Chapter 4 #2
I dropped my head into my hands, trying not to laugh because she was a damn fool, and I couldn’t take her seriously. Unfortunately, she was serious as hell.
“He’s fine as hell, okay? I said it. He’s patient, quiet, and makes eye contact as if he’s trying to apologize for every man who ever lied to me.”
“Oop!”
“But that doesn’t mean I’m ready for all that.”
She leaned back and opened the granola bar wrapper. “Who said you had to be ready? Just stop acting like every soft thing will end in a sucker punch, Twinnie Pooh.”
I didn’t say anything. She was right again, and I was tired of it.
“I just got out of something messy, Nelly.”
She nodded. “He isn’t trying to get in your bed, baby.
He’s trying to get into your peace. I’m just saying.
” She shrugged her shoulders. “That man came in here acting like he doesn’t raise his voice or use his hands.
He relies solely on his credit score. And you looked like you wanted to be the reason he keeps his peace. ”
I exhaled as if I had been holding my breath since I walked away from Elias earlier. I didn’t respond, because I couldn’t, not with how fast my heart was tapping its own Morse code behind my ribcage.
The truth was, I had been stuck in survival mode for so long that I forgot what it felt like to be seen by a man who wanted nothing from me but honesty, no manipulation, no performative interest, just genuine presence.
Elias didn’t even try to be slick. He asked how I was, and he genuinely meant it. He called me beautiful without actually using the word. He didn’t focus on my body. He looked at my badge first, then my eyes. Afterward, he allowed me to breathe in peace.
“Do you think I’m being silly?” I softly asked her.
“Feeling all this… whatever it is?”
Jonell fell silent, extremely silent. She looked at me as if she was finally seeing all the jagged pieces of me that I had been trying to hide behind pride and sarcasm.
“I think you’ve been scared to feel anything real for a long time because whenever you did, it came with bruises, lies, or some traumatic plot twist.”
I blinked intensely, struggling to hold back my tears as she continued. “But, Twinnie Pooh, what if he’s the kind of man who leaves the doors unlocked and the lights on, just so you know you’re safe to come home to yourself again?”
That struck me deeply in a way I didn’t want to name. I had already felt the urge to text him back simply because I wanted to hear his voice again. My soul didn’t jump when I saw him; it exhaled.
“But what if I ruin it?” I whispered, looking down at my hands.
She smiled, her eyes gentle this time. “Then at least it wasn’t with Kam, and it wasn’t for nothing.”
She reached over and tapped the screen on my phone, where his message thread was still open. “You have a man saved as Detective Fine Shyt, and the only crime he committed was making you feel like love doesn’t have to hurt.”
The night didn’t tiptoe in gently. It stomped through the blinds as if it had a grudge, crashing into my peace like a furious ex without keys but full of nerve.
I lay sideways across my bed, wrapped in a blanket of frustration and fuzz, staring at the ceiling fan as if it could rewind time with each lazy spin. My soul felt like a cluttered inbox filled with unsent prayers, unread love letters to myself, and junk from men who swore they’d changed.
Then, like clockwork, my phone buzzed on the nightstand with the disrespect of a debt collector who didn’t care that you were trying to rebuild. Kam.
Moonlight —Still sitting in my phone like a bad decision I hadn’t fully managed to unsubscribe from.
I should have ignored it. Hell, I meant to. But curiosity got the better of me. She was chaotic, wearing hoop earrings and speaking in “I just want to see something real quick” tones. I opened the thread, already clenching my jaw.
When I opened the thread, I could already feel my jaw clenching. That man had the audacity—no, the gall—to send me a long message as if he was trying to finesse a second chance through APA formatting and delusion.
Moonlight :
I know I hurt you, but you have to understand I’m going through some things too. People make mistakes, and what you saw wasn’t even what it looked like. You were never there for me emotionally. Taleah was just a shoulder. I didn’t mean for it to go that far.
I still want this. I still want you. Don’t let one moment define us. I know you still love me. Nobody else is ever going to hold you down like I do. You were trying to change me, and I wasn’t ready. But I’m ready now. For real. Let’s talk. Don’t give up on me. Please.
Please?
Nigga, please descend to the lowest pits of hell and burn eternally! That word hit differently coming from the same lips that used to kiss me silently and dismiss me loudly.
I sat up slowly, my bones cracking like old secrets finally stretching out. The lamp on my nightstand casted a soft glow across my thighs, my journal, and my lavender-scented trauma, highlighting the ash I hadn’t moisturized and the dignity I was fighting to keep intact.
Kam’s message sat on my screen like spoiled milk, still whole but sour from the inside out.
You were never there for me emotionally.
Sir… I was the pillow you cried into when your cousin got locked up.
The one who stayed up and listened to you talk about suffering at the hands of your abusive mother before your uncle took custody of you.
The one who made sacrifices, my peace, my plans, and even my period sometimes, so you could feel like a man.
Taleah was a shoulder?
Boy, she was your whole mattress. And you had the nerve to let her strap your dignity on while you were bent over in my sheets.
I was still thinking about getting my big brother, Jason, to rock him in his shit, but I didn’t need him getting into any trouble over me.
He’d done enough to Jonell’s ex, who had gotten a little too handsy with her one night he’d gotten drunk.
I gripped the phone so tightly it should have cracked. I had been quiet for days, too quiet. But silence didn’t mean calm; it meant containment. And this was gasoline on an already scorched soul.
No acknowledgment of the deceit, no real apology, just manipulation dressed as memories and phrases he knew would melt me.
Ain’t nobody ever gonna hold you down like me…
Sir, that was the problem. You held me down like a weight, not like a partner.
I scrolled and scrolled. Every line felt like a slap with silk gloves, a soft tone, hard impact.
That “Please” at the end was the final insult.
It reminded me of how he’d whisper “baby, please” after every outburst. How he’d beg me to stay only to break me softly the next time.
He was so up and down, and I didn’t understand how he was one person one minute and he’d switch personalities at the drop of a dime.
I used to ask him about seeing someone about it, but he would only get snippier, so I left it alone.
I exhaled as if I were trying to expel the last three years from my lungs. Tears didn’t fall. I had moved past that. Crying was for heartbreak. This was heartbreak’s older sister: fed up and exhausted.
And when I say the silence that followed was divine, I mean it wrapped around me like a mother’s hug while simultaneously delivering a hood warning. I stared at that screen for a long time, my thumb hovering, not to respond, but to make a declaration.
To myself.
Deleted.
Poof.
Like the future I almost built with a fraud, like the wedding dress I almost ordered on impulse and hope, like the version of me that used to second-guess her intuition just to keep a man warm who made her feel cold.
That thread was gone, but the ache lingered like cologne on a hoodie, like perfume on a pillow, like trauma in a tongue that learned to taste lies and call it love.
I tossed the phone onto the nightstand as if it owed me peace. I pulled my bonnet down over my baby hairs like a crown and whispered into the darkness like a woman praying without scripture.
“Lord… I’m trying to heal. But I swear on my grandmother’s cobbler, if this man texts me again, I’m going to drive to his auntie’s house and return him like a lost package.”
My own laugh surprised me. It was tired, low, and slightly bitter. But it was mine. It meant I was still here, still standing, still saving myself—one deleted message at a time.
Hospitals once felt like a final destination, a somber arena where pain distilled truth and honesty emerged from the shadows.
Now, they had transformed into an unexpected rendezvous point where I repeatedly encountered him, Detective Fine Shyt, Elias Edmonds.
He moved with a confident stride as if fear had never touched his life, yet there was an unmistakable depth to his demeanor, a profound respect that enveloped everything he encountered, like an unseen armor shielding the vulnerability of the world around him.
Standing in the hallway, he held a little boy who was the epitome of black boy joy in Jordans, making me almost forget my business here.
At first, he had his back turned, the sleeves of his hoodie pushed up over his forearms as he cradled his son, holding him with a strength that felt soft. EJ was nestled in his father’s arms, pointing at the wall stickers as if they were valuable pieces of art in a museum.
They seemed to belong together, stitched from the same cloth and pressed in a state of peace. I should have kept walking and stayed focused, but my curiosity made me slow down. Something gentler stirred within me, opening my heart just enough to smile.
“Hey there,” I said softly, my gaze fixed on the little boy who waved at me as if I were his teacher, babysitter, or someone important in his life.
Elias turned to look at me.
When our eyes met, the entire hallway seemed to go quiet in my mind, as if someone had pressed mute on my past for just a moment.
“Ms. Jo-naaay!” EJ giggled, breaking my name into pieces like it was a popsicle on a summer day.
I chuckled softly.
“You remember me?”
“Uh huh.” He nodded, curls bouncing. “You was at the ice cream place, and you had sparkly nails and smelled like cupcakes.”
I blinked, caught off guard by how sweet that was.
“Well, you have a good memory, handsome.”
“Daddy said you a dep-u-tee.”
“I am.”
“You’re a pretty one.” He grinned, his lips sticky from a lollipop I hadn’t noticed him eating.
Something inside me cracked. The small, shy blush that used to grace my face before heartbreak returned quietly. I felt myself soften, not out of weakness, but because I had been strong for too long.
Elias smirked, his voice low but laced with pride.
“She is pretty, huh?” he said, keeping his eyes on his son but clearly addressing me. “I call her Deputy Gorgeous.”
That comment caught me off guard. I turned away, but not quickly enough to conceal the way my lip curled despite myself. It wasn’t a game. It wasn’t flirtation for the sake of it. It was just ease.
“Y’all have charm in your DNA, huh?”
“Only when it’s deserved,” Elias said, adjusting EJ’s hoodie. “You good though?”
“Yeah,” I lied, but this time, it didn’t sound as forced. “I came to check on one of my inmates who had a panic episode.”
He nodded, all business now, but his eyes lingered a bit longer. It was as if he was taking note of how my locs framed my face today, how I stood a little taller around his son, and how I didn’t flinch when he spoke to me this time.
EJ reached out for me, and I instinctively held his tiny hand for a moment. It was warm and trusting. He squeezed my finger and leaned his cheek against Elias’s chest.
Something within me, something maternal, hopeful, and terrified, ached and settled all at once.
I wasn’t trying to fall for a man with a child. I wasn’t trying to fall at all.
But damn if that little moment didn’t feel like home.
“Alright, Deputy Gorgeous,” Elias said gently, like he knew I was one wrong word away from retreating. “Don’t be a stranger.”
“Ain’t I always the one folks trying to avoid?” I teased since I worked at a jail.
“Not me,” he said without blinking. “I look forward to you, mama.”
I started to say something slick, but I couldn’t, not with my heart trying to crawl up my throat and spill itself into his hands.
So, I just nodded, tucked that loc behind my ear again, and walked off with butterfly wings battling in my chest.
I wasn’t healed or whole, but perhaps I could still be loved despite being in pieces.