“Sooo, you couldn’t just say ‘No Marcus. I am not ready for you to lock me down and impregnate me with your rugrats.’ You had to pass out?” Peyton said in her usual sarcastic tone as she walked past Mya into the apartment.
“She had to pass out because she knew that a medical emergency was the only way you’d let her get away with being late to lunch,” Cherise stopped to hug Mya as she entered the apartment. “Hey, Cuzzo. You alright?”
Mya had to chuckle. Leave it to her girls to make light of her panic attack without pissing her off. “I’m cool,” she answered as the three friends settled into the living room of her Brooklyn brownstone. Between the incident at the restaurant earlier that day, hashing things out with Marcus and fielding her mother’s 1000 questions, Mya was emotionally exhausted. A visit from her two closest friends, Peyton and Cherise was exactly what she needed to get her in better spirits while she figured out her next move.
As the three of them sat in her living room laughing and exchanging banter, it was hard to believe that they hadn’t all been friends forever. Mya and Cherise were cousins and had been close since they were children, despite the fact that Cherise lived in D.C. while Mya lived in Atlanta. Spending summers visiting her cousin and aunts had played a huge part in Mya’s wanting to come east for college and the two were always traveling back and forth between D.C. and Philly to visit each other during their college years. They had also moved to New York together after graduation and were roommates their first two years in the city. Cherise still lived in the tiny Harlem walk-up that the two of them used to share. Though Mya had never been a fan of the apartment, Cherise had definitely given the place character with her funky decorative touch. She was indeed a free spirit and had always encouraged Mya to go after what made her happy, even if it meant going against the grain.
Mya and Peyton had met during their sophomore year at Temple, when they were on line together for their sorority. Peyton was the fiery ace on their line who withstood some of the more physically grueling experiences with ease while Mya had been the emotionally stronger number two who was able to keep Peyton’s temper in line during the more emotional hazing. With Peyton’s take no shit personality, Mya never understood exactly why she’d pledged, but Peyton later explained that it was to prove that she could. She’d been told that she had too much attitude to make it online and if anyone knew Peyton they knew that more than anything, she loved to prove people wrong. Years after having crossed the sands, she and Peyton remained the closest of their ten line sisters. Peyton had always been an advocate of Mya doing her own thing and it was that thinking that brought her and Cherise together as friends when they all first moved to New York. While Peyton and Cherise had had some personality differences at the beginning of their relationship, they had developed a closeness over the last six years. Most people who met them assumed that the three of them had all grown up together.
“So, now that Aunt Linda is in a tizzy and you’ve got Marcus waiting with bated breath, what you are going to do?” Cherise asked. Mya had just caught them up on the rest of the story. She’d asked Marcus for some time and space to consider his proposal. Though he wasn’t crazy about the idea, it was clear that he didn’t have a choice in the matter. If he wanted to be with her, he’d have to play by her rules. Her mother on the other hand had been a different story. Apparently, Marcus had told her that he was going to propose so she was shocked to hear that Mya hadn’t readily accepted. Mya believed that her mother was more upset about her turning down the ring than she was about the fact that her daughter had been so panicked at the thought of marrying Marucs that she had passed out in a restaurant.
“I’m leaving town,” Mya replied nonchalantly as she walked into her kitchen for a glass of water. Predictably, Cherise and Peyton were on her heels two seconds later.
“Leaving town?” Cherise asked. “To go where? And for how long?”
“I’m going to California for a week. I’ll spend a few days in San Francisco and then shoot down to San Diego to chill on the beach. I really need to clear my head and I can’t do that with Marcus breathing down my neck and my mother pressuring me,” Mya answered. “Which is why neither of them is to know where I’m going. I’ll tell them that I’m going out of town, but that’s it. So I need you two to keep quiet.”
“What is there to think about? You know good and damn well that you do not want to marry that man,” Peyton said. “Passing out at the sight of a ring is indication enough of that. You have to spend a week on a totally different coast to figure it out?”
Mya sighed. “It’s not just about Marcus. I have spent the last ten years of my life making compromises between what I want and the life my parents laid out for me. I mean, I’ve done my own thing here and there, but only to an extent. I need to make some serious decisions about the next phase of my life. And that requires time and space, Peyton.”
Peyton nodded with understanding. That was the nature of their relationship. Mya was one of very few people who could occasionally shut Peyton up.
“Escaping to find yourself, huh?” Cherise said with a chuckle.
Mya shrugged. “Something like that.” What they didn’t know was that she was actually escaping to find someone else. And that her trip would include a stop in Los Angeles to do just that.
“So other than keep our mouths shut,” Peyton said. “What else do you need us to do?”
“Drive me to the airport in an hour,” Mya replied with a smile. “My flight leaves at eight.”
