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“Baby love…I know you hate me. I know I lost you.” Tahli swallowed a bowling ball, unsure of his direction. “But I would fuck the shit out of you if you need me to.”
“He’s your emotional support dog,” Vin corrected, calm and disrespectfully.
🤣🤣🤣
“It’ll go away, right? It has to. With time. Because it’s normal to think about your ex when he’s all you’ve known. But…it’s just sex. He’s still the same deceitful…lying...heartbreaker-ass Vin,” Tahli rambled, gnawing on her thumb skin. A fleeting thought raised her brows.
you convincing us or you?
“Unless…he’s all healed and better and…” Tahli wet her lips, “and she’ll get that shit. She’ll get the great man he was minus the flaws that broke us. You know in my overthinking, I’ve replayed that night so many times. The night he made DJ.” Tahli tasted the bile from the confession.
ring the alarm
Drew. And Vin is with Strawberry Shortcake.” “You need therapy,” Abby fired off.
and does!
“Why? Because I’m a recovering addict?” Abby accused of Paige. “I know that’s what you were thinking.” “No. well…,” Paige angled her small head, her blond locs a shade brighter than Tahli’s. “I was thinking crackhead. But you’re not a crackhead. Which…why you ain’t never do crack, Abs? I mean, you did heroin. So, why not smoke a little crack? You got nothing to lose?”
🤣🤣🤣
“I don’t need a therapist. You know why? Because if they heal you, they stop getting paid. Vin’s going to therapy, and he just offered to fuck me on my dresser, knowing I’m engaged. So how healed is he? They cure problems and create new ones so that you can keep coming back. I’m good.”
so Vin didn't up date you on his findings?
“Nobody on God’s green earth knows how much I loved Vin. It ever occurred to you that I may have loved him more than I loved anybody? That’s why I can’t forgive this? Because he hurt me more than anybody could have?”
...she had him on a pedestal too
“I have dated all kinds of women, but I always knew the woman that would have my children would be a black woman. When I changed my mind about marriage, I knew it would be a black woman I married. A specific one, but still. For me…it’s natural. I don’t have to explain or make anyone understand what I’m feeling, when I’m feeling it, or why I’m feeling it. She gets my struggle. I get hers. Niggas who talk that game of other races catering to and respecting men better… From my walks of life, those other women were the most transactional experiences. Whether it’s finance or a fantasy…there’s a
...more
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make it a bookmark!
Vin. Go in there. Go back there!”
he can't always fix it babes
When he looked up, he met Paige’s wavering gaze. “I ain’t hugging yo’ ass, either,” she declared.
🤣🤣🤣
“Dalvin,” she uttered. “What do you need?” God, please no…don’t take this man’s mother. Not now. Not when he’s lost so much.
😢
“Send DJ in here and get to the hospital.”
That woman gave you that name, Isaiah. God saves. She believed in your salvation, but I think you have been hers. She may not have lived her life perfectly but I damn sure think she lived it for you. You kept her alive. You were her salvation. Her Isaiah.”
🥰
“Well, I don’t need no song because I don’t care no more.” DJ shrugged, so much like Vin. Or trying to be. Impermeable. “Only bad stuff happens to me. I wish I was never born.” “Don’t say that,” Tahli frowned. “Why? You wish I wasn’t born.”
😢
“Because I don’t have a fucking choice. I am alone,” he reminded her. Tahli broke the eye contact, before braving to join it again.
“It’s all a test, Terran. This part of life is just a test to see how we live it. How well we follow the rules. How good of a person we are. If we pass the test, we get to go on. Which is the real place we want to go. Then we get to see everyone we lost.”
gorgeous
“If the rules are the rules, then you believe in repentance. So maybe.” He was trying to make her feel better. “Maybe you’ll stop hating me in time to pray for me. Or sneak me in,” he snickered.
“Nah, you woke me up now, weirdo. I might as well get ready. You by a window?” “Yeah.” “Go look out of it.”
like at the hotel!
“…Apparently, she was battling ovarian cancer, and I never knew. She had her ovaries removed recently, also didn’t know that. Didn’t matter, according to Pru, her bandmate, boyfriend, whatever. It had spread. It was too late.” Tahli gave all of that evenly, without looking his way.
didn't let her say goodbye
Vin had to accept that. Perhaps, that’s all people wanted to do. Dance away their problems. Laugh away their problems. Consume and move on. Who gave a fuck about substance?
guess there's nothing wrong with just wanting to dance
Arms wrapped around his core in an embrace. Vin turned, expecting Dali or even DJ. His heart swelled when he realized it was Milo who had rushed to hug him goodbye. Vin hugged him back, kissing the top of his head.
🥰
That he wasn’t going to be alone again. That no matter what happened, life was gonna stop beating him down because he had me and he had Doll and Lo and then Terran. And I watched that heavy, Black-man weight leave his shoulders.
broken promise
“I don’t want you here. Get the fuck out!”
oh I remember this outburst
“Don’t.” She raised a hand. “You don’t have to apologize.” She sighed. “Just meet me in the car.”
still selfless
How cruel he had been to Sophie, neglectful to DJ. Dishonest to Tahli.
hmmmm
“Like I’m a chick.”
I love these reminders
“Thank you, Tahli. You really are too good to me.”
She straddled Vin with knees on either side of his legs.
not a cheater!!??!??!
“I took a risk and lost,” Vin seemed to mutter to himself. “I lost more than I ever should’ve gambled.”
“You, Vin. I need you.”
“In this bed I’m your bitch.”
“I’m sorry Dalvin.” She sighed. “You hurt me…but this was cruel.”
“I know enough about Dalvin to know you went over there to comfort him…out of the kindness of your heart…and he took advantage of the love you still have for him.”
🤣🤣🤣🤣
I’m what’s best for you, Tahli. Maybe we go slower… Maybe we communicate more. But I want you. Do you want me?”
oh yikes. Kevin 2.0. no wonder why he kept the jokes alive
She refused to be the woman who let a good man go for the second time, just because she was still a little fucked up over a bad one.
oh seee I'm with you when youre right my girl but this ain't it
“I know. But I want you more than I want to punish you for your mistakes.”
🚩
I just knew that after what he did, I didn’t have to be perfect for you anymore. Perfect Princess Tahli had gotten her heart broken by Superman Vin, and maybe the good guy would finally be good enough for her without all the fucking work.”
yo...tf is wrong with yall?
“Dalvin!” Don’t you do this to me, Dalvin Isaiah Hayes. Don’t you dare leave me for real.
She had failed him. She was all he had, and she had abandoned him. Yes, within good reason, for people practicing within reason and conditional love. But forget forgiveness, how would she live? How would she live in a world without Dalvin Isaiah Hayes existing in it?
“Bitch, you tried!”
what a wonderful day for you to die. Who are you calling a bitch?
Maybe that was how pain worked. Circling around until it found each person. Like energy. Like hate. Like love.
Afraid what they would find if they sat with themselves for too long. No one there to make up for where you fall short. What if you weren’t enough?
It would mean she was Cree Autumn not wanting her good guy, Tahli’s father.
knew it
“I just mean…I always felt whatever type of woman you viewed me as, you wanted to be complete opposite of it. I understand. You have always idolized your mother, and we are very different women. Tiffany was quite arcane. She believed in abandoning rules, doing whatever makes one fulfilled, and letting the world adjust. I always knew you admired that mystic aspect of her.”
“Yet, you never respected me for it. Which was how I knew you would never forgive Dalvin. You wouldn’t respect yourself.”
“I wasn’t there for her, Vin,” Tahli broke down in sobs. “I could’ve helped her!”
you can't always fix them all babes
“Stop trying to make sense of everything, Tahli,” he finally had to intervene.
“Just say the word, Tahli. If it’s one little fucking fraction of a chance…you gotta tell me. Am I picking this up right, or no?”
He always knew what Tahli was running from. Weakness. Even if there was strength in her honesty. Even if she was the strongest fucking person he knew.
