“You’re not hurting him by telling the truth. You’re giving him a chance to understand you.”
My phone buzzes on the desk.
Javonte: I’m still giving you space. I just wanted you to know I’m here when you’re ready.
My eyes burn, and I blink hard because I do not have time to cry before a complaint review.
Edie stands. “That man is trying not to be a fool.”
I laugh. “He has a history.”
“Don’t we all?”
I pick up the phone and read the message again. I know what I need to say.
I turn back to my notebook and write one more line under Edie’s list:
Ask me before you build my future.
Then I close the notebook and stand, because apparently I have a complaint review to survive before I can go home and figure out what my actual life is supposed to look like.
Chapter 35 Javonte
I stand in the middle of the studio with my phone in my hand, staring at Lily’s text from last night.
I don’t want to talk tonight.
She hasn’t sent anything else.
I told her I’d give her space, and I meant it, but space feels a lot easier when I’m not standing in the middle of the reason she needed it. Yesterday, the clean floors, blank walls, empty shelves, and cleared patio felt like proof that I had listened. Today, the whole place feels too quiet. Too much like a decision I made before she ever walked through the door.
My phone buzzes, and my heart jumps before I look at it.
It’s Zea.
I answer anyway. “Hello?”
“You good?”
“Why wouldn’t I be good?”
“Because you were doing something grand and wrong, and I wanted to check the damage.”
I close my eyes. “Good morning to you too.”
“How did Lily like the studio?”
I don’t answer fast enough.
Zea sighs. “Javonte.”
“It didn’t go how I thought it would.”
“What happened?”
“She got overwhelmed.”
“Did she say that?”
