I scowled at him. I didn’t wanna hear that shit.
“Bruh, you love that girl. Anybody with eyes can see that. She gon’ calm down,” Braeden said.
“She not like everybody else. She don’t ‘calm down’ and slide back like nothing happened. You know how hard it was for her to even start talking to me? She don’t trust nobody. I just proved she was right.” I shook my head, stuck on how badly I had fucked up.
Truth shoved his hands in his coat pockets. “So, what, you just gon ‘take this L?”
“For tonight,” I said. “She asked me to leave her alone. I’m gon’ respect that. But I’m not done. I’m gon’ give her a little space. Then I’m gon’ show her I’m serious.”
“Better come with your best. I heard that girl stubborn as hell,” Truth warned.
I didn’t answer. I just watched my breath cloud the air and tried not to think about her somewhere all alone crying.
A week later, I was on Mrs. Amanda’s porch with my heart in my hands. Christmas lights were up around her big house, multicolored bulbs glowing in the early evening. The big pine in her yard was wrapped in white lights, too, all the way up to the top. Mrs. Amanda always showed out for Christmas.
I paced anxiously, thinking about the small box in my pocket. It was nothing huge, just a silver charm bracelet I had saved up for, the little book charm dangling from the chain because she loved to read, the tiny quill representing her love of writing. I had pictured putting it on her wrist while she pretended not to cry.
Instead, Mrs. Amanda stood in the doorway, hands on her hips, looking at me like I was both her favorite person and the biggest headache she had.
“Baby, what you doing out here in this cold?” she asked. “Come in this house. Your lips getting chapped.”
“I’m good,” I lied. “Is she here?”
Her eyes softened with something that looked like pity. My heart dropped.
“She went back to Houston that Monday. She told her parents all about it Sunday night while you was probably still out there at that amphitheater, trying to be hard. She wanted to go home, and they wanted her there.”
I stared past Mrs. Amanda’s shoulder into the foyer behind her, like Kyleigh was just going to appear out of thin air in one of her big T-shirts and fuzzy socks.
“So, she just… left?” I asked.
“Well, she cried first.” I could hear the slight judgment in her tone. “You know my baby. She tried to hold it in, but it was a hurt too big. I tried to talk her into staying, but I’m not gon’ force her to sit around town feeling like people laughing at her. She deserves better than that. Her heart was broken, and that’s not how you heal. Her parents thought it might be best, too.”
“Yes, ma’am. I tried to call. Everything bouncing. Messages not going through. I thought maybe her phone was off or…”
“Or she blocked you. She told me she needed a break from all of it. From you. From this town. From being Mrs. Amanda’s little rich girl out of place. I told her I understood.”
“You mad at me? For how it started?” I asked, voice ashamed.
She sighed and leaned against the doorframe. “Baby, I been your Granny Amanda since you was knee high. I know Deon. I know Shayla. I know how this town gossip. I’m disappointed in how y’all handled it, sure. Hurting behind seeing my grandbabycry like that. But mad at you? No. You a good boy who did a foolish thing. Chyle, that’s every man I know at some point. Shoulda been honest, but a bought lesson always hits harder than a taught one.”
“I messed up, Mrs. Amanda.”
“It’s a life lesson. Yeah, it cost you, but sometimes that’s the only way we learn. You love my baby?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, no hesitation.
She nodded. “Okay. Then love her enough to let her be mad. Let her figure out who she is without you pulling on her sleeve. You keep pushing, you just gon’ remind her of the hurt.”
That got me, that my baby associated me with pain, with hurting.
“So, what, I’m just supposed to wait? Hope she come back?” I asked.
“Hope if you want,” she said. “But don’t put your life on hold. You hear me? Finish school. Go to college like you planned. Make something of yourself. If she comes back and y’all paths cross again, you let her see you standing tall, not stuck on that night behind the amphitheater.”
I didn’t want to leave, felt like leaving would be walking away from her, from us. But Mrs. Amanda was right. Standing here begging wouldn’t fix what I broke. I pulled the little box out of my pocket and opened it. Silver glinted under the porch light.
“Give this to her if you want. Or throw it in the bayou if she say she never wants to see nothing from me again. I’ll respect it.”
