Page 151 of Tangled Hearts
“Help her by waiting. Love her in the quiet. Send her some flowers with a note that says you still here. She might not be ready to love you with her hands, but she ain’t stopped loving you with her heart.”
Cash accepted that.
Later that night, Noir curled tighter into what was left of Christian. Her chest still throbbed and her heart still burned.
A memory snuck up on her and stole the breath from her lungs.
One of their last good nights.
Christian had come in at 3 a.m., his hoodie soaked from rain. Noir was in one of his t-shirts, half asleep on the couch waiting for him. He dropped to his knees in front of her and pressed his face into her thighs without saying a word.
“You good?” she whispered, running her fingers through his waves.
“I just needed you,” he mumbled. “That’s all.”
She remembered that exact moment. How safe he sounded. How simple love felt when neither of them spoke. They didn’t even go upstairs. Just curled into each other on the couch and slept so good.
Noir sat up suddenly, dizzy, gagged, and ran to the bathroom. The water she’d barely sipped came right back up.She knelt on the floor, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Her eyes blurred again.
“I didn’t even get to tell you goodbye,” she whispered into the toilet.
A knock sounded.
Slowly with hesitation, Hov walked in with a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a quart of chicken noodle soup in the other. “I brought real food. And some of them little lemon cookies you like.”
Noir couldn’t even smile. But she stood up and hugged him so tightly. Her tears soaked into his shirt on contact.
“I miss him too,” Hov whispered. “Don’t nobody know how I got love for that nigga. But I did.”
“He woulda liked these flowers,” she choked.
“I know,” Hov rubbed her back. “He liked yellow roses. Said they looked like gold.” He laughed a little. There was so much about Christian that the world never got to experience but they did. It was a shared experience making them understand each other’s pain behind his death.
“You remember that?”
“Hell yea. That was when we first really got locked in… nigga started just telling me random shit. You know he ain’t really have friends or fuck with too many people, but he took to me easily. Probably cause I’m a real nigga,” he smiled even though his chest was tight.
Hov set the soup down on the nightstand and pulled her blanket back up for her once she got back in the bed.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever love like that again,” Noir whispered. “That love felt like I had a bag on my head when it started to hurt.”
“You will. Different don’t mean less. You got a big heart, Noir. Always have. You just need time to grieve the part of yourself that loved him through the worst shit.”
“What if I already love Cash? Like, really love him?” Her red eyes begged Hov for some of his street knowledge.
She felt guilty for even saying Cash’s name out loud in this space. Like she was betraying something sacred. Something broken but still hers.
Her eyes darted to the dresser where the chain Christian bought her still hung on the corner of a photo frame. The same one he gifted her when they first moved in.Queen of Everythingwas engraved on the back. She wore it to sleep some nights just to feel a little power again. Today, it felt heavy, so she left it there.
Hov sighed. “Then that’s what it is.”
She looked at him like that couldn’t possibly be enough.
“Noir, you’re not broken ‘cause you love two different men,” he said. “You grew up. You healed. Christian hurt you… and you still loved him. But that doesn’t mean you gotta stay buried in the version of yourself that loved him.”
Her throat moved as she swallowed the lump forming again.
“Cash loves you. And you ain’t stupid for needing that,” Hov pulled her closer to him. “Cash got you dreaming again. You’re good, Noir.”
