“Street—”
“Let me finish.” He held up one hand. “You want to know if that’s who I’m with? I want you to be happy Brielle. I genuinely do. Whatever you have with Marcus or whoever comes after Marcus I hope it’s everything you need it to be.” He looked at me and his jaw tightened slightly. “But once another man has had you, really had you — there’s nothing I can do with that. You’ve gave another nigga something that was supposed to only be for me,and I’ll never be able to move past that. That’s just where I am. That’s just the truth of it.”
The lump in my throat doubled in size.
I was not going to cry in this parking lot. I was not going to stand in front of Xavier and fall apart because he was finally saying out loud what I had been terrified of him saying for years. I had made my choices. I had made them over and over again and every single time I had chosen the safe thing,the comfortable thing, the thing that required less of me and this was what that cost.
He was supposed to be my only. That was the truth that had been living in my chest since the night at the Hilton when I was eighteen years old and I gave him something I had never given anybody else. I knew in that moment that I never would give myself to anyone else the way I gave it to him.
Four years of us not communicating this last time. Years of trying to talk myself into really liking Marcus, and into the life my family had mapped out for me and into believing that playing it safe was the same thing as being happy.
I was human. I had been alone for too long. Marcus had been patient, kind and present in all the ways Street couldn’t be from a distance. I had let things happen that I couldn’t take back. That didn’t make me a bad person. It just made me human. Street had to know that life was going to go on, for us both.
But standing here right now looking at Street’s face I would have given anything to take every single one of those choices back. I also never wanted to see him with another woman, so that shit was eating me up inside because I knew how good of a man Street really was. I’ve watched her grow and mature in ways that I didn’t think was possible.
I felt the tears trying to come up and I pushed them back down hard.
He watched me do it.
“Say what you came to say Bri.” His voice softened just slightly. Just enough to remind me that he still felt something even when he was done. “You didn’t drive over here to talk about Kyla.”
I took a breath.
And I told him.
I told him about the morning after the hospital. About hearing Marcus’s voice through the office door before I knocked. About standing in that hallway with my hand raised and hearing things that I couldn’t explain no matter how hard I tried.
I told him what Marcus had said.
That it shook him up. That the graze could have been worse. That was the point was to make him scared and wondering. That he didn’t know. That neither did she.
I gave Street all this information so that he could put the pieces together himself. I didn’t know what any of this meant, but I still felt like it was something Street needed to know. If Marcus was in any way connected to Mazi getting hurt, I wanted his ass handled and I would remove myself from him completely. No matter what I had going on with him, I wasn’t going to stand by if he was wrong.
I watched Street’s face while I talked and immediately saw his whole expression change. I expected him to get quiet the way he always did when something was serious. What happened instead was different. His jaw twitched first. Then something moved behind his eyes that was cold in a way I had never seen on him before and I had known this man for thirteen years.
He was angry.
Not the kind of angry that was loud either. The kind that was controlled and pointed in a direction I couldn’t fully see yet.
“He said the twins ain’t too smart, so they won’t figure out what’s going on,” I continued. “And that the older brother was too focused on the title fight to be looking deep into anything right now.” I watched his face. “He said to let him stay focused on that.”
Street looked away from me. His hand came up and he pressed his fist against his mouth and stood there for a moment. I could see his chest moving with his breathing and I could see him processing it all. I could see how much it was costing him to keep his face from showing everything that was running through his mind.
When he looked back at me his eyes were hard.
“What exactly did you hear him say about Mazi getting shot? The night at the hospital, I felt that something was off with this nigga and that he was connected. I brushed it off to maybe I was just in my feelings that you brought a nigga around my muthafuckin family at a time like that. But what did he say?”
“He said it shook him up. That the graze could have been worse. He said that was the point.” I held his gaze. “Street I don’t know for certain what any of that means. I don’t have proof of anything. I just — something in me said I needed to tell you and I couldn’t sit on it anymore. I’ve still been going through the motions with him, but I don’t feel right about all this. I never knew he even knew Mazi like that.”
He nodded once. Slow.
“With knowing what you know,” he said. “What are you going to do? You coming to me and telling me all of this, but it’s clear that you are still with that nigga.
I looked at him and felt everything in me go still.
“What can I do?” I said it straight because there wasn’t any other way to say it. “You just told me you’re done with me. You made that clear. So now I have to do what’s best for me.” I straightened up and held myself together with everything I had. “Until I have something solid, something I can actually prove that shows he hurt Mazi or had a hand in it, I have to go back to my life. I have to go back to Marcus. But if I ever find out my assumptions are correct, my decision will be to walk away. You know the kind of woman I am, and I’m always on the side of what’s right. I just can’t move off a gut feeling and make life decisions off of it though.”
Something moved across his face. Fast. Then it was gone before it fully showed. I didn’t know if it was anger, disappointment or disgust.
