He missed her laugh. Missed how she called him her little man even when he grew and towered over her. Missed how her arms used to fold around him like armor. He was doing it, just like she said.
He was gonna make it.
He pulled into the driveway, still smiling, still high off the win. Still lit from love and legacy and something bigger thanpain. He parked the car, stepped out, and walked up the stairs of the front porch.
Suddenly, the door swung open, and his stepfather met him with a fist. Zay’s head jerked back. He stumbled but caught himself before he fell down the stairs.
“You walkin’ in here smiling like you earned somethin’,” the man growled. “You out there actin’ like you somebody, and you still under my roof.”
Zay blinked, stunned, but not surprised. The old man stepped toward him again, but this time, Zay didn’t flinch.
His anger and rage that silently built up from the abuse over the years unleashed like seven pounds of pressure when pulling the trigger of a gun. He swung back, hard.
The sound echoed loudly outside like a dropped cymbal.
They went at it—fists, knees, shouts. A few neighbors stuck their heads out their doors from inside their homes and yelled for them to stop. Zay didn’t hold back. Every blow came from a place deeper than anger. It came from grief. From every time he kept quiet. From every bruise he wore like a secret. From the silence after his mama died and the way Kennedy always looked at him with worry in her eyes.
He wasn’t a boy anymore, and he refused to shrink for anyone again.
Before he knew it, the police were pulling him off his stepfather who laid slumped in the snow, bleeding, wheezing, and cursing through swollen lips.
They booked him that night. It was the first time he’d ever been arrested. Kennedy stormed out of the house and begged the officers to let her hug him. He only nodded to her once before ducking into the back seat of the squad car.
The holding cell was cold. Cinder block walls. Rusted sink. No clock. Time stretched. He sat on the edge of the cot, head down, hands bruised, and his knuckles cracked open.Somewhere between midnight and morning, they brought him a pen and a notebook.
He didn’t think about his court date. He didn’t think about his rap group. All he could think about was her. The only person who made the world feel quiet.
He opened the notebook and began to write.
The song was trash. Straight garbage. Too many metaphors. No rhythm. No structure.
But the hook? The hook stayed with him. It replayed in his head over and over. He didn’t know it then, but he’d rewrite it a hundred times over the next fifteen years.
The beat would change. The girls would change. The stage would change.
But every version was still about her.
Love Like a Leo
Fifteen years later
Princess Love Tatehad long since retired the name “Princess.”
It didn’t fit anymore. Not after everything.
These days, she went by her pen name of Love T.—national bestselling author, keynote speaker, and literary darling of the moment. Her debut novel,When the Rain Stops, had not only hit the New York Times Bestseller’s List, but stayed there for sixteen weeks straight. The story was a haunting, lyrical journey about teenage love, grief, and joy. It exploded on social media and captured hearts and book clubs alike. Readers quoted heron TikTok, tattooed lines from her chapters on their ribs, and passed the book between sisters and friends like a sacred heirloom.
Love had poured her whole soul into those pages, and now, the world knew her name.
Still, for all the glitter of success, this morning—on her daughter’s fourteenth birthday—she was exhausted.
Her iced coffee sat untouched on the kitchen island. Her curls were pinned into a messy bun, scarf still wrapped around the front. The sunrise hardly touched the edges of the marble countertops, but the house already buzzed with quiet chaos: balloons being delivered, music playing low, the scent of vanilla cake thick in the air.
Yana, her daughter, was in her room, getting dressed for her big day.
Andhewas in the guest room.
Love took a deep breath and walked down the hallway. Her heels clicked loudly across the hardwood. She knocked once on the door and pushed it open.
