Finally, Zay couldn’t stand the silence any longer. He stood.
“Say what you gotta say. Clearly, you’ve been waiting.”
“I don’t want to argue.”
“Too late.”
She glared. “You always do this. You flip it. Make me the villain.”
“Oh, you’re the victim now?”
That pissed her off. She stood then too.
“You always had your dreams come to you easy. Fame, the fans. Even me. All you had to do was show up. Meanwhile, I worked. I hustled. I climbed my way through rejections and bad edits and trauma just to breathe again. And you? All you did was complain when shit got hard.”
His mouth dropped open, and he laughed bitterly. “I know you out of all people did not just say my dreams came easy? You were there! Sleeping on a bus because I had nowhere else to go was not easy. Getting my ass whupped by a grown man was not easy! You were always a spoiled little ass princess. Needed constant attention and validation. The world had to revolve around you, or it was chaos.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “That is not how I meant that, and you know it! Once again, twisting my words to fit your narrative. You’re stubborn as hell. You only see your own side. You pour everything into your music because that’s the only place you can feel anything. But you don’t even read the things that matter. I know for a fact you haven’t read my book.”
Zay opened his mouth to respond but closed it again as he took in what she had said. He knew she was right. He had been selfish. It was all because he was afraid.
Why can’t she see that?
Then, Love broke the silence.
“You cheated on me,” she hissed. “You ruined us. You hurt me so bad, you don’t even understand what I went through during that time.”
His mouth opened then shut again. Then, he replied, “You didn’t give me a chance to understand. You ghosted me.”
“Ghosted?” She scoffed. “I left the entire damn state because I couldn’t even breathe in Detroit without running into some version of you!”
He stepped forward. “You act like you didn’t have a baby too.”
She froze. Her heart raced, and the air grew thick again.
“That was low,” she whispered.
“It’s the truth,” he snapped. “You paint me as the monster, but you clearly had no problem moving on.”
“You don’t know shit about what you’re talking about.”
“You never let me try to,” he shot back. “You disappeared.”
“I had to! For myself, to be strong enough for me and my daughter. You made your choice the second you laid up in Amsterdam with somebody else.”
His jaw locked. “Prin?—”
“I told you never to call me that again!” she screamed.
The silence afterward was absolute. Her hands trembled. Zay’s nostrils flared.
Then, she turned and stormed out. Her heels echoed like gunfire across the room. He listened as the sounds faded down the hall. He heard a door slam when she reached the bathroom.
Love stared into her eyes in the mirror. Her eyes were wet. Her face was flushed. Her reflection didn’t look like the powerhouse author or confident woman who had walked in that morning. She looked like the girl she used to be. Eighteen and heartbroken. Hiding tears behind a notebook.
She took five deep breaths to ground herself, a lesson she’d learnt from therapy over the years. When her breathing steadied, she wiped her tears, reapplied her gloss, and remerged.
When she returned, everyone was waiting at the table, quieter now.
