Chapter 11
S O L A C E
I had spent most of Sunday morning thinking about Smoke when I was supposed to be figuring out what the hell I was doing with my own life.
Seeing him with that woman yesterday hadn’t helped.
I didn’t know for sure that she was the one who might be carrying his baby, but I wasn’t stupid.
She’d been standing there talking to him, and the second Smoke saw me looking at them, his whole face changed.
She was pretty too, which irritated the hell out of me.
She wasn’t really fly or put together, but she had that rough-around-the-edges kind of pretty that worked for her.
I hated that I’d even paid enough attention to notice.
Then I spent half the damn day wondering how long they’d been sleeping together, what he’d liked about her, and how much of his life she’d been a part of before I came back.
The part I couldn’t get around was the baby.
If it was Smoke’s, I already knew what he was going to do.
He would be there for every appointment, every birthday, every scraped knee, and every other thing that came with being somebody’s father.
I wouldn’t have wanted him any other way, but knowing that didn’t make the thought of building a life with him while he built one with a child he had made with another woman any easier to swallow.
Tomorrow was fast approaching, and I was still going back to Los Angeles.
That part hadn’t changed. What had changed was me acting like going back meant Smoke, and I had to end too.
I’d already done that once, and if I was being real with myself, storming out of his house after finding out about Denisha hadn’t been much different.
I got hurt, got overwhelmed, and my first instinct was still to put distance between us.
I knew I couldn’t keep doing that every time something happened that I didn’t know how to deal with, but knowing that didn’t mean I was ready to talk to Smoke yet.
I was still trying to wrap my head around everything, and I needed a little time before I could sit in front of him and have that conversation without letting my emotions take over.
I knew I’d see him at some point during the festival.
Today was opening day. There was no way he was missing Keyana at the pep rally, and after the way I’d left his house, I had no idea how things were going to be between us.
I just knew we couldn’t avoid each other forever, and with both of us showing up for Keyana today, avoiding him wasn’t really an option.
I reached for my laptop and opened the email I’d been avoiding. I clicked the link and accepted the position. I had barely finished reading the confirmation when my phone started ringing beside me.
I stared at it, feeling my pulse quicken before answering. “Hey, good morning.”
“Hey.” I heard him take a breath before he continued. “I’ve been trying to decide if I should call you this early. I wasn’t sure if you were up or not.”
“You know I’m an early riser.”
“Yeah, true,” he chuckled lightly.
Hearing his voice made me sad in a way I hadn’t expected. Tyler had been part of my everyday life for years. I’d expected to marry him, share a home with him, and eventually have children with him. Ending our engagement didn’t erase any of that.
“I’ve been thinking about you, Sol.”
“I’ve been thinking about you too.”
“Then you could’ve called.” The frustration in Tyler’s voice caught me off guard, but he didn’t give me a chance to respond. “I almost flew out there.”
I sat up straighter. “To Bellhaven?”
“Yeah, Solace, to Bellhaven. I’ve been sitting here trying to understand how I’m just supposed to accept that we’re just… done. I thought maybe we needed to have this conversation in person.”
I looked around my old bedroom and knew immediately that I didn’t want him here. Bellhaven had nothing to do with Tyler, and bringing him into everything happening here wouldn’t make any of this easier. “I don’t think you need to come here.”
He went quiet. “You really don’t want me there?”
“It’s not that. I just… I really don’t think coming here is going to change anything.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
I closed my eyes for a second and exhaled. “No, Tyler. I don’t want you to come.”
“Damn.” He scoffed. “Okay. Then I need you to help me understand what the hell happened because I’m still trying to make sense of it.
We were planning a wedding, Solace. We had a date.
We had a venue. We had a whole fucking life planned, and then you told me you couldn’t marry me.
I heard everything you said before you left, but none of it made this shit make sense. ”
I looked down at my hand where my engagement ring had been. “You asked me a question I’d spent years avoiding.”
“Whether you’d ever been in love before me?”
“Yeah.” I rubbed my thumb over the spot where my ring used to sit and looked down at my hand. “And I lied to you. For that, I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” The frustration in his voice came through immediately. “Solace, what the…?”
“Let me explain,” I cut him off, getting off my bed.
I started slowly pacing the floor as I said, “That conversation made me think about a part of my life I hadn’t dealt with in so many years.
I started thinking about who I was back then, why I left, and why I’d avoided coming back here for so long.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized I wasn’t ready to stand in front of you and make those vows. ”
“So one question did all that?”
“Yes. The question just made me stop avoiding shit that was already there deep down.”
Tyler got quiet again before he asked, “Do you love me, Solace?”
My eyes burned with tears because there wasn’t an answer that wouldn’t hurt him. “I did love you, Tyler. I just didn’t love you the way I should if I’m gonna be your wife.”
“Jesus Christ.” He sounded hurt and irritated at the same time. “Do you know how fucked up it is hearing that after all these years?”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do. I was ready to marry you. I wasn’t halfway in this shit, Solace. I chose you. I planned my life around us, and now I’m supposed to understand that you loved me, just not enough?”
I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Tyler. I really am.”
“I know you are, and that’s probably the worst part. I know you didn’t do this to hurt me.” He sighed. “I just wish you would’ve figured it out before I bought a ring and started planning a whole future with you.”
“I wish I had too.”
“I’m still mad at you,” he said. “I’m probably going to be mad for a while because I still love you.
That makes being mad at you even more annoying.
” His voice softened some. “But I don’t want you marrying me because you feel guilty or because I’ve already spent money on a wedding. I deserve better than that.”
“You absolutely do. You’re a good man, Tyler. Just not my man.”
“Yeah, thanks. Look, I don’t know what you’re figuring out in Bellhaven, and I’m not going to ask. I just hope when you figure it out, all of this was worth it.”
Finally sitting back on my bed, I exhaled deeply. “I never wanted figuring shit out to come at your expense.”
“I know. That doesn’t mean it didn’t.” Another silence passed between us before Tyler spoke again. “Take care of yourself, Solace.”
“You too, Tyler.”
The call ended, and I sat there with my phone in my hand.
I was sad because I knew I had hurt a good man who still loved me, and there was no way to make that feel okay.
But I didn’t want to call him back, and I didn’t wish I had made a different decision.
I hated how much ending our engagement had hurt him, but I knew ending it had been the right thing to do.
My phone buzzed again, and this time it was a text.
I smiled as I typed back.
Her response came almost immediately.
I laughed and locked my phone instead. She was going to have to wait. There was no way in hell I was going to explain everything over text. She wasn’t the only person I’d been avoiding a conversation with either.
My mother had already left for the diner.
She knew something was wrong when I came home upset after my argument with Smoke, but I’d been avoiding that conversation just as much as I’d been avoiding him.
She’d asked me twice if I was okay, and I’d told her I was fine both times.
My mother knew I was lying, but thankfully, she hadn’t pushed me to talk about it.
The truth was, I didn’t know what I would’ve told her anyway.
I was still trying to figure out how I felt about everything myself.
I finally got out of bed and took a long, hot shower before getting dressed for the day.
The pep rally was starting soon, and before everything went to shit with Smoke, I’d promised Keyana I would be there to see her step.
I pulled on a fitted deep-burgundy sweater dress that hit above my knees, cream thigh-high stockings, and cream suede over-the-knee heeled boots.
I added a cropped cream jacket, gold hoops, and my small YSL bag, then pulled my hair into a messy bun and left a few pieces loose around my face. After adding some gloss, I looked at myself in the mirror and was glad I didn’t look as emotionally drained as I felt.
I left the house a little while later and headed toward Main Street. I heard the pep rally before I got close enough to see anything. Music carried down the street, the drumline was loud as hell, and people were yelling and cheering enough that I already knew the crowd was going to be ridiculous.
By the time I reached Main Street, the whole area was packed.
The street had been closed to traffic, and people filled both sidewalks and crowded around the space set aside for the pep rally.
Festival booths stretched farther down the street with food, hot cider, clothes, jewelry, games, and damn near everything else somebody could sell with half the town outside.