“Don’t say that,” he told her.
“Why not?”
“’Cause if you kiss me, Meadow…” His eyes dropped to her mouth, then rose again. “I might give you more shit to carry.”
She grabbed her chest. “What does that mean?”
Zaire leaned one shoulder on the porch beam, head dropping low as he spoke. “It means I don’t want my demons to get familiar with you. Don’t want them knowin’ your name…or how you taste.” He shook his head. “You too soft for that…too good…too mine…” He cut himself off, jaw locking.
“If I’m yours then kiss me…let me know it’s real.”
“C’mon, baby…you gotta trust me when I try to warn you.”
She huffed, pushing her hair out her face. “You can’t say one thing then take it back. Am I yours?”
“Meadow…”
“No, Zaire,” she pushed forward. “You don’t get to get me in my head then just walk away. Don’t be a scaredy cat.”
Zaire laughed, his eyes rolling over her. “That’s some lame ass shit…don’t say that again.”
“Don’t be scared, then.”
He looked away then back to her. “Can I trust you?”
“Yes.”
“With heavy shit? With my demons?”
Zaire hated himself for what he was about to do. No one knew the demons he carried inside him. They didn’t understand why he was who he was because he locked that shit up and never wanted to unleash it. Never wanted to show them that red door full of skeletons…literally.”
Meadow shifted her hips from one side to the other. “Zaire…what demons?”
He laughed, but it wasn’t humor. It was a man swallowing the grief he’d carried alone for too many years. “You really wanna know?”
“Yes.” She stepped closer.
He lifted his head. His eyes glistened in a way he tried to hide but couldn’t. “Everybody think my Pops inside for some street shit he did.” Zaire rubbed his nose. “But that’s not how it happened.”
Meadow’s heart dropped. She didn’t speak or move, waiting to see where this confession was going.
Zaire stared out across the land like he was seeing another life superimposed over this one. “When I was five…we had a home invasion. Niggas in red. My Pops was with the Sixties heavy back then, knee-deep in it. Flags, blocks, wars, all that shit. And when you live that kinda life, somebody always comin’ for you.” His voice shook as his mind took him back to the night he was told to forget.
Meadow stepped off the porch with him, slow, like approaching a wounded animal that still had fangs.
“They ran up in the house. Had my Pops on the floor with a gun to his head, my Mama was screamin’. I didn’t know what was happenin’… I thought…” he swallowed. “I thought they was gon’ kill him right there.”
Meadow’s eyes burned and the speed of her heart picked up. It felt like she was running a marathon. Like she was in Zaire’s childhood home seeing everything from his eyes.
“So I ran,” Zaire whispered. “I ran to their room. My mama kept a gun in her dresser. No safety. One in the chamber. I grabbed it. My little ass could barely hold it.”
His voice cracked so he had to sit down before his demons knocked him on his ass. “I walked back into the hallway, my hands shook, everything felt so loud like I couldn’t think right. Then I saw the man standin’ over my Pops.” Zaire lifted his trembling hand like the child-version of himself still lived there in his bones. “And I pulled the trigger.”
Meadow covered her mouth as a cry burst through her.
“The body dropped,” he remembered, “like somebody unplugged him. The other two niggas ran out. My Mama grabbed me…my Pops grabbed me…the police came. Pops took the charge.” Zaire closed his eyes. “It was his third strike…his third strike should’ve been my first. My Pops been locked up for twenty years behind somethin’Idid.”
Carefully, Meadow stepped closer, tears gathering in her eyes. “You were a child.”
