Amiyah
When Jason’s name showed up in my Facebook inbox, my first instinct was to delete the message, but I didn’t.
Maybe it was curiosity, or it was the part of me that had never gotten to say what needed saying. Either way, I agreed to meet him. Big Earl’s felt like neutral ground, no ghosts, no memories, just noise and barbecue smoke thick enough to blur the past.
He was already sitting in a booth when I walked in, wearing the same sheepish smile that used to talk me down after every argument. Only now, it didn’t soften me.
“Don’t,” I cut him off, sliding into the booth across from him. “Just say what you need to say.”
He blinked, caught off guard by how calm I was. Maybe he expected tears. Perhaps he expected the woman he left behind.
“I just wanted to apologize,” he started. “For how things ended. For… everything.”
“That’s a wide net, Jason,” I said, leaning back. “You’re gonna have to narrow that down.”
He sighed. “I was young, scared, and I didn’t know how to handle what happened. Losing the baby broke something in me.”
I stared at him, my pulse ticking. “It broke you?” I said quietly. “You think you get to claim that pain?”
He looked down, fiddling with his napkin. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yes, you did.” My voice sharpened. “You checked out. You left me alone in that apartment while I could barely breathe. You watched me drown and called it space. Then I found out you were already planning your escape. You didn’t just betray me, Jason, you betrayed the one dream I had left.”
He opened his mouth, but I wasn’t done.
“I told you how much starting a family meant to me. After losing my parents and my grandparents, I wanted something that was mine. A chance to carry my lineage forward, to build a home that didn’t disappear when the phone stopped ringing.
You knew all of that, yet you still looked another woman in the eyes and told her you were glad our baby was gone. ”
His face crumpled, guilt cutting through his expression. “I was an idiot. I didn’t know how to process the loss—”
“No,” I interrupted. “You didn’t want to process it. You wanted to forget it and forget me. You couldn’t handle the fact that I wasn’t the easy, carefree girl you met anymore. I was grieving, Jason. I was broken, and instead of holding me, you ran to someone else’s bed.”
He rubbed a hand over his face, sighing. “I know, and I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”
“Good,” I said flatly.
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The sounds of laughter, clinking glasses, and Motown in the background felt like another world, one I’d finally stepped back into while he was still stuck in the wreckage.
He leaned forward, desperate. “Look, for what it’s worth, the woman I cheated with, she’s not in my life anymore. We got married quickly and divorced even quicker. She cheated and got pregnant by someone else.”
I blinked once. “Sounds like karma works fast.”
He looked for emotion on my face and found none. “Yeah, I guess it did,” he replied, his face solemn.
“Disloyalty is a character flaw you can’t erase, even when you land on the other side of betrayal,” I said simply. “You made your bed. She just kicked you out of it.”
His shoulders slumped. “I was hoping maybe we could… I don’t know, start over. As friends, maybe.”
I almost laughed. “Friends? Jason, you buried that possibility the moment you chose to betray me during one of the most difficult losses of my life. You don’t get to come back into my life just because you’re lonely now.”
He swallowed hard. “So that’s it?”
“That’s peace,” I said. “You don’t owe me anything, and I don’t owe you closure. I’ve already found it.”
He frowned. “With who? That guy from Comic Con?”
I smirked. “And her. Calla and James.”
His eyes widened. “Her? Wait, you’re with both of them?”
“Yes,” I said calmly, meeting his disbelief with pride. “And it’s the healthiest, most honest love I’ve ever known.”
He shook his head. “And what about the things you used to want, marriage, kids?”
“I used to think those things would make me complete,” I said, my tone steady. “But I’m whole now, with or without those things. I don’t need a husband or a child to validate my womanhood. I have love that’s built on truth, respect, and freedom. That’s enough for me.”
Jason’s face fell. “So I really lost you.”
“You never had me,” I said quietly. “You had the version of me who didn’t know her worth.”
He nodded slowly, tears pricking the corners of his eyes. “You’re really happy?”
I smiled a small, genuine one. “Yeah. Happier than I’ve ever been.”
That’s when I felt it, the shift in the air. I looked up and locked eyes with my woman, feeling her presence before she even made it to the table.
As she leaned down to whisper in my ear that I had five minutes to get my ass in my car and head to her place, or she was going to spank me and fuck me u til I could barely sit for the next week.
I knew she was serious, and I was seriously turned on.
I contemplated testing her gangsta to see how much I would be on the receiving end of her paddle, but I thought better of it.
After she issued that promise, she headed back to her table, where I spotted James with a smirk on his face, while Caleb and Calil doubled over in laughter.
I was aroused and eager to be punished. I’d never seen myself as a masochist, but with Calla and James, I was wide open to pleasure of all kinds because I trusted them and loved them.
Jason’s eyes went wide. “What the—”
“Accountability,” I said, standing up. “It’s a new part of my life.”
He didn’t understand, but he didn’t need to.
As I walked to my car, the tension in my chest loosened. I didn’t look back, didn’t wave, didn’t think about what could have been.
I was done carrying his ghost.
For the first time in years, I didn’t just say I’d moved on, I’d actually done it. I had a twenty-five-minute drive to Calla’s place, and I decided to call Lena and tell her just what kind of hot water I’d gotten myself into tonight.
The second I pulled out of Big Earl’s parking lot, my phone lit up on the dashboard.
Lena ????
I hit the speaker. “Hey, bestie.”
“What’s up, girl? Where you headed?”
I sighed. “To Calla’s to get spanked and fucked for misbehaving.”
There was a solid beat of silence, then Lena’s laugh exploded through my speakers so loud I nearly swerved.
“I’m sorry, what?” she wheezed. “What the hell did you do to piss off The Black Dahlia herself? And I still can’t believe that woman is actually THE Dahlia, and how I didn’t put two and two together? The mask? The leather? The whole whip collection?”
“Believe it,” I groaned. “She’s all of it and then some.”
“Oh, this I gotta hear! What did you do?”
I took a breath. “Welllllll, Jason,” she cut me off before I could get into the details, that’s how much Lena hated his ass.
“Girl,” she said slowly, “if you’re about to tell me that man’s name for anything other than a restraining order, I’m hanging up.”
“I ran into him in New York, at Comic Con.”
“Oh my God. You didn’t tell me that!”
“It didn’t seem important at the time,” I said quickly. “He just said hi, nothing wild. But then he messaged me on Facebook begging to talk, and—”
“Wait.” Lena cut me off so fast it made me laugh. “Begging? On Facebook? That man’s got the emotional intelligence of a toaster. Please tell me you told him to kick rocks.”
“I wanted closure.”
“Closure,” she repeated, dripping sarcasm. “Miyah, closure is an illusion invented by people who hate peace. You don’t need closure—you need better blocking habits.”
“Yeah, well,” I said, “I agreed to meet him at Big Earl’s. We talked.”
Lena made a dramatic groaning noise. “Lord, take the wheel. What did y’all even talk about?”
“He apologized,” I said. “Said losing the baby broke him, that he was scared, all that nonsense. Tried to tell me his rebound wife cheated on him and got pregnant by someone else.”
Lena barked out a laugh. “Karma came back with a prenatal vitamin, huh?”
“Basically.”
“So what’d you say?”
“I told him I wasn’t interested in being friends, that I’ve moved on, that I’m happy with James and Calla.”
Lena hummed. “Good answer, then?”
“And then,” I said slowly, “Calla showed up.”
“Wait, what?”
I could practically hear Lena sitting up in bed.
“She walked right up to the booth,” I said, still half-laughing, half-mortified, “leaned down and whispered in my ear that I had ten minutes—scratch that, five—to wrap it up and get my ass in my car. Said if I wasn’t gone in five, she’d spank my pussy and ass so hard I wouldn’t be able to sit through a team meeting all week. ”
The line went silent for a heartbeat. Then Lena screamed.
“No, she didn’t!”
“Oh, she did.”
Lena was still laughing when she finally managed, “Girl, she’s the CEO of a whole tech empire, and she said that to you in public? You dating a comic-book supervillain.”
“More like a superhero because,” I said, laughing and fanning myself. “But I can’t even lie… the way she said it? I knew she meant every word, and my pussy did too because she started playing hopscotch in my panties like she just knew tonight was about to be one for the books.”
Lena cackled. “Oh, so you were a little shook and a little impressed.”
“Maybe more impressed and completely turned out and on,” I admitted. “She went full boss mode in front of my ex, and all I could think was, yep, that’s mine.”
“Oh my God,” Lena said through her laughter. “You are gone, girl.”
“Gone, floating, hypnotized, pick one, hell, all three.”
“Calla got you catching feelings and following orders. Whew, love looks good on you,” Lena teased.
I grinned at the windshield. “You have no idea.”
“Well,” she said, still giggling, “I hope whatever’s waiting for you at her house teaches you some act right.”
“I’m definitely about to learn something,” I said, trying to sound casual but smiling too hard.
“Mm-hmm. That tone says it all. Take your punishment like a big girl, and call me when you survive.”
“Goodbye, Lena.”