Page 221 of Prickly Romance

But now the waterworks are turning back on.

“I haven’t been sleeping well lately. Every time I close my eyes, I can… I can see him. Smell him.Feelhim. The pain,” I hit my chest, “is like someone died for me. I thought I could handle it, but I feel so lost.”

“Sweetie.” Vanya abandons her chair and pounces on me.

Soon, all the women are embracing me. The smell of cocoa butter, natural hair products and sisterhood fills my nose and unleashes the tears I’d been fighting back.

I brush the tears away. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for feeling what you feel,” Sunny coaches me. “You just let that wave ride right on through.”

“I always thought of myself as strong,” I confess to them. “I never thought I’d be the kind of girl who’d let a man devastate her. I’m confident, I’m smart, I’m in control. I can find another one.”

“But you loved him,” Dawn says simply.

I glance up, stunned.

“When you love someone, you let your walls down. You become soft. You become vulnerable. That’s why it hurts. When someone gets you to take your armor off and they impale you, you don’t just feel hurt. You feel stupid.”

“I can’t even hate him. That’s the worst part.” I straighten and the women give me a little breathing room.

“Before I met Sazuki, I thought all I wanted to be was a songwriter. But since working at the foundation, I’ve found my real dream. I want to keep helping the deaf community. I want to bring music to the people who can’t hear it.”

“That’s so inspiring,” Sunny says.

“But you know the worst part?” I glance at each of them. “Doing the work that I love feels meaningless now. Even though I found my purpose, it feels like… like I lost something too.”

Sunny rubs my back. “Did the break up happen because of what we discussed that night at the farmhouse?”

“What did you discuss?” Dawn asks.

“Oh…” Sunny looks to me for permission.

I nod.

She explains, “Dejonae slammed a reporter’s head into a bathroom stall and Sazuki didn’t take her side.”

“You what?” Vanya hurls back.

“Straight into the door? Like MMA style?” Dawn asks, looking excited.

“Which reporter?” Kenya strokes her chin. “Not that annoying one on the local news channel, right?”

Astonished, I pin Sunny with a dark frown. “Why’d you say it like that?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?” she fires back.

“I have so many questions,” Vanya says in a daze.

“I will not be answering any of them,” I insist. “Sazuki and I didn’t break up because of the reporter incident.”

“Does it have anything to do with the woman who was in the seat beside him?” Sunny asks quietly.

Dawn’s brown eyes scour my face.

The room falls silent again.

“Her name is Ashanti. She’s his ex-wife. They divorced when Niko was three, but they’re still really involved in each other’s lives. As you can see from the show tonight, he sat beside her, laughed with her, took pictures of Niko with her. They’re trying to be a family again.”