Page 23 of A Major Love

“My heart belonged to you, technically, figuratively, and literally. I should’ve respected you enough to keep my promise. It’s as simple as that.”

“Why didn’t you just ask me to come home?” I asked.

“Asking you to come home would’ve been selfish of me.”

“But it was what you wanted.”

“What you chose to do with your life wasn’t about what I wanted. I’d never put what I wanted above your goals and dreams.”

“You could’ve at least been honest with me about how you felt.”

“Why? So you could feel guilty about choosing you, or so I could feel guilty about you choosing me, only for you to resent me later?”

Damn. He made so much sense. The choices I made were all about me becoming a sports journalist, something I’d wanted since I was a child. Had I known Major’s true feelings, the choices I made would’ve been difficult, and no matter what I’d decided, I would’ve been filled with guilt or resentment.

Major made it so easy for me because I didn’t have to choose my education over him, or vice versa. With every opportunity I was offered, he was my biggest cheerleader, always encouraging me to go after what I wanted.

“I don’t know what to say, Major.”

“You don’t have to say anything. None of what I said excuses how I handled it, but I wanted you to know what was going through my mind. I wanted an opportunity to apologize and explain. I wish I’d been equipped with the tools to navigate our relationship better. I hate that my actions are the reason we haven’t spoken in six years. I pray you can find it in your heartto forgive me for hurting you, and that you will give me the opportunity to fix what’s broken between us.”

This man . . . this six-foot-three, two-hundred-and-sixty-pound man, with milk chocolate skin, a Caesar cut with waves, beautiful brown eyes encased in the most adorable lashes and thick brows, a perfect nose that let the world know his DNA started in the motherland, smooth full lips that matched his skin tone, and was surrounded by a beard that was long enough for me to grab . . . let a single tear fall from each of his eyes.

He didn’t lift his hand to wipe them away, but let them trickle down his cheeks, down to his chin, and onto his shirt.

“I forgive you, Major, but you hurt me to my core, and the shit is hard to forget. I don’t know if I can trust?—”

“Don’t say that shit, Lovie. Don’t say it.”

“It took me years to get to a place that I could remotely trust another man. I went to therapy for three years, trying to figure out why the man who claimed to love me more than anything in this world would stop talking to me with no warning. I couldn’t eat, sleep, or work for months, and as soon as I started to resemble my old self a tiny bit, I found out you . . . you had . . . you had a baby.”

I was bawling my eyes out, and Major had moved from the other end of the couch, took my glasses off and put them on the table, then wrapped me in his arms. It had been years since I thought about that time in my life because of how emotional it made me.

“Baby, I’m so fucking sorry. Please stop crying.”

“I spiraled right back into darkness. The pain was so deep, it felt like you had died, and I was drowning in grief.”

We slowly rocked back and forth as he consoled me. His hand rubbed up and down my arm while he pressed his lips against the top of my head and my mass of curls. My sniffles filled theroom, and I was grateful he didn’t try to fill the relative silence with words.

He’d already apologized, and I believed he was truly sorry. I’d forgiven him while I was in therapy, but the hurt was still very much present, and something told me he was the only person who could make it go away. It was only fair that I give him the opportunity to do so.

My tears had stopped, but we remained in the same position for a while. I inhaled his familiar scent, the same scent I’d bought him when we were in our twenties, and it was comforting.

“You good, baby?” he finally asked.

“I’m fine.”

He released me, and I lifted my head from his chest. He took my hands in his and massaged the back of them with his thumbs.

“I don’t know what I can do to heal the hurt I caused, but I’ll spend the rest of my life trying. At the end of the day, your happiness was and still is my priority. I watched my mother put off her education and her dreams while my father pursued his. She was a great mother, but she wanted to be more than that. Her eyes couldn’t hide her unhappiness, and one day, I asked her about it.”

“You did?’

“Yeah, when I was about ten or eleven, I asked her why she always looked sad, and her answer always stuck with me.”

“What did she say?”

“She said she looked sad because there were things she wanted to do with her life, but she didn’t have time to do them because she was a wife and a mother. Her words stuck with me, and I promised myself that I’d never get in the way of the woman I love pursuing her dreams.”