Page 22 of Overdue Feelings
“And now look at the three of you. Brought right back together. I told you years ago when that quiet one broke your heart that anything meant to be would return.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t, because everything she was saying was speaking to my soul. The universe pulled the three of us back together, and I was tired of pretending like I didn’t see it. Didn’t feel it. Ever since the storm a week ago, something had shifted between the three of us. The way Ares looked at me, how he’d been talking to me more. Even if I didn’t say much back. The way Zae looked at him, and the way I couldn’t look at either of them too long without remembering what it used to feel like being seen, loved, and protected by both of them.
I loved Zae. That had never changed and never would, but there was something magnetic about Ares, about our bond. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but it was there and always had been. The same could be said for Zae and me.
“Gigi?” I asked quietly, almost scared of what I was about to say. What I was about to admit to my eighty three-year-old grandmother. Gigi looked up at me. Her face said she already knew what I was about to say. “Is it wrong to love both of them?” I whispered. “To want both of them?”
She didn’t say anything for a second, probably gathering her words. Then she reached back and touched my leg.
“Baby, love doesn’t have to be squeezed into somethin’ small just to make other folks comfortable. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with lovin’ more than one person, as long as you all are honest with one another. As long as it’s real. You only get one life, baby, and you get to define all parts of it on your terms.”
Suddenly, my eyes stung, and my hands couldn’t move.
“Both them boys hold a piece of you, and I know Ares left. You been carryin’ that heartbreak for a long time, but you don’t have to keep holdin’ that pain. Forgivin’ him don’t mean you forget—it just means you’re finally lettin’ yourself heal.” Gigi gave me a long look. “Love for him didn’t stop growin’ in you, even after he left. So maybe it’s time to let it bloom.”
I stood suddenly. My chest felt too heavy. Gigi was definitely with it today.
“I’ll be right back. I just… I need some air.” I wandered down the hall to my old room without thinking and went inside. Any time I ventured into her collection of my high school memorabilia, nostalgia smacked me in the face. I’d tried to get Gigi to change it, but she refused. She said it was how she wanted to remember me. I walked over to my old closet and pulled out the only box that was inside it. I hadn’t touched it in years.
Moving to my bed, I sat down and opened it. I rifled through old photos from high school. My prom keepsakes, Zae’s old basketball headlines, to the old, faded letter, I’d read too many times. Ares’s words were still there. Still painful. I put it back down and rifled through the box until I found the old, braided, blue and gold string bracelet. I ran my thumb over the knots and sat there remembering all the good times and bad ones we’d had, and for the first time in a long time, I let myself wonder what it would feel like to let go. To forgive him. To let it be more than just a memory that still made my chest ache.
“You’ve been holding something in all night,” Zae said as he walked up on me from behind. Of course, he had noticed I was off. He always noticed. I let out a deep breath and rinsed the last fork from dinner, watching nothing out the window. Gigi was already in bed, and Ares our unexpected dinner guest, had stepped outside.
“I’m fine.” I didn’t turn around.
“You ain’t,” he said, voice low as he took me into his arms. “You been quiet. Barely touched your food. You didn’t even laugh when Ares brought up that busted-ass car he had senior year.”
That almost made me smile. Almost. My mind was too frazzled, still stuck on the events of today. Zae and Ares’s sudden blossoming friendship; Zae inviting him over to dinner after the yard work like it was the most natural thing in the world… like this wasn’t the man we’d learned to hate together. Maybe for him, it was that easy.
But for me? It was a lot. A thousand what ifs and how could this be bouncing around in my head.
Watching Ares laugh with Gigi and pass Zae the sweet tea like no years had passed. Like he hadn’t left me with a heart full of firsts and no goodbye. Thathurt, and the worst part was the more he smiled at me, the more I wanted to forgive him. The more I wanted to forget, and that scared the hell out of me.
“You don’t gotta hold it in no more, C. Healing don’t mean ignoring the hurt; it means you have to address it.” He pulled me in closer, and I let his warmth wrap around me like a blanket. “I asked him to stay for a minute tonight. Y’all need to talk. I got my healing. It’s time you get yours.” His words were gentle. He kissed my cheek and walked out of the kitchen like he hadn’t just cracked me open.
I stood there for a minute. My hands still wet, chest caving, heart doing the absolute most. Then I grabbed a paper towel,dried my hands, and made my way toward Gigi’s front door. Zae was already outside waiting and standing at the bottom of the porch like he did every night. He didn’t say anything, he just offered his hand, and I took it.
We walked in silence, until it was too loud for me to handle.
“I don’t know if I’m ready to feel everything that comes with forgiving him, Zae,” I admitted. “I don’t want to be confused about us. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Zae’s feet slowed, and he turned to look at me.
“You’re not confused, and you’re not going to hurt me.”
“I’m not sure.” I stopped walking altogether, pulling him to a stop.
“C, I knew you loved Ares before you did. Same way I know you still do.”
“Huh?”
“I want you to be whole, even if that means I have to let someone else have you.”
I swallowed hard, heart thudding in my chest at a loss for words. What was he saying? Zae didn’t say anything else. He pulled me the rest of the way to our house. We reached our front steps and paused at the door, then he nodded toward the back.
“He’s on the sun porch. It’s time to let go, C.”
I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. Zae leaned in and kissed me slow, grounding me without saying a word. When he pulled back, he looked me dead in the eyes.
