"Ain't no fish over there," Pierre said, shaking his head. "You wasting your bait."
Chi'lo frowned harder. "You just mad cause I caught two already."
"You caught two baby ass fish," Pierre replied.
"Fish still fish."
Noles laughed. "That boy got you there."
Juste didn't say much. He sat near the front of the boat, rod resting against his shoulder, watching the water the way Pops used to. I reeled my line in slow and checked the bait, it was gone. "Damn," I muttered under my breath.
Noles heard it anyway. "You ain't caught shit all day," he said, grinning.
"I ain't trying to impress nobody."
"That sound like pussy talk." I didn't answer. Just baited the hook again and cast it back out. The line landed smooth on the surface. Time moving slow enough to notice it. I sat there longer than I expected to. Just watching the water. Listening to the voices around me. And for a minute, I almost forgot about everything waiting back in the city. But problems didn't disappear just because you stepped away from them.
Eventually, the sun started dropping behind the trees. The sky turned orange first. Then purple. It got darker quick once the light started leaving. Eventually, everybody went their separate ways. Engines starting. Truck doors slamming. Headlights cutting through the dark. I drove home alone. The road back through stayed empty at night. The quiet in the truck gave my mind too much room to move. It drifted where it had been drifting all day, back home to my family.
I pulled up in the front yard to see Nia sitting on the front porch. She was smoking a blunt and writing in a journal as she rocked back and forth in the rocking chair she sat in. The porch light above her cast a soft yellow glow across the front of the house. She had a scarf tied around her head. One leg crossed over the other as the chair moved slow beneath her. The smoke drifted upward into the night air before disappearing. I watched her as she looked up to see that I had pulled up. Our eyes met for a second. Then she turned her attention back to what she was doing, like I hadn't even pulled up. That hit me in my chest harder than I expected.
I sat in the truck a minute longer with the engine running. Watching the slow movement of the rocking chair. The scratch of her pen moving across the page. The glow of the blunt between her fingers. She didn't look angry. Her face was neutral, and she was calm, like she had already accepted something.
I damn near growled in anger at the thought, because the truth was simple. Women who still cared usually said something. They argued and demanded answers. Silence didn't mean peace; it meant distance. I watched her for a minute, thinking about our life from start to where we were now. The first time I met her. The way she used to look at me like I was the center of her world. The years that came after. The kids, the house, the routine. Everything we built together. And somewhere along the way, that version of us had started fading.
I started to feel guilty about the shit I had been on lately. The nights I wasn't home. The lies I didn't even bother explaining anymore. The distance I kept pretending wasn't there. Guilt was a strange feeling. Men like me didn't sit around with it or unpack it. I recognized it for what it was: consequences.
We either fixed the problem or ignored it. But sitting there watching her write in that journal like I wasn't even part of the picture anymore, I understood something I hadn't been ready to admit. Something had already changed between us. Not because of one moment, but because of time. Time and choices. And the cold truth about choices was once you made enough of them, you didn't get to pretend they didn't shape the outcome.
Before it could eat at me, I backed out of the driveway and pulled away from the house. The tires rolled slow across the gravel as I turned onto the road. I didn't look back. I drove to the outskirts of town through trees before I reached the smallhouse that was ducked off in the woods. The road turned from pavement to gravel about a mile back, tires crunching slow as I eased my way down the narrow stretch. Pines closed in on both sides like they were swallowing the road whole. No streetlights out here. No neighbors close enough to notice who came or went.
It was small but nice. I could tell it had been remodeled recently. Fresh siding. New windows. Porch light glowing faint against the dark woods behind it. More importantly, it was remote, in the middle of nowhere. I barely got cell service out here. That had been part of the reason I kept coming back. I sat out in the truck with the lights shining on the house, wrestling with myself. The engine idled low beneath me, vibrating through the steering wheel. I rested both hands on it staring through the windshield at the porch light.
For a second I almost put the truck in reverse. Nia's face flashed in my mind again. The way she sat in that rocking chair like I was just another car passing by. That look stayed with me longer than I wanted it to. I rubbed a hand over my jaw. This was simple and necessary. That's what I kept telling myself. I finally turned the car off and walked up to the front door. Gravel crunched under my shoes as I stepped out. The night air was thick and still. No wind. No noise except the occasional insect buzzing through the trees. I knocked once before she snatched the door open with the baby tucked against her shoulder sleep. “Give me a second to lay him down," she said letting me in.
I stared at the ceiling, watching the ceiling fan spin. The blades moved slow above me cutting through the dark room insteady circles. The baby monitor sat on the dresser displaying a video of the baby in his crib, and the room was dark. I had my hands behind my head, and Jade was snuggled up against me as close as she could get. Her breathing was slow and steady against my chest. But my mind wasn't quiet. My demons was on my ass bad. I hadn't been able to sleep good since I laid down. I'd tossed and turned, unable to sleep for more than an hour at a time.
The ceiling fan spun. The monitor flickered faintly. The house stayed quiet except for the occasional rustle from the crib on the screen. I figured it was God punishing me for the shit I was doing. That thought didn't make me move though. I shifted slightly trying to get comfortable. Jade moved closer without waking. Her arm draped across my stomach. For a second I closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind. But thoughts had a way of creeping back in when the room got quiet enough.
This was another situation I kept pretending was temporary. Eventually, the exhaustion caught up with me. I got so lost in my thoughts that I finally drifted off to sleep. It didn't feel like deep sleep, though. More like my body shutting down for a minute. I felt like I was sleep all of thirty minutes before Jade was shaking me awake. Her hand gripped my shoulder hard. "Jules," she whispered urgently.
My eyes opened slow. The room was still dark, but something felt wrong immediately. When I opened my eyes, Juste and Pierre stood at the end of the bed with their guns drawn, silencers clear. For a second, my brain didn't catch up with what my eyes were seeing. The look on Juste's face made my stomach churn. It was cold and controlled, letting me know decisions were final before he stepped through the door.
I knew my eyes were bloodshot red. He made eye contact with me before shaking his head. That small movement said everything. Before I could say or do anything, he let off a round, sending a bullet right between Jade's eyes, making her body collapse back on the bed, life gone from her body. The sound was barely more than a soft thud. The silence that followed was louder than any gunshot. My ears rang anyway. I didn't react, shit, I couldn't. I just stared at her lifeless body. Her body lay twisted beside me, blood spreading dark across the sheets. "Get dressed and let's fuckin go," Juste said through his teeth, leaving the room with Pierre in tow.
My body moved before my mind caught up. I jumped up getting dressed eyes focused on Jade's dead body while trying to wake up fully and process what happened at the same time. My shirt stuck slightly to my skin as I pulled it on. The movement on the baby monitor took my attention. A small blur shifting in the crib. I moved out of the room quick down the hall to her son's room. Juste and Pierre stood on either side of the room and Noles stood over the crib staring down at the baby that was now awake and staring back up at him.
The baby didn't cry. Just stared up, with no clue of the world he had just woke up in. Small fists moving slowly. "You know I told y'all my wife be seeing shit, and she don’t miss." Noles spoke breaking the silence. Nobody answered. "Would y'all believe me if I told y'all she saw this baeeebbyy?" He questioned. He turned locking eyes with Juste. I saw something in Noles' face I'd never seen before. He was pleading, almost begging. Not with words. With his eyes.
We all knew what was on his mind. Ayida was the baby's biological aunt. It wouldn't make a difference if they raised him as their own. Juste stayed quiet a long second. Then he spoke."Wrap him up in a blanket and let's get the fuck outta here. Don't take shit not even the car seat." Noles moved immediately. He picked the baby up slow, wrapping the blanket around him tight. Then Juste turned his attention to me. His eyes locked on mine. "Get the fuck outta here Jules." His voice stayed low. "Get yo tender dick dumb ass the fuck away from here. Now." He said never taking his eyes off mine.
I frowned finding myself ready to argue back with him. Words almost came. But Pierre stepped between us pushing me in the chest. "Get the fuck on Ju," he said. I stared at the both of them a second. Then nodded once and turned to leave. The night air hit my face the second I stepped outside. Cooler than before. Or maybe I just felt colder now. I walked toward my truck without looking back at the house. Because I already knew what was behind me. And what it meant. Control ain't control, when it cost you everything.
nia
"Juste swear he had a talk with them, but we both know how that probably went. I'm just gon buy condoms and put them in the bathroom. I refuse to deal with anybody’s damn baby mama drama." Chiana's voice came through the car's speaker. It was early Monday morning, and I was on the way back home from dropping the kids off at school. The sky was still pale and quiet. A thin layer of fog sat low over the road, drifting between the trees like it hadn't decided whether to leave yet. The air hummed softly through the vents and the tires rolled steady against the asphalt.
The last two months had gone by at a slow, steady pace. I'd found myself healing more and more. That surprised me at first. For so long, I thought healing was supposed to feel dramatic. Something loud and emotional like the movies made it look. But real healing came quiet. Like small spaces opening up inside of me that I hadn't noticed were closed.