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Domonique

"Girl how many times you gon keep looking at that post?" Sade tapped my forehead, making me look up from the screen. I quickly cleared the Instagram app and shut my phone off, throwing it on the other side of the couch.

"And here I was, actually thinkin' you moved on. Lies and deceit, I tell ya," Sade paused our show and turned to me.

I blew out a frustrated breath, not really sure what to do with my feelings. Jay and the girl he posted with the roses must have been taking things more seriously now. And I'm pretty sure rose girl was the same one at the store with the kid. Was I jealous? I don't know. But he was happy, and that's all that should have mattered, right?

Right?

"Sade, I'on wanna get into it right now."

"Yeah, yeah. You never wanna get into it, or talk about him, or look at dating other people. So what is it that you actually wanna do, D? Cause I can't keep watching you pout and frown all day thinking about this guy. You deserve love and happiness, too. Not just him."

She was right. Even though I stopped calling and stopped showing up at his store, I still thought about him often. Too often to be healthy. And thinking about what we could have had together stops me from even wanting anyone else.

"Can we look through her Instagram?"

Sade smacked. "Nah, that aint helping nothing."

I rolled my eyes. "You asked me what I wanna do. That's what I wanna do."

"Fine," she gave in and grabbed my phone for me. She laid her head in my lap and scrolled to Jay's account, then clicked on his most recent post and swiped through. "He didn't tag her, but I bet she commented."

Hers was the first comment, which I didn't even pause to read before Sade was scrolling through her feed.

From what I could tell, she was in school, had a huge, loving family, and loved to draw. "Look, she did a collaboration wit' his clothing line too," Sade pointed out, seeing her tagged in a few posts from the store's Instagram.

She was beautiful, smart, and had people who cared about her. That's more than I could say for myself.

After uncovering some old photos from 2015 and laughing a bit, Sade shut the phone off. "Domonique. This ain't no way to live man. You can't be stalking his life and his girl, wishing you was her."

"I know, Sade. But what you want me to do, huh?"

"Talk to him. Tell him you're still alive."

"What?!" I pushed her up off my lap. She knew that was not an option, so why would she even suggest it? "You know I can't do that."

Raheem was still going on with his plan he didn't tell me about. Who knows if he was able to kick out Jordan, our mother, or his bitch of a wife? I hadn't heard from him and he told me never to contact him, so there was no way for me to know. It had been months since we last spoke, and I feel so anxious and hopeless not knowing if he's okay or not.

And what if he wasn't successful, and the only other person on my side was lying dead in a ditch somewhere and I had no idea?

"Is your brother okay?" She asked, looking a bit more concerned than I would have expected. It was definitely something going on between those two.

"I don't know. He hasn't spoken to me yet."

"Well then, what else can you do? You don't wanna date anyone else, you miss him so badly you rather get drunk to try and forget him. Obviously you can't let go. So don't."

I turned her words over in my mind. Don't let go? As in, I'd have to contact him, find a way to explain everything that's happened in the past six years, and hope to God that me doing so didn't put his life in danger. It couldn't work, could it?

Could it?

She noticed me in my head. "Tell me it's a bad idea, and that you don't want to do it. Then I'll drop it."

I couldn't. Not when that was everything I had ever wanted since I came back from the dead.

"Okay. That's your answer then. You have to talk to him. You have to get him to understand what you've been through, D. And then maybe you'll get the closure you need and move on, or you'll start your life with him in it."

"You're feeding me false hope. That's the kind of shit that happens in fairytales and movies, not in my fucked up ass life. Be real, Sa. That would never happen."

"How could you find out if you never tried? You can't wait for Rah to save you because the way these niggas work, you'll be waiting forever. Love is love is love is love and you have to take a chance on it."

"Wowww, so poetic."

"I know girl, I get deep," she flipped her hair.

Hope started to form in my gut. If she was right, I could get back the person who meant the most to me in my life. And who knows, maybe we could pick up where we left off?

"So what are you suggesting?"

"Schedule a meet up."

"How? Where?"

"I don't know, go back to the shop."

"I'm not going back there. Not after I ran away from him the first time." Plus, there was a chance the girl would be there. And I wanted to talk to him alone, away from everyone else. Just us, like it used to be.

"Okay Sha'Carri Richardson. Fast ass."

"At my fastest I was faster than her. So don't do that."

"Alright. Maybe try calling him with an unblocked number this time?"

"Nah. I doubt he'll answer a number he doesn't recognize after what happened." I sighed. "Maybe this is a sign that I shouldn't--"

"Ooh! What if I draw him out or something? He doesn't know or recognize me."

I raised my eyebrows at this. "And how exactly would you do that?"

She looked up, thinking. "Hmm. Maybe I could pretend I'm one of ole girl's friends? And say I have something that belongs to her. You think he'll agree to meet then?"

"That don't even sound right. Cause if you her friend, then why you talking to him? Wouldn't you just go straight to her?"

"Right."

I sat in silence, letting Sade throw ideas at me. She suggested we kidnap him, along with some other crazy things. "What if you work at Amazon for a week and wait for him to order something? Then all we gotta do is make sure you the one to deliver the package." I almost kicked her out with that one.

Nothing was coming together, and I started to go back to the girl I was an hour earlier, the girl that had no intentions of seeing Jay anytime soon. Then Sade's eyes lit up, brighter than any of the other times she had an idea.

"Think. What's one place you know exactly when and where he's gonna be at?"

"I don't know. That would require me to follow him for at least a week to know what his schedule is like." And even then, it would still be too hard to know exactly when I could 'bump' into him.

"I got an idea," Sade finally said.

"What is it?" I leaned forward. She had an unsure look on her face, which worried me.

"You not gon like it."

"I don't care, just tell me!" I half-yelled. "Sorry."

"Your death anniversary is coming up... And you know exactly where he's gonna be that day."

At my grave, with flowers. Telling me about his year, telling me how much he's sorry and that he misses me. Crying because I'm not there with him.

A chill ran down my back. "Sade... that's terrible." It was. Popping up on him during the worst day of both of our lives was cruel. Seeing the way he shook with sobs every year on the anniversary of my death was even worse.

But I could only imagine the happiness on his face when he sees me, not in a coffin, but alive and well. Standing right next to him, where I belonged.

"I know, girl. But I wouldn't have suggested it if I didn't think it could work."

"You think he'll still go visit me?"

"Of course. You think a new chick is gon change that? Y'all bond was something entirely different. He's always gonna go back to you."

"Let's just hope you're right."





I took a deep breath, shaking nerves off me. Sade offered to come, but I wanted to do this alone. She stayed back at the hotel we got for the night.

"He'll come, he will," I said to myself. Every year he'd come visit me, and I hoped things weren't about to change now.

I walked the familiar path through Monroe's largest cemetery, doing my best not to trample any flowers or teddy bears left on gravestones. I arrived at mine, the last one on a very long row. Or at least, I thought it would be. Four new plots were filled next to mine, and I said a quick prayer over each of them.

Slowly, I wandered back to my resting place and took a seat in the grass. The flowers from the previous year had since withered up and died, leaving only a stuffed elephant that remained since I was buried.

In Loving Memory of a Dear Sister, Daughter, and Friend.
Domonique Corré Williams

My fingers grazed over my name. I missed hearing people say it, feeling connected to it. Living this lie would never match up to who I really was. Am.

Every time I came back, bitterness threatened to choke me up. I hated my mother, my brother, my father, every single one of them who played a role in my death. But I don't know if I could handle them being killed. Raheem, please take care of yourself. Don't leave me too.

I had already resolved to push all the what ifs to the back of my mind. Sade was right, I wouldn't know what would happen until it happened. I closed my eyes and breathed, forcing the negative thoughts away. Then I waited, constantly checking my watch. I was getting impatient. Jay was always late to things, and I stayed on his case about that. Seems as though he didn't learn anything--

"Excuse me, who are you?" A familiar voice spoke behind me. His accent wafted into my ears, slightly less country than I remembered it, though still as deep-- maybe deeper. My heart raced and I held my breath, fighting back tears. "Hello?" He asked again. I stood up, still not facing him.

This was it: everything I had been craving and begging for for the past 6 years of my life. Images from the last time we saw each other-- really saw each other-- flashed into my mind. Me, bleeding out. Him, holding me and telling me everything was going to be okay. I begged him not to leave me, which was dumb now that I think about it. I could have bled out, right there on the floor because I didn't want him to go grab a phone to call 911. Eventually he had promised that he'd be right back, which he made good on. But those few seconds when he disappeared felt like hours, and I thought he truly left me.

A wave of nausea fell over me, and I thought I was going to throw up. Instead, I stood up straighter, ready to face this and tired of waiting. I clung onto the hope that it was going to be everything I ever wanted, and slowly turned around.

Jay had changed so much, yet so little. I kept up with his photos and everything he posted on social media, but none of that did him justice. He looked older of course, but like he had fully grown into all of his features. Just as handsome as my memory remembered-- probably even more so now.

But the look he had on his face was pure terror, and my heart was breaking at the sight of it.

Where I imagined smiles and hugs, I was met with fear and disbelief. The flowers in his hand fell to the ground as he swayed on his feet. His eyebrows scrunched up as he shook his head.

I didn't know what to say and my mouth felt completely dry, like there was sand in it. "Jay, I-- it's me." I took a step closer to him, my arm reached out.

"No..." he backed up in response. "You're not here. This isn't real."

"Yes it is, Jay. It's Domonique. It's D. See, touch my hand." I tried looping our fingers together and he damn near tripped on another headstone trying to put as much distance between us as possible.

He kept shaking his head making the tears forming in his eyes fly out. "Get out of my head, please. Please." His hands flew up to his hair as he gripped his head and fell to his knees, muttering to himself. "Everything is fine. Don't-- s-stop trying to ruin things. It ain't real, she's gone."

I slowly walked closer, trying not to scare him any more than he was. I just wanted to comfort him, let him know I was there, that I was real. I began wrapping my arms around him. As soon as he felt my touch, he flinched and scooted away from me.

"No! This-- this isn't real. It's not. Wake up!" He hit himself in the face, the spot of impact immediately turning red on his brown skin.

"Don't do that, Jay. It's me. It's D," I repeated over and over, fighting with every instinct that told me to cry. He kept hitting himself, screaming for himself to wake up and realize it was a dream.

But it wasn't a dream. It was a nightmare.

This was wrong. It was a terrible, terrible mistake coming here on this day.

He rocked himself back and forth slowly as I stood frozen in place. Finally, he looked up at me with red eyes. Tears flowed down his cheeks. "Who are you?!" He screamed. I flinched at the sound of his voice echoing through the cemetery. Other people visiting their loved ones who had passed on looked our way, but quickly averted their eyes.

"Jay please calm down. I just wanna talk." At this point I was crying too, but I couldn't tell what emotion was making me do so. I was angry with myself for ever thinking this would work. But sadness consumed me, realizing what I had done hurt him more than it would ever help.

"Why you doin' this to me, man? D, I'm sorry-- I-- are you mad at me? Is that why you keep haunting me? I wanna m-make it right. Please, please just tell me how to fix it." He sounded so weak and desperate, as if the sound of my voice was breaking him.

"I'm not haunting you. I'm right here. I'm with you." My voice came out shaky and pinched despite how strong I tried to sound. I walked closer to him, finally getting down to his level without him pushing me away. "It's me. And you know me, I could never be mad at you," I said. I wanted to get closer, but his body was already tense. It looked like this was going to be it.

"I gotta go," he said, quickly wiping his tears and standing up.

"Wait, Jay--"

"I can't-- I don't know." His words were all jumbled and he looked jittery. I didn't want him on the road like this, but there was nothing I could do to stop him.

"Okay, okay wait. Just take my number then. Here." I only had a pen and some tissue in my pocket, so I wrote it down on there. He reluctantly took it, his eyes barely meeting mine, then rushed back to his car.

Once he left, my legs gave out, leaving me to sit in front of my grave for the rest of the day. I cried and cried until my lungs cramped and my eyes dried up. I felt dead, like they had actually buried me all those years ago.































a/n: so after y'all bitched me out last chapter i decided to give y'all what y'all wanted.. kinda. 🤣 i appreciate the feedback and i hear y'all. i will be doing more D content now cause i feel like this chapter is a shift in the book. so how do we feel about their first real interaction? and don't worry.. there will be more 👀 vote + comment for me

-ColeWoorld


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