11. ties that bind
TIES THAT BIND
T he repast thinned the way grief always did – slowly and awkwardly, people leaving in clusters once they’d said all the right things and eaten just enough to justify staying. Chairs scraped, aluminum trays were stacked. Someone started wiping tables like the routine could outrun loss.
Spring and Preston lingered; not deliberately, just… neither of them moved when it would’ve been easiest to. They stood near the back of the room at first, trading glances that said, you good? Eventually, they drifted outside again, the late afternoon heat softer now, dulled by cloud cover.
“So,” Preston said, breaking the silence, hands tucked into his pockets. “Your last documentary was impressive?—”
She blinked. “You saw After the Hashtag ?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Twice, actually.”
That caught her off guard. She wanted him to continue, but allowed the air to linger between them until he was willing to fill it with words again. “It was… honest,” he added. “Uncomfortable, in the right ways.”
She smiled, something warm loosening in her chest. “Thank you. Your last album surprised me too.”
He laughed softly. “In a good way or a what-the-hell-is-this way?”
“In a brave way,” she insisted. “You sounded… settled. Like you’d stopped chasing something. Felt like… when the world was waiting on the next Glances , you gave them Preston.”
He looked at her then. Really looked. “That means a lot,” he said. “I didn’t know you were still paying attention.”
“I was,” she admitted. “From a distance.”
“Same,” he said. The silence that followed wasn’t heavy, just reflective.
He shifted. “You still married to that guy… what’s his name – Julian?”
Spring’s jaw tightened just slightly before she answered. “We’re actually getting divorced.”
Preston stilled. “Oh,” he exclaimed. Not judgmental, just surprised. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said quickly. “I mean – it’s not, but… I’m at peace with it.”
That gave him pause. They stood there, the noise from inside muted now, the world narrowed to the space between them.
“Can I ask you something?” he said carefully.
She nodded.
“Why didn’t you try to make it work… with him?”
The question was curious, almost protective.
Spring looked out at the parking lot, the way sunlight caught on windshields and made everything momentarily blinding. “I did,” she said quietly. “For a long time. But wanting something doesn’t mean it’s right; sometimes it just means you’re used to it.”
Preston nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
She glanced back at him. “What about you? Last I heard, you were serious with Bianca Torres.”
He exhaled. “I was.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged. “Turns out loving someone and being able to live inside the same future aren’t the same thing.”
She huffed softly. “Look at us, sounding grown up.”
“As fuck.”
“Adulthood really is the worst hood, ain’t it?”
He smiled. “Hate it.”
They laughed – low, restrained, familiar. Another silence settled, thinner now. Easier.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said finally.
She met his eyes. “I’m glad you are, too.”
They didn’t hug, didn’t touch. They didn’t need to.
For the first time since Cameron died, Spring felt something other than loss occupying space inside her.
Not hope – not yet – but comfort. For now, it was enough.
They were on the edge of something; a rare pocket where conversation stops being polite and starts becoming honest.
Preston shifted his weight, about to say something else – something slower, more personal?—
“Preston.” His mother’s voice cut clean through the air.
Spring didn’t turn right away. She felt the change in Preston before she saw it.
Preston straightened instinctively, shoulders pulling in just a fraction. The ease he’d settled into with Spring receded, replaced by something practiced. Smaller. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.
Spring watched from a step back as his mother closed the distance, phone already in hand like an extension of herself. “Mack’s blowing me up,” she said. “Someone at the funeral leaked a clip of you turning down the song. He wants to meet, and we need to talk strategy before somebody gets cute.”
He nodded once. “Okay.” No argument. No hesitation.
Spring caught his eye briefly. He gave her a look that said I’m sorry . “I’ll—” he started.
His mother cut in smoothly. “We won’t be long.”
Spring smiled politely. “Of course.”
They stepped a few feet away, voices low but firm. Spring didn’t strain to hear – she didn’t need to. She knew the cadence, the posture, the way Preston’s hands disappeared into his pockets while he listened.
From a distance, she saw the boy again. Not the artist. Not the man. The son.
Her mind flicked backward without asking permission. Late rehearsals. Ms. Avery pushing, yes – but always with care. Always with belief. And then his mother, waiting outside, arms crossed, eyes sharp, already evaluating the outcome.
Sing it again. Not like that. You’re capable of more than this.
Spring remembered how hard she’d been on him too, in her own way. How she’d watched him absorb pressure instead of pushing back. How praise made him uncomfortable, like he hadn’t earned it yet.
In the present, his mother handed him the phone. He took it, listening, nodding along.
With each second that passed, his shoulders dropped. Spring felt something dim in her spirit.
When he finally returned, the moment between them had disappeared. “I’m sorry,” he said. “She’s?—”
“I know,” Spring said gently. “You don’t have to explain.”
He studied her, searching for something. Finding understanding instead. “We’ll talk later?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
They didn’t exchange numbers. Didn’t promise anything.
His mother was already steering him toward the exit, talking logistics, posturing.
Spring stayed where she was, watching him go, before heading to the front of the house.
By now, the parking lot had thinned until it was just a few cars, allowing the low murmur of people saying final goodbyes to be heard.
Someone laughed too loudly near the entrance, the sound catching awkwardly in the air before dying on its own.
Grief didn’t move in straight lines. It zigzagged. It embarrassed itself.
She leaned against the brick wall and let her shoulders drop.
Seeing Preston like that – folding inward, defeated, shrinking – had unsettled her more than she’d expected.
Not because she judged him, but because she recognized it.
That instinct to make yourself smaller so someone else could stay comfortable.
That reflex to earn love by becoming manageable. She wondered when he’d learned that.
Cameron floated into her mind without warning. He used humor like a defibrillator – shocking people back into feeling something when things got too heavy. He would’ve clocked that moment instantly.
You disappearing again, Nubia?
She could almost hear his voice. See the way he’d tilt his head, eyebrows raised, daring her to be honest even when she didn’t want to be.
She heaved a sigh and pressed her palm flat against the wall, grounding herself.
Cameron had always been the bridge between her and Houston. Between Preston and the noise. Between pain and laughter. Losing him felt like losing a translator – someone who knew how to make the hard parts survivable.
Her phone buzzed. She didn’t check it.
Instead, her thoughts drifted somewhere quieter. Her mother.
Not as she’d been at the end. Not the hospital version – but the one that held on long enough to say goodbye.
The woman in the photograph on her desk.
Laughing. Alive. Unafraid of her own joy.
She remembered the way her mother watched the world – not passively, but deliberately.
Always noticing light, pointing out framing.
Always asking why something moved her instead of telling her how to feel about it.
If you see the world differently, don’t apologize for it. Frame it. What’s true will return.
Spring closed her eyes. Her mother had believed in her work long before anybody cared what she made.
Had trusted her instincts, even when Spring didn’t.
Had taught her that attention was an act of love, and that choosing where to look mattered.
Standing there now, with grief pressing in from all sides, Spring understood something she hadn’t before.
The women who’d raised her. The teachers who’d challenged her. The men who’d loved her in ways they didn’t always know how to protect. All of it had shaped how she stood in rooms like this. How she stayed, endured.
She pushed off the wall and straightened. Whatever came next – whatever waited on the other side of this week, this loss, this reckoning – she knew one thing for sure: she was still her mother’s daughter. She was raised to be strong. God made her a Black woman, and she was done disappearing.
Fix your crown, Nubia.
The thought settled quietly, enough to carry her forward.
She reached her father’s house to find he hadn’t made it back yet.
After showering the day off her, she made a cup of coffee and called her best friend, who answered immediately. “Hey, chica , give me one second, I was just making a cup of tea for the night.”
“You mean tequila?”
Rae stared at her through the screen, eyebrows raised. “Point is, I’m almost done…. Okay. Now tell me about the day.”
Spring took a breath and began. “The service was… heavy,” she said. “But beautiful, as much as it can be with everybody trying not to fall apart.”
Rae sucked her teeth on the other end. “Funerals be like that. You cry together so nobody gotta cry alone.”
“Exactly,” Spring said. “Cameron would’ve hated all the crying though.”
Rae laughed softly. “Of course he would.”
Spring leaned against the counter. “Preston was there.”
“Preston who?”
“Preston Cole, girl.”
There was a long pause, then—“WHAT.” Spring winced and pulled the phone away slightly. “ Preston Preston?” Rae yelled. “ The Preston Cole?”
“Yes, Rae. A human being. Not a Pokémon.”