Page 83 of Ascension

James just laughed, tossing a few bills on the table as we headed out. “Pray for me, fellas.”

Calil raised his glass in salute. “Always do, bro. Always do.”

As we stepped out into the cool night, the city lights glittered around us, andJames slipped his hand into mine. “You know,” he said, “you’re a little scary when you’re protective.”

“Good,” I said, smiling. “Then I’m doing it right.”

And with that, I headed toward my car. I was still The Black Dahlia at heart, and Amiyah was about to learn what happened when you were a bad girl. James was grinning like a man who loved the fire rather than feared it.

When Jason’s name showed up in my Facebook inbox, my first instinct was to delete the message, but I didn’t.

Maybe it was curiosity, or it was the part of me that had never gotten to say what needed saying. Either way, I agreed to meet him. Big Earl’s felt like neutral ground, no ghosts, no memories, just noise and barbecue smoke thick enough to blur the past.

He was already sitting in a booth when I walked in, wearing the same sheepish smile that used to talk me down after every argument. Only now, it didn’t soften me.

“Amiyah,” he said, standing. “Wow. You look—”

“Don’t,” I cut him off, sliding into the booth across from him. “Just say what you need to say.”

He blinked, caught off guard by how calm I was. Maybe he expected tears. Perhaps he expected the woman he left behind.

“I just wanted to apologize,” he started. “For how things ended. For… everything.”

“That’s a wide net, Jason,” I said, leaning back. “You’re gonna have to narrow that down.”

He sighed. “I was young, scared, and I didn’t know how to handle what happened. Losing the baby broke something in me.”

I stared at him, my pulse ticking. “It broke you?” I said quietly. “You think you get to claim that pain?”

He looked down, fiddling with his napkin. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yes, you did.” My voice sharpened. “You checked out. You left me alone in that apartment while I could barely breathe. You watched me drown and called it space. Then I found out you were already planning your escape. You didn’t just betray me, Jason, you betrayed the one dream I had left.”

He opened his mouth, but I wasn’t done.

“I told you how much starting a family meant to me. After losing my parents and my grandparents, I wanted something that was mine. A chance to carry my lineage forward, to build a home that didn’t disappear when the phone stopped ringing. You knew all of that, yet you still looked another woman in the eyes and told her you were glad our baby was gone.”

His face crumpled, guilt cutting through his expression. “I was an idiot. I didn’t know how to process the loss—”

“No,” I interrupted. “You didn’t want to process it. You wanted to forget it and forget me. You couldn’t handle the fact that I wasn’t the easy, carefree girl you met anymore. I was grieving, Jason. I was broken, and instead of holding me, you ran to someone else’s bed.”

He rubbed a hand over his face, sighing. “I know, and I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

“Good,” I said flatly.

For a moment, neither of us spoke. The sounds of laughter, clinking glasses, and Motown in the background felt like another world, one I’d finally stepped back into while he was still stuck in the wreckage.

He leanedforward, desperate. “Look, for what it’s worth, the woman I cheated with, she’s not in my life anymore. We got married quickly and divorced even quicker. She cheated and got pregnant by someone else.”

I blinked once. “Sounds like karma works fast.”

He looked for emotion on my face and found none. “Yeah, I guess it did,” he replied, his face solemn.

“Disloyalty is a character flaw you can’t erase, even when you land on the other side of betrayal,” I said simply. “You made your bed. She just kicked you out of it.”

His shoulders slumped. “I was hoping maybe we could… I don’t know, start over. As friends, maybe.”

I almost laughed. “Friends? Jason, you buried that possibility the moment you chose to betray me during one of the most difficult losses of my life. You don’t get to come back into my life just because you’re lonely now.”