Page 53 of Tangled Hearts

For years, it held them together through pain, betrayal, want, and need. But now, the threads were loosening. The trust that once tightened them was thinning. The love that once made them ignore the mess was no longer enough to hold weight.

Knycole could feel it in her chest. The relief and the ache of it coming undone.

Rock felt it too, even if he tried to hide it.

They weren’t enemies, but they weren’t what they used to be either.

The unraveling was proof that some bonds weren’t meant to stay forever, no matter how much history is tied up in them.

“I ain’t come here to argue with you,” Rock said once her anger had simmered.

“Then what did you come for? I’m giving you a choice. I’ll rock with whatever you decide but I will never be okay with you bringing harm to Nick. That’s my father and no matter how flawed he is, I love him and need him.”

“So, what you saying?”

“I’m saying, me or Hov but it can never be Nick.” Knycole gulped, scared at what Rock’s decision was going to be.

“Come on, Knyc… you ain’t giving it up like that,” he smirked, pulling her card.

Knycole held her hand out flashing the beautiful queen chess piece on her hand.

“I keep telling you, I’m not the same little girl, Rock.

I own these streets too… been crowned and I will do what needs to be done if you step to Nick.

I will call the dogs on you and they won’t stop until your blood is on their hands.

Don’t let me being a college girl fool you. ”

His eyes turned into slits. “Don’t threaten me.”

“I don’t want to. I love you so much that it’ll kill me to do it but make no mistake, I will do it and go to class the next day.” Knycole was serious. So serious that it scared her.

Even when he wanted to be mad, he couldn’t. Knycole was in his heart too deep. It angered him a little knowing she knew that too. “Com’ere.” he pulled her into his arms. “That nigga really got you out here with matching tatts and claiming to own the streets. What did he do to my little Knyc?”

“He loved me… protected me.” Her words sliced him, but Rock wasn’t going to show it.

Still, she folded in his arms, inhaling his cologne.

“I’ll always love you. You know that right?” Rock rocked their bodies side to side.

Knycole nodded. “I’ll always love you too, Rock but I done fucked up bad and although I don’t regret anything I’ve done… I regret driving a wedge between you and Hov. He’s going to need someone to lean on now that I’m out of the picture.”

“You dumped that nigga too?”

She laughed. “Yep.”

He squeezed her tighter. “You and Noir got some shit with y’all,” Rock laughed.

“I know,” she whined.

“You right, though,” he said, circling back to what she said a few minutes ago. “You mourned me. You built somethin’ without me. And I hated that shit… but I get it now. I really do.”

Knycole didn’t say anything, just let him talk.

“I loved you, Knyc,” he went on. “But you was always too soft for me. Delicate. I ain’t know how to meet you where you was at…

and I ain’t gon’ lie—being with Shakeisha…

that shit just feels safe. And I ain’t saying she’s tough like that.

” He flipped his locks out of his face. “She just matches me. I hear her when she talks, yells, screams, cries. I want her to be soft… I want to give her a softer life because she deserves that.”

He paused, clearing the grit in his throat. “With you, I had to be somebody I hadn’t grown into yet.”

Knycole’s jaw ticked. She wasn’t mad, just processing.

“So yea,” he shrugged. “I should’ve told you about my daughter. I should’ve told you everything. But I think a part of me always knew, we wasn’t endgame. We was the lesson.”

They both sat down on the curb, the night air cool against their skin. For a long while, they didn’t speak. Just listened to the faint hum of crickets and the occasional car rolling past.

They could sit in the silence forever. Even when the words and thoughts in their minds were anything but quiet.

“You know she came to see me while I was locked up?” Rock’s voice finally broke through the quiet.

“Who?” Knycole looked over at him confused.

“My ma.”

Knycole turned, surprised. “Really? Were you happy to see her?”

“Hell nah.” A rough chuckle left his throat. “That shit just reminded me of everything I ain’t have.”

She hugged herself. “Yea, I know that feeling.”

“How you forgive Nick?” Rock needed a better understanding of children with toxic parents and how they navigated through their own pain while still loving a parent who wronged them. Knycole was the poster child for that.

She shrugged. “I think I was always gonna forgive him but when he got better and stopped smoking, it came easy. He’s so good with Qua and I love that for my son.”

Rock only nodded because he loved Qua too but it was a sore spot for him.

He looked across the street, where a woman was helping her son out of the backseat of a car. They watched her kiss his forehead before leading him up the porch steps, her arm draped around his shoulders.

“Why you think we wasn’t given that?” Rock asked, nodding toward the scene.

“Given what?”

“That. Love. Hell… mamas.” His voice choked, but he didn’t look away.

Knycole followed his gaze, her throat tightened too because she’d been wondering the same thing for so long. “I’m still trying to figure it out.”

Rock leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees.

His thoughts circled everything he never said out loud.

He wanted to tell her how abandonment shaped every piece of him, how it made him chase love with closed fists instead of open arms. But he swallowed it down, because vulnerability wasn’t something men like him knew how to live in.

Knycole studied him. In that moment, she saw both the boy who needed his mama and the boy who’d hurt her. She didn’t excuse it, but she understood it.

“One day my heart won’t be so fucked up.” He pushed his hand across his jeans. “One day I’m gonna be able to love with my whole heart. I tried with you.”

Knycole’s hand landed on top of his. “As long as you tried, I’ll never put you down for that.

We were babies forced to be adults. You gave me things you didn’t have to give.

You loved me as good as you knew how but now we gotta love ourselves.

And now you have a daughter and a woman to love.

” Admitting Rock had someone other than her was a tough pill to swallow but she’d swallow it whole with water to wash it away.

He deserved happiness even if it didn’t include her.

“Who you been talking to?” He smirked.

“Started therapy today.”

He smiled. “I’m proud of you, Knyc. If I never told you, I’m telling you now.”

“And I’m proud of you too Rock. We made something out of nothing.”

“Still making something out of nothing.”

They just sat there, their hearts bleeding out in the silence, knowing this wasn’t reconciliation. It was recognition. Two people who loved hard but couldn’t fix each other.