Ethic 2

by Ashley Antoinette

“You say you like to dance. Dance on it, shorty.”

Their demise was inevitable, but still he couldn’t stay away. God, please don’t let me fuck this up. Please don’t let her ever see me for the nigga I am without her. She can’t love that. She won’t love that.

He didn’t want her to be a ride or die. What was that anyway? Women reducing themselves to make a man feel whole? Women sticking out lies and infidelity just to say she had a piece of a man?

“The day you had a bitch coming to my door to confront me about some community dick was the day your privilege of asking me questions ended,” she

She knew if it hadn’t been true he would have said so. Ethic had taught her, “Your name is your name. Integrity is everything. Never let anyone taint your name. Stand in your truth, always, Bella.”

She recognized deflection because he had taught her that as well. “A man will answer you straight up. Truth is truth. It doesn’t require time to manufacture and it never changes,”

“You know you can change the play, right? If Morgan is a factor,” Isa said. ​“Nothing’s changed. That’s the one thing Mo don’t change. The play is the same,” Messiah said.

Story of a black woman’s life…faking like everything was okay, when really, they were just epitomes of struggle disguised as strength…all burdened by something that a man had put on her heart.

“Love isn’t an explanation. It’s a feeling. It can’t be learned in a book or presented in front of a class. It’s not meant for everyone to understand,”

There wasn’t a doubt in Ethic’s mind that Messiah loved Morgan the best he knew how and with all he had. It resonated in the young bull’s eyes fiercely.

The same passion he would love Morgan with, he would mishandle her with if things went wrong.

“I killed your daughter,” Ethic said. “Although, if you were a man and you were here to protect her, to provide for her and the woman that carried her, I suspect she would have never been there to begin with. That’s neither here nor there. Her death is still on me. A horrible accident that I’ll never atone for, but still, her blood is on my hands. Now, I’m right here in front of you, nigga. What we going to do about it?”

One man’s something was another man’s something else. It was all about how a man perceived the value of a woman. “She don’t got to fuck with me another day of her life and that’ll still be me. The wind blow a tress of her hair the wrong way and I’ma think you got too rough with her. Keep your hands to yourself before I take ‘em. You got me?”

The realization of what could have been made him realize Ethic’s logic. Good girls and gangsters. Oil and water. They didn’t belong together. The risk was greater than just distraction. He wasn’t willing to risk her life. He had to love her enough to know that he wasn’t the man for her, despite how much he revered her.

If I ever have to make the choice between your life and someone else’s life, I’m obligated to choose you, Bella…the three of you. Sometimes, that makes me the bad guy. To Alani, I’m the bad guy. I’m no good for her.”

“Love isn’t enough, sometimes,”

He could never comprehend how black women managed the type of strength they possessed. He had seen a lot of things in his lifetime that had made him question God’s existence, but the

strength of melanin-drenched women had to be divine. There was no other explanation for it.

“Run away from the boy that gives you butterflies. He’s going to break your heart. Marry the one who makes you feel solid. He feels boring and predictable, but he’s safe and he knows he’s lucky to have you, so he’ll never mess it up.”

“Nigga going to get his bitch before another nigga fix what he breaking,” Ahmeek stated from the backseat.

Messiah was butterflies and Morgan didn’t care about what heartbreaks lie ahead. She didn’t care about the extreme lows. This high was worth it. His kisses were like sex. No dick required to make her cum. This man was a drug.

Morgan was too young to know that men never put their lives on pause. In love or not, they moved how they moved whenever they wanted to; and at the moment, Messiah was choosing to move away from her.

“So, this is where all the niggas have been hiding in Michigan?” Aria said, as she scanned the block from the passenger side of Morgan’s Benz. ​Morgan shook her head. “Nah, girl. These are all hood niggas with good dick and empty promises. You don’t want no parts.” ​Aria laughed. “Dick ain’t good if it don’t come with a little lie on it.”

You only get these next few years to be young. If it’s supposed to be me and you, it’ll still be there…”

“I apologize for the shit tonight. If I had known you were coming to town I would have never put you in that position. You think I’m out here doing me, but the only time I’m free to be me is when I’m locked in that small-ass apartment with you. That’s real. That’s me.”

I want to secure your heart, but you don’t know what you’re signing up for. You don’t know the half. I want to put your heart in a cage and not let another mu’fucka get to it for the rest of your life because I know when you finally see me for who I am, I’ma lose you. So, I want to trap you. That’s not love. That’s possession. That’s dirty, shorty. If you trap a butterfly it dies. If you love something you let it go.”

“You’re always breaking me. You give me hope that what we have is real and then you pull out every time! How is that fair? You can’t do the things you’ve done to me and then just walk away. I don’t care about what I don’t know. Whatever it is that you’re afraid to show me…afraid to tell me…I won’t care. Nothing will make me not want you. I won’t make it years. What am I supposed to do without you?”

whomever loved the hardest hurt the worst in the end.

I’m gon’ fuck up her whole world.

A scorned woman had a special way of hurting a man, of hitting him low, of digging her nails deeply into a wound.

I’ve done a lifetime worth of shit for niggas to look at you and see a target. Your last name makes you a target. You know how many niggas around this city your daddy ghosted coming up? He was a fucking king around here. He left wives without husbands. Children without fathers. He took people brothers away. All these old beefs, vendettas against you for so many reasons, and you don’t even know it. A nigga who don’t mean you no good could be staring you right in your face and you wouldn’t know it until it’s too late.

Naïveté will get you killed.

red means dead,”

You should be so comfortable you can fire without flinching. Now, quit stalling,”

Women who try to force that, who weasel their way into that spot, those are the ones who end up disappointed…bitter. When a man cheat. When a man lies,” Ethic struggled the words out because his pain was high and talking was a struggle, but he needed her to hear him loud and clear. “Most men would take you, would sleep with you because you’re beautiful, would wife you knowing they ain’t really in it all the way, then they would cheat on you, they would dog you and keep you right at home in pocket because they know you ain’t going nowhere. I’m not trying to do that. You’re just not her.”

Women were always comparing, always judging based on superficial things. None of which mattered. A man wanted who he wanted. If she was at a low place when he met her, he would uplift her. It just took the right woman to make a man want to put in the effort.

Ethic loved the way Morgan loved and remembered Raven, but she was ill-informed. Raven’s connection to Mizan is what ruined her entire family. It was what got her father killed. Ethic wouldn’t tarnish her image. He wanted Mo to keep Raven on that pedestal, but Ethic knew that he had fallen in love with Raven despite those things.

“Men have the power to take pieces of me. That night, with two different men, they took two pieces. There are holes where those pieces used to be. I don’t know how to fill them. It feels like I’ll always have to say yes to a man, because what’s the point of saying no? They’ll just do what they want anyway …like that night.”

Women are the most powerful creatures on Earth. Yes, men are stronger, but women are sharper. Women are thinkers. Those holes will never be filled if you don’t talk about how you feel.

poor Ethic, was always last, always lonely, and he needed someone.

it would be to always love yourself. Love everything about yourself, even the things that you think are no good because they are extraordinary. There is only one you and God made you perfectly in His image. Love that image every time you look in the mirror because you are beautiful, and you are valuable. Never let anyone treat you like you are cheap.”

Ethic’s love knew no limits and Alani was floored. She led Bella out of the church and to her car, in complete disbelief of how Ethic could be so dreadful but so incredible all at the same time. She wished she could love like that, without boundaries, but boundaries were necessary. Boundaries kept guns out of her hands and kept her out of the woes of depression. Boundaries kept them separated; and as long as they were separate, they were safe.

“If you do it with this house you can do it with the one next door and the one next to that. Before you know it, you’re a black woman with a whole block...with assets.”

A man that loved a woman put her in position to elevate.

“Messiah, just tell her. If you love her, you have to tell her. If she finds out from anyone but you, she’ll never forgive you,” Bleu advised. ​“She’ll never forgive me anyway, so I just got to run up the clock with her while I can,” Messiah said, voice low and pained. “I’m going to lose her and I ain’t talking about breakup to make up shit, sis. I’m talking about lose the one good thing I ever knew. I’m selfish with her, trying to squeeze all the time in I can get before it’s over. It’s gon’ fuck me up. I can feel it.”

“It’s a ring that a man gives a woman he wants to spend his life with. Not a man like me, a square-ass nigga, one of them college boys,” Messiah whispered. “I’ll never be that, Mo. I’ll probably never be able to be that, but I want you to have the ring, a ring from me, to know that I loved you as much as any man can love a woman. When this is over, and you’ve learned what not to accept in a nigga because of my fuck ups, you’ll find somebody else. That man will be smart enough to not mess it up, but I want you to always have something to remind you that if I was able to, I would have made an honest woman out of you, Mo.”

This man, who was supposed to be her man, was solid. He was dependable. He was consistent.

I can do a lot, but I can’t do this part for you. I can do everything after this. I can hold you while you cry, I can kiss him before we lay him to rest, but this is your part.

Ethic had hesitated to take Cream away from her, but now she was burying her son…their son…but she knew in this moment it was fuck her. This was his son.

“You kept the fact that I had a child growing inside you away from me. You convinced my daughter to lie to my face every day. I could have had months. I could have loved him for months. If I had known he would still be here,” Ethic’s voice cracked, but he quickly gathered himself.