Page 26 of When a Soul Cries

In real life, she felt familiar.

I recognized the way she laughed off questions she didn’t want to answer. I recognized how quickly she apologized, even when she hadn’t done anything wrong. I recognized the loneliness underneath all that politeness because I carried the same loneliness under my attitude.

The difference was, I had learned to bare my teeth.

Sol had learned to disappear.

For almost two years, I watched pieces of the truth slip through our conversations. A noise outside her bedroom would make her go silent. Her aunt would call her name, and the light would leave her face. Some nights she would vanish in the middle of a conversation and text me hours later like nothing had happened.

I never pushed harder than she could handle. I just made sure she knew I was there.

Then one night, she finally told me what had happened to her in Pinehaven.

She expected me to question her. I could hear it in the way her voice shook, like she had prepared herself to defend every detail.

I didn’t ask her to prove a damn thing.

I bought the bus ticket before we even got off the phone.

“Pack what you can carry,” I told her. “You can sleep on my floor if you have to—but you’re not staying in that house.”

She arrived in Crestmont at twenty-two with two bags, swollen eyes, and fear stitched into every movement. Three weeks later, she found out she was pregnant.

I was there for the test.

I was there when she sat on the bathroom floor and cried until she couldn’t breathe. I was there for the appointments, the swollen ankles, the midnight cravings, and the days she couldn’t stand to look at her own changing body. When Halo was born, I stood beside Sol and watched somebody who had been given every reason to break become a mother instead.

People liked to call me Halo’s unofficial auntie.

There wasn’t anything unofficial about it to me.

That little girl was mine in every way that mattered.

I closed Halo’s door and walked around to the driver’s side. Before getting in, I caught my reflection in the dark window—lashes still perfect, hair still laid, mouth pressed into the same hard line I wore whenever I was scared.

Men used to love that hard exterior until they realized it wasn’t a costume they could talk me out of.

My last serious relationship had been with a man named Terrell, though everybody called him Trell. I met him when I was twenty-one at a birthday party I almost didn’t attend. He was tall, dark, covered in tattoos, and funny enough to make me lower my guard before I realized that was exactly what he was doing.

At first, Trell was everything I thought I had been missing. He called when he said he would. Showed up with food without asking what I wanted because he already remembered. Rubbed my feet after long days and told me I didn’t always have to be so tough with him.

That line got me.

I didn’t always have to be tough.

For the first time in my life, somebody made me believe I could put my bags down and stay awhile.

Six months later, Trell lost his job.

At least that was the story he told me.

I let him move into my apartment “until he got back on his feet.” I paid the bills while he chased opportunities that never seemed to call him back. Every week brought a new excuse. His car needed work. His cousin owed him money. His old boss was supposed to call. Meanwhile, he ate my food, drove my car, and used my Wi-Fi to entertain every woman in Crestmont with a social media account.

The more I questioned him, the meaner he became.

He started telling me I was difficult. Too loud. Too suspicious. Too damaged to know how to accept a good man. He would disappear all night, then come home in the morning and ask why I was trying to control him.

And for a little while, I let him confuse me.