EZRA
One Month Later
I t h o u g h t l o v e would be enough and just knowing Yaya was carrying my baby and that we had something real would be enough to keep everything steady. But the hard truth was love doesn’t cancel flights. It doesn’t rewrite schedules. It doesn’t stop the damn clock when everything’s moving too fast in opposite directions.
I was in the thick of shit with book panels, poetry festivals and meetings with execs who wanted me to “curate vibes” for branded campaigns. There was even a tour in the works. I said yes to everything, partly for the exposure but mainly to make sure I never went back to where I used to be. I refused to go back to limiting myself but in the background of every accomplishment was her.
Yaya was still back in East Hollis pregnant and exhausted. Working shifts at the hospital and counting down the weeks. I FaceTimed her every night, sent her flowers every Monday afternoon, and made it to the last two appointments by the skin of my fucking teeth. For the one coming up, though, I wasn’t making it.
I stared at the time on my phone and pinched the bridge of my nose. The meeting about this audio release I’d just left ran damn near two hours over so there I was, in my whip stuck in traffic in Midtown. I was starving and my voice was hoarse from talking all day. Plus, a nigga was tired. Bone-deep tired.
I let out a slow breath as my phone buzzed. Yaya was calling on Facetime. I ran a hand down my face as I answered knowing she was about to be upset. She was in the waiting room, face bare, locs pulled back in a low ponytail, and wearing an oversized olive hoodie. She looked tired too, but beautiful still. Always.
“Hey,” she replied, her tone clipped.
“I know I’m missing it. I’m…”
“You said you’d be here, Ezra.” Her voice cracked just slightly.
“Yaya, the meeting ran over…”
“I don’t care about your meetings right now.” Her voice sharpened. “You’ve known about this appointment for weeks.”
“I know, baby. I tried…”
“You always try,” she snapped, and her voice was still soft, but her eyes were blazing. “Trying isn’t the same as showing up.”
That hit me in the chest. I opened my mouth to speak, but someone off-screen said, “Tell him to call back later. You don’t need this right now.”
My stomach sank as I recognized her Pops voice. “You brought ya parents?” I asked tightly.
“Ezra—”
“Put him on, then, since he wanna talk.”
“I’m not doing this with you right now,” she hissed under her breath.
Her Pops voice cut through anyway. “He either steps up or he steps back, Yavanni. There is no in-between with a baby involved.”
I clenched my jaw. “I’m already steppin’ up. You just don’t see it.”
“Because we don’t see you,” he shot back. “All we see is your name in lights.”
“Yeah, well, them lights 'bout to supply ya daughter wit' the life y’all niggas want her to have,” I snapped before I could stop myself.
Yaya’s face dropped. “Wow.”
I closed my eyes, instantly regretting it. “Yaya…”
“I gotta go,” she said coldly.
The screen went black and I sat there with my phone in my lap, jaw tight and my stomach twisted. The city buzzed around me like it didn’t care about none of it. Fuck this shit. Instead of rushing to the airport to get a change of flight, I drove to Lennox & 7th.
Nipsy’s Bar and Lounge was dark, dimly lit with jazz humming low through the speakers. I nodded at the bartender when I took a seat. “Henny,” I said. “Double.” He poured without asking and I took the glass and threw it back, the burn settling in my chest like a reminder that some shit love can’t fix overnight.
Yeah, we loved each other. That part was never in question. But love wasn’t a fucking bandage. It was a mirror. And right now, that mirror was showing every crack we’d been ignoring.
I thought about Yaya sitting there alone, hand over her belly, her father breathing down her neck and the doctor calling her name. I downed another double shot of Henny and motioned for another. Love, I’d learned, didn’t just need poetry and good feels. It needed presence and I was still figuring out how to give that without losing myself in the process.
The bartender set down my glass filled with amber liquid and I just stared at it. Somewhere across the city, my woman was carrying my child and I was sitting in a bar trying to figure out how to keep from becoming the nigga I swore I’d never be. The kind that loves loud but shows up late. I picked up my phone and thumb hovered over her name. Maybe she’d pick up. Maybe she wouldn’t. But either way, I had to try again. Not for love but for us.
I stared at her name on my screen for a long time. The little contact photo I’d taken when we were only locked in for a few weeks. Yaya was lying in my bed, head on my chest, eyes half-closed with a soft smirk on her lips. She looked so peaceful in it. But now, I didn’t know if she even wanted to hear my voice.
I slid the phone into my pocket and sat with the silence. The bar had thinned out so there were only a few couples at the back. A guy nursing a beer alone near the jukebox while neo-soul played low through the speakers. My hands curled around the glass again, but I didn’t drink it. All I kept thinking was how did we get here?
A month ago, we were curled up in bed with my hand on her stomach, laughing at how my son kicked every time I said the word “poet.” I was flying back and forth, grinding, fucking exhausted, but I felt like I had a purpose. Like I was doing it for something. For Yaya. For my son. For us. But now? We were slipping and I didn’t know how to stop it.
The pressure was getting louder. More eyes on me. More money on the table. More rooms that required me to perform, to sell and to prove something. Meanwhile, Yaya was carrying life. Our life. Shit, we were both tired and trying but she was right. Trying just wasn’t cutting it anymore.
My phone buzzing in my hands pulled me from my thoughts. It was her. I answered Facetime and there she was with her tied scarf, curled on the couch. My sweatshirt drowning her belly. Eyes tired. We didn’t speak right away although her lips parted like she wanted to say something, but she couldn’t decide what.
“Baby…” I started.
“Don’t, Ezra,” she said softly, but not coldly. Just worn. “I’m too tired to argue tonight.”
I nodded, swallowing thickly. “I know.”
We sat there. Quiet. Looking at each other through the screen like the distance between us wasn’t just cities. It was disappointment, guilt, and love, too. So much of it.
“I don’t wanna do it like this,” she finally whispered. “I don’t want to raise our son in different area codes with us resentful, missing moments, and drowning in our own shit.”
“I know,” I said again. “I feel it too.”
She rubbed her eyes. “So what do we do?”
I leaned forward, elbows on the bar. “We figure it out. Not tomorrow. Not later. Now. We stop pretendin’ like this shit ain’t hard. We get honest about what we can do. I need to be there more.”
She looked at me, eyes watery. “You do and actually want to be here.”
Those words hit different and I couldn’t deny them. “I hear you Yaya,” I said quietly. “And I’mma do better. I gotchu.”
She nodded, slowly. Then after a long pause, she said softly, “Just… come home, babe.”
“I will,” I whispered. “First flight out.” We stared at each other, and for the first time all day, I saw her soften.
“I’m mad at you,” she mumbled.
I smirked. “I know.”
“I still love you.”
“Same.”
Then she reached for the screen, like she was about to hang up, and said, “Be careful, okay?”
“I gotchu, baby,” I whispered, and the call ended. I sat there for a while, not touching the Henny, just breathing. I knew we weren’t in a good place but we weren’t done either.