Chapter 15 #2
Then she made her way over to the speaker and turned the volume down just enough so the room could breathe again.
Just enough so that we can all talk without yelling over the music.
Maliah still didn’t move, and she still didn’t open her eyes.
She still quietly sang along, with tears falling as if she didn’t even realize we were there.
Tori paused her homemade concert and looked at her for a second.
Her expression softened just a little before that familiar spark came right back.
She walked over to the bed with her hands on her hips while shaking her head.
“Alright now,” she said as her tone shifted into that teasing, no-nonsense energy that she always carried. “Which one of these nappy-headed, crooked hairline little boys got you in here like this?”
That did it. We didn’t get a full reaction from Maliah, but we got just enough.
Her singing faltered just slightly, and her brows pulled together like reality was starting to creep back in around the edges.
I finally stepped further into the room and then sat on the edge of the bed near her feet.
I looked at my daughter, and I mean really looked at her.
And my heart ached. Because no matter how grown she thought she was, heartbreak had a way of reminding you just how young you still are.
It could get the best of any of us. She opened her eyes slowly, like it took effort, like even that much felt exhausting, and when she looked at me, I saw it clear as day.
She had new, raw heartbreak sitting right on the surface.
“Tahari…” she started, her voice cracking before she even finished his name. She swallowed, trying to steady herself, but the tears came anyway. “He said he doesn’t want to see me anymore. He said he needs space.”
The words landed softly, but the weight behind them didn’t.
I frowned as I listened, because I knew that kind of pain.
I knew what it meant to hear something like that from someone you had already given a piece of yourself to.
And looking at her now, I could tell this wasn’t just a little crush or something fleeting.
My baby was really in love. Like, love love.
And that realization sat differently with me than I expected it to.
I reached out and gently brushed her hair back from her face.
I made sure that my touch was soft and careful.
“I’m sorry, baby,” I said.
I meant it. I really did. Because no matter how I felt about the situation, her pain was real.
But even as I comforted her, another thought crept in, one that made me pause.
A mother’s instinct wasn’t anything to play with.
Because love like that… sometimes didn’t stop at just feelings.
Where the mind went, the body would surely follow.
My hand stilled for a second before I spoke again, and I made sure to steady my tone before opening my mouth.
“Maliah,” I started before pausing. I hesitated just enough for it to feel awkward even to me. “Have you… been deflowered?”
She blinked at me. Confusion immediately replaced the sadness on her face as she pushed herself up slightly.
“What?” she asked as she looked at me like I had just spoken a different language.
Before I could even clarify, Tori let out a loud laugh from across the room.
“Girl, she is asking if you are out here fucking?” she said bluntly while folding her arms with a smirk.
Maliah’s eyes widened.
“No!” she said quickly.
She was sitting up all the way now, and her face was a mix of disbelief and embarrassment.
“No, I’m not!” she doubled down with a little bass in her voice.
I let out a small breath that I didn’t even realize I was holding while nodding slowly as I sat back just a little.
“Okay,” I said with my tone easing, though the seriousness didn’t leave completely. “I just needed to know.”
Tori shook her head while muttering under her breath.
“Deflowered is crazy.”
I shot her a look, but she just shrugged, completely unbothered.
I turned my attention back to Maliah, my expression softened again, but this time there was more intention behind what I was about to say.
“I was letting things play out between you and him,” I began, choosing my words carefully, because this moment mattered. “I wanted you to experience things for yourself, to figure out what you like, what you don’t.”
She looked at me, still emotional, still trying to piece herself back together, but she was listening.
“Boys like that,” I paused briefly, not needing to say his name. “They feel exciting. They feel intense. But they’re not always good for you.”
Her eyes dropped slightly, like she already knew that, but didn’t want to accept it. I sighed out before speaking again because I wasn’t too sure if I wanted to tell this story, but there was no time like now.
“When you have a thing for bad boys, you grow up becoming a woman who has a thing for bad men. Your grandmother, my mother, had a thing for horrible men. And that cost her a relationship with her two daughters.”
I looked over at Tori, and her face was stiff. The topic of our mother, Machina, isn’t one that we spoke of. We had a horrible upbringing with that drug-using lady. So horrible that I was landed right in juvie until the age of eighteen for trying to protect my sister against one of her bad men.
“You never told me this before,” Mahlia said as she sat up a little bit straighter in the bed. She was giving me her undivided attention because she was clearly interested.
“I never told you I went to a juvenile detention because of her either.”
“Jail? You were in jail?”
“Yeah… one day I’ll tell you the full story of that.
I just want you to understand that falling in love takes time.
True love, anyway. So, the next time love comes knocking on your door,” I continued, “don’t be so quick to answer it.
Because some boys… they like to ring the bell and run away before you even make it to the door. ”
The room went quiet again for a second. Then Tori clapped once, breaking the moment like only she could.
“Well damn,” she said, looking at me with raised brows. “That was deep.”
I gave her a look, already knowing she wasn’t done.
“Did you get that from one of those soap operas you’re watching?” she added while tilting her head. “Because that sounded really rehearsed and a little dated, with ya old ass.”
Despite everything, despite the tears still sitting in her eyes, Maliah let out a small laugh.
And just like that, the vibe in the room switched, even if only a little.
Maliah let out a long, tired sigh, the kind that sounded like it came from somewhere deeper than just her chest, and for a moment, she just stared down at her hands like she was trying to gather her thoughts before saying anything else.
“I think,” she started slowly with this unsure tone, “I think he wanted to break things off because of Daddy.”
That made me pause. It wasn’t completely surprising, but the statement was enough to make me listen a little closer. Maliah glanced up at me with her brows pulling together slightly.
“The night they met when Daddy walked him outside. I feel like maybe he said something to him. Something I don’t know about.”
Her words held doubt in them. She seemed unsure, like she was trying to make sense of the little breakup.
I leaned back slightly, taking that in. My mind was going over several possibilities.
Malik wasn’t the type to go out of his way to disrespect anybody, but he was protective, especially when it came to his daughters.
And sometimes, protection didn’t always come across the way it was meant.
“I’ll talk to him,” I said calmly while reaching out to rest my hand over hers, “if something was said, we’ll figure it out. You’re not going to sit here and make up stories in your head when I can go get the truth.”
She nodded slightly, though I could tell that didn’t fully ease what she was feeling.
And that was the thing about heartbreak: it didn’t always need logic.
It didn’t always wait for answers. Sometimes we looked for something, anything to justify exactly what we were going through.
And sometimes there were no answers because, well, sometimes shit just happens.
I squeezed her hand gently before letting go.
I wanted to bring on a lighter topic. My damn daughter was too beautiful and too damn smart to be in a rut over some damn boy.
“You have so much to look forward to,” I told her while brushing a loose strand of hair from her face. “School is about to end, and your birthday is coming up… there are so many things ahead of you that don’t have anything to do with this.”
Her eyes flickered, like she wanted to believe that but didn’t quite know how yet.
“And you’re going to feel like yourself again,” I added, more certain this time.
“It might not be today, and it might not be tomorrow… but you will. Heartbreak feels intense when you’re in it, but it doesn’t last forever.
When you get on the other side of things, you are going to look back and forget exactly how it feels to be in this moment. ”
Before she could respond, Tori, who had been unusually quiet for all of five seconds, shifted on her feet like she had been waiting for her moment.
“Or,” she said while stepping forward with a shrug, “we could go with the quicker remedy.”
I already knew where this was going because I knew my sister in ways that her niece had not yet gotten a chance to discover. Maliah looked at Tori, confused but curious through her tears.
“What remedy?” she asked.
“Another little boy,” Tori said with a grin.
I closed my eyes briefly, already preparing myself.
“Because I promise you,” Tori continued while pointing at Maliah like she was giving real advice, “somebody else gone have you sitting up in here like Tarzan, who? In about two weeks.”
Despite everything, Maliah let out a small laugh while shaking her head.
“Auntie, his name is Tahari.”
Tori waved her hand like that detail didn’t matter in the slightest.
“Yeah, yeah. That’s what I said.”
I couldn’t help the small smile that pulled at my lips, even as I tried to keep some level of control over the conversation. Tori stepped closer to the bed then, her tone shifting just enough to let some sincerity slip through the jokes.
“Listen,” she said while looking at Maliah a little more seriously now. “You are a pretty, smart girl. Don’t let nobody have you in here looking like this for too long.”
Maliah looked up at Tori. I could read the emotion still over her, but she was listening. She was taking heed. We were the women in her life who could navigate her through situations just like this very one. This is what we were here for.
“And if… what’s his name? Tinker Bell, can’t see that,” Tori added with a shrug, “then fuck him.”
“Tori,” I warned lightly, though there wasn’t much bite behind it.
Maliah let out another laugh, this one a little more real, a little less weighed down.
I could tell that it came deep by the way she threw her hand over her stomach when she let it out.
And just like that, the atmosphere felt a little easier.
The situation wasn’t fixed. And my daughter wasn’t healed, but at least her aunt was able to get a genuine laugh out of her.