I remember when my heart broke
I remember when I gave up loving you
Morgan sat at her vanity; her earbuds filled her ears with a ballad that told the secrets of her heart. It was so loud it drowned out all sound. She gripped the pen in her hand and wrote the lyrics across the paper in front of her. She didn’t know why she wanted to write them down. It just seemed appropriate. It seemed like these lyrics were ripped right out of her diary. Was heartbreak universal? Did men just hurt women to the point where the pain was recognizable by other women? Shared experiences of heartbreak connecting her to a sorority of other broken hearts? She hated that this song was so on point. She hated that she had been inducted into the sisterhood at all.
Morgan was restless. Every time she closed her eyes, she heard gunshots. Her heart had been running rampant ever since the shooting, pounding, overbeating it felt like. It felt like she was having a heart attack, and she just wanted the panic to ease some. She was fine. Her kids were fine. Still, she felt it. The anxiety. The pure terror of what could have happened that day. It could have been her or the twins in a grave right now. Even losing Aria would have obliterated Morgan. Even the thought caused her room to shrink. Morgan cinched her eyes and took in deep breaths, but she was choking. She glanced back at the bed where Bash slept. She couldn’t breathe. She wanted to wake him, but he no longer felt like peace. He was a part of her storm too. Her entire life was so fucked up. The chaos felt unending, and Morgan didn’t know the way out. She stood, creeping quietly from the room. She didn’t even put on shoes as she slipped out her front door. She couldn’t wait on the elevator. She took the stairs all the way to the bottom, bursting out the door to her building and gulping in air. She fisted her hair with one hand and placed the other to her heart as she sucked in oxygen.
It took a while for her to still her heart.
Beep! Beep!
It was odd that she recognized the sound of the horn. Insane that she knew it was Messiah before she even looked up. He popped open the driver’s door of his BMW and climbed out. She didn’t know if she should run inside or stand her ground. Her feet seemed to be rooted as he approached.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Messiah scooped Morgan up, forcing her thighs to butterfly his waist as he pushed her back into the building. He stood there. Eye to eye. Nose to nose.
“I can’t sleep, shorty, cuz you over here in your feelings,” Messiah said. “When you used to tell me you couldn’t sleep, I used to come through to put you to bed,” he said, half smiling as he buried his face in the groove of her neck.
“Messiah, stop,” she whispered. She peered behind her through the glass door, and Messiah peered right with her.
“It’s a problem, shorty?” he asked, voice dripping in aggression because he had been itching to put a nigga on his back.
He turned. She might as well have been Pebbles to his Bamm-Bamm because she was sure he would club her and drag her, kicking and screaming, with him. He didn’t even risk putting her on her feet because he was afraid she would run from him.
Morgan blushed and leaned her head against his forehead. She just didn’t have it in her to protest at the moment. “I dreamed about you coming back so many times,” she said, scoffing. “It was nothing like this, though. I didn’t hate you in my dreams.”
Morgan was silent, and Messiah was at a loss for words. They made it to the car, and he tucked her inside before going to the driver’s seat. He sat there, staring at her, making her uncomfortable as she turned her gaze out the window.
“The gunshots are ringing in my head, Messiah,” she murmured. “My babies were in there. I had to—”
“I know, Mo. I know about having to do shit you don’t really want to do,” Messiah said, his tone low, reminiscent. He was filled with remorse. Time and his selfishness had diluted their bond. He could feel her mistrust of him. It rotted in the passenger seat of his car, and it was so potent it brought emotion to his eyes. He was grateful for the dark of night. It concealed his anguish. “If it’s ever you or another nigga, you choose you, Mo. Every time. You’re not equal to nobody, shorty. You did what you had to do, and you’ll never have to do it again. I swear on my life as long as I’m breathing, you’ll never have to protect yourself again. I’ma be there, wherever you are, no matter who you’re with, to protect you. I’m taking niggas’ heads off over you, shorty.”
Morgan sniffed and lifted a trembling hand to her cheek to clear tears.
“How could you leave me?” she whispered.
Messiah gripped the steering wheel and turned his body to face her.
“I just had to handle some shit, Mo. I had to. You couldn’t come with me. Every day, I thought about you, though, shorty. That’s no lie. Every single fucking minute.”
“I died here without you.”
“Yeah, well, it don’t seem that way to me, shorty. Seem like you were living just fine,” he said.
She heard his disdain. His judgment. Silence. Discomfort. This had never been them. They were practically strangers, and it felt horrible because no one knew her better than he did. The intimacies they had shared in the midnight hours all those years ago had made them experts on each other. Well. He was an expert on her. Morgan didn’t know much at all about the man who had stolen her heart.
“Your kids. They’re two?”
“They are,” she said. Her stomach tensed because she already knew where this was going.
“I bet you were pretty as fuck pregnant. I was supposed to know what that looked like. You letting another nigga live my life, Mo,” Messiah said in disbelief.
Morgan didn’t respond to that. She didn’t even give him her eyes.
“And you named your son after me?” he asked. “Are they mine, Mo?”
She was silent. Her heart screamed, but her mouth didn’t open.
“Either they’re mine, or you were with him the whole time you were fucking with me? Is that why he was so comfortable with you back then? You were fucking the nigga?”
Morgan’s throat closed. It was as good of an opportunity as any to tell him the truth. That he was a father and his kids were upstairs. She couldn’t, however. She didn’t trust Messiah. She didn’t know him. The threat he posed if he had a hidden motive could destroy her entire family. What if he didn’t stick around this time? If she told him, and he abandoned her again? What if she told him, and Bash was so slighted that he told what he knew about Ethic? No. Morgan couldn’t say anything. It was best for everyone.
“I won’t apologize for how I moved when you were moving dirty yourself,” she said, remaining vague.
“So that’s the word? You were fucking that nigga while we were together?” Messiah asked.
Morgan wanted to defend herself. She wanted to yell that she was stupid in love with him, and that she hadn’t dismissed what they had shared the way he had.
Silence.
Nothing.
“Never knew you had so much ho in you, shorty. I would have handled you different,” Messiah snapped.
Morgan scoffed. Two years ago, that statement would have gutted her. It would have destroyed her, but today, she was different. He had changed her. He had already taken her through the absolute worst. He had beaten her down so low that she had surpassed bottom. Her feelings had been annihilated. He had mismanaged her heart so badly that she had boarded it up. She had already felt the greatest pain in life. His judgment of her didn’t even compare. She didn’t even really care.
“I never knew you had so much snake in you, Messiah. I would have kept my grass lower,” she shot back. She reached for the door handle and pushed it open. She had one foot to the pavement when he reached for her.
“I’m sorry, shorty. Just close the door,” he said, yielding. It was so hard for him to tuck his anger. Ever since seeing her with Ahmeek, he had wanted to kill someone. He had known he would get his girl back when he had seen her with Bash, but Ahmeek wasn’t the type to submit without a fight. He knew Morgan like the back of his hand, and Meek’s name on her tongue was said with too much affection. He could hear her adoration, and it sickened him. She had no idea the restraint he was showing.
“Maybe I am a ho, Messiah,” she said, void of emotion as she pulled her foot back inside and closed the door. Morgan was checked out. She was a shell. “Maybe after you left, I just broke. You broke me. Bash was there. Meek was…” She paused and swallowed down turmoil. Her voice trembled. “Ahmeek put me back together.” She barely said it. She was afraid to say it. Messiah was the last person who would ever understand.
“You can’t love a nigga from the grave,” Messiah answered.
“Exactly, Messiah,” she shot back. “You haven’t existed for two years. You were in a grave. You ran out on me for two whole years. I would have forgiven you for lying about being Mizan’s brother, but the shit you said to me at Bleu’s house that day. The way you handled me?” Morgan shook her head and closed her eyes. “Then you left, and when I thought you were dead, that was agony. It was unbearable, but now you’re here! You’ve been out there! Without me! You chose to be without me, Messiah. I would have never left you. You don’t exist at all to me anymore. I’ll never forgive you for the way you deserted me. You’re a cheater and a liar.” Morgan went to exit the car, and Messiah snatched her hand, pulling her back to him. He hit the locks, trapping her inside.
“I told some lies, Mo, so I’ma have to eat that, but I never cheated on you, shorty. Don’t burn my name,” Messiah said.
“Yeah, well, bitches who show up with babies in the middle of the night say otherwise,” Morgan shot back. That fateful night played back in her mind. It was the moment her life changed forever. The moment love became hate. The day destiny was erased. Everything they had built came tumbling down that fateful night.
“That girl with the baby wasn’t a bitch I was fucking,” Messiah said.
“Sure,” Morgan said sarcastically. “She flexed on your doorstep in the middle of the night, talking about you were hiding your family. Your lying ass has a baby and a bitch tucked away somewhere, and you act like I’m supposed to just forget that part, like you can separate the two and pretend they don’t exist.” Morgan scoffed. Rehashing these moments only built her resentment.
“It ain’t like that, Mo,” Messiah said.
“Then what is it like?” Morgan asked. Her eyes prickled, swelling so much that she couldn’t stop the tears from falling. “Just be honest with me, Messiah! How could you let that happen to us? How did we get here?”
Messiah leaned across the center console. A fist to her hair kept Morgan in place as he pressed his forehead to hers.
She knew him well enough to see the struggle tearing through him like a storm. He gritted his teeth. He was holding her so tightly it hurt, but she would rather feel the pain than to disconnect.
“I loved you. It’s like you want to say something to me, but you won’t. You want me to trust you, but you shut me out of your life for two years. You left me out in the world without you, alone, on purpose. I’d never do that to you. Why won’t you just talk to me?”
“I can’t, Mo,” he said. “But fuck with me anyway, like you used to, Mo. Believe in me, shorty. Over everything, over what you think you know. Trust me when I tell you, you don’t.”
She wanted to give in to him. She wanted to go back and be who they used to be. M&M. Forever. The fucking scheduled tweet still went out every week.
“I can’t,” she whispered.
“I love you, Shorty Doo Wop. Like it’s an obsession or something. I don’t give a fuck about nothing else except getting back to you. I don’t even need inside the home, Mo. A nigga will lay his head down on your porch as long as I’m near you. You go be mad. You keep playing with that bitch-ass nigga Bash, and you keep making Meek play your side piece. When you’re done acting out, when you’re done showing out, I’m fucking coming home. Ain’t shit you or nobody else can do to stop that. I’m sorry. Should have never given me that bone if you were going to want it back. I’m a dog-ass nigga, but I’m your dog-ass nigga, Mo.”
Morgan closed her eyes. It felt so good to feel his breath on her lips. To hear his voice. Even the tightness from him pulling her hair felt like a gift. He was back. Her man was back, and she didn’t even trust him enough to give him the key to her heart.
“I gave you all my love, and you wasted it!” she cried. “It’s not our time anymore. It’s too late. I couldn’t if I wanted to.” She thought of Bash, of the web he had her caught in. “Let me go, Messiah.”
“I ain’t letting shit go,” he said. “You know better. I’m coming for mine, shorty.” He unlocked the car. “You don’t lose sleep over nobody that ever means you harm. You go close your pretty eyes and dream well. Leave the nightmares for the people who deserve ’em.”
Morgan got out and rushed inside.