Chapter 2 #2
Third, my mother… That particular problem had no immediate solution other than the eventual confrontation I’d been avoiding for months. The tried-and-true method of deflection and delay would have to suffice for now.
I pulled out a legal pad and wrote each issue in order of priority, breaking them down into actionable steps with deadlines attached. The familiar process of organizing chaos into manageable chunks calmed the buzzing in my head and restored the sense of control I depended on.
By the time I’d finished, my breathing steadied, and the tightness in my chest receded to its usual dull presence.
I stood, straightening my tie and smoothing my already smooth shirt before heading to the door.
Despite this morning’s disruptions, it was time to brief the team and redistribute assignments.
Black Security it was redemption packaged in LLC paperwork.
Every contract we landed, every client who chose us over the bigger firms from Goodwin Grove, were all voting for the version of Langston Black I fought like hell to become — the trusted one, the reliable one, the one who built something legitimate.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. I investigated people for a living when my own past required the biggest cover-up this town had ever known.
One night, one mistake, and everything I’d worked for would have been gone if not for Aven Compton and those big brown eyes looking straight at the sheriff, lying.
My fingers drummed against the desk as the memory rose unbidden, as fresh as if it happened last night instead of fifteen years ago.
I was seventeen, drunk off cheap vodka and the false confidence that came with it. The party a week before graduation at Dalvin Wright’s was winding down, with a few of us left shooting the shit around a fire pit in the back. His parents were always out of town.
Dalvin talked shit about how his dad would fuck him out of his inheritance if he didn’t go to college and keeping the family hardware store in their last name instead of converting it to add Dalvin’s name in a joint ownership as he’d promised.
“I should burn that bitch down. Insurance money’s better than waiting for the old man to die anyway,” Dalvin slurred, tossing another log onto the fire.
I’d laughed along with everyone else, too wasted to recognize the seriousness beneath his drunken declaration.
Two hours later, I’d gone to the community center, climbed through an open window, and passed out on the bleachers while Dalvin and a couple of others took off “for a drive.” I woke up to sirens in the distance.
By morning, Wright’s Hardware was a charred skeleton, and at school, Dalvin pointed fingers at me. Yet, who was going to believe me over Dalvin Wright, varsity quarterback with a 4.0 GPA? No one in this town, not with my mother’s reputation shadowing me like a rain cloud.
Then Aven stepped in. Aven Compton, with her honor roll status, community service awards, and parents who were pillars of the Black community.
“Langston was with me. We were studying at my house. My parents were at their church retreat, but you can call them to confirm they gave him permission to come over. We were working on our English lit paper. I can show you our notes if you want,” she said, her voice steady as she faced Sheriff Davis in the high school office.
She’d looked at me then, a silent command to keep my mouth shut, and let her handle it.
Sheriff Davis looked between us, suspicion written all over his face. “You expect me to believe Langston Black was studying on a Friday night instead of at the party with the rest of the basketball team?”
“Believe what you want, but Langston’s been working hard to bring his grades up for a scholarship. Ask Ms. Patterson if you don’t believe me. He turned in his paper early, and she gave him an A,” Aven commented, shrugging those slender shoulders like his disbelief was his problem, not hers.
That part, at least, had been genuine. The basketball scholarship was my only ticket out, and I’d busted my ass in classes after Coach made it clear my grades needed to improve. Ms. Patterson helped me after school, impressed enough with my progress to write a letter of recommendation.
The alibi held… barely, but it was enough to keep me out of handcuffs. The real story came out a few days after graduation, as Dalvin and his buddies confessed after the insurance investigator found evidence the fire had started in three different places.
I ran a hand down my face as a physical manifestation of the discomfort these memories always brought me.
My shoulders tensed, jaw clenching as I remembered the relief and shame that flooded me when I realized I was in the clear.
Relief because I wasn’t going to jail, and shame because an innocent girl put her reputation on the line for me.
We never really talked about why she did it. There was a moment behind the gym when I tried to thank her.
“Why’d you lie for me?” I’d asked, unable to meet her eyes.
Aven stayed quiet so long, I didn’t think she would answer.
“Because you didn’t do it. And because nobody else would have believed you.”
Simple as that. No holding it over my head. Just the pure, uncomplicated justice of a girl who couldn’t stand to see someone punished for something they didn’t do.
The debt sat heavy on my shoulders ever since — through college, through building this business, through every success I’d clawed my way toward.
While I stayed in this town, determined to rebuild my name from the ground up, Aven left on a full scholarship to journalism school, and from there, who knows?
Occasional updates from the hometown grapevine suggested travel, writing gigs, and a life far bigger than this place could offer.
Part of me, a small, petty part I wasn’t proud of, resented Aven, who got to leave.
At the same time, I stayed behind, saddled with the weight of proving myself over and over to people who’d already decided who I was based on my mother’s mistakes and my own teenage stupidity.
Hell, saving me didn’t earn her the right to escape while I stayed and fought.
Yet, the larger part knew that was bullshit. Aven didn’t owe me or this town shit. She’d earned her escape through hard work and talent, same as I’d earned my success. We took different paths, made different choices, but both of us fought against the box others tried to put us in.
I swiveled in my chair to face the window, looking out at Goodwin Grove, the town that both raised and tried to bury me. Somewhere out there, Aven Compton was living her life, probably never thinking about that day, talking to the sheriff or the troubled boy she’d saved with a single lie.
Meanwhile, I built an entire business on the second chance she gave me, naming it Black Security now my reputation was beyond reproach.
The thought sat with me, heavy and persistent, as I turned back to my desk and the stack of background checks that needed my attention. Fifteen years was a long time to carry a debt, but some things could never be fully repaid, no matter how successful you became or how far you ran.
I was halfway through the first Westridge background check, deep in the weeds of financial records and property holdings, when I refocused my attention on the screen at the numbers and dates which required my scrutiny.
This executive had three properties in his name, but he lived in a fourth property registered to an LLC.
It might be nothing, but it seemed worth flagging. I made a note to have Reed dig deeper.
The intercom buzzed. “Langston, there’s someone here to see you. She doesn’t have an appointment, but she’s … insistent.” Hesitation was unusual for Tamika, who was typically on her shit.
I glanced at my watch. It was 11:30 a.m. I didn’t have a meeting scheduled until two in the afternoon. “Client or solicitor?”
Another pause. “Neither … I think. She says her name is Aven Compton.”
“Shit,” I muttered, already on my feet but frozen in place, while my brain tried to process what Tamika said. Aven Compton? Here? Now? I was in disbelief. It was as if I’d conjured her up with my thoughts.
“Langston? Are you alright? Should I tell her you’re unavailable?” Tamika’s voice came through the intercom again, concern edging out her usual professional detachment.
My mouth opened, but no words came out. Aven Compton was in my lobby after fifteen years. She was the same Aven who saved my ass when no one else would have, who left on a Greyhound bus the week after graduation without looking back.
“Langston?”
“I-I’ll be right out. Give me two minutes.” My voice caught, and I cleared my throat.
The realization that Aven Compton could still shake my composure after all these years unnerved me.
The last time I saw her, she climbed the steps of a Greyhound bus, wearing a purple backpack slung over one shoulder and her hair twisted into the braids she used to wear.
June heat pressed down on the bus station like a physical weight, the air thick enough to chew.
I’d come to see her off, though she hadn’t asked me to.
I showed up with a mixed CD. Who even made those anymore?
I had something to say that never made it past my lips.
“Take care of yourself, Lang. Don’t let this town swallow you whole,” she said, pausing at the top step to look back at me.
She called me the nickname only she used, like we shared something special, though we’d never been more than friends.
Our feelings always danced around the edges of something else.
I nodded, even as something heavy settled in my chest. “You too, Trouble. Don’t forget where you came from.”
A smile flickered across her face, but she seemed sad too. “Some things you can’t forget even if you try.”
Then she disappeared into the interior of the bus that would take her first to journalism school, then to whatever brilliant future she’d carved out for herself far from here.
I knew she’d been back a few times, but our paths never crossed. I never expected to see her again, not really. Hometown heroes rarely returned except for funerals and class reunions, and Aven was destined for bigger things than this place offered. I’d made my peace with that, or thought I had.
Yet here she was, in my lobby, demanding to see me like she had every right to walk back into my life without warning.
I checked my reflection in the mirror on the wall behind my desk, which showed a man in control, wearing a crisp white shirt and a blue tie knotted perfectly, his posture straight as the ruler my third-grade teacher used to rap across my knuckles when I slouched.
Still, my eyes gave me away, wide with something between panic and anticipation.
What the hell did she want after all this time? The thought sent a spike of concern through me, followed immediately by wariness. Aven Compton showing up unannounced couldn’t mean anything good, not for my carefully ordered life, not for the walls I’d built around specific memories.
My jaw clenched as I adjusted my tie, an unnecessary gesture, which bought me another moment to gather myself.
The intercom buzzed again. “Langston? She’s asking if you’re actually here or if I’m stalling. What should I tell her?” Tamika’s voice had the tone she used when trying to manage a difficult situation without making it worse.
I could say I was in a meeting or have Tamika reschedule an appointment for later, giving me time to prepare and armor myself against whatever Aven Compton had become in the years since I last saw her.
It would be the rational choice, the controlled response consistent with how I ran every other aspect of my life.
“I’ll be right out,” I replied, as I moved toward the door.
My heart quickened, remembering her walk into the principal’s office to talk to the sheriff to save me with a lie she never should’ve told.
I hesitated and paused with my hand on the doorknob. Whatever brought Aven back and into my lobby was about to disrupt the life I’d built in her absence. I was caught in the crosshairs as the past and present met.
The intercom remained silent, but I sensed Tamika waiting for me to emerge.
Aven was on the other side of the office door.
Her presence was like a storm front moving in, impossible to stop, capable of either nourishing rain or devastating destruction.
There was only one way to find out which it would be.
I blew out air, squared my shoulders, and turned the knob.