Page 147 of I Think They Love You

Then, Braylon breaks one final rule:

He leaves Denz behind before April sixth.

Hands shaking, Denz swallows the sour, smashed pieces of his heart. He stares out into the nothingness of an attachment he was never supposed to have.

“We’re pausing for an intermission,” Suki announces. “Please welcome the man of the hour, Kenneth Carter, to the stage.”

Thunderous applause kicks Denz into autopilot. The speeches are next. Then, his dad’s announcement. He beelines to his former spot under the staircase to prepare for the big moment. Problem is, you can’t prepare to face the world after the person you love walks away. There’s no cheat code. No five-step plan.

You can’t doanything.

Denz doesn’t realize he’s hyperventilating, a hand thrown over his mouth to stay quiet, until someone says, “Sweetheart?”

It’s Leena. She’s camera-ready, a regal goddess in her black dress paired with a string of pearls. Always the perfect Carter matriarch.

But the second she sees his face, she’s Mom.

“I just saw Braylon,” she whispers, edging closer. “He didn’t look… happy.”

Denz tries to slow his breaths. “He’s… he’s g—” Bile races up his throat. He gulps it down. “He’s gone.”

“Okay,” Leena says in that voice she used when Denz wasoverwhelmed in college. When he was a boy, knees scraped raw from falling off his bike, his dad nowhere around because of another event. “Breathe.”

“He’sgone.”

“Yes, I know. Sweetheart. Breathe.”

Denz does. With fire in his lungs. A storm in his stomach.

“Once more,” she requests. “Slow and easy.”

He follows his mom’s instructions. Feels the world coming into a gradual, vibrant focus.

“How’d you survive all of this?” Denz gesticulates behind her. To the party. At the empire his family helped Kenneth build. “How’d you make it work?”

His mom smiles empathetically, like she knows. Like she’s asked herself those same questions a million times in the mirror.

“I remember that, before all of this came along—” She gestures widely just like Denz did. “—I was LeeLee. Mom. Auntie Leena.”

Denz leans against the wall.

“Sweetheart, I stopped playing by their rules,” she adds. “I’m still Leena from Sandy Springs. The Spelman graduate who eats pickles straight from the jar. I’m me, take it or leave it.”

Denz would laugh if he could.

He knows what she’s not saying. That there are people who look at her—a successful Black woman—and try to minimize how great she is. Qualify it not by how hard she’s worked, but because of who she is. As if they gave her this. And they’ll try to strip it away if they can.

“I love your dad with mysoul,” she says, a spark in her eyes, “but I love myself too. I’m more than 24 Carter Gold. I’m more than a name or a face. Even when it’s hard.”

“It’s always hard these days,” Denz says, choked.

“We make tough decisions because it makes us better. Because life doesn’t always give us the easy answers.”

Denz inhales once more. He holds his mom’s gaze.

“If I would’ve known you and your sister were going to havepanic attacks on the same night, I’d never have let your dad retire,” she jokes. “I’d keep him chained to that damn desk until Mikah graduates high school.”

“He wouldn’t mind.”

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