Chapter 30 Khloe
Khloe
“Thank you,” I said to the girl at the drive-through window as she handed me the bags.
She smiled. “Have a good night.”
“You too.”
I pulled forward, double-checking everything before rolling up my window.
Hibachi was secured and also the ridiculous list of snacks Kennedi texted me was already in the backseat — Hot Cheetos, gummy worms, cookies, sparkling water, two different ice creams because “board game vibes require options.”
Everything was handled, so I exhaled and turned the music up as I pulled onto the main road. My music shuffle had been doing its thing until a familiar intro started playing.
“Good Girls” — Joe.
It was a song that Stacks had sent me one morning saying that it reminded him of me.
I should’ve changed the song. Every logical part of my brain told me to skip it, delete it, and move on.
Instead, I let it play and my mind betrayed me. My phone had been going crazy the last few days with missed calls, texts, long paragraphs. He had been blowing me up ever since I showed up at his house that night.
I hadn’t responded because I told myself silence was enough. But it didn’t feel finished. I understood I had a hand in that fairytale. I was the married one, not him. I stepped into his life knowing I had something to lose. And that made me feel… slightly responsible.
The hibachi spot wasn’t far from his house. I came up on a red light. Straight would take me home, but right would take me to him.
My heart started pounding like it was waiting on my decision.
“Just go home,” I said to myself.
The light stayed red longer than usual. I stared at the turn signal like it was calling my name.
“You don’t need closure,” I whispered. “You don’t.”
But I did. Maybe not for him, but for me. I didn’t want to spend years wondering what the last conversation would’ve sounded like.
I turned my signal on. “God…” I whispered as I made the right turn. “Be with me. This is just closure. That’s it. No mess. No emotion. Just closure.”
My chest tightened as I pulled up. His car wasn’t in the driveway which meant one of two things — he wasn’t home or he parked in the garage.
But then I noticed the blinds were open and he only did that when he was home. I parked, cut the engine, and sat there for a second.
Breathe.
I stepped out and each step toward the door felt heavier than the last. I rang the doorbell, and a few seconds later, the door opened.
Stacks stood there, eyes wide in surprise. “Khloe?”
I instinctively stepped back so he wouldn’t invite me inside. He stepped out instead and pulled the door shut behind him.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “You haven’t been answering my calls. I just wanted to apologize but right now I’m kinda tied up.”
“Oh, it won’t take long,” I said calmly. “I just wanted to stop by and have one last conversation before I block your contact for good.”
His face shifted to confusion. “Block me?”
“I just want to apologize for any leading on, confusion, or anything I may have caused.”
He looked over my shoulder like he was anticipating someone pulling up. Maybe it was the woman from the other night.
I laughed. “I don’t want to create any drama,” I said. “And I can obviously see you’re expecting someone. I just didn’t want you to see me out somewhere and try to approach me because I will act like I don’t know you.”
I turned to walk away.
“Wait,” he said, grabbing my hand. “I enjoyed my time with you. I feel like we can at least still be friends. One day I want to experience marriage and everything like I told you. I feel like we can learn a lot from each other.”
His words almost sounded sincere.
“I don’t think that can happen, Stacks.”
A car turned onto the street.
“I hope you have a great life.”
I started walking toward my truck when the car parked behind me.
I glanced back at Stacks. He looked tense. Like a man caught mid-sentence in a lie. The car door opened and a little boy hopped out.
My heart dropped. Shit.
The last thing I wanted to do was interact with his child. I didn’t want to blur any more lines. I didn’t want to be part of another messy memory. I turned quickly toward my door.
“Ms. Khloe!”
The voice stopped me cold. My body froze. I turned slowly to see the little boy was running toward me. And when he got closer… I recognized him. My heart started racing so hard I thought I might pass out.
“What the fuck…” I whispered under my breath.
The little boy ran straight into me. Before I could process anything, I bent down and caught him in my arms.
“Hey, baby,” I said, hugging him back. “What are you doing here?”
Footsteps approached. I looked up and my stomach dropped seeing Kemi. She walked toward us calm, composed, like that wasn’t the most chaotic crossover episode of my life.
“We had a pipe burst at our house and I’m getting some things fixed. So, big boy needed to come stay with daddy for a few more days.”
Her tone was light. She wasn’t giving her son anything that would make him question the tension in the air.
She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. “I love you. I’ll be back to pick you up tomorrow evening when I get off work. Go charge your iPad so I can call you later.”
“Okay!” he said happily, running into the house like none of what was happening was strange.
The door closed behind him, and I looked at Stacks. He hadn’t said a word. He just stood there stiff.
I looked at Kemi. “Stacks is your son’s dad.”
Kemi laughed. “That narcissist is my ex-husband and my son’s father.”
My heart dropped. I looked at Stacks. “Wait. You told me you were never married.”
Kemi’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh, he lies about everything.”
Stacks’ jaws tightened.
Kemi continued, unbothered. “He probably didn’t tell you about his seven-year-old daughter either. The one he has with another woman that he doesn’t take care of.”
My chest felt like it caved in. I looked at him with disgust rising instead of heartbreak. Stacks just stood there, pissed and silent.
Kemi looked back at me. “He can talk a good game. One of the most elite mouthpieces I’ve ever seen. I’ll give him that. He had me mentally gone for years.”
Stacks snapped. “Aye, Kemi. Chill.”
She didn’t even look at him. “Grant, I’m not talking to you.”
Grant? So that was his real name. I guess that sums up where Stacks came from. I almost laughed at how stupid I felt.
Kemi turned back to him. “His medicine is in his bag. I talked to Amy. She wants to take him bowling this weekend when she gets back in town.”
She looked at me. “Amy is his girlfriend. They’ve been together for years. Sweet girl. I actually love them together because she treats my son well.”
My ears started ringing.
“She’s pregnant by him as well. She works out of town and comes home on the weekends.”
Each sentence felt like another dagger. Girlfriend. Years. Pregnant.
I felt small. So incredibly small.
Stacks looked at Kemi with pure hatred in his eyes. She smiled and waved slightly, like she genuinely enjoyed dismantling his fantasy in real time.
He turned and stormed into the house, slamming the door behind him. I stood there in silence, humiliated.
“I won’t tell Kairo I saw you here.”
My eyes filled instantly.
“But please don’t come back.”
Her voice wasn’t harsh. It was protective.
“Don’t even look this way. You have an amazing husband that really loves you. Lean into that and get out of your mind.”
The words hit deep because that’s exactly where I had been living. In my mind. In a fantasy I created. In a narrative that made sense until it didn’t.
“I promise. I will never come this way or talk to him again. Ever. Thank you.”
She pulled me into a hug. “Go home,” she said as she pulled away. “Fix what’s real.”
She walked back to her car and I got into mine. And as I drove away, I didn’t feel heartbreak. I felt clarity.
By the time I merged onto the highway, I was already calling Coffee.
She answered on the first ring. “Why are you calling me?”
“You’re not gon’ believe this,” I said.
Ten minutes later we were both laughing so hard I almost missed my exit.
“Well,” Coffee said between laughs, “I was pissed when you told me you went over there. I wanted to curse you out so bad.”
“I know,” I said, smiling. “I could hear it in your breathing.”
“But I hushed,” she continued. “Like you told me and now I see why. I’m glad you went because you needed to see that fraud with your own eyes.”
I shook my head. “Girl… had me feeling bad and shit. Whole time I should’ve been feeling bad for my damn self.”
We both laughed again.
“Seriously though, thank you for sending Sydnee. I didn’t realize how much we needed that. Something that simple… just sitting down and unpacking the real stuff.”
“Therapy is a gem,” Coffee said. “And we need to normalize it every single day. As a divorce attorney, I see so many marriages end over things that are literally simple like miscommunication, pride, ego, and assumptions.”
She paused. “I didn’t want that for y’all. Y’all can fix this.”
“You know what’s crazy?” I said turning onto our road. “I never realized how much our minds can affect our lives, marriages, and decisions.”
“Mmm,” Coffee hummed in agreement.
“We try to out-think everything. Outsmart pain. Justify actions. We build whole narratives in our heads… and then start reacting to stories that aren’t even fully real.”
“Mind games are definitely real,” she said.
“I let my mind convince me to do things that would just cause a horrible ripple effect. One bad thought, unspoken insecurity, or assumption, and it spreads through marriage, children, and even generations. I don’t want that anymore.”
“You won’t have it,” Coffee replied.
I smiled. “This is my time to grow in my mind. To be self-aware. To challenge my thoughts before they turn into actions. This is my time to live, travel, laugh, and just do everything I ever wanted to do.”
“With your husband,” Coffee added.
“With my husband,” I said, smiling. “The man of my dreams.”
The flawed, evolving, growing man who was willing to sit in a room and unpack fifteen years of hurt to fight for us.
“I’m proud of you,” Coffee said.
“I’m proud of myself too.”
I pulled into the driveway and cut the engine.
“Go inside,” Coffee said. “Eat your hibachi, play your board games, and be present.”
I laughed. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And Khloe?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t ever let your mind play tricks on your heart again.”
I smiled. “I won’t.”
Life doesn’t fall apart in one moment, and it doesn’t heal in one either.
But awareness changes everything. The mind can be a beautiful thing. But unchecked… It can build prisons where love once lived.
And I refused to let mine do that again. I opened the front door to laughter coming from the game room. My husband’s voice. My daughter’s giggle. My real life.
The hardest battles we fought were never against each other… they were against the stories we let our minds create. Once we laid those stories down, we saved our marriage and built it up even stronger.