Page 8 of The Spark

She looked down at her hands, fingers curled in the sleeves of my hoodie like she was trying to disappear inside it.

“But when I got to his room…”

Her throat bobbed.

“‘Adorn’ was playing.”

I didn’t even need her to finish. My stomach turned just hearing that. Miguel’s voice was smooth, seductive—everybody and their mama had that track on repeat back then. Terrence wasn’t justwithsomeone. He’d curated a whole mood for it.

“I opened the door,” she said. “He was on top of her. Shirt off. Kissing her neck, moving between her thighs like I never existed.”

She blinked slowly, but a tear slipped out anyway.

“I didn’t say anything. Didn’t slam the door. Didn’t break his shit. Just… closed it. Got in my car. Came to Tia’s.”

She finally looked at me, eyes so vacant it made my chest ache.

“And the worst part is, I wasn’t even surprised.”

Something inside me twisted. I parked at the spot I went to when I need to think. A spot that was nothing but city and freedom in my view.

This time, I went with her, hoping she could find peace here, the way I had found the beats to songs I worked on. But peace might not find her any time soon. Heartbreak was a motherfucka.

I’d hurt girls before. Not likethat—not dirty, not reckless—but I’d left a few of them with wide eyes and broken expectations. I never promised more than I could give. Never saidyou’re the only onewhen I didn’t mean it. But I also knew what it felt like to see the same girl you kissed last week walking past you like she never knew you.

They always wanted more than I was ready for. And when they caught me at somebody else’s house, at somebody else’s party…

That pain in their faces…Yeah. I’d seen it.

But this— seeingherlike this—it was different. Because Maya wasn’t just any girl.

She wasn’t one of the ones I flirted with after sets or texted late just to see if they’d come through. She wasn’t an accessory to the lifestyle. Shewasthe standard. And watching her sit there trying to hold herself together after a boy made her feel disposable?

That shit nearly undid me.

I didn’t say anything. Just reached behind the seat and grabbed my hoodie—the one I’d taken off earlier when the car still held the last breath of daylight warmth.

I held it out.

She looked at it, then back at me, confused. “What?”

“You’re cold, A.”

She hesitated. Then she slipped her arms into the sleeves, slow, like the weight of the night had finally settled on her shoulders. The hem of it hit her mid-thigh, swallowing her frame. She tucked her knees up in the seat and pulled the hood over her curls.

It was the kind of thing I’d seen in movies—where some guy offers a girl his jacket like a silent vow. But this wasn’t performative. This was instinct. A quiet need to cover her. Shelter her. Wrap her in something that smelled like comfort.

She leaned her head against the window, staring out at the spread of city lights glowing just beyond the edge of the hill. I watched her reflection in the glass, soft and unfocused.

“I don’t think I can do this again,” she said after a while.

“Do what?”

“Try,” she whispered. “Believe.”

I nodded slowly. I didn’t have some rehearsed answer. Just truth.

“You don’t have to right now.”

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