda cursed, “don’t tell me I’m gonna have to listen to some ‘arise o’ compatriots’.”

I shrugged. “That shit go hard.”

“Cap.”

Belinda was bent over, looking deep in the isle, and, surprise, surprise, I wasn’t looking at her ass. My sights were set on something much more deadly, and now that I think about it, maybe much more creepy as well.

I clenched my balls to muster up courage and bent down before sticking my head in the same row to ‘help her look’.

Don’t comment on how close you are. Don’t comment on how close you are. Don’t comment on how close you a-

“Sorry, am I too close?” I said.

Goddamnit, Tobe!

“Nah, you’re good. Just gotta find this shit so I don’t have to hear that mid.”

“You call it mid, but we got a higher GDP than you guys.”

She snickered. “What the hell that gotta do with- hold up. Do you even know our anthem?”

“Uh… yeah?”

Belinda shook her head. “Of course you don’t. You know, we always support you guys in the world cup but ya’ll never support us.”

“Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but as far as I know you gotta beneath someone to support them, no?”

Then she laughed, and my heart flew to the sun like a moth to a flame.

“That was good.” She said.

I turned away, pretending I was actually searching for the Nutella. She smelled like a hug. Jesus, I sound like a League Of Legends player.

“Who were your friends anyway?” She asked.

I paused my fake-searching. “Huh?”

“The friends you’re hiding from? Would I know them?”

My heart dropped faster than Jaden Smith’s song quality after Icon.

“Uh… Jacob, and… and Frankie.” I made sure I didn’t turn to her when I said it. I instead bit my lip and waited for the gears to click.

“Frankie? Isn’t that the chick who got her nudes leaked?”

“Yeah.”

Her voice became a fine line. An arrow. A pointed finger. “You helped spread them, didn’t you?”

My head snapped to her like a rubber band. “What?”

“That’s why you’re hiding.” Her voice, and her face twisted into itself. It was by and large the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen. “You’re scared of what you did!”

I was too close. I was too close to her. I couldn’t run. Somewhere in the background, Lucifer chuckled.

“Okay, relax.” I said to us. “I didn’t help spread anything.”

Her face stilled a bit.

“Then what the did you really do?” She asked.

Yes. Yes, okay? I lied to her. I think I justified it by thinking that she somehow deserved being lied to because she accused me of doing something I didn’t do. In hindsight, I was still very much a gust in the storm around Frankie, regardless of my link sharing history. I couldn’t tell her that though, so I grabbed the nearest piece of debris and held on for dear life.

I sighed. “Belinda wanted me to go fight Adam, and I know I should have, but I was scared, okay? He’s an incel bastard, but he’s a big incel bastard. And I’m pretty fucking big myself, so I could have gone, but I chickened out, and now I can’t face them. I’m sorry I lied.”

The empathy in Belinda’s eyes should have hurt. It should have slapped me accross the face, and it should have triggered something, anything human in me. Because that’s what I am, right? I’m supposed to be a goddamned human being. What I was doing was textbook emotional manipulation, but as fucked as this is, I think I was proud. I made a girl show investment in me, and I equated that to my worth as a man. I built a bridge out of burning love letters and unused condoms, and still had the nerve to be proud that I convinced a passerby that the smoke was coming from my cigarette. In that dusty-ass isle, with our heads a foot and half deep into an even dustier row, Belinda Mensah crossed my bridge, and when we got close to the other side, I wouldn’t understand why we both caught fire. In many ways, it’s the same story I’ve told before, and in other ways, it’s the same one you’ve read before: There is no cigarette, and I always make them cry.

#

We didn’t find any Nutella, but we did find the next best thing. It was the same shape, color scheme, font, etc. The only difference was that in place of “Nutella”, the words “Nussa” stood proudly and self-assured.

“Should we even buy this?” Belinda said as we stared at the jar, “I feel cheap just looking at it.”

I snorted. “And that, my friend, is the difference between me and you. You flinch at a knockoff Nutella, and I discovered the beauty of Yugoslavian pornography through Pirate Bay.”

“I don’t know how,” She said, glaring at me playfully, “but I bet that’s in some how related your Nigerian-ness.”

I turned to her. “Did you just commit a racism to me?”

“Nigga put the damn jar in the basket.”

I put the damn jar in the basket.

“Okay, what now?” I asked, still not sure what this was all for.

Belinda chortled. “They really went and called it ‘Nussa’. What the fuck?”

Her smile infected me. “They didn’t even change the color scheme.” I added.

“Bro how the hell haven’t they been sued yet?” She held her sides and leaned back as she laughed.

Chuckling, I picked up the jar and looked at the back.

Dear God.

Barely able to keep a steady hand, I showed Belinda the “Made in Nigeria” print, barely visible and near the bottom.

That was when we lost our shit, all the way up to the cashier.

“So who were your friends?” I asked, still wiping tears as my stomach clenched sporadically.

Belinda sobered up a little as she placed the Nussa jar and pack of Malta Goya on the counter.

“Shrishti and Grace.” She said.

“Very diverse.”

She punched me. “Shut up.”

I brought out my wallet, but Belinda didn’t even look at me before she slid her card in the cashier card thingy and typed in her pin.

Each of us holding a bag, we exited the Family Dollar and breathed in non-dingy-ish air for the first time in like, an hour.

“So what did you do, if you don’t mind me asking?” I said as we headed to the lot.

Belinda sighed. “I went off at them. They were talking trash about Hunter.”

My stomach opened and swallowed itself.

“Who’s Hunter?”

“My boyfriend.”

She said it so casually. So easily, as one might tell you the weather or their name. The word ‘boyfriend’ had no weight in her mouth. She wasn’t even a little afraid, not of the way it sounded or of what it meant, it just was what it was. And it was that I had been staring at the ass of a taken girl. And it was that I wouldn’t stop even after I knew she was taken. And it was that I would do much, much worse, partly to her, but mostly to myself this time.

Lucifer slid out of his little pocket in nowhere and started chuckling, doing air-cartwheels beside us as we walked.

“You see, Hunter’s a senior.” She started.

A snort came form Lucifer. “Why the home do these bitches keep trying to fuck the elderly? Even I think it’s weird, and I’ve gotten blowjobs from snakes.”

I pinched him to shut him up and focused on what Belinda was saying.

“And I think they’ve always been jealous that I was able to bag a senior, so then they started spreading rumors that he was cheating on me.”

“Was he?”

“Course not, don’t be stupid.”

“Right.”

“Long story short, I went off at them, and now I’m in the parking lot of a Family Dollar with a Nigerian Yugoslavian porn addict because I’m a pussy.”

“Fair, fair. Although addict seems like a bit much. It’s more of a recreational thing. Like weed. Or laughing at Ghanian music.”

She rolled her eyes. “Nigga, shut-up. I’ll text you where we’re headed next.”

Belinda turned and headed to her car, leaving me alone with Lucifer. I sighed and grabbed him by the horns as I headed to mine.

“If I was a puny mortal who could feel pain, I’d be very upset right now.” He said.

“Kill yourself.”

“That’s your job.”

“Shut-up.”

He snickered. “Or at least, it would have been if not for-”

My grip tightened. “Shut. Up. Lucifer.”

“Tobe!” Belinda’s voice called out to me, and I spun like a bey-blade.

“Yeah?”

“Wrong car!”

“Huh?”

“We both went to the wrong cars!”

I turned back to the car I was headed to, and noticed it had a profoundly unrecognizable steering wheel coat thingy.

Huh.

“My bad!”

She was already headed in my direction, so I headed in hers.

“Nah, this was bound to happen.” She replied, laughing.

“True. You’ll text me the address?” I asked, as she walked past me.

“Mhm.” She said. I paused and waited for her to turn back, even if just to see if I was headed to my car, but she never did. She just got in her car and pulled out of the lot, so I just sighed again and kept walking.

I threw Lucifer’s bitch ass in the passenger seat, and slumped into my car. Then I rested my head on the steering wheel and calmed my breathing.

“Are you gonna cry?” He asked, I could hear the stupid grin in his voice.

“I’m going to impale you.”

“Major pause.”

I sighed. “Okay that’s on me, that’s on me.”

“I know you’re horny as home but I’m literally thousands of years old. Actual pedophilia.”

“Okay buddy,” I said, starting my car, “it’s definitely your age and not your prepubescent body that makes it pedophilia.”

“Exactly. You know, it’s rare that we’re on the same pace.”

“Kill yourself.”

My phone dinged as I pulled out of the lot.

“Is that bitch really texting while driving? You sure know how to pick ‘em.” He said.

“Lucifer. Not another word.” I replied through my teeth.

The bastard shrugged and looked out the window, but I could hear his laughter still.

“You’re upset.” He said, in between chuckles.

“Clap for yourself.”

He clapped. “Why?”

I ignored him. I don’t think it was Belinda being taken that made me that upset if I’m being honest, I think I was more upset that I was upset. That’s how it is with me, it’s a spiral of emotions I can’t control, not until they catch fire, and then I have to do clean up. I suppose one could argue I should’ve taken steps to ensure the spiral didn’t start, but I had already fallen into a place where my head was third place behind my heart and my dick.

You know by now the consequences of that.