Chanel’s Interlude (The Crestwood Chronicles)

Chapter 1

Ididn’t remember how long we had been driving.

The road stretched out in front of us like it didn’t end. All I could see were lines, headlights, and darkness pressing up against the windows. The car felt smaller than it should have. Like the air had been pulled out of it. Zay hadn’t said anything else since he crushed my heart.

But the truth is, Zayden didn’t need to. His words were still sitting between us, heavy and alive.

He got other girls, Channy. Always had. Always will.

I kept my eyes on the window. Not because there was anything to see, but because I couldn’t look at him.

Couldn’t look at the person who just said something that didn’t fit the version of Xavier I knew.

“You don’t know that,” I whispered.

My voice didn’t sound like mine.

Zay exhaled slowly through his nose. Not irritated or defensive. But he looked tired. I could only imagine how he felt knowing his brother would be in prison. Every day I lived with the grief of not seeing Jared and hearing him sound broken on the phone and melancholy through our letters.

“I do know that,” Zayden said quietly.

That was the part that made my chest tighten.

Not what he said. But how sure he was when he said it. I swallowed hard and pressed my forehead against the glass. The feel of the window was cool and grounding. Something solid when everything else felt like it was slipping.

My mind was spinning. Everything was happening too fast.

Where the fuck did Natalie come from? I saw no signs.

He never hid his phone; we spent almost every second of every day together.

How the fuck did he have time to be with her?

King had broken down to me countless times on what it was like to grow up without a father, how could he be a deadbeat ass one? That couldn’t have been the man I knew.

But Zayden’s claim of rumors and babies. Plural had me stuck. The most important person in Zayden’s world was Xavier. For him to tell me the truth must have been hard.

My stomach twisted.

That wasn’t my Xavier. The boy I loved didn’t move like that. He didn’t smile at me like I was the only one in the world, and still belonged to other people. He didn’t say the things he said to me, mean them, and lie at the same time.

But I remembered what YaYa said on the bus on the night I met him at that party about the babies.

“Look, Channy. I need you to really hear me. He’s older than

you. You’re eighteen. He’s what—twenty, twenty-one, my

age...? That Nigga got girls in rotation. Hell, he

probably got kids.”

Why did it feel like everybody knew something I didn’t?

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“No,” I said under my breath. “That’s not him.”

Zay glanced at me, then back at the road. “Aight.”

That was it. No argument. No pushing.

And somehow, that hurt worse than if he had kept talking. Because he wasn’t trying to convince me. He was letting me sit in it. Letting me figure it out on my own. Tears slid down my cheeks before I even realized I was crying.

“I love him,” I said, barely above a whisper. I wasn’t even talking to Zay anymore. I was saying it out loud so it could still feel true.

Zay’s hands tightened slightly on the wheel. “I know,” he said.

He made his voice soft and certain. And that made something in my chest crack open.

Because he didn’t question it. He didn’t challenge it.

He didn’t say I was wrong or stupid for loving a man that everyone warned me not to.

He just accepted it as if love wasn’t the issue.

Like love had never been enough. I turned my face back toward the window, blinking through the blur of streetlights. Trying to hold on to something solid.

A memory.

A feeling.

Anything that proved what I had with Xavier was real.

But Zay’s words wouldn’t leave my head.

They kept replaying.

Over and over.

You really think you're the only one who got caught in that smile?

My throat tightened.

Because the truth was, I didn’t know what was real or fake anymore. I wiped at my face, but more tears came anyway, quiet and unstoppable. I wasn’t crying just because of what Zay said. I was crying because a part of me believed him.

* * *

The house felt different when I walked in.

It was quiet and tense, as if something had already been decided without me. My mom was in the kitchen, moving around as if it were a normal night. Cabinets opening. Water running. The soft clink of dishes. Everything steady. Controlled.

Too controlled.

“Welcome home, Princess,” my dad said.

“Hi, Daddy.”

My voice felt flat and empty.

I stood there for a second, waiting.

I waited for my mom to look at me instead of busying herself with dinner. For her to ask something real. For someone in this damn house to finally say his name. But nothing came.

“Mom,” I said, the word catching in my throat, “What do you think will happen with Xavier?”

Her hands slowed just a little over the sink. Then kept moving.

“I don’t want you worrying about that,” she said.

My chest contracted. “That’s not what I asked.”

She turned then, drying her hands, her expression soft but already made up. “Chanel, darling, some things you don’t need to be involved in.”

I stared at her, disbelief rising up my throat. “I am involved. Mom, I was there. He was protecting me.”

“Yeah, protecting you from a situation he put you in.”

My father glared at her incredulously, “What your mother is trying to say, Princess, is that you don’t have to be involved.”

That hit harder than anything Zay said.

Because he told me something I didn’t want to hear.

But my parents? They were trying to erase everything about Xavier and me.

“Yes, I do,” I said, my voice rising before I could stop it. “That’s—he’s—” I cut myself off, swallowing the rest down. “Can you just tell me what’s happening? When is his sentencing? What are they saying?”

My mother shook her head. “I’m not discussing that.”

I blinked at her. “Why?”

“Because it’s not your burden to carry.”

A short laugh slipped out of me, sharp and hollow. “It already is.”

She stepped closer, lowering her voice like that would soften it. “Baby, this is exactly why I don’t want you wrapped up in it. You have a future. You have plans. I’m not letting this pull you off track. This never happened.”

This.

That’s what she called him.

Not Xavier.

Not the boy I loved.

This.

As if he were something to avoid. Something inconvenient. Something dangerous.

My throat burned. I had called YaYa four times since I walked in the door, and she hadn’t picked up a single call.

“Yaya won’t tell me anything either,” I said. “Nobody will.”

Mom scoffed and whispered under her breath, “At least she’s good for something.”

Mom walked away and asked my dad if he wanted to watch the Five Heartbeats tonight. She was unfazed. My dad carried remorse on his face, but he refused to cross her.

It never mattered to me in the past that my dad was passive. I thought that because he was a man of the cloth, he prided himself on peace, but his silence said more than anything else could. His silence was complicit in my pain.

Everyone had to know what was happening. Everyone had details. Everyone had pieces of what was happening to Xavier. Everyone except me.

They said it was to protect me, but it felt like they were erasing me.

I backed away from the family room slowly, my chest tight, my head spinning with questions that had nowhere to go.

No answers.

No closure.

Just space and distance between me and everyone I thought I loved in this life. Everyone had made a controlled decision that my life was supposed to keep moving as if nothing had happened.

Like Xavier hadn’t existed, like we hadn’t loved one another.

And I realized then that it didn’t matter how much I loved him. It didn’t matter what we had been to each other. The universe was separating me from it. From him. From everything. And I had no say in it at all.

* * *

I didn’t pack my bags. My mother did.

That’s how I knew my feelings were not taken into consideration.

It was already decided. When I went upstairs, my clothes were folded in three large storage bins. My shoes were in suitcases, and I felt like my life was broken down into piles, as if it were something easy to move. Like it didn’t carry weight.

My dad stood in my doorway. “You’re leaving early, Princess,” he said. My mother walked in from behind him. I sat on the edge of my bed, watching my mom move around my room, as if she belonged there more than I did.

“For what?” I asked, even though I already knew.

“School,” my mom uttered heartlessly.

I let out a slow breath. “It’s not time yet.”

“It is now.”

Her words were simple and final. Although she tried to articulate them softly, I could tell she didn’t have any remorse. I looked over at my dad, who had been quietly standing in my doorway like he didn’t want to be in the middle of it, but wasn’t going to stop it either.

“Dad?” I pleaded.

He sighed. “It’s for the best, Chanel.”

“For who?” I asked.

“For you. Time heals wounds, and space from Crestwood and North End will help you heal.”

I shook my head slowly. Tears were streaming down my cheeks. “You don’t know that.”

“I know enough,” he said, voice gentle. “And as much as I understand puppy love, I’m not about to watch you throw your life away over this.”

Again. Not his name. Not Xavier. Just this. Like he was something that could be boxed up and put away. Like he didn’t matter. Because I’m not twenty-one, I couldn’t possibly know what love was.

“I’m not throwing anything away,” I said, my voice tightening. “I just want to know what’s happening.”

“And what is that going to change?” my mom asked quietly.

I opened my mouth. Then closed it. Because I didn’t have an answer.

Knowing wouldn’t fix anything. It wouldn’t bring him back.

It wouldn’t change whatever the system had already decided for him.

I realized that with Jared four years ago.

My parents were in the loop and couldn’t change anything.

As much as I wanted to take heed to my parents' advice, I still hated this.

Because not knowing felt worse. It felt like being cut out of something that still belonged to me.

My dad started loading my stuff into his pickup truck.

“You want to ride with mommy or me? We can’t all fit in my Silverado?”

“You, dad,” I answered without thinking.

* * *

The ride to campus was quiet. Too quiet.

The kind of quiet where everything that needs to be said just sits there, heavy and untouched.

I leaned my head against the window. We had exited North End and were now in Crestwood. I watched Crestwood pass by. The corner store. The park. The street Xavier and I used to walk down as if the world belonged to us. Every block felt like something I didn’t get to keep.

I wondered which prison they took X to. Would he be behind bars with my brother, Jared? I wondered if he was scared. If he had asked about me. If he believed I would still be there after he served his time.

I wondered again if any of what Zay said was true. My chest ached. I didn’t know which version of him to grieve. After a while of staring at trees and the roadside, I drifted to sleep.

Five hours later, we pulled onto campus, and suddenly everything felt wrong. The same college I committed to on decision day felt dreary, but there was nothing wrong with the weather.

People were moving in. They were laughing. Families were dragging boxes.

My peers wore a smile, excited to start something new.

It didn’t make sense. How the world could keep going like this, as if nothing had happened. Like I hadn’t just lost something.

My dad parked his truck and turned off the engine.

“That’s it,” he said.

That’s it.

Just like that.

I sat there for a second, staring straight ahead.

Then I opened the door and stepped out.

I left everything behind without ever getting any answers.

They said this was my beginning. But all I felt was what I lost.