Page 1 of What the Leos Burned (BLP Signs of Love #6)
Before Zavier Woods ever heard her voice, he was in survival mode.
The bruises on his back weren’t fresh, but they still ached when he moved too fast. His left rib had been sore for two weeks from the punches, ever since he’d talked back about a plate left in the sink.
That night, his stepfather didn’t yell. He just gripped the front of Zay’s hoodie, dragged him into the basement, and slammed him into the side of the washing machine so hard, the dryer shifted next to it.
“You think you grown now?”
Boom.
“You walk around here like you somebody.”
Boom.
“Your mama ain’t here no more, and you ain’t never been mine.”
Boom.
Zay didn’t cry from the blows to his sides. He didn’t scream.
He adapted to remain silent, but not because he wasn’t in pain; pain had become a language he’d grown to know too well.
One he never asked to speak.
Upstairs, his little sister Kennedy sat on the couch, curled under her throw blanket, waiting for the thuds to stop. She never ran downstairs anymore. She just waited and prayed.
Her father stormed up the stairs first, but Kennedy didn’t budge.
She was her father’s prized possession; he’d never lay a hand on his only biological child.
She learned that her desperate pleas to stop hitting her brother never worked, so she stopped trying long ago.
Her father stormed past her, ignoring her cries as she sat bundled under the cover, and up the stairs to his bedroom. He slammed the door behind him.
A few minutes later, Zay had come back up. She didn’t ask what happened. She just whispered, “I’m tired of seeing him snatch you up, big brother. I have nightmares of him killing you.”
Zay didn’t respond. He didn’t know how to tell her he did too.
He stayed there not because he wanted to, but because he had nowhere else to go.
His aunts said there wasn’t enough space. His cousins were all struggling. Grandma had too many pills and not enough patience. They all knew that his stepfather was a monster but never stepped in. As far as he was concerned, when his mother died, the rest of his family had too.
Kennedy begged him not to leave. He’d also made a promise.
“Stay with your sister. No matter what,” his mama told him that night she died from cancer.
So he stayed.
The abuse began the night of her funeral. His stepfather, drunk and in a rage, punched Zay in the face because he was a reminder of a woman he’d once loved and never forgave for dying. He was angry with her for leaving him with two children to raise alone, one that wasn’t even his.
It was one of those brutal Detroit summers four days before August 1 st when he would finally turn eighteen.
He was at home, clicking through his Myspace page on his desktop, with one hand on the mouse and the other under his chin.
He was frustrated from the slow connection and banged the mouse on the desk.
“Zay,” Kennedy said from the living room couch. “Chill out before you break it and my dad gets mad. You know how he gets.”
Zay scoffed. “Fuck yo’ dad. This shit is pissing me off!”
His rap group, The Ether Division, had gained a bit of a following around Detroit, mostly local open mics and basement party sets, but their Myspace Band page’s views and comments were steady.
The group put their money together to shoot a video for their latest single “Westside Prayer” on the top level of MotorCity Casino parking ramp.
It had only been a few days since they put it on YouTube, but the views had climbed.
He was on Myspace trying to look at the latest view count.
If he needed a ticket out, this was his best shot.
The one verse he’d wrote at two a.m. about being broke, angry, and hungry for a better future was all that everyone quoted.
This just had to work. He bet everything on it.
“I’m just tired of seeing him snatch you up,” Kennedy replied.
Zay didn’t respond, but her words sliced through him. He waited for the page to load and focused as it slowly began to display across the screen. It landed on a page of a girl he’d never seen, with his group’s song playing in the background.
Most specifically, the part with his verse.
Her page was soft pink with brown borders and font with the headline that read DaOnlyPrincess_90 up top.
The layout sparkled with glittery hearts and cursive affirmations.
Her display picture stopped him in his tracks.
She had glossy lips and almond shaped eyes that looked like they saw straight through him.
Her skin was peanut butter brown with natural curly hair pulled to a side ponytail.
She threw up a peace sign with a white background behind her.
Out of instinct, he double clicked to expand it, then continued scrolling through her photos.
They were casual—most of them mirror selfies, blurry flicks with homegirls, and one holding a brown and black Pomeranian puppy he’d later learn was named “puppy” itself.
She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
And, apparently, she had great taste in music.
He tapped the “Add Friend” button as his heart raced. Then, he sent a direct message with the smoothest thing he could think of.
Westsidezay: Yo…sup ma.
Kennedy giggled behind him, and he jumped, as he hadn’t noticed she got off the couch and stood right behind him.
“Damn, you scared me! What is you doin’?”
“No, what is you doin’?” she replied. “That’s not how you approach a woman.”
“What the hell you know about a man approaching a woman with your young ass? Them boys better not be saying nothin’ to you.”
“Oh, shut up. I know enough to know a girl like that would never respond to?—”
Just then, the computer beeped through the speakers, a message from daonlyprincess_90. Zay glanced over his shoulder at his sister with a smug grin. She stuck her tongue and rolled her eyes.
He turned back to the screen, and they both read her reply.
Daonlyprincess_90: wait…is this Zay? as in Zay from T.E.D.?
“What is T.E.D.?” Kennedy asked.
“It stands for my group, The Ether Division, Ken. Get out my business anyway!” he responded and nudged her away. She folded her arms and turned and walked to the couch before plopping down.
Zay turned back to the screen and typed.
Westsidezay: daonlyzay here.
Daonlyprincess_90: How do I know it’s really you?
Westsidezay: well it ain’t the other ones
Daonlyprincess_90: so you the one with the chipped tooth and bad attitude?
“Damn,” Zay exclaimed. He wasn’t sure if he was offended or impressed that someone noticed. “Did she just try to ho me?”
Westsidezay: …don’t forget the trust issues and social anxiety too, damn man!
Daonlyprincess_90: ahhh… my favorite one. I knew it was you. What’s up?
He grinned at the message.
Westsidezay: yo favorite huh? So you like poetic thugs?
Daonlyprincess_90: ummm, no. You don’t scream on the track like the rest of them. I like the quiet ones. They have the most to say.
Westsidezay: sounds boring
Daonlyprincess_90: and yet, here you are.
They talked every day after that, mostly online until she was comfortable giving him her phone number.
Then, they would talk all night when the city was quiet, and the streets were filled with blankets of snow.
She told him about poems and stories that she never showed anyone.
He told her about his mother’s passing and how hard it was living with his stepfather, who reminded him every chance he had that he wasn’t his real son.
He spared her the details of his broken ribs and busted lips.
She could feel the bruises in his voice enough to know.
They swapped stories, playlists, and dreams. It was digital intimacy in its purest form.
By the time the snow hit the ground that year, he knew her whole name—Princess Love Melendez—her go-to Coney Island order, and that she hated her arms.
“Flabby and droopy,” she would say. “Just like how I feel.”
But he had grown to love every inch of her, body and mind. She became his safe space when he escaped the wrath of his stepfather. She was the only light in his darkness. She knew that she gave him something to look forward to, and he became something she wanted to build toward.
The day he realized he had fallen hard crept up on him like a thief in the night.
He pulled up to her parents’ house in his beat up dark blue Ford Fusion and parked on the side of the street.
She came rushing out, excited and smiling like the sun lived inside of her. When she reached the car, she paused.
“Nigga, pull up. I am a lady! You don’t see this big ass puddle of water right here?”
“Damn, nigga! I ain’t see it! My bad!” He laughed in response.
“How the hell you expect me to walk over? What you think, I’m Jesus or somethin’? You want me to ruin my shoes? I just got these.”
Zay chuckled. He loved how her playful nature mirrored his own.
It was one of his favorite things about her.
As she climbed into the passenger seat and clinked her seat belt, T.E.D.
’s song suddenly blasted through the radio.
She screamed in excitement. He drove down the street, stunned.
When he reached the corner, he parked at the stop sign, and they both jumped out.
They circled the car and met at the hood screaming, dancing, and reciting the lyrics together as if they were the only people in the world.
It was one of the most memorable moments of the beginning of his success as an artist. In that moment, he knew that he appreciated her more than he’d realized before.
Her constant support and belief in him were magic. That made her magic to him.