Page 74 of When a Soul Cries

That shit was crazy.

My eyes dropped to the report Darius had sent.

I could fix the car. I could help with the apartment. Hell, with one phone call, I could probably make half the problems I knew about disappear.

But Sol wasn’t one of my projects.

And she damn sure hadn’t asked me to save her.

Besides, I couldn’t call her even if I wanted to.

The woman never gave me her damn number.

I laughed under my breath.

Maybe that was a good thing.

Because the more I learned about Sol, the harder it was becoming to convince myself to leave her alone.

And for now, leaving her alone was exactly what I needed to do.

At least until I saw her again.

I had seen Sol cry before.

Real tears, too. Not that cute shit where somebody wiped one tear from the corner of their eye and still managed to look pretty doing it. I’d seen her cry until her nose ran. Seen her sit on my bathroom floor with her knees pulled against her chest, trying to understand how the hell her life had gotten so far away from what she thought it would be.

But tonight was different.

Tonight, she broke.

And all I could do was hold her.

“I’m so fucking tired.”

Those words kept replaying in my head even after her crying finally quieted.

I sat on the floor beside her with my back against the couch, one leg stretched out in front of me. Sol was still curled against me, her head resting near my shoulder while I rubbed my hand slowly up and down her back.

Every few seconds, her body trembled from one of those leftover cries that came after you had already cried so hard there wasn’t much left.

I hated it.

Not her crying.

The fact that she’d gotten this far down before I knew anything was wrong.

My eyes traveled toward the folded eviction notice sitting on the coffee table.

That damn paper.

When I snatched it out of her hand earlier, I had been ready to cuss her clean out. Hell, I damn near did. Two months behind and she hadn’t told me shit.

Not one word.

Meanwhile, I had been walking around thinking everything was normal.

I hadn’t known she was struggling.