Chapter 35 Javonte
I stand in the middle of the studio with my phone in my hand, staring at Lily’s text from last night.
I don’t want to talk tonight.
She hasn’t sent anything else.
I told her I’d give her space, and I meant it, but space feels a lot easier when I’m not standing in the middle of the reason she needed it.
Yesterday, the clean floors, blank walls, empty shelves, and cleared patio felt like proof that I had listened.
Today, the whole place feels too quiet. Too much like a decision I made before she ever walked through the door.
My phone buzzes, and my heart jumps before I look at it.
It’s Zea.
I answer anyway. “Hello?”
“You good?”
“Why wouldn’t I be good?”
“Because you were doing something grand and wrong, and I wanted to check the damage.”
I close my eyes. “Good morning to you too.”
“How did Lily like the studio?”
I don’t answer fast enough.
Zea sighs. “Javonte.”
“It didn’t go how I thought it would.”
“What happened?”
“She got overwhelmed.”
“Did she say that?”
“She said she couldn’t do it right then.”
“Couldn’t do what?”
I look around the room. “The studio.”
Zea is quiet for a second. “You signed something, didn’t you?”
“That’s not really the point.”
“That sounds like the point.”
“I got the place secured.”
“So yes.”
I rub my hand over my face. “Yes.”
“How long?”
I already hate the answer. “A year.”
“Javonte.”
“I thought I was helping.”
“I know you did.”
The way she says it makes my stomach tighten because there’s no joke in it. No roasting. Just my little sister sounding disappointed in a way she has no business sounding at sixteen.
I walk toward the back room because standing still makes me feel worse.
The shelves are empty, lined up against one wall, ready for the supplies I imagined Lily bringing in here.
The patio is cleaned up too. The weeds are gone, and there’s space for the paint water setup she’s always talking about.
I thought she would see the details and know I had been paying attention.
“I didn’t decorate it,” I say. “I left all that for her.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious. I didn’t pick colors. I didn’t put art on the walls. I didn’t turn it into what I thought it should be.”
“Okay,” Zea says again. “But did she ask you to lease it?”
I stop walking.
The room goes quiet around me, and for a second, I hate her for asking it that plainly.
“No,” I say.
“Then that might be the problem.”
I want to argue, but there’s nowhere for the argument to go.
I look around again, and for the first time, I don’t see all the things I left for Lily to choose. I see the part I didn’t. The building. The lease. The timing. The surprise. I left the walls blank and convinced myself that meant I hadn’t taken over.
But I had.
“I thought she’d be happy,” I say.
“I know.”
“I really did.”
“I know that too.”
I sit on the edge of the built-in counter and drop my head.
I can see Lily standing here again. That smile she put on because she didn’t know what else to do with her face.
The way she looked around without really settling on anything.
The way she asked whose name was on the lease.
The way she went still when I said we could talk about buying later.
I thought we meant together.
Maybe to her, it sounded like I had already put myself in the middle of something she never chose.
“She’s tired,” I say, more to myself than to Zea. “She’s been trying to do HR and Lit with Lily, and the business is getting too big for her garage. I saw that.”
“You probably saw the right thing,” Zea says. “You just did too much with it.”
That one gets me because it’s simple enough to be true.
I walk back into the main room. The front windows let in enough light to make the place look exactly like what I wanted it to be. I can still see it if I let myself. Lily teaching in here. People laughing. Paint on her hands. Her in charge of something that belonged to her because she built it.
I wanted her to have something that was hers.
Then I put my name on it first.
“I messed up,” I say.
“Yeah.”
“Damn, you didn’t even soften it.”
“You wouldn’t have called me if you wanted soft.”
That pulls a small laugh out of me, but it doesn’t last. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Nothing right now.”
“That’s terrible advice.”
“It’s not. She said she didn’t want to talk, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then don’t make her talk because now you feel bad.”
I close my eyes.
There it is again. The part of me that wants to fix this because sitting in the middle of it feels awful. I want to call her. I want to explain. I want to tell her what I meant, what I saw, what I thought I was giving her.
But all of that is still about me feeling better.
“I hate this,” I say.
“I know.”
“I don’t know how to just leave it alone.”
“You don’t have to leave it alone forever,” Zea says. “Just today.”
That sounds small enough to be possible.
I think about the Bahamas, about the second villa and the way Lily looked at me when I gave her a choice instead of a plan. She softened because there was room for her to decide.
Here, I gave her no room.
I gave her a reveal and waited for the reaction I wanted.
The truth sits heavy in my chest.
“I did the opposite of what worked,” I say.
“Pretty much.”
“You could say that nicer.”
“I could, but we both know you’d miss the point.”
This time, I laugh for real, even though it still hurts.
I turn slowly, taking in the whole studio one more time. It doesn’t look like a dream anymore. It looks like a room I need to walk out of before I start making another plan nobody asked for.
“I need to get out of here,” I say.
“Good.”
“I don’t know what to do about the lease.”
“Figure that out later.”
“And Lily?”
“Wait until she’s ready.”
I nod even though she can’t see me. “Yeah.”
“And don’t show up at her house with flowers and a speech.”
“I wasn’t going to do that.”
“You thought about it.”
I did, but I’m not giving her that. “I didn’t say I was doing it.”
“Progress.”
I walk toward the front door, turning off the lights as I go. The studio changes immediately. Less bright. Less possible. More empty. I understand how Lily might have seen it...not as a dream.
As a decision.
“I’m going to leave her alone today,” I say.
“Good.”
“But when she’s ready, I need to apologize.”
“Yessir!”
I lock the door and stand outside with the keys in my hand. They feel heavier than they did yesterday.
“I gotta go,” I tell her.
“Okay. Don’t do anything dumb.”
“I’m not.”
I hang up before she can answer. I don’t need Zea to tell me whether she believes me.
I need to make sure Lily can.