Page 19 of You Deserve Good Things

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t do that.You know who.Jacory.”

I looked down at my hands, fingers curling into my lap. “I moved on.”

“Lies. You still be listening to Keyshia Cole like it’s 2006.”

I cracked a small smile. “You ain’t got no damn sense.”

She leaned closer. “You still love him.”

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

“You do.”

I shrugged. “It’s been four years.”

“And that boy is still in your bones.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I’m scared.”

“Of what?” she asked.

I finally looked at her. “What if I find him and he’s moved on? Got a wife, kids . . . a goldendoodle namedLoyalty?”

Daniale blinked. “Girl . . . what in the Tyler Perry plotline?”

I laughed through my tears, and she grinned, pulling me into a side hug.

“Look, Yaya . . . all I’m sayin’ is, you deserve love. Real love. That Jacory kinda love. The ‘I will crash out behind you’ love.” Her voice softened. “You already healed yourself. Now it’s time to let somebody else pour into you too.”

I stayed quiet, staring at the ceiling. I didn’t say it out loud, but the truth was . . . she was right. Jacory was still in me. Still woven into my spirit like scripture. Still humming under my skin like a song I never finished.

And maybe . . . just maybe . . . I was finally ready to sing the rest.

The Push

One thing about me?I didn’t do pity parties. I didn’t bring chips to them, I didn’t RSVP, and I damn sure didn’t bringing a bottle. If you were my people, you didn’t get to sit in your sadness like it was a studio apartment and pay rent with regret. Nah. I was the type of friend that kicked the damn door in, flipped the lights on, and saidget up, bitch, we got healing to do.

Shaniya had been playin’ hide-and-seek with her heart foryearsnow—sittin’ in her silence like it was a safety net, when really, it was a straitjacket. I let her grieve. I let her hide. But now? Time was up. My best friend was drowning in unspoken trauma and unfinished love, and I was tired of watchin’ her actlike she didn’t have the strength to swim when I knew she was a whole damn wave.

When I first got her to talk about her life in New Orleans, prior to coming to Texas, all she did was gush about her boy trio: Silas, Chase, and her secret love Jacory. I felt like I knew him. He was good for her.

So, I pulled up to her apartment like the repo man, banging on the door like I had a warrant and bad news.

“Ayo, open this door before I tell the landlord you are renting this joint out to spirits, ’cause you ghosting life right now, sis!”

A few seconds later, she cracked the door open—barefoot, bonnet crooked, big-ass T-shirt hangin’ off her like it was tryna slide into depression right along with her.

I looked her up and down and sighed dramatically, hand on my hip like I was Auntie Patti at the family reunion.

I raised a brow. “You look like heartbreak put you in a chokehold andNightmares from the Bottomis playin’ in the background like your life got a sad-ass soundtrack.”

She rolled her eyes and shuffled back inside like an old lady who was mad that the club was too loud. “Good morning to you too, Dani.”

I walked in behind her, sniffing dramatically. “It smells like depression and unseasoned microwave meals in here.”

She flopped on the couch and pulled a throw blanket over her legs. I snatched it off with zero hesitation.

She yelled, “Ain’t nobody asked you to show up with all this energy.”

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