Page 2 of And Everything In Between (Love By Any Means #3)

“I won these tickets at work to the Idle Hands car show over at the fairgrounds this weekend. I thought maybe you could stop babysitting grown folks for one day and go be young and sprung.” There was conversation one , dating .

Paige folded her arms and shook her head.

“I’m busy, Ma, too busy to be acting young and sprung.”

She hoped her mother would leave the conversation there, because she wasn’t making any promises.

She wanted to work. She wanted to mind her business.

She wanted to coast until she felt like putting the pedal to the metal.

Not worry about being young and sprung. Instead of answering her right away, Paige grabbed her blunt from outside and lit it again. She needed it to deal with her mother.

“Blasphemy, you’re always busy,” her momma snapped, snatching the blunt from Paige like she paid the light bill there. Myra knew her daughter too well. Paige had always been a fighter. For herself. For others. Like any Bishop, she lived up to her last name… stubborn, loyal, and half-crazy with it.

Myra hit the blunt again, slower this time, grounding herself like she was gearing up for battle. Her mouth tightened before the smoke even cleared.

“Busy being everybody’s backbone. Busy pouring into folks who don’t even notice you dry. You don’t listen for shit, Paige.”

Paige clenched her jaw. Bit down on the words she wanted to spit back. Because she had plenty.

“I’m fine. I’ve been fine. My focus is where it needs to be for now.”

Myra let out that knowing laugh, and it pissed her off.

The woman who fell apart after her brother died had the nerve to act like Paige didn't remember who cleaned it all up.

She didn't have a childhood or a choice.

Instead, she got silence, fetched wine coolers, and made sure the house still functioned.

She hadn't even had a chance to grieve her brother.

Myra eventually found herself again. Started dancing in the kitchen and laughing too loud and reclaiming her joy. And Paige was glad about that. But the difference was that her break was temporary. Paige's weight had never been optional. And the sacrifices she made had never been acknowledged.

“I don’t want to keep having this conversation. I know I need to put myself first. I know I’m too beautiful to be single. I know my daddy ain’t my problem. I know, okay. I’m fine.”

What she didn't say was: I watched you fall apart. I had to grow up overnight. And I never got to stop. So please forgive me if your advice is a day late and a dollar short.

Once Myra came back from the ledge, she'd learned to lean on her daughter's strength, benefiting from Paige being bone dry, just like everyone else. So no, she didn't want advice from the same woman who'd let her carry it all.

“Fine?” she repeated, shaking her head. “Fine, is for white folks and liars, baby. And you ain’t neither.”

“I’m handling it.” Paige rolled her eyes snatching the blunt back. “And stop coming over here to smoke my weed, fuss, and dip.”

Her mom was right. She had been right for a while now. Paige needed to live for herself again. She would never tell her mother that she was right, ever. And knowing it and doing something about it were two different conversations. Where did you even start?

“Handling it doesn’t mean you’re happy, P. It means you’re surviving better than most. I’m telling you what I know. Stop trying to change the subject.”

She shoved the tickets across the counter and added, “Go. Put something on that makes you remember you got hips and a heartbeat. Laugh, flirt, drink something brown if you feel like it. Get some life back in you.”

Paige stared at the tickets like they might bite her. Her mother had never begged her like this. More suspicion rose in her mind.

“Momma, I’ve got Perry to worry about. His dialysis schedule is crazy until he gets his benefits and transportation. I got two audits coming up at the bank. Ashton needs me, I can’t up-”

Her momma cut her off with one look. That same look she gave her when Paige tried to talk back at sixteen. A you know better look , which made Paige shut up.

“Your daddy made his choices. You love him. I get that. But you gotta stop letting love be your prison.” Second conversation, her father.

Paige blinked hard. If she let those words sit too long, she might fold.

Her mom was still pushing, and she wasn’t only speaking about her father.

Her mother was always good at reading her like a book, but sometimes the worst thing about the truth was knowing it came from somebody who loved you enough to say it.

“Go,” her momma said, softer now. “I’m not saying you gotta go quit your job or act like you don’t have responsibilities.

But you need to remember you’re still alive.

A young woman with no kids. You should be living your best single life until someone comes along to change that. You don’t work this weekend, right?”

“No, Momma, I’m off but...”

“But nothing. It’s settled. Listen, Paige, I love you more than life itself. I know your heart I raised you to be this way but none of these niggas are your responsibility. That includes the man I once loved. Don’t make me worry about you more than I already do.”

Myra never stayed long, she came said her peace and left. A kiss pressed to Paige’s forehead; a heavy silence left in her place. Paige stood there in her tiny kitchen, the food steaming on the counter, the tickets limp in her hand.

Alive.

Paige shook her head and stepped back on the patio.

She hadn’t even finished her blunt or processed her mother’s visit before JT’s call came crawling back.

She’d hung up on him earlier, and he still wasn’t getting the picture.

She knew what she had to do. But she didn’t want to.

However, she was a better woman than this.

The phone stopped ringing, but her email went off minutes later. A CorrLinks message in all caps.

ANSWER ME, PAIGE .

Ain’t no way you playing a nigga like this.

The message glared at her, almost blowing her high. Paige stared at it. Because she wasn’t playing. He was the one who wasn’t taking her seriously and hurting his own feelings in the process. She wanted to relax and have a little moment of peace, was she asking for too much.

The blunt stayed lit, burning between her fingers, but the haze wasn’t strong enough to quiet the mess stirring inside her.

Nights like this always dragged her back.

To that night. The sirens. Her mother’s scream.

The hush that fell over their whole house when PJ didn’t come home.

Her own guilt for not being with him when he went to the park that day.

She’d learned to sit still with panic back then.

Learned to brace for bad news without ever showing it on her face.

She set the phone down face first on the table with a muted thud, ashing the blunt into the chipped saucer.

“Fuck,” she mumbled.

Before life got hectic, JT had been the easy choice. Not the dream man, but the safe one. He wrote her sweet letters. She wrote back even sweeter. He made promises she could manage from a distance, ones she never expected to keep.

With JT, there was no need to give up pussy, catch feelings, cook, clean, or make room for anyone else.

She could love him from the outside looking in, and that gave her control, freedom.

He didn’t need her to show up in real time, purely needed her to answer the phone, drop money on his books, check in on his people, and remind him she still believed in him.

He was easy to love in his absence. Hard to picture up close. And the more parole hearings and appeal denials she sat through, the more she realized... she probably never would have to.

JT had fifteen years. Five down, ten to go. She’d be forty when he came home. If he came home.

The tickets sat a few inches away, flapping lightly in the breeze.

That little voice in her head told her how easy it could be, how simple it would be to go back; reclaim the life she swore she wanted.

But Paige didn’t move. Because if she reached for them, she’d have to admit the hard part, it wasn’t them. It was her.

The voice in her head wasn’t JT’s.

It wasn’t even her mom’s or her dad’s.

It was her own. Quiet, tiny, but still there.

She took a long drag from the blunt, exhaled hard enough to make the envelope on the table shiver, and closed her eyes. She wanted more. Because who didn’t. She had her career; she’d had her freedom and plenty of it. She’d even been catching herself watching other couples.

She didn’t know what the next step looked like. But standing still wasn’t it. Funny how the tighter you gripped something, the faster it slipped through your fingers.