Page 10 of Overdue Feelings

I looked forward to Saturday mornings at Gigi’s.

Kicking back, watching our favorite TV episodes, and braiding Gigi’s hair so she could freely apply her wig was the peace I needed after herding children all week.

Today, though, my peace was being interrupted by laughter and the sound of Ares and Zae outside appearing to get along.

I glanced up from the braid I was working on and stared out the window.

Happiness and maturity shouldn’t be disturbing me so much, but it was.

I stared at Ares and Zae as their shirtless, sweaty bodies moved around Ares’s grandmother’s front yard.

It started out as Zae going over there to offer Ares a bottle of water and somehow turned into Zae pushing a lawn mower while Ares trimmed the hedges.

It was a sight to see, and as annoyed as I was, I couldn’t look away.

The way both of their backs were flexing had my panties becoming moist.

“Don’t be getting heavy handed now.” Gigi turned her head to look up at me. That was the sign I’d been staring too long.

“Sorry, Gigi.” I forced my eyes back down to Gigi’s scalp and tried to focus.

“I tell you. You always get heavy handed when you distracted.” I pressed my lips together and kept parting, not wanting to admit that I was indeed a distracted mess. “It’s them, ain’t it?”

“Who?” I asked, trying to act clueless, but Gigi gave me that grandmother’s side-eye. The one that saw through every lie I ever told. She always had a way of reading me down and clocking my tea. I could never keep much from her.

“I always knew y’all had somethin’ different.” Gigi ignored my cluelessness. “Even when y’all were kids. The three of you moved like you shared one heartbeat.”

I kept braiding her hair, listening because I couldn’t form any words.

“Folks used to whisper,” she continued. “Had all these opinions about how a girl shouldn’t be that close to two boys. Or how two boys shouldn’t be that close to each other.” She paused, then chuckled under her breath. “Mrs. Johnson even had the nerve to compare y’all to Three’s Company .”

I chuckled but I didn’t interrupt. I just let Gigi talk. It was calming my nerves.

“I told ’em all where they could go.”

“No you didn’t, Gigi,” I blurted through my laughter.

“I sho nuff did. Love don’t always follow the rules people understand. Sometimes, folks just connect, and it don’t need no damn explainin’.”

My heart pounded in my chest as I took in her words. It was no secret that people were judgmental of us. I’d been called fast growing up more times than I could count, but knowing that my grandma saw what I’d been ignoring all my life before I had did something to me.

“And now look at the three of you. Brought right back together. I told you years ago when that quiet one broke your heart that anything meant to be would return.”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t, because everything she was saying was speaking to my soul.

The universe pulled the three of us back together, and I was tired of pretending like I didn’t see it.

Didn’t feel it. Ever since the storm a week ago, something had shifted between the three of us.

The way Ares looked at me, how he’d been talking to me more.

Even if I didn’t say much back. The way Zae looked at him, and the way I couldn’t look at either of them too long without remembering what it used to feel like being seen, loved, and protected by both of them.

I loved Zae. That had never changed and never would, but there was something magnetic about Ares, about our bond. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but it was there and always had been. The same could be said for Zae and me.

“Gigi?” I asked quietly, almost scared of what I was about to say. What I was about to admit to my eighty three-year-old grandmother. Gigi looked up at me. Her face said she already knew what I was about to say. “Is it wrong to love both of them?” I whispered. “To want both of them?”

She didn’t say anything for a second, probably gathering her words. Then she reached back and touched my leg.

“Baby, love doesn’t have to be squeezed into somethin’ small just to make other folks comfortable.

Ain’t nothin’ wrong with lovin’ more than one person, as long as you all are honest with one another.

As long as it’s real. You only get one life, baby, and you get to define all parts of it on your terms.”

Suddenly, my eyes stung, and my hands couldn’t move.

“Both them boys hold a piece of you, and I know Ares left. You been carryin’ that heartbreak for a long time, but you don’t have to keep holdin’ that pain.

Forgivin’ him don’t mean you forget—it just means you’re finally lettin’ yourself heal.

” Gigi gave me a long look. “Love for him didn’t stop growin’ in you, even after he left. So maybe it’s time to let it bloom.”

I stood suddenly. My chest felt too heavy. Gigi was definitely with it today.

“I’ll be right back. I just… I need some air.

” I wandered down the hall to my old room without thinking and went inside.

Any time I ventured into her collection of my high school memorabilia, nostalgia smacked me in the face.

I’d tried to get Gigi to change it, but she refused.

She said it was how she wanted to remember me.

I walked over to my old closet and pulled out the only box that was inside it. I hadn’t touched it in years.

Moving to my bed, I sat down and opened it.

I rifled through old photos from high school.

My prom keepsakes, Zae’s old basketball headlines, to the old, faded letter, I’d read too many times.

Ares’s words were still there. Still painful.

I put it back down and rifled through the box until I found the old, braided, blue and gold string bracelet.

I ran my thumb over the knots and sat there remembering all the good times and bad ones we’d had, and for the first time in a long time, I let myself wonder what it would feel like to let go.

To forgive him. To let it be more than just a memory that still made my chest ache.

“You’ve been holding something in all night,” Zae said as he walked up on me from behind.

Of course, he had noticed I was off. He always noticed.

I let out a deep breath and rinsed the last fork from dinner, watching nothing out the window.

Gigi was already in bed, and Ares our unexpected dinner guest, had stepped outside.

“I’m fine.” I didn’t turn around.

“You ain’t,” he said, voice low as he took me into his arms. “You been quiet. Barely touched your food. You didn’t even laugh when Ares brought up that busted-ass car he had senior year.”

That almost made me smile. Almost. My mind was too frazzled, still stuck on the events of today.

Zae and Ares’s sudden blossoming friendship; Zae inviting him over to dinner after the yard work like it was the most natural thing in the world…

like this wasn’t the man we’d learned to hate together. Maybe for him, it was that easy.

But for me? It was a lot. A thousand what ifs and how could this be bouncing around in my head.

Watching Ares laugh with Gigi and pass Zae the sweet tea like no years had passed.

Like he hadn’t left me with a heart full of firsts and no goodbye .

That hurt, and the worst part was the more he smiled at me, the more I wanted to forgive him.

The more I wanted to forget, and that scared the hell out of me.

“You don’t gotta hold it in no more, C. Healing don’t mean ignoring the hurt; it means you have to address it.

” He pulled me in closer, and I let his warmth wrap around me like a blanket.

“I asked him to stay for a minute tonight. Y’all need to talk.

I got my healing. It’s time you get yours.

” His words were gentle. He kissed my cheek and walked out of the kitchen like he hadn’t just cracked me open.

I stood there for a minute. My hands still wet, chest caving, heart doing the absolute most. Then I grabbed a paper towel, dried my hands, and made my way toward Gigi’s front door.

Zae was already outside waiting and standing at the bottom of the porch like he did every night.

He didn’t say anything, he just offered his hand, and I took it.

We walked in silence, until it was too loud for me to handle.

“I don’t know if I’m ready to feel everything that comes with forgiving him, Zae,” I admitted. “I don’t want to be confused about us. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Zae’s feet slowed, and he turned to look at me.

“You’re not confused, and you’re not going to hurt me.”

“I’m not sure.” I stopped walking altogether, pulling him to a stop.

“C, I knew you loved Ares before you did. Same way I know you still do.”

“Huh?”

“I want you to be whole, even if that means I have to let someone else have you.”

I swallowed hard, heart thudding in my chest at a loss for words. What was he saying? Zae didn’t say anything else. He pulled me the rest of the way to our house. We reached our front steps and paused at the door, then he nodded toward the back.

“He’s on the sun porch. It’s time to let go, C.”

I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. Zae leaned in and kissed me slow, grounding me without saying a word. When he pulled back, he looked me dead in the eyes.

“Go on. Say what you need to say. I’ll be right here when it’s done.”

I nodded, then I walked through the house, past the kitchen, and out the back door toward the sun porch. The door creaked opened slowly, and I stepped outside. Ares was sitting on the couch. His head was down, and his phone was in his hand. He stood slowly and walked over to me.

“You look stunning.”

“You always say that when you’re nervous.” I let out a quiet laugh that broke the ice.

“Am I that routine?” He scratched the back of his neck.

“You are.”

“We should sit.” He led me over to the couch, and we took a seat across from each other. Ares handed me his phone. The screen was already unlocked and on a folder labeled Creek Letters.

“I wrote you. Not every day but often. Stuff I didn’t have the balls to reach out to you and say. The days… they got away from me. Then I was just too embarrassed to reach out.”

I opened the first note and read it.

Creek,

I should’ve stayed. I was scared. I’m sorry.

Then the second one.

Creek, Happy twenty first birthday. I saw your birthday photos on Picsgram. You looked beautiful.

Then another one.

The way I loved you was quiet, but it was real. I graduated college today and should be happy but all I could think about was how you weren’t there.

Tears threatened to fall from my eyes, but I blinked them back as I continued to scroll through the notes. There were so many. Hundreds.

“I waited for you.” I finally spoke quietly.

“Thought for sure you’d come back. That you’d reach out on my birthday or at Christmas, or just on a random Tuesday, but you never did.

Never said a word. And I hated myself for it.

Hated myself for keeping hope alive that a person I loved didn’t care enough to love me back. ”

“I hated me for it too,” he whispered. “I watched you from a distance. Got updates through people I barely spoke to when I lived here until it was too much. I was a coward. A little ass boy doing what my parents said. I’m not that man anymore.”

I stared at him. I heard his words, his apology, and I believed him. I closed out the Notes app on the phone and hung it in the air. If I kept looking, I would for sure cry.

“I understand if you’re still mad.” He reached over and gently took his phone from my hands.

“I was, but… I think I’m tired of being mad.”

“I just wanna be near you again, C. However you’ll have me. However Zae will allow.”

We sat there for a minute, everything was quiet, but the air between us was different—lighter.

I exhaled. “I missed you.”

“I missed you more.”

The porch door creaked, and Zae stepped out, holding a bottle of something dark and three red cups.

“We good?” Ares and I both nodded. “Good. Figured we should celebrate. It’s not every day a twelve year friendship fallout is resolved.”

He passed the cups around and sat back in the chair across from us, and for the first time in over twelve years, the three of us enjoyed each other’s company. We laughed, talked shit, and reminisced like nothing had ever gone wrong between us.

“Aye, you remember when we got caught sneaking outta Sweet Pea trying to bring Creek some ice cream after she got her tonsils out?”

I snorted, barely able to control my laughter. “Y’all got in hella trouble. Whose idea was that again?”

Ares nodded his head toward Zae, and Zae threw his hands in the air.

“Don’t put that shit on me. That was yo’ idea.”

“Lyin’ already. You were the one that broke the lock on the bathroom window so we could crawl out.”

“You gave me the wrench though!” Zae said, and I shook my head while they went back and forth like two kids caught in the principal’s office. I damn near choked laughing, wiping a tear from my eye.

“Y’all got in-school suspension for a month, and I never got my ice cream.”

“Hey, we tried.” We all burst out laughing.

Somewhere between the drinks, the memories, and all the emotions I’d been holding in too long, I slid right into Ares’s lap without even thinking about it.

Maybe it was the whiskey, or the way my body was calling out to reconnect with his.

I didn’t know, but once I was there, I didn’t move.

I couldn’t. My eyes shot to Zae. He was watching.

His jaw clenched, but not in anger… in curiosity.

He took another sip of his drink before standing up and closing the blinds on the sun porch.

That’s it. He’s about to kill us. I attempted to get up and start pleading my case, but his words made me freeze.

“I brought him here for a reason, Creek. Go ahead. I want to watch you get what you’ve been needing.”