Page 156 of River & Crown
"Why do you insist on fucking up your life?" she huffed as we both came down the stairs.
"What are you talking about now?" I sighed over the high horse Chosyn had seemed to find herself on.
"Crown! Crown is what I'm talking about. How do you think he'll feel knowing you went to a get-together for your ex?"
"One, it's not a get-together. It's a remembrance memorial."
"I don't care what it is because your ass did enough remembering with the shrine you had in your closet."
"Don't start, please!" I whined.
"Speaking through your teeth like the nigga who's going to fuck you up when he finds out, doesn't scare me."
"How is Crown going to find out? I know you won't tell him. Not my best friend."
"Don't play the best-friend card because this goes beyond friendship. It's about your well-being."
"My well-being?" I scoffed. "I'll be fine. Who's going to hurt me, Rakim?"
"Maybe since he's been following you. That is what you told me, right? That you've been seeing his car in places where you are."
"That doesn't matter because I'm not staying long. I'm going to say goodbye, and then I'm leaving."
"Say goodbye for what? That nigga's been gone."
"Do you have to be so disrespectful about it?"
"Yes, when the bullshit you're doing is going to hurt someone I care about."
"Crown won't get hurt because I'm not doing anything other than saying goodbye." Chosyn pursed her lips together, giving me thatbitch pleaselook. I sighed, knowing that if I wanted to get out of this house, I had to give her more thanI'm saying goodbye.
"I know you think what I'm doing is going to hurt my chances of getting Crown back, but I'm doing this for us. What I said at Sincere's funeral was supposed to be my goodbye, but it wasn't. I've been holding onto him for the last three years, and look at what it's cost me? I lost a one-of-a-kind man. If I want to get him back, then I need to prove to him that what I felt for Sincere doesn't compare to how I feel about him. I have to lay Sincere to rest mentally, and this is my chance. You don't have to understand, but please respect my wishes."
Chosyn placed Phoenix in the pack-n-play, gave her a stuffed bear, and then looked me dead in the face.
"I hope you're telling the truth because even though I understand it, I don't agree with it. Sincere has been dead for years. I feel you need to let him rest wherever he is and focus on you for once. You let him control so much of you when he was alive and even more in death. Don't push Crown further away by chasing after closure when you know it's not needed. The way you fell for Crown is proof of that."
I swallowed hard but didn't respond. Chosyn might've been right, but this was something I was doing for myself regardless of anyone's opinion.
"I still can't believe someone took both of my children from me."
Before I could respond, Selene leaned into me, wrapping her arms around me for a hug I didn't plan on returning. Her weight sank into me, heavy in ways that had nothing to do with her size. Selene wasn't a heavyset woman, but the way grief had struck her life made her feel heavier as if the sorrow of her losses settled in her bones. Not wanting to be rude, I hugged her back awkwardly and stiffly. Her body shook with silent sobs, and in feeling her depleted energy, something shifted in me.
I believed grief was out of my control and came and went as it pleased. But holding Selene, I realized grief was a choice because if you let it, grief settled inside of you, rearranging your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings until the corners of your life felt like home to it.
Selene still had years ahead of her, people who loved her, a life worth living, yet she chose to remain in the moment her children died... just like I did with Sincere. Those promises we made were just that... promises. Hopeful wishes I clung to, dreams I wanted to believe in but never fought to make real.That was the difference between what Sincere stirred in me and what Crown awakened.
Sincere made me feel safe in the idea of love, whereas Crown made me feel alive being inside love.
Crown didn't have to promise me a future. Heismy future, whether I am ready for it or not. His love wasn't built on what we said we'd do one day. It was messy, demanding, immature, and obsessive, even, but it was ours. It pulled me out of grief, not by forcing me to forget Sincere but by reminding me I was still breathing without him, still able to love beyond him.
Standing here, wrapped in the weight of Selene's sorrow, I realized I didn't need to say goodbye to Sincere. It didn't mean anything. Crown's love had etched his name into my bones, carved it so deep that I felt him in every corner of me. And somehow, standing in the middle of another man's memory while the one I loved still lived in my every breath felt disrespectful.
"Um, Selene... I think I should leave," I murmured.
"Leave? Oh no, you can't leave River. You just got here." Selene pulled away, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "I'm so sorry for breaking down like that. I'm usually the one holding everybody together during this time, but I haven't seen you since the funeral. Seeing you now is like seeing Sincere. You two were inseparable. I used to think one couldn't breathe without the other."
"I... uh... um... I?—"
