Page 82 of Roman Blake
Bathroom.
Drive-bys.
Parrin’ in parkin’ lots.
“Maybe,” I admitted.
Nana leaned back. “Talk.”
“I don’t know how to do this halfway,” I said. “When I care, I move heavy. I like knowin’ where she at, if she safe, who around her. After what happened wit’ Mo, my brain don’t know how to sit still.”
Her eyes softened at Mo’s name, but she let me finish.
“So I been… watchin’,” I went on. “From a distance. Ridin’ past, poppin’ up. At first I thought I was just checkin’ on her. Then April told her I been in areas I had no business in. Melissa caught me a couple times. Now she look at me like I’m half protector, half monster.”
“And how that make you feel?” Nana asked.
“Like shit,” I said. “‘Cause I’m tryin’ to keep her from gettin’ hurt and I’m the one addin’ to her fear.”
She nodded slow. “You cannot choke love into stayin’, baby.”
I looked up.
“You hear me?” she repeated. “You cannot choke love into stayin’. All you do is squeeze the joy out of it. If that girl is scared, you gotta give her enough air to see you not like the last man she was with.”
“Iamnot like him,” I said, jaw tight.
“And you know that,” she said. “I know that. But does her nervous system know that? Her body only remember hurt. Men who say ‘I got you’ and then disappear. Men who say ‘you safe’ and then break that safety.”
I stared at my tea.
“You sittin’ in cars outside her places, showin’ up unexpected, demandin’ access… that might feel normal to you ‘cause of what you’ve seen and lost,” Nana said. “But to her? It feel like another man takin’ her choices away. Even if your heart is in the right place.”
I swallowed. “So what I’m supposed to do? Just not care?”
She smiled, small. “Caring ain’t the problem. Control is. You need to learn the difference between protectin’ somebody and possessin’ ‘em.”
“That easier said than done,” I mumbled.
“Ain’t say it was easy,” she replied. “I said it was necessary. If you want that girl for real, you gon’ have to give her some room to walk toward you, not just drag her to where you standin’ and hold her there.”
I leaned back, feelin’ like somebody let air out my chest.
“I pull back, she run,” I said. “What then?”
“Then you know what it was,” Nana said calmly. “Either she come, or she don’t. Either way, at least you didn’t lose her tryin’ to wrap both hands ‘round her throat.”
Harsh, but true.
“So what you suggest?” I asked. “For real. Not the pretty answer.”
She sipped her tea, thinkin’.
“Give her space for a little while,” she said. “Real space. Not shadow space. No followin’. No pullin’ up ‘just ‘cause.’ You call when you got somethin’ to say. You answer if she reach out. You keep your door open. But you stop runnin’ up in her life uninvited every time your fear start talkin’ loud.”
“That gon’ eat me alive,” I said.
She smiled. “That’s the part you take to God and this tea, not to her driveway.”
