Page 30 of Between Passion and Revenge, Part One (The Griot Chronicles #1)

SHAE

“ I ’m sorry ,” Yenn wails for the millionth time.

Her face is blotchy with dried tears, and her words come out nasally from her swollen nose.

It’s the first time I’ve seen her in a week.

She’s been spending all her time at the hospital with her father and staying with her brother in their home outside the city.

“Yenn, there’s nothing to apologize for. If anything, I should be?—”

“No!” she exclaims, jumping up from my bed to where I stand in front of my closet, hanging up the winter clothes I grabbed from my parents’ house over the weekend.

It’s been two weeks since the incident at Velour, and my parents made me promise to spend the weekends with them. Not that I minded being back home.

It gave me an excuse to keep Storm at arm’s length after our intimate Ferris wheel ride and the tense moment outside Hansen’s class, even though we text every day.

But things are heating up with school, and I have assignments due before finals, one of which is the remaining paper with Storm, so if there’s a time for me to buckle down and stop spending the day in the kitchen with Mama, it’s now.

Cooking is Mama’s ministry, and when she feels stressed or down, she cooks and cooks and cooks some more. I’ve got the same affliction.

My parents finally released me to move back to my apartment, but not without allowing Daddy to check all the high-tech locks Yenn’s dad had installed, letting Mama stock my fridge with meals, and requiring me to switch my closet over to my winter wardrobe.

“You don’t apologize for getting drunk. I pushed you to get loose and I should have known you’d be a beacon for creeps. Did you get that fucker’s name? I’m gonna have Daddy hack into his accounts and fuck him up!”

I shake my head and pull Yenn into a hug. Her father may be a tech giant, but I’m so, so sure he’s not hacking into anyone’s accounts.

“All I remember is his name started with a ‘J,’ and he worked in finance. But honestly, Yenn, I just…I just want to move forward and put all this behind me.”

She nods, her eyes still watery.

It’s been a slow, lazy day, and I’ve allowed myself to be in my feelings about everything for the last several hours.

I’ve set a deadline for my sadness; this is my last day of moping.

“I’m just so glad your dad is okay. Will he get to go home soon?”

Yenn joins me in my closet, moving clothes around. Probably to keep her hands busy.

“Yes, he’s finally moved from the CICU and been put on the floor. He’ll probably be home tomorrow or the next day.”

“That’s good,” I say, relief sagging into my body. The last several days have been a trainwreck of a hot mess. Between what happened to me and Yenn’s father having a heart attack, things have just been…heavy.

And don’t forget Storm Sandoval.

Like I could forget.

When we finally fuck, it’ll be everything you deserve and desire, he said, and hell if his words didn’t send a lightning bolt right to my clit.

But then, there was his softness as we rocked in the Ferris wheel—the gentle, patient way he held space with me as he bared himself.

That vulnerability was even sexier than his hot words in my hospital room.

Storm Sandoval is sex on a stick, and he knows it. He could have anyone he wants.

…Which presents the biggest question of all: What’s he doing chasing after me?

Yenn’s phone beeps and she pulls it out of her pocket, immediately answering it. She listens to the caller on the other end for several seconds before saying, “Okay, I’ll see you at home.”

I turn away from her and face my closet again. My hands land on a red evening gown that was also a gift from Yenn, but this dress was made in Paris. I rub my fingers across the delicate beading on the structured bodice.

“That was King,” Yenn says. “Daddy’s getting discharged. I’m gonna stay over there tonight, so I’ll see you tomorrow. Okay?”

I look at her over my shoulder. My best friend looks so tired, her usual bubbliness gone under a blanket of sadness, worry, and guilt. I place the dress back on the rack and pull her into a tight hug.

“I love you, Yennifer. Give Daddy Solomon a hug for me.” I give Yenn a quick kiss on the cheek and she spins out the door.

When she’s gone, I sink back into the bed and put my head in my hands.

I can work with that.

Storm’s voice is like a phantom tethered to me, not leaving me alone.

Not letting me stop thinking about how he looked in the twinkling lights of Navy Pier or our kiss in the elevator or the heat that brewed between us when he visited me in the hospital.

Or the other time…the time that’s tingling at the edges of your memory.

I sigh and flop back on the bed.

The doctor said I won’t regain the memories of my attack, and I won’t be able to patch together a narrative of what happened between Yenn putting me in the cab and waking up at St. Helene. I’m slowly becoming okay with this reality, or, at least, I would be okay with this reality….

…if there weren’t flashes of fragmented events that pop into my mind at random intervals. It’s things that don’t make sense.

Showers of blood.

Tension around my body, pinning me.

And Storm. Storm’s there in those memories too.

But regardless of his presence, I don’t feel fear when I think of him.

My body yearns for Storm Sandoval, despite my best judgment—despite all the reasons why we sure as hell should not be in each other’s lives. There’s so much we don’t know about each other. Maybe too much.

And yet, I can’t stop thinking about him.

I can’t stop my body from responding to the memory of his eyes or the way his body felt pressed to mine.

I can’t stop myself from feeling like when he’s around, everything is all right.

I’m fucked. There’s no way around it.

A kitchen cabinet slams, and Mama and Daddy’s voices filter in from outside my bedroom. The apartment is large, but not so large that I can’t hear conversations on the other end of the space, especially with my door open as it is now.

“I just don’t want Shae to get distracted, is all. She’s such a good girl, and she’s so close to finishing. But she still hasn’t heard back from any of the places she applied to, and let’s not mention she flunked the tests?—”

“Shae did not flunk the GMAT,” Mama butts in, and I feel my shoulders go up to my ears.

There it goes. Disappointing them feels awful. I sit up, prepared to hear the rest of his speech.

Daddy sighs, and it goes on for five solid seconds.

“If Shae wants to go to an Ivy League?—”

“Why does Shae need to go to an Ivy League, Reggie?”

“Because you know how hard it’s going to be for her. She needs every tool in her arsenal to shut down anyone who thinks she’s not qualified.”

“Her work will speak for itself,” Mama throws back.

“As if that’s ever been enough in America, Opal. Listen, that Sandoval boy is bad news. I prayed on it and God has clearly spoken to me?—”

“Oh, so you’re like Jesus on Mt. Gilead now?”

“Opal.” Daddy’s tone is serious—so serious—and tears burn in my nose. I want to make him proud. I don’t want him to worry about me. I don’t want to disappoint him, and I know my decisions lately have been just that.

A disappointment.

You know what you need to do.

There isn’t a place in my world for Storm Sandoval, especially not with the messiness and complexities of our lives.

But if I keep letting him inch closer, if I keep letting myself imagine an us that doesn’t exist, I’m going to lose more than just my focus. I’ll lose everything I’ve worked for.

Grad school, my career, Daddy’s faith in me—all of it depends on my focus. And Storm…Storm Sandoval is nothing if not a distraction.

A knock sounds on the door, and I shift to face Mama and Daddy. I smile, trying to access the happiness I know I should feel.

I fail.

“Okay, baby girl, we’re heading out,” Mama says, shoving past Daddy with an annoyed look before smoothing her face and wrapping me in a hug.

“If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call us. We’ll be here in a heartbeat,” she says.

“I know, Mama,” I reply. She gives me a kiss on the cheek.

When she pulls away, she gives Daddy and me a strange look. Sighing, she says, “I’m going down to get the car from the stand.”

And with that, she leaves my room and the apartment.

Silence falls between me and my father, and it’s obvious he has more to say to me.

I won’t let you down, Daddy.

I can practically see the thoughts spinning in his brain; I watch him organize them into words he thinks I’ll receive.

“You’re a grown woman,” he begins, and ironically, the statement makes me feel like a little kid. “And you’re allowed to do grown women things. I don’t get to have a say.”

The “but” that’s coming is so loud, it might as well be a freight train cutting through the space between us.

“But you being grown won’t stop me from caring about you and your future.”

I nod because I don’t have words to say.

After a deep breath, he says, “Do you know why I’m so hard on you, baby girl?”

That direct question shakes me, and I clear my throat. “It’s because you know the world is hard and you want me to be better.”

He scrutinizes me before clicking his tongue and releasing a humorless chuckle.

“That’s part of it. Maybe most of it.” He leans against the doorjamb, rubbing his thumb against his bottom lip while staring at the lush carpet between us.

“The other part of it is about me and your mama.” I tilt my head to the side, confused.

“Your mama had a whole career ahead of her. She’d graduated from a fancy college and was the first Black woman in her program. She moved up here for a fancy job, and I had just finished school at UIUC for civil engineering.”

“Yeah,” I say. “You went there with Daddy Solomon.”

He smiles, but it’s sad.

“Right,” he replies.

“Wait,” I say, asking the obvious. “Civil engineering. You didn’t want to be a pastor?”

Daddy laughs in a small huff. “Not at all, baby girl.”

The words surprise me. I didn’t know this.

“What happened?”

His smile widens, and it’s a genuine expression. Happiness radiates from him, and it’s like seeing him in the pulpit again.

“Your mama and I…well, we were gonna wait until marriage, which was gonna be after I finished my master’s program and started working in the field. But then….”

A palpable ball of tension, sadness, drops into the room.

“You are our whole world, Shae, and there’s nothing on this planet that would make me regret you.”

I stop breathing, beginning to see where he’s going and feeling heartbroken, nonetheless.

“Your mama gave up her career to stay at home. That was a decision she—we—made. But it was the only decision we could make at the time. I had to switch things up, work a few jobs to make ends meet. There wouldn’t have been enough money on a student stipend to support a family.

Later, I went to seminary, and I loved being a pastor.

I think God called me to ministry for a reason, but… .”

Daddy rubs the back of his neck, and for once, he looks unsure.

“I don’t want you to be trapped, Shae. I want you to have all the options in the world and for you to make decisions because it’s what you want to do, not what you’re being forced to do.”

He stands up, straightening his spine in contrast to the heaviness of his monologue. I don’t think he even recognizes the irony in his last statement.

“I gave up my dreams, Shae, because I didn’t have the choice. And I just want to make sure you always have the choice. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

And with those words, I do understand his message…

and his hypocrisy. It’s not just that he wants me to be the best because that’s what he expects.

He wants me to be the best because that’s what he and Mama gave up, and being the best will allow me to live, to be safe, within Bronzeville and outside of it.

I get it. I really do get it.

“I understand, Daddy. And thank you for telling me this. But I don’t want you to worry because there’s nothing more important than my studies right now. The rest of…everything else can wait.” Even though I deliver the words with a smile, they taste bitter on my tongue.

I feel his relief when he blows out a big breath, his smile relaxed for the first time today.

“Great, baby girl. Just great.” He walks over and gives me a kiss on the forehead.

“You’ve got this,” he says. “Call me if you need anything.”

And with that, he departs.

A chill creeps into the room, and I find myself shivering, replaying the conversation. My brain understands where he’s coming from.

But my heart? My heart’s already mixed up in something I’m not sure I can untangle—or let go of.

I take a shaky breath and sit on the bed again, pressing my palms to my thighs.

This is how it has to be.

Even if it’s the fucking hardest thing I’ll ever do.