19.0
I woke to the kind of light that doesn't feel gentle. It came in too bright through the blinds, cutting across my face, exposing everything I'd tried to bury in the dark.
For a second I forgot why my chest hurt. Then the porch came back in pieces—the sound of his voice cracking through the night, the look on his face when it hit him, the echo of his car pulling away.
The house was still. Even the fridge hummed quieter than usual. I lay there for a minute, listening to the silence, to Alina's soft breathing down the hall. It should've calmed me, but it only made the ache louder.
When I finally got up, my body moved slow, like I'd been underwater too long.
The floorboards creaked under bare feet. Every sound felt too sharp, like it was accusing me.
In the kitchen, I reached for the coffee pot out of habit, then stopped halfway. My hands were trembling. I pressed them flat to the counter and stared out the window instead.
The porch looked the same. The same railing. The same light. Nothing out there showed what happened—but I could still feel it. The air was heavier now, haunted by the way he'd said "She should've been my life from the second she breathed."
That line had been meant to wound me, but it didn't. It just stuck.
Because I believed him.
He wasn't just angry. He was shattered. And somehow, I'd done that.
I hated that part of me still wanted to defend him. Hated that I could picture his face, the raw disbelief before the rage took over. He'd said terrible things—but beneath them was something else. Grief. Regret.
Maybe that was worse. It meant he hadn't stopped caring.
I poured the coffee anyway, sat at the table and tried to make sense of it all.
How quickly everything had burned.
How easy it was to forget he wasn't the same man I'd left years ago.
A faint rustle came from down the hall. Then Alina's sleepy voice "Mommy?"
I swallowed the lump in my throat before it could sound like what it was. "In the kitchen, baby."
She padded in, hair tangled, dragging her blanket like a tail. When she smiled, it nearly broke me.
I pulled her close, burying my face in her hair. She smelled like sleep and sugar cereal. Nothing about her had changed, and yet everything had.
Because now he knew.
"Can I have waffles?" she asked into my shoulder.
"Yeah, baby." My voice came out soft. "Waffles sound good."
While she sat at the table coloring, I went through the motions—mix, pour, flip—like muscle memory could keep me from falling apart.
But even over the sound of the waffle iron, I could hear echoes of last night.
His voice, low and furious.
His silence, worse.
That final look—half heartbreak, half disbelief—like he didn't recognize me anymore.
When the waffles were done, I slid one onto her plate, then leaned against the counter, phone in hand.
Still no messages.
Relief flickered first. Then disappointment, sharp and immediate. I hated myself for it.
I should want distance. I should want space. But the quiet between us felt like punishment I didn't know how to serve.
I typed out a text and deleted it three times.
I'm sorry. Too small.
Are you okay? Too much.
I locked the phone, tossed it face-down on the counter, and focused on Alina's syrup-sticky hands instead.
Whatever came next, I needed to be steady. For her.
Even if part of me still wanted to know if he'd slept. If he'd eaten. If he was somewhere looking at the same morning light and feeling like it was too bright to stand.
By the time I dropped Alina off at daycare, my hands still hadn't stopped shaking.
I smiled for the teachers, kissed her cheek like everything was fine, then watched her run off toward the crayons and blocks before I let myself breathe again.
The second the door shut behind me, the air felt too thick. My chest ached the whole drive to the salon. Every traffic light turned red like the universe was stalling on purpose.
Inside, the usual noise hit— blow dryers, the low hum of RB on the speaker. Normally, that chaos centered me. Today it just felt far away.
I clocked in, set my bag down, and went through the motions—cleaning a chair that was already clean, checking my station twice. My body worked, but my mind didn't. Every small sound scraped against me.
"Morning," Rina said from behind the front desk, eyeing me curiously. "You good? You look tired."
"I'm fine." The lie slid out smooth from practice.
She didn't press. Just nodded and went back to confirming appointments.
The day blurred. Clients came and went. My smile felt rehearsed, my voice a little too soft. I caught myself zoning out mid-trim more than once, blade paused midair while my mind replayed last night in full color.
By lunch, I hadn't eaten. I sat in the back room scrolling through my phone, half-expecting his name to pop up even though I told myself I didn't want it to.
When it finally did, my breath caught.
The message was short. Careful. Almost formal.
I stared at it for too long.
It wasn't angry. It wasn't warm either. Just... measured. Like he was forcing himself to sound steady when he wasn't.
My thumb hovered. I typed, After twelve works. Then deleted it. Typed again. Deleted again.
Finally
Maybe that was something.
When I went back out front, Rina looked up. "You sure you're good?"
"Yeah."
And this time it didn't sound like a lie. Just tired truth.
The house felt too quiet again that night.
The rest of the day passed in a blur—more appointments, more polite smiles, more pretending the air wasn't heavy around me. By closing, my feet ached and my head was pounding, but at least I'd made it through without falling apart.
Alina was asleep by eight, out cold with her little hand curled around the edge of her blanket. I stood in the doorway for a while just watching her breathe, because it was the only part of the day that didn't feel like something to fix.
Downstairs, the TV flickered just for company — the kind of background noise that made silence feel less heavy. I scrolled through my phone until I saw Tati's name light up.
I didn't even mean to call her, but my thumb hit FaceTime before my brain caught up.
"Girl," she said as soon as she answered, wrapped in her robe, bonnet half-slipped off her head. "If you would've called any later I would've been asleep."
I hesitated, eyes on the muted TV. "He knows."
Her face changed instantly. "Brooks?"
I nodded.
Tati let out a low whistle. "Well, damn. How?"
"Kian ran his mouth at dinner. Apparently the event he asked me to go to Brooks was also attending."
"Oh my God." She sat up straighter. "So what happened?"
I told her everything. The call, the porch, the way his face dropped when he realized. I told her about the things he said — the things I said back. By the end, I was out of breath, hands trembling just from remembering.
Tati was quiet for a second. "So... you told him for real?"
"I didn't have to," I said softly. "He figured it out."
She rubbed her temples. "Okay. Okay. I mean — I get why you didn't tell him. I do. The man was engaged, and his family's... a lot. But, Ami—"
I groaned. "Don't start."
She didn't listen. "You have to admit, from his side? That's a lot to swallow. He probably feels like his whole life got rewritten overnight."
"Yeah, well, that's what happens when you have a kid and disappear for four years," I said bitterly.
"He didn't disappear, babe. You did."
Tati leaned closer to the screen. "I'm not saying you were wrong. I'm saying... both of y'all were scared. He had a whole spotlight on him. You were trying to protect yourself and now everything's colliding at once."
I stayed quiet.
"And Brooks —" she sighed. "He's got that kind of wall that looks like anger when really it's just hurt. You know that. You've always known that."
"He said some things that—"
"He's human," she cut in gently. "And he's trying to make sense of the fact that he missed four years. That's not just anger, Amira. I bet he's feeling a lot of emotions."
The word sat between us.
I looked away. "He could've handled it better."
"Yeah," she said. "And so could you."
I wanted to argue, but I couldn't. Not with her voice sounding like the only steady one in the room.
Tati sighed again. "Look. I don't like how he came at you. But I also don't think he's the villain. His parents raised him to move a certain way — calculated, cold when needed. That's how they survive in that world."
I exhaled slowly. "He's coming Saturday."
Her brows lifted. "To meet her?"
I nodded.
Tati leaned back on her couch, staring into the camera like she was bracing herself.
"My only concern is his parents," she said finally.
"You know how they are. They don't play about image and perception. I mean, before he was just running for a Senate seat, but now we're talking vice president, Amira. That's a big deal."
The words hit like a slap of cold air. I blinked fast, my throat tightening.
"This is what I was trying to avoid," I whispered. "All of it. The headlines, the judgment. I didn't want Alina anywhere near that world."
Tati's expression softened, but her tone didn't. "I get it. I do. But avoiding it doesn't make it disappear. You can't protect her from something that's part of her and you can't keep him out of it, either."
I shook my head, tears blurring the screen. "You don't understand, Tati. His mother's a bitch. His father—Bryan—they're all politics. They'll never accept her. They'll look at me and see a mistake that cost them votes. I can't let them make her feel like that."
Tati sighed, eyes steady on me. "Maybe they will. Maybe they won't but that's not the point. The point is Alina deserves to have her dad in her life and Brooks deserves the chance to be her dad. To choose her."
I pressed the heel of my hand to my eyes, trying to stop the tears from spilling. "And if he doesn't?"