Chapter 10
Meadow stayed pressed into Zaire’s chest long enough for his heartbeat to settle into her breathing. When she finally pulled back, she wiped her face with the sleeve of her hoodie, embarrassed at how hard she fell apart in front of him.
“Sorry,” she whispered, staring at the floor. “I don’t usually…break down like that.”
Zaire watched her, his eyes softer than she expected. “Don’t apologize for loving somebody.”
She shook her head. “You don’t get it.”
“I do,” he said quietly.
Meadow looked up at him. “How?”
Zaire’s breath steadied in his chest, but something flickered in his eyes, something old and heavy. “Because when you love somebody that deep…you don’t get to choose how it hurt. You just feel it.”
She placed her hand on her chest trying to calm herself down.
Meadow sniffed. “Sometimes it feels like I’m fading out of her mind one memory at a time.”
Zaire tucked his hands in his pockets to keep from touching her again. “Then let her remember you with your presence, not her mind.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means…just show up,” he said in a cool tone. “Even when she can’t name you, even when she doesn’t know your face…even when she don’t know you’re still her baby…you still show up.”
Her throat pinched shut.
He continued, hoping she understood what he was saying. “People think love is big moments - weddings, kids, anniversaries. All that frilly shit. But most of love…is showing up when you got every reason to disappear.”
Meadow stared at him like she didn’t expect someone like him - hood, guarded, tired, carrying too much…
to say something deep. Meadow didn’t know that Zaire was more than blue flags, angry outbursts, and sorrowful eyes.
He was a man in the essence of everything Ray had taught her.
She might not fully see it yet, but slowly, he was revealing himself to her like the hoodiest fairytale she’d ever told.
“I didn’t know you talked like that.”
Zaire shrugged. “I don’t…well not usually. People don’t come see me to hear me talk.”
“Why now then?”
He held her eyes. “Because you needed it.”
Her breath wavered, staggering while holding onto his every word.
Meadow turned away before her knees betrayed her again. “C’mon,” she muttered. “My room is this way.” She jutted her head toward the stairs that needed a new coat of sealant.
He followed her up the stairs, still watching her with that careful attention he didn’t mean to give.
When she pushed open her door, the lived-in space hit him instantly. Her scent, her energy, her life was all in this room. Clothes were everywhere, shoes kicked off in every direction and he noticed a stripper pole gleaming in the corner like a centerpiece of honesty.
Zaire took it all in, the mess and the beauty of it.
“This you?” his voice and his brows went up in astonishment.
Meadow exhaled, spinning around with her arms wide. “Yeah, it’s not cute right now – I know.”
“Nah,” he countered. “It’s real cute.”
That caught her off guard.
Zaire stepped in further, his brown eyes roaming the room with a warmth that didn’t feel invasive. “You ever notice how people with the biggest hearts always have rooms that look lived in?”
She frowned. “What does that even mean?”
“You love that question, don’t you baby?”
She blushed but shook her head berating herself for sounding so damn ditzy.
“It means your life is full…too full to be neat…too full to be fake.”
Meadow sat on the floor beside the foot of her bed, rubbing her palms over her leggings. “You really don’t know me like that to have come up with that lame ass line.”
“And?” he shrugged. “I know real when I see it.”
She looked up at him, her eyes following the perfectly-lined outline of his low beard. “And what’s the real?”
“That you not the kind of woman who falls apart easily,” he said. “So if you break, even momentarily…it’s bad.”
Zaire’s assessment was of her soul—her aura—the small details the average man wouldn’t notice. But he did. He saw the strong facade, the quick witted words. It was all a part of the wall she’d built because women like her had to have a fortress highly fortified and impenetrable.
Meadow felt that one in her bones. She took a shaky breath. “I didn’t want you to see that.”
Zaire leaned against the wall, arms crossed, eyes never leaving her. “If I’m gon’ be around you…I’m gon’ see the parts you don’t wanna show.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” he smirked.
She looked away. “Why you wanna be around?”
He hesitated but decided to just say it. “Because my spirit clocked yours from the jump.”
Meadow’s heart flipped like a trained gymnast.
“What does that even mean?”
“I gotta teach you some more questions,” Zaire laughed, dodging the pillow she threw at his head. “Watch out, cuh.”
“Then stop pissing me off!” Meadow snickered too. “But explain anyway…better?”
He nodded, still fucking with her and that redundant question she liked to repeat. “That you move like somebody who’s been carrying everybody,” he continued. “And sometimes people who carry everybody need somebody to hold them for a minute.”
Her eyes stung. That truth hit her in a place she hadn’t touched in a long time.
Meadow leaned back on her hands, breath shaking.
It wasn’t just today that had gotten to her.
It was the years leading up to it. The last five had run her ragged.
Chasing money, taking care of Ray, watching Magnolia fade, fighting off developers, trying to keep this land alive and trying to keep herself alive in it.
There were nights she cried in the shower so nobody heard. Mornings she rubbed her temples in the mirror, wondering what would happen if she stopped trying for one damn week. Holidays when she cooked the whole meal alone because Magnolia was confused and Ray was too exhausted.
Birthdays she skipped…outings she canceled...moments of joy she swallowed because she didn’t have energy for anything extra.
She couldn’t remember the last time she wanted something just for her.
Dreams didn’t sit in her anymore. They drifted around her like things she used to chase but couldn’t pick up again. She used to be full of ideas and plans and excitement about life. Now she woke up hoping for a quiet day and a calm mind. That was it.
None of this was part of the life she imagined for herself, and sometimes the disappointment felt like another weight strapped across her shoulders.
“I’m just…tired,” she admitted,“ like tired in my bones. Tired in ways I don’t even talk about.”
Zaire trekked closer to her.
She looked down at her hands like she could feel and touch just how fucking tired she really was.
“Everybody always need something from me - the kids I coach, my Daddy, my Mama, the land, the business, the bills…I keep trying to hold everything up and…” Her voice thinned. “I don’t know if I got much left.”
“You got more than you think. But that don’t mean you supposed to do it alone.”
She didn’t look at him, afraid he’d see how much pain truly rested in her Black bones.
“Meadow,” he stepped even closer, giving each word enough weight to sit with her, “ain’t nobody built to carry that much, not even you. You deserve space to fall apart sometimes.”
She swallowed, silently agreeing.
“And when you do,” he said, his finger brushing across her face. “you deserve somebody who don’t run at the sign of the first crack.”
She wiped her cheek where his touch still lingered. “I don’t even know how to put stuff down anymore. I been holding it so long it feels normal.”
“Then we gon’ learn,” he assured. “A little bit at a time. Piece by piece, baby. Can’t be harder than learning golf.”
That made her smile. “You barely know me, Zaire.”
“I know enough,” he said quietly, squatting down to take a seat on the floor. “Enough to not walk out while you hurting.”
Meadow stared at him, breathing unevenly, realizing something she didn’t want to confront.
He wasn’t soothing her because he wanted something. He was soothing her because he knew what pain felt like too.
Meadow sniffed and wiped under her eyes. “You act like you got me all figured out.”
Zaire leaned back on his palms, staring at the slanted ceiling for a long second, wondering if he was safe to share pieces of himself with her. “I don’t, but I know tired when I see it.”
She looked over into his soft, pain-filled eyes. “Because you’re tired too?”
His shoulders rose slow and fell even slower. “Hell yeah, cuh.”
“You ever get to a point where you so tired you don’t even know what rest look like no more?” He was desperate to know like he needed an ally in her.
Meadow licked the salt from her tears off her lips. “Every day.”
Zaire nodded, like that answer hurt him a little. “Yeah, that’s where I’m at.”
Exhaling hard, he rubbed the back of his neck.
“Everybody look at me like I’m built for pressure.
Like I’m supposed to carry everything ’cause I got talent, ’cause I’m strong, ’cause I grew up where I grew up.
But that shit don’t make you immune. It just make people expect more from you… constantly.”
Meadow listened, her heartbeat slowing to match his rhythm.
“I got a Mama who still worry even when she acting like she don’t,” he sighed, like saying it out loud relieved some of the pressure.
“A Dad who’s locked up but trying to stay present in any way he can.
A neighborhood that put they hopes on my back.
Sponsors who see a number before they see a person.
Fans who love me when I’m winning and talk crazy when I lose.
” He swallowed, looking down at his hands.
“And the crazy part? I don’t even get mad at none of them.
I just…let it sit on me until I can’t sleep…
until golf feels heavy instead of peaceful…
until I look in the mirror and don’t recognize myself without the game attached to my name. ”
Meadow’s hand flew to her chest where her heart beat like wild bat. “Zaire…”