His misunderstanding of Janae was one thing. But he was ashamed of his absolute diarrhea of the mouth trashing Liza’s family and trying to set her up in an apartment and hide her away. Even if he’d meant it to be an oasis for them both, he’d said it like she was a toy he would hide in a hole until he was ready to play. She wasn’t a woman to hide away; he was proud of her, and he should have said that. Dorsey had preached to Liza about decorum after he had propositioned her like a mistress. He had buried the story of Gigi and Isaiah because it was a black mark on the Fitzgerald family—on him—but now Isaiah was back to scamming people, maybe even the community Liza cared about, because Dorsey held his own secrets in such high regard.

I fucked it up.

He’d fucked everything up.

He had driven by Longbourne a few times—he’d even parked and walked around, hoping for a coincidental run-in with any Bennett. He saw the neighborhood differently now, the unique two-story cottages with Italianate-style architecture and Queen Anne–style homes. He got his ass handed to him in a few pickup basketball games at the Fort Stanton Rec Center. On the court, they only cared about the skill he brought to the team. He was absolutely haunting her neighborhood trying to feel a fraction of the joy she brought into his life.

He’d even bumped into Maurice on some of his longer walks. Liza’s little brother never even broke his stride and started walking the neighborhood alongside him—quietly and thoughtfully. Maurice took him on a tour of Cedar Hill, the former home of Frederick Douglass, hidden away in her neighborhood like any other house. He, Maurice, and Gigi had even taken a touristy photo next to that enormous chair. He walked her neighborhood without calculation and saw beauty where before he had only seen ashes. He wanted to love what she loved.

She would be fine without him. And he would be fine during the day. But at night, memories of her chased him around his bedroom. Her lips, the way her body rose to meet him when he kissed her, that hollow in her neck that he now knew smelled like honey and vanilla, the way she’d moaned when he kissed her most sensitive spot—he remembered everything with encyclopedic accuracy. He had taken to drinking at night to ensure dreamless sleep. But when he woke, his heart and his body still ached for her.

She had been quiet on social media. He had typed and erased so many direct messages and texts to her. In the end, what he’d said and done was too much to overcome.