: Chapter 20

Daniel waited, tapping a finger anxiously on his lap. “Am I the only one who doesn’t know why?”

“No. Most people don’t know why. Including Brandy and your grandparents.”

His heated gaze bored into me. “Does your boyfriend know? Did he ask about your past and why we broke up? Does some stranger who has nothing to do with me know when I don’t?”

“Why are you fixated on him?”

He threw his hands up. “I thought we were forever and you left. And moved on. I’m sure he wanted to know and you told him. Maybe I should’ve just called and asked.” He groaned and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Shit.”

Pain shot through me like a dozen venom-tipped arrows. The initial cuts hurt, but it was the lingering poison that spread and destroyed. “How can you be this upset after six years?”

He froze, his hand still at the bridge of his nose, his eyes rising to meet mine. He slowly lowered his hand and spat, “You wanna know why? Is it that damn hard to see, to understand? Because I still have for you.”

My breath caught in my throat, my skin turning to ice. My vision doubled behind hot tears and this thing called a heart that was pumping so chaotically fractured. My entire soul ached to tell him the same, but I knew my actions couldn’t be forgiven. Daniel deserved better.

With our falling in love and caring for each other, I’d never expected to have my heart so full between Daniel and my parents, only to have it smolder to ashes because of hurting all three of them. If a broken heart was a decrepit, cracked organ sitting in my chest, then I was certainly rotting from the inside out. The black tar of a decayed heart, thick and suffocating, rose up in the back of my throat.

He went on after a beat, his voice trembling, his shadow falling over me. “Because I do. And I have no damn idea how you could leave me, someone who loved you and can touch you without you losing your crap, who can ease you off the ledge when you’re depressed, and who you can talk to about almost anything. Your so-called boyfriend couldn’t do any of that. We both know he doesn’t even come close to me, but you still considered him.”

He heaved out a breath. “Why did you leave me? How could you break my heart the way you did and not even give me the decency of an explanation, a conversation, an email, even a damn text? Was I…not enough?”

The tears brimming at my eyes spilled over in cascading sheets. I swallowed hard, my throat raw, my breathing harsh, my chest aching.

“You were everything,” I said, wanting to hold his hand but knowing I had no right. “I’ve missed you every day. Leaving you was the single worst decision of my life, and I regret it to the core of my being.”

“Then why did you do it?”

My shoulders slumped. “Because many in my community and family are cruel and ripped apart my parents for allowing me to date you. Because my own aunts tried to light an emotional fire to torch my parents and shoved us out of the community, the only link my parents have to their roots. People were hateful, and I couldn’t stand how my parents just stood there and took it quietly, meekly, because they didn’t want to cause trouble or didn’t think they had a voice. They didn’t think they could speak up to their elders, mainly my aunts.”

Daniel went rigid in his chair and it was hard to read him. He asked in a tense voice, “So were you trying to save face?”

“No. It wasn’t like that at all. I could care less about others.” My words tumbled out now that the dam had been opened. “I couldn’t take how my parents were being treated. When I spoke up, my aunts used it to nearly destroy them. I couldn’t understand how some of my parents’ so-called friends abandoned them. I couldn’t bear how my actions devastated my parents. How, because of me, my mom had a heart attack and was hospitalized.

did that to her.”

He let out a breath and closed his eyes.

“All the gossip and blame from the community, my aunts calling her a horrible mother, telling her she’d raised a slut, the bane of our family, the community pushing my dad out of his responsibilities, out of their entire social structure. It all crashed down on my mom, and I’m not saying she’s a weak person, but she couldn’t handle it. Physically. To see her crumple and literally fall from the stress…I couldn’t keep being the reason for her suffering.”

He had his elbow on the counter, his fingers rubbing his chin. “Shit. You think you’re to blame for how others reacted? I’m sorry for what happened to your parents, and that must’ve been terrifying, but it’s not your fault how others behave.”

My tears fell even harder. “Of course it is! I’m supposed to protect my parents, and instead I brought so much pain no matter what I did. Being young and terrified and not knowing how to handle everything and what to do, how to do it without imploding…I just…did what I thought was best for my mom’s health. And maybe I could’ve done better, or maybe you don’t get it because it doesn’t sound like such a horrible thing—”

The tenderness in his expression warped into stoicism. His words came fast and infuriated. “No, I . I’m a . You think you’re the first to walk away because someone didn’t like the fact a person was dating outside of their race, much less a Black man? You can say it. You were surrounded by a bunch of racist assholes and were too concerned with what others thought to just stand your ground and make your own decision,” he retorted. “It killed you to see your parents in pain, I get that, but what the actual shit? Ever think about the pain you caused me?”

“

.” I wiped my face, but these stupid tears wouldn’t stop. “Between my mom being ill and my causing a rift with my parents and losing you, I cried every day for a year. My depression spiraled. I haven’t felt whole since, like I’m walking around with my heart gouged out of my chest. I stood my ground. I spoke up. I tried to shut down the racism, the gossiping. I tried to defend my parents, myself, and you. Whatever I did and didn’t do made everything worse. But I was terrified that my mom was going to die. My aunts didn’t care who you were, just that they could use that to hurt my parents.”

He snarled, “That’s the thing. They care about you, either. Friends support you, not abandon you. Family tries to help you, not drag you. Community lifts you up, it doesn’t drown you.”

“I’m not defending them. I know I didn’t break things off the right way. I didn’t want to hurt you with the ugliness.”

“Great job,” he retorted. “Instead of telling me to my face six years ago, you just forced me to carry that heartbreak all this time. I can deal with racism; I have to all the time. But the pain of you running off and never telling me, never talking to me, that destroyed me.” He gestured with his hands, aligned with palms facing each other, and jumped them from side to side with every word to drive home the point. “It was the pain you chose.”

“I know. I’m sorry, and nothing I say will make up for it. I’ve had to live with myself over these decisions. I’m so, so sorry, Daniel,” I sobbed. “But I didn’t do it just because of that—” I stopped myself. He didn’t need another stress added when it came to his father when he was trying so hard to work it out for the sake of their company. “You don’t deserve to be treated that way.”

He dragged a hand down his face in exasperation, his head shaking as he licked his bottom lip. “I’m going to face racism wherever I am. That’s life when living while Black. But you could’ve told me the truth. We could’ve tried working it out. I could’ve been there for you. I…would’ve helped you to be stronger.”

I hiccupped, knowing that we could’ve been together all this time had I just been the woman I am now back then. His dad’s words echoed through my thoughts. I was strong enough, good enough for him. “I thought I was sparing you, and I thought I was sparing my parents. But if our relationship was going to make me a target or was killing your parents, would you still choose me?”

“Yes! God damn, I did, Pree!”

I blinked. “Wha-what?”

He looked off into the corner and shook his head. “My parents have a very carefully sculpted plan for me. They want me to marry someone who…better matches our lifestyle. We’re not that different.”

“Your dad—” I bit my lower lip and stopped myself.

“My dad what?”

“He…didn’t like me. He didn’t think I was good enough.”

“

My dad doesn’t like a lot of things, but he doesn’t determine my entire future. I’ll be with whomever choose. Because I am an . My parents aren’t going to get exactly what they want in me; no parent gets that. Your parents…I thought they were strong and kind. I thought they’d want your happiness above anything else.” He jumped off the barstool and paced the room.

“They do,” I said through tight lips, abhorring how he might look down on my parents because they were meeker back then. I crawled off the barstool and stood there with fists balled. “They are nothing less than strong and kind, which was why they told me to break up with you, why they showed any emotion about any of it in front of me. They tried to shield me so that I could make my own decisions, but my mom having a heart attack was the final nail in the coffin. What was I supposed to do?” I asked quietly, my lips quivering.

Daniel’s next words were daggers, sharp, double-edged blades meant to cut, but they were real, raw. They were emotions and he had the right to express them. “You were supposed to love me,” he said evenly. “You were supposed to trust in us.”

My knees almost buckled, and my PVCs hit hard, knocking the breath from my lungs. I wanted to slip into a black hole and vanish as anxiety and panic caved in around me. He was right. I should’ve trusted in us, but it wasn’t that simple seeing Mummie in the hospital, not knowing if she would make it or not. I’d seen patients suffer and pass because of heartbreak, and I’d shattered her heart.

“Things aren’t always easy or black-and-white. There’s a lot of gray,” I said.

“And in all this gray, you chose a guy who can’t even touch you, who will never understand you? That was better than me?” he gritted out. Slipping into his shoes, he swung back the front door and called back, “I need some air.” Then he slammed the door behind him and left.