Page 33 of Ex- Factor

Three months later.

India.Arie’s “Good Mourning” curled through my speakers, a balm on the raw edges of my spirit. I was on Silas’s back patio, tucked into a plush lounger with a book I wasn’t reading. I was just… relaxing.

The sliding glass door was open, letting the evening air blend with the music. I was waiting for him to get back with takeout, content in the quiet. This—whatever this was with Silas—was calm. It was… easy.

The peace shattered when a voice cut through the music from the other side of the tall wooden fence that separated Silas’s yard.

“Eshe? Life?”

My entire body went rigid. The ghost of my past was rattling the gates of my new paradise. Literally.

I didn’t answer. I held my breath.

“Life, I know that’s you. I can hear your music.”

I hated that he still called me Life now.

Slowly, against every screaming instinct, I stood and walked to the fence. There was a narrow gap between two slats. I didn’t look through it—just leaned my forehead against the cool wood.

“What do you want, Donte?” I asked, my voice flat, drained of the energy it took to fight him.

A beat of silence. “The universe has a fucked-up sense of humor. I guess this is my punishment for what I did to you.”

“You’re not being punished by my happiness, Donte.”

“I am. Was I really that bad, Eshe?” His voice was muffled by the barrier between us. “Bad enough for you to just… give up on me? Throw away everything we had? You’re over here… and it’s like I never existed.”

Compassion rose in me like a tide—a stupid, traitorous reflex conditioned by years of loving him. I wanted to reach out, to smooth the worry from his brow. I hated that part of myself.

I stayed quiet for a long moment.

“Talk to me. Please.”

I sighed. I didn’t owe him anything. But maybe… maybe I owed it to myself to say this—here, where I felt safe, with a wall between us.

“You were bad,” I said quietly. “You weren’t a villain. That would’ve been easier—just be outright evil. You were more like slow, sweet poison. You brought me banana pudding and held me when my granny died. You knew I depended on you. Loved you. And that’s what made the bad parts so much worse.”

I heard him shift on the other side of the fence, the creak of a floorboard under his weight.

“You broke me in the quietest ways,” I continued, the words flowing easier here, in Silas’s yard.

“It wasn’t just the abortion. It was you asking for it.

It was you marrying her. It was you showing up at my door, smelling like her perfume, and expecting me to wait.

You made me an accomplice in my own heartbreak. You made me complicit.”

My voice grew steadier.

“You broke me by making me believe that crumbs from your table were a feast. You broke my faith, Donte. You made me stop believing in love. You made me look at my own reflection and see a fool.”

I could almost hear his breathing.

“I know you didn’t mean to,” I said at last. “You’re just selfish, and nobody taught you not to be. But intention doesn’t erase impact. You can’t put a bandage on a wound this deep.”

I stepped back from the fence.

“And beyond all that… the fundamental, unchangeable truth?” I drew a breath. “We were never meant to be, because you chose to be someone else’s .”

The silence on his side was absolute. Then I heard it—the sliding sound of his back door, followed by it slamming shut.

Out front, a car door closed. A moment later, Silas walked onto the patio. I was still standing near the fence.

“Everything alright?” he asked, his voice a low rumble that instantly soothed the frayed nerves inside me.

Before I could answer, his eyes flicked to the fence, then back to me—curious but calm.

I walked toward him, away from the ghost next door and into the solid, present reality of him . I took the bag of food from his hands and set it on the counter.

“Everything’s fine,” I said—and for the first time, I truly believed it. “The past was just stopping by to say a final goodbye.”

The war was over. I was on the right side of the fence.