As soon as I got off the phone with Kenney, I was overcome with grief. For some reason, I just couldn't believe that Collin didn't want me anymore. I mean, I just didn't know how to accept that. There I was pregnant and now homeless, still apparently in love with a fool who had just tried to kill me. As crazy as it sounds, I just didn't want him to be mad at me anymore.

I was still lying curled up on the bedroom floor next to the phone, my body racked with sobs, when I heard a cautious voice call quietly through the apartment, "Natasha?"

I didn't answer.

Suddenly realizing that I didn't want Kenney to see me like this, I tried to stay as quiet as possible and hoped against hope that he would just think that I had already fled the scene. I had never been a fan of the dark, and Kenney knew this. I figured he would assume that I had already peaced out, and would just call later to check on me. I could fake it better over the phone anyway. It never occurred to me that he could hear my quiet sobs through the deathly silent apartment.

"Natasha?" Kenney's voice was alarmed now and coming closer to the open bedroom door. I heard his footsteps quietly crunching through the glass, like he was tiptoeing through the apartment and then I saw his silhouette stop in the doorframe while he tried to adjust his eyes to the darkness. "Tashi, you ok?"

"Kenney," I whispered through my sobs, "I...I made a mistake. You should go. I'm so sorry I wasted your time."

"Natasha," he stepped closer like he hadn't even heard me. "Tashi, why are you sitting in the dark? You...alright?" He stepped closer and I could feel him trying to see where I was through the darkness. When he finally spotted me, he squatted down in front of me and touched the still bloody side of my face. His fingers jerked back. "The hell...?" He rubbed his fingers together trying to determine what the sticky substance was, even though in his sickest heart he already knew. "Natasha..."

He reached over and turned on the lamp that had been knocked to the floor earlier that night when Collin snatched me off of the bed. As soon as the soft yellow glow infiltrated my cover of darkness I shrank away from Kenney and tried to hide my face. I hadn't looked in the mirror after my confrontation with Collin, but I already knew how I looked. I had looked that way too many times before and I knew that it wouldn't do either of us any good for Kenney, of all people, to see me like that.

"Oh shit..." Kenney froze like he was caught in the beam of my black eyes and bloody, possibly broken nose, bloody lips, cut up cheek...and then he suddenly sprang up. "Oh hellll no! What tha fuck Natasha? Where that ma'fucka at?" He stood up and started heading for the door.

"Kenney..." his name was barely audible over the sob that I choked out with it.

The sound was so weak that, as if against his will, he stopped abruptly and came right back to me. It was like my fractured heart had reached out and latched onto his solid one, and his body had no choice but to follow.

"Natasha..." he was having trouble speaking. I must have looked pretty bad, probably worse than ever before. He sat down next to me and put a gentle hand on my leg. "What happened?"

"I..." the dam behind my eyes threatened to break again, so I rushed on quickly. "I just have to get out of here. He told me to leave. Please help me." I wiped at my still gushing lip and accidentally smeared it across Kenney's arm when I reached out to him. He didn't even notice. "I just want to go, ok? Please help me get out of here...please."

"Ok baby, ok." He kissed the top of my head and helped me up.

As soon as I stood up I realized that I couldn't possibly go out in public with blood all over my face, so I asked him to sit tight until I came back from the bathroom. As soon as I saw my once pretty face, now cut up, swollen, and crusted over with crimson chunks, I leaned into the counter and wept, overcome with a brand new grief. I was afraid that I would have to look like that for the rest of my life.

Kenney heard me crying and knocked on the door. "Tashi, let me in." He tried the knob. It was open.

I quickly ran a towel under the faucet and began rubbing at my face. I don't know why I was doing it so hard - probably trying to scrub the semi-formed scabs away, like they were only painted on - but I think it scared Kenney because I caught a glimpse of him in the mirror, watching me like he couldn't believe that he wasn't watching this on TV.

I figured he probably just couldn't believe that it was possible for me to look that ugly, a thought that made me want to hide in shame. I did this to myself, and I knew it. He knew it, too. Covering my face and sinking miserably into the towel, I could feel Kenney walk up next to me.

He gently took the bloody towel out of my hands. "Look at me." I did. He softly dried the tears from my eyes, putting a serious effort into not making them swell up any bigger than they already were, and then started dabbing gently at my humongous busted lip and my still bleeding nose. When he was finished, he threw the towel onto the counter and strode toward the door. "Grab your shit darlin', we out." As an afterthought, he nodded to the counter. "Take that towel with you. And a clean one."

He grabbed what he figured I had been packing to take with me from the bed and headed for the door. He didn't even look back to see if I was following. I guess he figured I didn't have a choice.

As I trailed him slowly out to what appeared to be a brand new Escalade, head hanging as low as I could get it, hoping that the neighbors wouldn't see me, I wondered how many more times my best friend would play this knight in shining armor game with me. Then I wondered if he was even, in fact, still my best friend. I knew he was pissed. He only associated with the strongest of the strong and here I was shuffling along behind him, broken down to nothing, silently wondering if I was carrying a dead baby inside of me.

I couldn't even protect my child from his own father. Why would Kenney want to be bothered with someone so useless? I caught a glimpse of Kenney's face under the streetlight, as he emerged back out of the apartment with two more armfuls of stuff, and saw just how angry he was. If we were cartoons, a whistle would have started blowing right then and steam would have poured from his ears. It was a funny thought at first, but I was suddenly afraid that Kenney was about to change his mind and leave my dumb ass right there, floating up shit's creek, laying in the satin covered cardboard canoe that I had built for myself.

As if reading my mind, Kenney took the oversized duffle bag that I had been dragging behind me – which I immediately realized I shouldn't have been carrying at all - and threw it in the back with the rest of my stuff. "I'm not doing this shit anymore, Natasha." He shook his head like he couldn't believe he was doing it this time. "I'm just not." Then he opened the door for me, without actually looking at me, and slammed it closed as soon as he was sure that I was all the way inside.

I watched him through the windshield as I buckled my seatbelt, his jaw clenched in anger, fists tight, strong back rigid. Briefly he paused, took a deep breath, squared his sturdy shoulders and fixed his face before opening the driver's side door and sliding smoothly onto the soft peanut butter leather.

"Nice truck," I said admiringly, running my least bloody hand along the wood grain accents in a feeble attempt to lighten the heavy air that had settled down around us.

"Thanks. Don't touch anything." Kenney continued to stare straight ahead and reached for the ignition.

"Sorry." I looked down at the towels in my hand, both now soaked all the way through with blood, and then back at Kenney. "Business must be booming." I tried again to lighten the mood, even though it had temporarily slipped my mind what he did for a living.

Again making it clear that his own success was the furthest thing from his mind right then, he turned the ignition back off and turned to face me. The fluorescent streetlights glared through the windshield and reflected off of his already flashing eyes.

"Natasha," he lifted the towel up to my still gushing nose and motioned for me to keep it there. "I know it's been a minute since the last time we pulled this little escape from Alcatraz bit, and I know I told you to call me anytime you need help, but if you just keep going back to him you know it's not too many more times I'ma go for this bullshit."

"I know," I answered quietly through the soggy terrycloth, looking out of the window and sliding further down into my seat like a scorned child.

"I mean it," he continued without backing off. "Every day in college you used to leave him and every other day you'd go running back. Now look what you get."

I looked over at him, visibly crushed, thinking that he was trying to tell me on the sly that I deserved exactly what I got - another bloody nose. I looked into his eyes, though, and realized that's not what he was saying at all.

"All that running back to him and this is all he's ever given you, Natasha." Kenney gently touched my face and I fought the urge to tell him about the baby. When our eyes locked, he quickly looked away from me and back toward the apartment. "Did you lock the door?"

"He has a key," I reminded him quietly.

"No shit," he snapped. "I mean since your boy insists on keeping you stowed away down here in the Baddest News while he's living it the hell up in Virginia Beach, you might want to make sure you locked the damn door."

The worst part was, I knew that what Kenney was saying out loud was only a fraction of what he'd been thinking all this time. All I could do was nod my head yes in answer to his question, since I knew that the door locked automatically when it was pulled tight, and then I looked back out of the window. Kenney sighed deeply and started the car again. Out of habit, he looked over to make sure that I had my seatbelt on. He always did that. Involuntarily, my mind went back to the first time Kenney ever kissed me and I smiled at the thought. I looked over at him as he backed out of the parking space and wondered silently if he still had as much love for me now as he had back then.

By that point it didn't really matter, anyway, though. As far as I was concerned, Collin had just proven without a doubt that any man had the potential to snap on me and threaten my life at any given time.

I was through with love forever.

Kenney's strong voice quietly interrupted my thoughts. "The next time you call me, I need you to do it before he leaves."

"No." My answer was soft, but uncompromising.

"Tashi..." he squinted out at the dark road ahead. "I can't do this too many more times." The soft lines in his face hardened as he once again clenched his teeth. "Unless you want me to spend the rest of my life in jail, don't call me over this bullshit again."

I looked cautiously over at him, at the anger in his voice, and looked away irritably. I was still shell shocked from my battle with Collin, and had already heard this speech from Kenney a million times before. It was the same thing that he had said the last time, and the time before that. The only difference was that this time, I knew, probably really would be his last. He was so very over my Collin drama and I wondered, just from his aggravation alone, if he wasn't just that over me. I wasn't sure if I should be more pissed at myself for continually bringing Kenney into the midst of this nonsense, or at Collin for giving me no other choice.

"Kenney...I didn't have anyone else to call. You know Shayna moved to DC with Drama..." I offered the explanation that he had never once required of me guiltily, quietly, just above a whisper.

"Tha ma'fuggin' laws, Natasha! Call 9-1-1 next time on that son-a-bitch and get a protective order."

I knew Kenney was really mad then. His Texas talk always came out at the height of pisstivity. Not only that, but he had never, ever, since the day I had known him, been down for calling the police about anything that could be handled without them. I knew he was mad at Collin, sure, but he was also pissed at me for putting up with Collin's crap for so long. When I really thought about it, I realized that I had been doing this Collin saga almost my entire life. The sheer ignorance of that alone was enough to piss anyone off.

Anyone but me, apparently.

"Next time," Kenney's sharp tone once again jabbed its way into my thoughts, "I'm finna' beat. his. ass down...in his own. muh. fuggin'. house."

I tried not to smile. It always cracked me up when he got all country on me. "You don't even know where he lives."

Kenney's strong jaw clenched and unclenched relentlessly. "Oh, I know where that fool lives." His eyes flicked over to me, but I guess the complete and utter misery on my puffy, bloody face prompted him to become slightly less condemning. "He's a sucker, Natasha." Kenney hesitated, then gave me a half smile. He never was the type to let anger stay around him too long. "You need to shake that sucker, see what this world has to offer you. Not going to, you know what I'm sayin'... the emergency room gettin' stitches..."

"Ok, 2Pac." I looked over at him and grinned, even though it killed my busted face to do so. Leave it to Kenney to pull that line out of his butt right then.

He never failed to pull somebody's song lyrics out of thin air to fit whatever foolery happened to be going on in my life at the time. Nine times out of ten, though, it was going to be Jodeci, Shai, or someone in the Motown family. I was smiling more for his benefit than because I felt like smiling, and apparently he was doing the same, because he stopped abruptly and became serious again.

"Do you need stitches?" He stole a quick glance at my fat lip to see if it and my nose were still bleeding.

I reached up to check myself. "No. I don't think so." Then I pulled down the mirror and took a good look at my jacked up face. "Damn, he got me good." I looked over at Kenney and kind of halfway laughed, hoping that he would do the same. Of course he didn't. He only stared harder at the road ahead.

When the silence had gone on too long, Kenney began skipping through his disk changer and then stopped, of course, on the one go-to that always applied.

Relaxing ever so slightly, Kenney threw his head back and sang his little heart out. "Lay dowwwn...and tell me what's on...your...mind..." He looked over at me and winked. "What exactly did...he...do...to make you cryyyyy this tii-iiime..."

I shook my head and looked away. That was the exact song that Kenney had been singing to me forever, every single time Collin...or anyone...had hurt me enough to show.

"You're ridiculous."

He chuckled and reached out for my hand. I gave it to him. "Love you," he said quickly and gave me a squeeze.

For the first time in ages I wondered why I kept going back to the wrong one. "Thank you for coming to get me Kenney."

He held my hand a little tighter. "You know I'll always come get you." Kenney looked my way, nothing but sincerity in his kind, brown-grey eyes. "Don't ever think that you have to stay there with him and not call me. I'll always come get you. No matter where you are in this world. I'll find you, and I'll bring you home."

He looked over just in time to see a tear slip down my cheek. When I looked away, embarrassed, and hurriedly brushed it off, he let out a frustrated sigh.

"Next time, call me before he leaves."

Kenney knew that I would never do that. I would never put him in a position where he could end up hurt or locked up. Truth be told, the biggest reason why I had slowly begun to phase Kenney out back in the day was because I was more afraid of what Collin was capable of doing to Kenney than of what Collin was capable of doing to me. Especially after that first beat down. Collin had been itching to bust on Kenney ever since.

But I nodded my head anyway, just because that was what Kenney wanted me to do.

"I love you, too," I whispered, still looking in the other direction.

He took my hand and squeezed it again, just like he always did, trying to take my pain into himself because he knew...or thought...that he could handle it better than me.

It took almost forty-five minutes to get back to Chesapeake from Newport News, but it had only taken Kenney twenty-five minutes to get to me that night.

When we got to his ranch-style four bedroom house, two of which had been turned into an office and some kind of drawing room - again I tried to remember what he did for a living - I was so exhausted that I didn't even feel like lugging all my stuff in. I think Kenney could sense this and told me to go inside and get comfortable, while he brought in the rest of what was left of my life. I was dozing on his couch when he finally brought the last bag in and sat down beside me.

"I left some things at my place," I whispered, exhausted, without opening my eyes.

"It's ok. We'll go back and get them tomorrow." He ran a careful hand across my swollen face.

"Collin might be there."

I opened one eye and looked at him, hoping that my eyes wouldn't swell all the way shut that night when I finally got the chance to sleep.

"Yup."

Both of my eyes popped open then, and I sat up. It was obvious by Kenney's expression that that was exactly what he wanted. For Collin to be there.

He gently touched my possibly broken nose. "Do you want to go to the hospital?"

I sank back into the sofa and closed my eyes again. "No. Too tired."

"Alright." He thought for a minute. "Want to go to the police?"

"Never." I opened my eyes and smiled at him with a lip that was still swelling by the minute, hours after getting popped. At least I had finally stopped bleeding. "You know I don't like no ma' suckin' Po-Po's."

Kenney chuckled at my poor imitation of him. "Right, forgot. Well...I can always round up the homies. We'll handle it for you."