I got out of the car before Gutta had a chance to put it in park.
They had him outside. Brielle’s father. Veteran. In handcuffs on his own front lawn with officers on either side of him.
He looked up when he heard footsteps and saw me coming. The look that he wore on his face, I had seen before. Not fear. Something older than fear. The look of a man who had knownthis moment was coming for a long time and had been deciding how to carry himself through it.
Legal pulled up right after us. He’d must have gotten the call from one of his friends at the police department, and he had to be here for this moment. He rushed over to me and grabbed my arm firmly.
I shook it off.
I walked up to Brielle’s father and stopped three feet in front of him then I looked him dead in the eyes like a man.
“Why?” I asked. One word. The only word I had.
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
Not malicious. Not performed. Something almost like respect behind it which was the most infuriating thing he could have done.
“Your father was too great for his own good,” he said. His voice was even. Unbothered. Like we were having a conversation over dinner and not standing on his front lawn in handcuffs. “He didn’t know when to fold. When to take a loss for a greater good. When to accept that some situations are bigger than one man’s pride.” He tilted his head slightly. “Word of advice Xavier. You are in a position right now that men kill over. You can bet that somebody has money riding on you losing soon. Don’t end up like your father.”
I lost it with that last sentence. I drew back and punched that bitch ass nigga with everything that I had.
One right hand. Straight to the jaw. The same hand that I had been breaking things with since I was nine years old in the streets of Dallas.
He went down and the only thing that stopped him from hitting the pavement. Was the officers holding him up.
The officers moved, then stopped and looked at each other and one of them looked at me then back to his partner.
The officer who was closer to me put his hand out on my chest for me to calm down. I wanted to kill this nigga. All of those years he made me feel like I wasn’t good enough for his daughter because of my background, and the whole time it was because of his guilty conscience from killing my father. He never expected me to go to that private school and for me and his daughter to fall for one another. Since that day, he went out of his way to make sure that she was never with me.
“Mr. Hendrix.” He looked at the man on the ground and back at me. “My camera is off.” He shook my hand and held it. “Congratulations on the championship tonight. And I’m sorry about your father. This tonight, it never happened. His jaw was broke when we picked him up.” The officer said, and I respected him for it. Breaking Brielle’s father jaw would have cost me more than I was willing to lose right now.
Legal pulled me into a hug from behind. Both arms around me tight the way he had been holding this family together for over twenty years.
Gutta put his hand on my back.
“We got the answers we need, justice will be served and I know my friend is pleased with how everything is turning out. You handled this well, and I’m proud of you. I know it’s hard, I know this load has been heavy Xavier, but now you can put it down.” Legal said as he pat my back.
I stood there in the night air with Legal holding on and I let everything breathe for the first time in as long as I couldremember. Twenty years of not knowing who these people were who fucked up my life. Twenty years of a voice on a phone, two letters, a parking lot and a little boy who never got to stop holding on to that moment.
I heard Brielle behind me and I turned.
She was standing near Gutta’s car watching them put her father in the back of the police unit and she was crying in a way that had nothing held back.
Everything she had been holding together since she found those documents coming out all at once.
I walked over to her.
She looked at me when I got close and whatever she saw on my face made her cry harder. I pulled her in, held her and she grabbed the back of my jacket, then held on like she needed something solid to keep her standing.
I let her have me in this moment. What she did was honorable. She went against her father for me and for what she knew was right. I never would’ve imagined that this man had a hand in killing my father. Just knowing that she did the right thing, even if that meant turning on the man she loved and looked up to, I respected her.
The police unit pulled away.
Legal was on his phone nearby already working. Gutta was leaning against his car watching us with his arms crossed and not saying a word for once in his life. He had a look of relief, and sadness at the same time. Whenever I hurt, he always felt it.
And I stood on that lawn holding the woman I had loved since I was fourteen years old while the police taillights disappeared around the corner.
