Scar huffed a quiet laugh.
“Long story short, she kept coming back around, and I started asking her to meet me at other places. So the hood didn’t see her, and I could keep her to myself.”
Scar went still.
“She was too good for me, too good for the block, too good for my lifestyle.”
Roz swallowed, his eyes misting. “But she chose me. And I was ready to change my whole life for her, man. Hell, I even went to her church a few times. I sat all the way in the back and just stared at her up there in the choir stand, singing and sounding like a fuckin’ angel.”
Roz raised his head, revealing a flash of ego and pain.
“My shorty was pure. And I respected that. I never tried to fuck her…not once.” Roz turned and faced him. “It’s why I asked her to marry me.”
Scar held his breath. “Did she say yes?”
Roz nodded slowly.
“Her family said she was throwing her life away. But I was enrolling in school, and I was gonna’ get a good job…leave all thestreet bullshit behind.” Roz lowered his gaze again. “Anything for her. She was my one reason to do good.”
“I was taking her home one night from a date,” he said. “And a drunk driver hit us. Killed her.”
Scar’s stomach went cold.
“And took my one reason away.”
For a second, Scar could hear nothing but his own pulse.
“She died in the hospital four hours later,” he said. “I was there. But her family didn’t know me. They’d never seen me. So I was just…some guy in the corner looking devastated.”
Roz’s eyes went distant and glassy.
“I didn’t have a right to be up in their grief like that, but I couldn’t just leave either.”
Scar didn’t know what to say. Everything he thought of sounded stupid, so he just stayed quiet.
“Gage and his father were there, comforting the family.”
Scar’s attention hooked onto the mention of Gage.
“When she was pronounced dead, I bolted.” Roz closed his eyes. “I went to the roof, ready to end it. I didn’t wanna live without her.”
Scar imagined what he’d do if he suddenly lost his “one reason”.
“That’s where Gage found me. He told me Shannon was his best friend, and that she’d told him about me…about our plans.”
Roz’s eyes were bright now.
“It was Gage that got me off that ledge, bro. I don’t know how. I was so angry…dangerous.” Roz exhaled. “But he did. He prayed for me, just like she always did… He even sounded like her.”
Scar could almost hear Gage’s voice in the story, calm, comforting, and unshakable.
“After that, he checked on me every day.”
Scar’s brows lifted. “Even after you went back to—”
“Yeah. Even after I went back to the streets. Gage only ever saw me the way Shannon did—as a good man.”
Scar wondered if Gage felt that way when he looked at him. That he was also worth saving.
