Page 235 of Kentrell

Not soft tears. Not the cute, dramatic sniffles you see in movies.

Ugly. Full-body. Shoulders-shaking, face-in-my-sleeves kind of crying.

For her. For my mama. For the little girl she used to be—lost and angry and running headfirst into decisions she didn’t deserve to have to make just to survive.

For the woman she became, still standing, still fighting, still carrying all that pain and pride on her back like armor she never got to take off.

And for me.

For every time I’d judged her without knowing the full story. For every moment I thought I had her figured out when really… I didn’t know her at all.

Her strength wrapped itself around me like a weighted blanket, heavy but oddly comforting.

And then… there was him.

Kentrell.

The thought of him hit me like another wave.

This man I loved so boldly, so recklessly, even when I swore I wouldn’t. Even when I told myself I was smarter than this. Evenwhen I tried to tuck my heart away like it wasn’t already gone for him.

Loving him felt like jumping off a building with no parachute and still trusting the wind to catch me.

My tears shifted from sadness to something warmer. Still messy. Still chaotic. But full of something that felt like hope. Like relief.

I buried my face in my knees, let myself cry until there was nothing left but hiccups and shallow breaths.

Then, still curled in that chair, wrapped in his hoodie and every broken, beautiful piece of my history… I finally exhaled.

The sound of the front door clicking open barely registered at first.

The beeping from the security pad on the wall followed, soft and familiar, but distant—like everything else around me after the crying fit I’d just survived. I was still shaky, my face puffy and warm, my cheeks blotchy and pink from all the tears I’d let loose.

“Zoe?”

I froze.

Even with the media room door closed and me tucked downstairs, I knew that voice anywhere. Kentrell.

I waited, holding my breath like that might buy me a few more seconds to pull myself together.

“Zoe—where you at, ma?”

His voice rang out again, closer this time, laced with that low edge of concern that made my stomach twist.

I scrambled up from the theater chair, practically stumbling toward the hallway bathroom like my life depended on it. Flicking the faucet on, I splashed cold water on my face, gasping a little as the chill hit my skin. Grabbing a towel, I ran it under the faucet, wrung it out, and dabbed under my eyes and along my cheeks, trying to erase the obvious.

It helped… but not enough.

My face still told on me. Puffy. Red. Raw from crying.

But avoiding him wasn’t an option. Not now. Not ever really.

I took one last deep breath, cut the water off, and left the bathroom, stepping into the hall just as I heard his footsteps rounding the corner.

“Zoe!”

We nearly collided—me heading back toward the media room, him coming out of it. His hands shot out, steadying me as he caught me against his chest.

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