Page 71 of Tangled Hearts

The sheets still smelled like him.

Not just his cologne. Not just the sweat from those late nights when he’d fall asleep on top of her with his lips still touching her collarbone.

She missed him . The deep, warm scent she’d memorized by accident.

The one she used to breathe in on purpose after long days.

The scent that made her lean into his chest five years ago at the house party.

She swooned for it back then.

Now it made her stomach twist.

Noir’s eyes fluttered, tangled in Egyptian cotton and pain. Her body barely moved, too weighed down by the grief pressing down on her so hard she couldn’t even sit up.

Sunlight poured in through the tall windows of the bedroom they used to share, but nothing felt warm. She yawned, and mid-breath, a sob caught in her throat and dragged her under.

She covered her face with both hands and cried into the crook of her arm. “Ahhh!”

Five years.

She clawed at her skin. Her senses fought against one another. On one hand she wanted to burn the whole house down. On the other hand, she wanted to preserve it like a museum for their love.

“Oooo,” she wailed from her gut. Noir could taste the bitterness of his love and his betrayal but she wanted it all in that moment. Her Christian was gone.

They built this life together. This mansion.

This routine. This quiet version of forever that wasn’t always pretty but had real love tucked into the corners of it.

Even though she was with Cash now—and she knew in her heart she was in love with him—there was a part of her soul still knotted with Christian’s and it hurt like hell to admit that both could be true.

How was it possible to love and hate Christian? To carry so much love for a person but still feel the weight of everything they did wrong.

She was desperate to force her confused emotions into something tangible. Noir wanted to feel something… needed to feel him one last time. To cuss him out again. To kiss him again. To smile with him again. Just anything. That’s how desperate she was for Christian.

She grabbed her belly, holding it in tightly as another bout of sorrow burst through her like an exorcism. “Ahhh!”

The door burst open. “Baby?” Nakorea rushed to the bed, jumping in to rock Noir like she did when she was a fussy baby. Tears filled her eyes and didn’t wait to fall. They cascaded. “Shhh,” she soothed.

Still, Noir screamed and cried. She didn’t have words, just feelings. Deep rooted emotions. Light and dark memories.

“Mama,” a bubble popped when Noir cried even harder.

“I know, baby,” Nakorea smoothed her wild hair. “I know.”

“He’s—” she choked, hiccupping a bitter taste of sulfur. “He’s gone, mama. My Christian is gone.”

Noir tried to get into her mama’s skin because she wanted to be anywhere but in the present.

In a world where Christian didn’t exist. Even if they weren’t together, she still wanted to know that one day he’d smile again.

He had sneaky eyes but his smile lit up rooms. His eyes helped him get in her panties.

And his lips… she wanted to look at the discoloration of them one last time.

Smooth her thumb across them. At this point, she’d take a kiss. Anything.

“Come on, Noir, you gotta calm down.”

“How?” Noir finally pulled her eyes open just long enough to look around the room, then she wailed again. “How, mama?” Her chest bounced, grief filled tears running wild down her face that was so red, she looked like she had a fever.

Nakorea shook her daughter’s shoulders. “Noir, you gotta calm down or you’ll make yourself sick.

” She grabbed the breakfast she’d brought in earlier.

It was cold but she knew Noir needed to eat something.

It had been three weeks since Christian’s funeral and she had yet to see her baby girl eat anything besides nibbling on a cracker here and there.

“I can’t eat,” Noir whispered through tears.

“You gon’ sip this water though,” Nakorea placed the plate down on the nightstand.

Noir shook her head, but her mama was already unscrewing the cap. She pressed the bottle to her daughter’s lips like she was six again. “Just a little. For me.”

Noir took two sips. The water went down like knives. “I can’t do this. Mama…”

Nakorea cupped her face, thumbs wiping tears. “Yes, you can. You’re already doing it. Look at you. You’re up. You’re breathing. You’re crying, which means you’re feeling . That’s how we know we’re still alive.”

“I shoulda called him back.”

“Shoulda, woulda, coulda don’t do nothin’ for the dead, baby. But I know you loved him. And I know he knew that too.”

Noir broke down again, chest heaving as she clutched her mama’s wrist. “He ruined us.”

“Mmhm. And still managed to water your soil in the process. Ain’t that a bitch?” Nakorea rubbed slow circles into her shoulder. “You became a woman while loving that man. The kind who knows how to pick herself up without losing her softness.”

“I hate him for it.”

“You love him for it too.”

She nodded, shoulders trembling.

“Nothing about you was ever small,” Nakorea whispered, “and Christian was the first man to recognize that and not try to dim your light. He just ain’t have the tools to protect what he saw in you. And baby, that ain’t love’s fault.”

Noir laid back down, arms over her face. Her tears soaked the pillow like they had for the last twenty days.

The phone on the nightstand buzzed.

Nakorea picked it up. “It’s Cash.”

“Don’t answer.”

“I’m gon’ answer.” She slid her thumb across the screen. “Hey baby.”

On the other end, Cash’s voice came through. “How is my pretty girl?”

Noir could hear him and broke down again because she felt bad.

She loved Cash… wanted to love him too but she was grieving over a man that broke her heart.

He wasn’t the first to do it. Her daddy was.

Yea, he sent monthly payments and dull lectures, but the man who created her didn’t show up for her like he should’ve.

“She woke up crying,” Nakorea said, walking into the hallway to give Noir a little space. “She ain’t been eating and threw up the little bit of water I gave her earlier. But she’s hanging on. She just needs time.”

“I wish I could be there,” Cash muttered his background muffled.

“I know you do. But you got work, and she told you she needed space. Honor that.”

“I don’t know how to help her.”

“Help her by waiting. Love her in the quiet. Send her some flowers with a note that says you still here. She might not be ready to love you with her hands, but she ain’t stopped loving you with her heart.”

Cash accepted that.

Later that night, Noir curled tighter into what was left of Christian. Her chest still throbbed and her heart still burned.

A memory snuck up on her and stole the breath from her lungs.

One of their last good nights.

Christian had come in at 3 a.m., his hoodie soaked from rain. Noir was in one of his t-shirts, half asleep on the couch waiting for him. He dropped to his knees in front of her and pressed his face into her thighs without saying a word.

“You good?” she whispered, running her fingers through his waves.

“I just needed you,” he mumbled. “That’s all.”

She remembered that exact moment. How safe he sounded. How simple love felt when neither of them spoke. They didn’t even go upstairs. Just curled into each other on the couch and slept so good.

Noir sat up suddenly, dizzy, gagged, and ran to the bathroom. The water she’d barely sipped came right back up. She knelt on the floor, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Her eyes blurred again.

“I didn’t even get to tell you goodbye,” she whispered into the toilet.

A knock sounded.

Slowly with hesitation, Hov walked in with a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a quart of chicken noodle soup in the other. “I brought real food. And some of them little lemon cookies you like.”

Noir couldn’t even smile. But she stood up and hugged him so tightly. Her tears soaked into his shirt on contact.

“I miss him too,” Hov whispered. “Don’t nobody know how I got love for that nigga. But I did.”

“He woulda liked these flowers,” she choked.

“I know,” Hov rubbed her back. “He liked yellow roses. Said they looked like gold.” He laughed a little. There was so much about Christian that the world never got to experience but they did. It was a shared experience making them understand each other’s pain behind his death.

“You remember that?”

“Hell yea. That was when we first really got locked in… nigga started just telling me random shit. You know he ain’t really have friends or fuck with too many people, but he took to me easily. Probably cause I’m a real nigga,” he smiled even though his chest was tight.

Hov set the soup down on the nightstand and pulled her blanket back up for her once she got back in the bed.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever love like that again,” Noir whispered. “That love felt like I had a bag on my head when it started to hurt.”

“You will. Different don’t mean less. You got a big heart, Noir. Always have. You just need time to grieve the part of yourself that loved him through the worst shit.”

“What if I already love Cash? Like, really love him?” Her red eyes begged Hov for some of his street knowledge.

She felt guilty for even saying Cash’s name out loud in this space. Like she was betraying something sacred. Something broken but still hers.

Her eyes darted to the dresser where the chain Christian bought her still hung on the corner of a photo frame.

The same one he gifted her when they first moved in.

Queen of Everything was engraved on the back.

She wore it to sleep some nights just to feel a little power again.

Today, it felt heavy, so she left it there.

Hov sighed. “Then that’s what it is.”

She looked at him like that couldn’t possibly be enough.