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“Okay, okay. Fair enough. I’m sorry,” he replies. “I’ve just never seen you get so bent about a woman before. This is like a first.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So? What are you going to do about it?”
“There’s nothing I can do. She made her decision.”
“And you’re good with that?”
“Do I look like I’m good with it?”
Darnell pulls his helmet off and tucks it under his arm. He purses his lips and looks around, a thoughtful expression on his face. He takes a beat and turns back to me.
“You want to know one of the things I admire most about you?” he asks.
“What’s that?”
“The fact that you never give up. That you never let somebody else determine your fate,” he says. “I’ve known you for what, twenty years now?”
“About that.”
“In all that time, I’ve never seen you give up. On anything,” he says. “It can be annoying as shit sometimes, but I admire it. I respect it. You never walk away from anything without throwing your one hundred percent at it. You leave it all out there on the field, and only when you’ve exhausted every ounce of energy you can and see that you can’t take it any further than you have will you walk away.”
His words echo through my head. It’s true. I don’t give up. I don’t feel right unless I throw everything I have at the wall and exhaust every avenue open to me. But as I consider his words, I have to realize some things are beyond my control. Some things can’t be bent the way I want them to bend just by the force of my will.
“This … this just feels different,” I say with a shake of my head.
“She said she’s breaking things off not because she wants to but because she doesn’t want to be an impediment to your relationship with Micah. Right?”
“That’s what she said.”
“Then make her believe she’s not an impediment,” Darnell says. “Make her see that your relationship with her is separate and apart from your relationship with Micah.”
“I don’t think she sees it that way.”
“That’s on you to make her see, brother.”
I shake my head again. “I don’t know how.”
“Do you want to be with her?”
“I do,” I say without hesitation.
“Then go and get her. Change her mind,” he says. “After all, like you just told me, she’s not splitting up because she wants to.”
I lean back against the truck and think about his words. As I do, an image of Harlow’s face floats through my mind, and I’m struck again by those beautiful cerulean eyes. And I’m struck once again by the Harlow-shaped hole in my heart. Her absence has been painful for me. I’m not used to being torn up about losing somebody, and I don’t like the feelings rampaging through me.
Darnell is right. If I want to plug that hole in my heart and stem this tide of black emotions coursing through my veins, I have to fight for her. I have to get her back. I need to make her understand that this situation with Micah has nothing to do with her. I need to make Harlow understand that she’s mine.
“Yeah,” I say. “You’re right.”
“You going to go get her back?”
I nod. “Yeah. I am.”
“Good boy. One favor, though.”
“What’s that?”
