Page 131 of Tangled Hearts
Nakorea studied him like a Bible verse she wasn’t sure she believed. “Maybe. But I don’t think she gon’ ever be a fool for you.”
His throat closed.
“She ain’t mad no more,” Nakorea added. “That’s what’s gon’ hurt you the most.”
“I didn’t want to lose her.”
“You didn’t lose her. You let her walk away.”
He stepped back, pulling the key fob from his pocket, and placed it on the porch rail.
“I’ll leave it here.”
Nakorea looked at him like she’d already planned to put it in the trash. “She don’t need nothing from you and you can’t buy her.”
“I know,” he whispered. “I just need her to know I tried.”
Nakorea looked him up and down, then she let out a breath that wasn’t quite pity, but damn sure wasn’t pride either. She leaned her weight into the doorframe, arms folding across her chest like she was about to drop a sermon.
“You think you the only one that ever tried?” she asked, brows raised. “Boy, lemme tell you something. My baby been moving since the day she could walk. She don’t do all that stand-still-and-figure-it-out shit. She doesn’t freeze for time. She doesn’t wait on clarity. She just keeps going and whatever she need gon’ catch up with her eventually.”
Christian rubbed his hands together.
“That’s why she never liked school,” she kept going. “Why she didn’t go to no damn college like Knycole. I used to think it meant she was lost… but she just knew who she was early. She never needed a campus or a classroom to teach her how to survive.”
He swallowed, hanging onto her every word.
“She loved you, Christian. Deep. Hard. Too damn much if you ask me. But my daughter not gon’ beg a man to be the person she already saw in him. She gives you the blueprint, then leaves you to decide if you gon’ build something.”
“I was scared,” he admitted. “Didn’t know if I could be all the shit she said I could be. If I could make all her dreams come true.”
Nakorea snorted. “Baby, the ones who love you right always make you question if you’re enough. That’s how you know it’s real.”
Christian stared at the porch rail. The fob glinted under the porch light like it was mocking him.
“You know what I wish?” Nakorea asked a rhetorical question.
He gulped knowing Nakorea was going to give it to him real raw. Noir always joked how real her mama was. Now, he was witnessing it for himself.
“I wish you woulda told her that before you gave somebody else a baby.”
All Christian could do was nod. Nakorea was telling him right and he knew it. She wasn’t yelling. And she wasn’t judging his situation. Still every word she said cut because it was true. Maybe that’s what hurt the most—knowing she was still being kind, even while she reminded him just how bad he messed up.
Nakorea sighed and shook her head. “But even if you had, I think it still woulda broke her. My daughter got this big-ass heart… but once it shatters? She doesn’t pick up the pieces. She sweeps ‘em up and tosses ‘em. Starts over with a brand-new heart built from scratch.”
He nibbled on his lip, thinking… knowing that was his Noir. Heart big but she knew her worth.
“Some women glue they self back together. Not her. She pours gas on it and dares the world to hand her a match.”
The screen door creaked as she stepped out fully, bare feet tapping against the old wood like her spirit couldn’t sit still either. “You think that car gon’ fix what you broke?”
He shook his head. “Nah. But maybe she’ll see it and remember that I saw her. That I wanted to make her life easier. That I ain’t never stop lovin’ her.”
Nakorea looked at him. She respected the honesty but still didn’t let it change a thing.
“She’ll see it,” she said. “But don’t get your hopes up, baby. My daughter doesn’t drive in circles. She moves forward. Always.”
Christian pressed his tongue to the inside of his cheek, fighting the ache behind his ribs.
