The Next Verse

Prologue

Xavier “Zay” Woods

“Fuck!” I hopped out the black SUV before the driver could even finish opening the door.

“Zay, calm down. We’re here now. Relax,” he said calmly, as if my heart hadn’t tried to escape out of my chest.

I ignored him as I jogged past him and up the sidewalk toward the brick building. The sound of my boots echoed off the concrete. The parking lot was packed with cars that lined up crookedly with their hazards blinking—other parents who appeared to be late like me stepped out of them.

All the responsible parents were already inside.

My phone buzzed in my pocket for the third time since I’d hopped out of the jet and jumped straight into the SUV.

I ignored it again. Between studios, meetings, and emails, everything blurred lately.

Cities stopped feeling like adventures and started to feel like stopovers.

L.A., Atlanta, New York, then back again.

My life ran on departure times and deadlines, yet somehow, I was always behind.

I was exhausted. I hadn’t slept for two days. My body felt like it was vibrating.

But I was gonna make this.

I was out of breath by the time I reached the door.

A woman with orange hair and a small frame happened to reach the door as soon as I had.

Both out of breath, we sighed and let out soft chuckles with one another.

I felt that she shared my same thoughts about running late.

I held the door open for her, and she walked in quietly as I followed.

The high school looked more like a college campus.

It didn’t look like the high school in Detroit I went to—well, at least from what I recalled from the days I had shown up.

I hardly went after my mother died when I was in the ninth grade, but after I got out of jail for beating my stepfather’s ass, I would show up a few times just to get breakfast.

That was before I gathered the courage to speak to my first love again after I got locked up so fast that I had no time to explain to her what happened.

That I never meant to just disappear. I didn’t have her address and couldn’t remember her number by heart, either.

I had to wait until I got out to hit her up on Myspace, and even then, it took me a while.

I thought she would cuss me out or ignore me altogether, but she was the sweetest about it.

That, and also, she had heard things about me.

She’d heard that I slept on buses after my car got towed with all my things inside, sold dope with my homeboys, and tried my best to make my music happen.

She snuck me into her bedroom window almost every night after that.

Smiling at the memory, I slowed my pace once I reached the auditorium doors and placed my palms on my knees.

“Get it together,” I whispered to myself, out of breath. “Just breathe.” I straightened, rolled my shoulders back, and pushed one of the heavy doors open slowly, careful not to let it creak.

The sound of the music hit me first. I recognized it immediately. It was the same tune that my daughter had rehearsed for months, all for this big day.

A single piano note softly stretched through the space as it trembled. I froze in the doorway and didn’t even bother to look around for a seat. I couldn’t miss it. It was too important.

The lights were dim, but the stage was illuminated. I put my back against the wall and waited.

The room was quiet as it silently waited for what would come next.

Then, my daughter stepped into the spotlight.

Yana looked taller somehow. Her hair was in a curly ponytail that fell down her back.

She wore a white dress with gold wings, since her character was the main angel in the play.

Her shoulders were back, and she held her head high.

She didn’t hide that time. Over the past year, her confidence had grown tremendously.

The mic caught the slight inhale before she sang, and when her voice came out clearly—strong and steady—it damn near knocked the breath out of me.

I swallowed hard.

She joined the drama club after we met. After everything came out.

Her mother, Princess, told me she’d always liked to sing but never wanted to be seen. She had been too shy, too unsure. As I watched her then, owning the stage, I felt something split open in my chest.

I hated that I missed out on her growing up.

I hadn’t known that her mother was pregnant, but when Princess Love Melendez—now known as best-selling author Love Tate—would bring me warm plates of her mother’s cooking during those Detroit winter nights in her bedroom, I knew something special would come out of it.

When we reconnected last year on her book-to-film adaptation, it all came out.

I was upset for a while, and it took some time to process.

But when I first looked into my daughter’s eyes and saw my mother’s, .

. . that heaviness I’d felt inside of me since my mother’s passing had lifted.

I knew then that I would do anything for my baby girl.

That included learning to forgive her mother, who was also young and made the decision she thought was best at the time.

Princess told me she kept the secret because she didn’t want me to have to choose between them and my music, which I had strived for.

I had also told her that I couldn’t see myself being a father because I never had one.

Between not knowing my biological one and my stepfather using me as his personal punching bag, I couldn’t see myself doing either to my own.

I watched as Yana’s eyes swept the crowd, and I saw a flicker of uncertainty. She scanned the room from right to left until her eyes finally found me.

When they did, her whole body changed.

Her confidence snapped back into place like muscle memory.

She smiled and tapped two fingers against her right eyebrow as she sang louder.

That gesture had become our inside joke between just the two of us to signal to each other that everything was okay.

She started it when she noticed that, when I was under pressure, I instinctively swiped my eyebrows with two fingers.

Whenever she caught it, she would smile and tap fingers against hers.

I smiled and returned it before placing one fist into my palm to ground myself.

With my back still against the wall, I spotted Love and her ex-husband, Juwon, sitting together near the front, close but not touching, like two people who knew exactly how to behave in public. They hadn’t turned around or noticed me yet.

Juwon had been in Yana’s life since the day she was born. Princess met him in college, and after what she called a “long friendship,” he proposed to her. They decided together to raise Yana as his. Yana hadn’t known that he wasn’t her real father for as long as I hadn’t known I was her father.

I felt myself get that strange, familiar twist in my gut when I saw them together. I could never tell if I was jealous of him having the life I missed out on, or if it was fear that it could never be mine. Whatever it was, it always flared up, even when I told myself not to let it.

I walked up the aisle when the applause began. Each step was purposeful and full of pride as I made my way to the front of the stage. I clapped harder than anyone around me, with my chest tight and my gaze on Yana.

That was my baby. I’d learned to love her as if no time had passed between us.

When the play was over, I followed the crowd outside. The air buzzed with voices and movement as we waited for the cast to exit the building the way they did on Broadway. The kids poured out, most still in costume, with their parents shouting names, phones already up.

I leaned against the building and tried not to look like myself for once, but it didn’t work.

“There he is!”

“I told you her dad was gonna be here!”

“Waddup, doe, Westside Zay!”

“Can I get a picture?”

The voices of those who recognized me grew louder, and I watched the crowd split into two: one for the high school cast, and a smaller one for me.

I didn’t think I would ever get tired of the crowds or the recognition, but when it came to stealing the thunder from my daughter, something inside of me stirred.

“Aye, aye, everybody, what’s up, what’s up?” I stated to the crowd, being sure to keep my tone neutral. I quickly signed autographs and smiled for pictures as the crowd got shorter. As many times as I had come to this school, there were still always people who wanted a picture.

I finished signing another autograph, and as I looked up to smile for a picture, I spotted Princess through the crowd.

I just so happened to catch the moment her eyes landed on me.

Her face shifted. She was surprised at first. Then, she smiled.

That same smile she used to give me back in Detroit when I would climb through her bedroom window, the one she tried not to give me anymore.

When the flash from the camera went off, I politely thanked everyone around me and walked through the crowd in her direction. Our eyes never left each other. When we were close enough, I stopped in front of her. She spoke before I could.

“You didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“I didn’t know if I’d make it,” I said. “Didn’t wanna promise.”

I hadn’t even noticed he was close until Juwon stepped beside her. With his jaw tight, he nodded.

“She killed it.”

“Yeah,” I said, eyes still on Princess. “She did.”

There was a short, awkward silence between the three of us, where nobody quite knew what to say next.

When Juwon adjusted the flowers in his hand, it made me realize I hadn’t brought anything.

It wasn’t even the fact that I hadn’t, but more of not even having the thought to bring anything that hit me like a punch in the gut.

I couldn’t help but give it to him. He was better at this dad thing than I was.

I was relieved when Yana burst through the crowd. Cheeks red from blushing and smiling, her energy spilled everywhere.

“Did you see me?”

I crouched immediately. “I heard every note!”

She hugged me hard, like she’d been holding it in. After what seemed like an hour in heaven, she let me go.

Juwon stepped forward and handed her the flowers. “You were amazing.”

“Thank you,” she said politely, but her eyes flicked back to me.

Princess watched it all quietly.

Yana’s friends came by and grabbed her to take a cast photo together, and we followed behind. The three of us stood there—Princess, Juwon, and me, three people connected by one girl—and acted as if we weren’t balancing on something fragile.

“So,” Princess spoke as Yana threw up peace signs and posed for pictures with her friends, “we were gonna go grab some food.”

As if on cue, my phone buzzed again. I pulled it from my pocket and tapped the screen. Across the display was a message from Simone, my AR. She was a tiny woman with a mighty attitude. She got shit done though; I couldn’t even front.

Zay, you need to be on this meeting in 10 minutes. I’m not holding them off for you again.

I sighed. “I gotta head back out.”

Princess’s shoulders dropped, and she frowned. Juwon and I both noticed the disappointment. He breathed deeply and dropped his head to the ground.

She spoke quickly after she caught herself. “So soon? How long are you in town?”

“I have a meeting now. I planned to take it in the truck on my way back to the airport,” I said. “I’ll be back next weekend. I swear.”

Yana ran back over to where we stood with a smile so bright that it crushed me when she noticed our expressions.

“I have to head out of here, baby girl,” I said carefully.

Yana nodded, trying to be brave about it, as she always had when I had to leave. It killed me that she seemed to have had expected it. Juwon remained expressionless as he looked away. I crouched down and gave her a hug. I whispered to her and promised that I would make it up to her.

When she let go of me, Princess stepped to me and gave me a side hug, wrapping one arm around my neck.

“She’s just happy you show up at all,” she whispered softly in my ear.

I nodded, but it didn’t settle the ache. It just reminded me of another time, the younger version of myself, cold, sneaking into Princess’s bedroom in Detroit because I had nowhere else to go, telling her I didn’t know how to be a father, that I didn’t know how to love without losing everything.

There were still things I’d never said.

About my mother.

About my fears.

About the part of me that still didn’t trust any love that stayed.

I never said them because, even at that big age, I still hadn’t figured them out myself.

I nodded at Juwon, and he did the same as I turned and walked back to the SUV. The driver opened the door as I got close, and I stepped inside.

As the city pulled away beneath the plane’s lights later that night, I rested my head against the window.

God knew I was trying my best.

But I just didn’t know if trying would ever be good enough.