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“What did you do?”

“Started staying away from her as much as I could. If Theo wasn’t home, I tried not to be there either.”

I paused, trying to decide how much I wanted to say. Then I remembered why I had brought it up in the first place. I was tired of carrying it.

“One day, she cornered me in the kitchen, and...”

Maliah’s expression changed.

“Tahari…” she urged me to finish.

“She tried to touch on me. Well, she did.”

Her mouth fell open in shock, and I nodded slowly.

“Yeah. My own fucking mama.”

“Oh, my God.”

“I pushed her off me and locked myself in my room until my pops came in from work.”

I laughed, but there wasn’t anything funny about it.

“That shit had me questioning myself. I knew what happened, but when somebody who supposed to love you does some shit like that, it’ll fuck with your head. I started to think maybe I misunderstood her intent, you know?”

Maliah reached for my hand.

“Baby, you didn’t misunderstand anything.”

“I know that now.”

“And you didn’t do anything wrong.”

When I looked at her, she wasn’t crying or looking at me with pity. She looked angry, but not at me.

“How did your daddy find out?”

“I told him.”

“Right away?”

“Hell yeah, I was embarrassed, and I ain’t know how he was gonna react. That was his wife. I’m his son. I ain’t know if he was gonna believe me or think I was trying to start some shit between them.”

“What did he say?”

“He believed me.”

I swallowed, remembering the look on Theo’s face that day.

“I ain’t never seen my daddy look at me the way he did when I told him. He was mad as hell, but he made sure I knew he wasn’t mad at me. He asked me what happened, and after I told him, he put her ass out.”

“Good.”

I looked at Maliah, and when I did, she nodded her head up and down.

“I’m serious. I’m glad he protected you.”

“Yeah. Me too.”