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He took the seat beside the bed and scooted it as close as he could. He grabbed my hand carefully, placing it between his.
“Baby.” I wept, unsure of what he was about to say but dreading the words that were about to fall from his lips.
“Listen, Mommas… There’s an account that I’ve set up for you. Inside is $1.8 million. It’s all yours. You won’t ever have to work another day in your life if you don’t want to. Start a business. Take a year off. Invest it in stock. Whatever you want to do.”
“Makai, stop.”
“Shhh. Shhhh,” he hushed me. “Your car is paid off. Your insurance will fully fund another vehicle. The process is already in motion. Your condo is also paid but you can’t live there, Kiwi. You can rent it out if you want a steady income. They’ll pay top dollar for that space, especially if it’s already furnished. Or, you can sell it.”
This entire time, I was under the impression it was leased. This was news to me.
“The choice is yours, but staying there or anywhere in Berkeley is completely out of the question. You must go. As soon as you leave this place, you have to go. As long as you’re here, you’re a sitting duck. I’ve seen what happened to women like you because of men like me and I could never live with myself if God did that to me, if He took you away from me. I can’t chance it. I can’t live through that type of pain. I won’t make it. So, save us both, Glacier, and get out of here.”
Though painful, I still managed to shake my head from one side to the other. “I’m not leaving you.”
“You don’t have to. I’m going to do that for both of us.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I didn’t aim high enough. I had a choice to make on that expressway. Make sure that you weren’t in your truck when it burst into flames or chase that nigga down and dead him. I chose you and I’ll choose you again and again and again.
“Because I chose you, I have unfinished business. A bullet in the back and a bullet in the head are two very different things. A bullet in the back got that nigga a patch and a first-class ticket to county where I need to be.”
“Makai, please.”
“Nah. I’m not willing to play hide and seek with this nigga no more.”
Makai stood and kissed my cracked lips. I closed my eyes as the pain shot through my face.
“What about us?”
“As of this moment, G, there is no us. Go live your life, Mommas. Let a square put a smile on your face. You deserve that. It’s the least I can do, let you go. I refuse to find you on the floor with some hot shit in ya chest. That ain’t the life I’m trying to live. That ain’t a life I’m trying to live. I’d rather go my way and let you go yours. Your life, for me, matters more than the love I have for you.”
“You don’t know–—you don’t know what you’re saying. You don—you can’t mean that.”
“Before I cost you your life, I’ll be a selfish motherfucker,” he emphasized.
“You don’t want to do this.”
“What I don—” he choked. “What I don’t want is to feel what I felt when I walked in and found my brother’s wife on that floor beside him as he clung to the bit of his heart she’d managed to leave him. What I don’t want is to look my children in their faces and tell them how much of an amazing woman their mother was.
“What I don’t want is to try to rebuild a life with bits and pieces, knowing that it’s likely impossible. What I don’t want is to lose my fucking mind—–just like my mother. So, when I tell you you must go… Just go, G.”
“But I love you, Makai. I love us.”
“I love us, too, but not as much as I love you. You as a person. You as a nurse. You as a granddaughter. You as a woman. Before you’re mine, you’re all of those things and I love that shit. I love it enough to know when to let it go.”
“You have no right. Wh-what even was the point? Why’d you come back? Why’d you show up at my door that night? What was the point?” I hyperventilated.
“Stupidity! That was the point. Thinking I could fall my stupid ass in love when that ain’t in my cards. That’s not how my life works. That’s not a luxury I have.”
“But it’s staring back at you.”
“At what cost, Glacier?”
I had no rebuttal.
“I love you, Mommas,” he wept, leaning down to kiss my forehead. “Take care of yourself.”
