Masina #2
I paused, wanting my next set of words to slap her in the face. “She was insecure.” Yuki covered her mouth as another sob escaped.
“But love? Baby...don’t you disrespect love like that.
A man who truly loved you would’ve never asked you to betray the only woman who would’ve laid her life down for you.
Love doesn’t isolate you from the people who cherish you.
Love doesn’t require deception. Love doesn’t ask you to become somebody you can’t even recognize when you look in the mirror. ”
Whatever strength she’d been holding onto disappeared.
Her knees threatened to buckle, and she reached for the foyer table to steady herself.
She wasn’t crying because I’d embarrassed her.
She was crying because for the first time in thirty years, somebody had stripped away every excuse she’d ever hidden behind and left her standing face-to-face with the truth.
The saddest part was that under all the lies, all the jealousy, all the betrayal, I could still see the college girl I’d once loved like a sister. I just couldn’t find the woman she’d become.
For the longest time she couldn’t answer me.
She simply stood there crying, her eyes fixed somewhere beyond my shoulder as though the memories she’d spent decades trying to outrun had finally caught up to her.
I didn’t rush her. There wasn’t any reason to.
Thirty years had already passed between us.
A few more seconds of silence weren’t going to change anything.
When she finally looked at me again, there wasn’t any fight left in her.
“I was jealous.” The confession almost knocked the air out of me. I searched her face, waiting for her to take them back, to blame Marius again, to blame her childhood, to blame the Syndicate, to blame anybody but herself. Instead, she stood there and let the truth exist between us.
“I got tired of everybody loving you,” she admitted, tears slipping freely down her face. “The professors loved you. The girls loved you. Men loved you. Even when you wasn’t trying...”
A bitter laugh escaped her before she wiped impatiently at her cheeks.
“...people just gravitated toward you. You walked into every room like the world already knew your name, and I spent my whole life standing beside you wondering what was so wrong with me that nobody ever looked at me the way they looked at you.” I listened without interrupting.
Not because I agreed with what she was saying, but because I’d spent enough years carrying my own pain to recognize when somebody was finally telling the truth about theirs.
“When Majesty cheated on me and we went through that breakup, I felt like I wasn’t enough anymore.” She lowered her head, ashamed to even hear the words coming out of her own mouth.
“Then Marius started paying attention to me. He made me feel seen. He made me feel like somebody finally chose me first, and I convinced myself that if a man like him wanted me...then maybe I was worth something after all.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, grieving the young woman she used to be. We had survived too much together for me not to understand exactly how broken she must’ve been to mistake manipulation for love.
“You stole another woman’s husband.”
“I know.”
“You stole your sister’s husband.”
Another tear slid down her cheek. “I know.”
Sick of her fake tears, and hearing her say I know, I completely lost it, unable to keep the hurt from my voice.
“Bitch do you?”
“You damn near made our children siblings.”
“Goddamit Masina, I know.”
“You keep saying you know, but are you fucking comprehending how all this started.” She frowned through her tears.
“You waged a goddamn war, Yuki. Tell me, what did it get you?” I motioned toward the house surrounding us. “Look around. What do you have to show for any of it? What the fuck happened to you? Because this ain’t the girl I knew in college.”
She looked toward the staircase where Ysis lay upstairs with her babies. “Alot has changed since then and now.”
“Yeah? Well so has the cost.”
The house had become so quiet I could hear the grandfather clock ticking in the next room, each passing second reminding me how much of our lives had been wasted carrying the weight of choices neither of us could undo.
“There is one thing I never understood.”
“You spent all these years asking me to forgive you.”
“I did.”
“But you never stopped lying.”
Confusion settled on her face. “I told you everything.”
“No you didn’t.” The color slowly drained from her face as she searched my expression for any sign that I was bluffing.
“What do you mean?”
“Me and Emory know what you did.” I took one step toward the staircase before stopping and looking back at her.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I figured you would say that. You probably had something to do with tonight too. Funny how every time you show up, bullets start flying, bombs start dropping and innocent people end up paying the price.
“You and Marius do got one thing in common. You poison everything you touch, and somehow the people who love you always end up paying the highest price.”
“I didn’t—” I held up my hand, stopping her before another lie found its way out.
“I won’t say anything.” She looked at me, confused.
“You know why?” She couldn’t answer.
“Because God already did what I never could.”
Her brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”
“I know you don't, you never did.”
I looked past her at the front door she walked through only minutes earlier before bringing my eyes back to hers.
“But one day you will.”
I offered her the saddest smile I’d worn in thirty years. “Until then...” I paused, letting the truth settle where excuses no longer could. “...you’re already living your punishment.”
I turned away before she could respond. Some conversations don’t end because somebody wins.
They end because there’s simply nothing left to say.
As I climbed the staircase toward the room where my daughter rested with the family we’d spent thirty years fighting to protect.
For the first time in a very long time, I didn’t feel angry. I just felt free.
The moment I stepped back in the bedroom, Ysis looked up from where she lay surrounded by pillows, her eyes immediately finding mine.
Motherhood already looked beautiful on her.
Exhaustion rested across her face, but there was a peace about her I’d never seen before, the kind of peace that only came from finally realizing you’d made it to the other side of a storm.
“Is everything okay?” she asked as I re-entered the room. I smiled, refusing to let the ugliness downstairs steal even a second of the joy she’d fought so hard to earn.
“Yeah. Your mother just showed up, and we had a few choice words. I doubt she’ll be staying.
” Ysis studied my face for a moment, searching for something more before nodding.
There was a time when news like that would’ve stolen the light from her eyes, but life had a way of changing your priorities.
Tonight wasn’t about old wounds. Tonight was about two tiny miracles sleeping peacefully beside her.
“Are the girls still down there?”
“I believe so. Knowing them, they probably done turned my kitchen upside down looking for something to eat.”
“I didn’t even notice—”