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“I don’t know what to do.” Vulnerability cracked his voice. “It’s like you’re right there…but I don’t what the fuck to do to get you back here.”
“But I’m willing to do anything. I hope you know that. Just tell me what to do.” He felt like a child begging for direction to please a parent but falling short without guidance. Like he was constantly taking a test he didn’t study for.
“I wanted you to spend time together and remember what it was like to be friends. Remember how you fell in love and see if there was even a possibility in the future for it. Without the lust clouding it.”
“I think I can work on it. I think I can eventually forgive you. But I can’t make any promises on where that will lead. I’m willing to try, though.”
“I think…I think I love you more than you could ever comprehend, baby love.”
“More than I even imagined love existing. Like the fucking endless realm of infinite space where no one has ever seen. I love you past that shit, Tahli. And I think…” Vin wet his lips, tasting the bitterness of his thoughts before they turned into words. “Fuck,” he blew out, a cold sweat chilling his forehead.
“I think…that this is really over.”
I’m sorry what????
“I used to pride myself on your happiness, Tahli. I judged myself as a man based on how big your smile was. But that was deception. Because I was holding back the full truth from you. So, I wasn’t a good man. I was mimicking one. Baby love, I fear that you would’ve been so much more if you hadn’t met me. But I latched myself to you anyway. And I let you pull me up as far into the clouds as you could. But you were always supposed to go higher.”
“You were meant for so much more than me, Tahli, and I stole you before you could realize it.”
“I put a lot of shit before Dalvin Jr., too.” Vin cleared the agony from his throat, taking a break from looking at her.
As much as I hate how I hurt you, Tahli, I hate what I did to him more. Because you and I both know what happens in our childhoods is so delicate. It shapes us forever. And I may have fucked his up. Inadvertently what happened to him was at my hands. That man knew DJ didn’t have a steady father in his life. So, if it’s not too late, I gotta repair that.”
“Baby, you’ll never forgive me for him, and you shouldn’t have to. But he also shouldn’t live feeling that burden.”
Vin pls don’t pmo rn
Thank you for trying. But you have to heal. And I have to let you. You can’t do that shit with me here keeping the wound open.
Like you said once, sometimes we don’t get to keep the loves of our lives, but it doesn’t diminish shit. Tahli, I’ve learned from you. I’ve grown from you.
Our story is etched in fucking time. And that clown wasn’t the guy for you, but neither am I.
???????????????????
“I love you, baby. I really fucking do. That’s why I can’t let you hurt like this while you try to forgive me.” Vin thumbed her cheek. Leaned in and kissed her lips so tenderly, they barely touched. For the last time. Fuck.
Life is a whole bunch of maybes and what-ifs, baby girl.
“Pain is a scary son of a bitch,
People do all kinds of shit to escape the burn. But you can’t run from that motherfucker. You gotta sit in it. Then it starts to dissipate. But the thing is, you’ve tried everything but sitting in it. You gotta sit in it.
Robert…I may be what you want…But she’s everything you need. I love you so much. Don’t ever doubt it.
Never let anyone tie you down, never give up on your dreams. Never lose yourself.
Something Tahli was still battling with. Finding a true source of happiness. And doing what it takes to attain in.
To deem someone flawed suggests that you believe they have deviated from perfection. But there is no perfection. People are people.
how her
perfectionism was a trauma response to her mother’s neglect.
“Grab my hair and shove it down my throat, Vin.” “You still the nastiest mothafucka, huh?”
“When’s the last time you had your pussy ate?” A successful businessman. A father. A failed husband. But always a nigga first.
Always have my own thing going? Never get all wrapped up in boys? Let them come to you. Enjoy my youth. Focus on my goals.”
She’d cried in Turks & Caicos. Who the fuck cries in Turks & Caicos?
“That’s why I had to let you go. If we were ever going to have a shot at forever. But I wasn’t going anywhere. You were gonna go and I was gonna stand right there until you found your way back.”
Vin blinked slowly, as Tahli sang about not being good at forgiving. A fucking statue at the doorway as seated guests swayed to her soothing voice. To his baby love’s magic.
“It’s crazy, cause…I was asking myself that the whole time I was on my way. On the drive to the airport… on the plane… I was like what the fuck are you doing, Tahli?”
“I can’t forget what you did,” she uttered. Although understandable, the redundancy was agonizing. “But I don’t want to, Vin. I want to remember it. Then, I want to remember the work we did to get past it. That’s if you want to keep doing the work.”
“I’ve been finding pockets of peace lately,” Tahli revealed, taking breaks from his eye contact before blessing him again. “And I’ve been getting back to myself. But there’s something missing,” she looked at him to say.
“And for a second…just a second…” cries chopped her words, “I thought I was still yours. And I was so happy, Vin. Then when that fire happened…” The tears he held back leaked from her sockets.
“And I know that you think I can’t be happy if I’m with you. Because I thought that, too. That I’d look at you and be reminded of what you did. But you not being there reminds me, too.” Tahli sniveled. “Taking you out of the equation doesn’t help me, Vin. Your absence is too big. You’re not there when I sleep…or when I eat. When I cry…” “Baby love…”
“I don’t care, Vin. I don’t care who judges me, not even myself. I can do my life without you. I know that now. I think we’ve both learned that we’re capable of living without each other. But…I don’t want to, baby,” her pretty face shook.
“And there’s no excuse for what you did, but I know I didn’t create the safest space for communication between us.” “Don’t put that shit on you, Tahli.”
🥹🥹🥹
“I’m not. But I can be honest with myself that our foundation was not as perfect as I imagined. I have work to do, too. You’re still growing and I’m still growing, but I want to do this shit together. Because I love you now, and I’ll love you later. The next version of you, I’ll love his ass, too.” Vin swallowed that down.
“Dalvin, you are mine.” Tahli slapped her chest. “Me? I’m in here.”
She slammed her hands between his pecs. “This?” Tahli aimed a finger at her parachute tattoo and Vin swallowed the rest of her sentence in a kiss, because he was going to bust out of his fucking skin. There was some clapping. A reminder that they were not up in the clouds.
“Did you really come back to me?” “Yes, baby.” His face laid against hers. Holy fuck.
“Dalvin?” she whispered, parting his lids. “Yeah, baby love.” He sniffed. “Can I, um…” She smiled up at him, licking tears from her lips. “Can I take you for the best steak you ever had in your life?”
“Tahli Hall, I’m gonna fucking adore you until we’re old and gray if you give me the chance to. You don’t ever have to worry about me keeping shit else from you again.
I’m gonna be so fucking transparent with you, baby love, you gonna hate it. I’m talking about every time I eat, sleep, fucking piss…” She sputtered laughter through tears. “I can’t believe you’re here. Tahli, I swear to God, I’ll never jeopardize you again.” “I think I know that,” she gifted him unexpected trust. “Come on. There’s one more thing.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t run from this beautiful moment, Dalvin. You have amazing children who love you. Who couldn’t wait to surprise you. Baby, I love you. You deserve that love, Dalvin. Just like I deserve the love you have for me.”
“You don’t get it, Tahli. I was coming to terms with this shit,” he sniffed in composure. “I accepted that I fucked it all up because certain shit was never for me. I accepted that I lost you, as much as it gutted me to, because I deserved to feel that. Now you’re here with the house…and the kids… I wanna drop to my knees and thank God for his mercy, but I also don’t wanna get my fucking hopes up. I can’t keep losing you, baby love. I don’t know if I can survive another round of that shit.”
“We both handled our trauma in different ways…but ultimately, we never knew how to receive love fully. Me? I created expectations for love, knowing many wouldn’t be able to live up to them. Eventually, someone would make a mistake, and I’d never have to worry about being abandoned. Because I would do the abandoning.
“I get it now, Vin. The house had to burn down.” “What?” He cleared his throat. “The house,” she insisted. “Our house literally had to burn down, baby. So, we can rebuild it from the ashes.”
didn’t earn your love, but you gave it to me anyway.
