recognize / b.simmons

47

a wave of nausea hits amari like a ton of bricks as she stands up. she races to the bathroom where she spills everything shes consumed in the last 24 hours, into the toilet. "gross," she groans as she closes her eyes and leans against the wall next to the toilet.

amari doesn't know why she's sick, she assumes her anxiety caught up to her and decided to let itself loose. if that's the case, that should've happened a long time ago.

another wave of nausea hits and amari empties out her stomach again, dry heaving over the bowl. she flushes the toilet and gets up, feeling disgusting, and rinses out her mouth. she then decides to take a quick shower to make herself feel better—she felt sick and gross, both from the vomit and the fact that she actually saw karl last night and considered fucking him.

amari closes her eyes as the hot water cascades down her body and she sighs. everything that happened last night was a mistake. she wants a do-over for everything, from the moment she called nia to her getting home last night.

the news about kendall and ben is all over the internet and when she opened her apps last night, all of her notifications were flooded and she was angry and sad all over again. seeing ben and kendall on every page and in her comments was the cherry on top to all of her emotions.

amari washes and rinses her body and then gets out of the shower, wrapping her towel around her and walking back into her room. she grabs her phone and calls nia since she didn't call her last night.

surprisingly, nia answers. shes not a morning person and still hasn't gotten acclimated to the time difference between boston and california. "hello?" she rasps. amari chuckles as she finds a pair of underwear and a bra.

"hey sleepy," amari teases. nia sucks her teeth and rubs her eyes.

"you better not have called me for some bullshit. not even kemba has my ass up at 6 in the damn morning," she mutters, irritated that she was woken up out of good sleep. kemba wakes up at 5 every morning and works out for an hour and then eats before morning practice; he's able to do all of this without waking nia. they usually see each other right before he has to leave for practice most days.

"trust me, it's not bullshit," amari says, rubbing lotion all over her body. "but i met up with karl last night and i threw up this morning!" amari says quickly, but nia understood everything and shoots up in bed.

"you what?" she barks, fully awake and at attention.

amari clears her throat and grabs her phone and walks into her small walk-in closet. "i met up with karl last night. after i talked to ben."

"are you dumb?!" nia yells, running a hand over her bonnet and glaring at nothing. "did you fuck him?"

"quit yelling at me! and no!" amari says, grabbing a pair of fitted black slacks and an oversized, white vneck sweater.

nia sucks her teeth. "are you sure?"

"yes, bitch, i'm sure! fuck you, we just talked," amari says, leaving out the fact that they made out for a total of five minutes. she pulls her pants on and then her sweater and walks out to put on perfume and jewelry.

"about?"

"nothing important really.... we did kiss, though," amari says. it's silent on nias end because she dropped the phone onto the bed and was air-fighting it.

"what did our lord and savior trina day? "i got a game for you young hoes, don't grow to be a dumb hoe!" what didn't you understand?" nia yells, putting her phone on speaker and dropping her head in her hands. amari and nia used to listen to trina all throughout high school, back when they were young and innocent. nia would say that, before amari did what she did last night, she'd be making trina proud. now she was being plain stupid.