Ten Years Ago
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It’s been ten years since she left this world, and I still hear the echo of her last words every damn night. Her voice soft, broken, a whisper over the phone before the line went dead. I was too late then. And I’m too late now.
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Her name was Nia. Nia Simone Valez. My wife. My peace. My karma.
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We met when I was twenty-one and already knee-deep in the game—weight moving from the Southside to the East, my name buzzing through every trap and alley. I was Kingston Valez back then—King, to the streets. Feared. Respected. But I was cold, numb. Nia was the only softness I ever knew.
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We met in a corner bodega—cliché as it sounds. She was behind the counter, bagging groceries and humming Erykah Badu under her breath. I was buying blunt wraps and a bottle of Henny, fresh off a run. She looked me dead in my face and said, “You smell like money and destruction.”
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I laughed. “You always this bold?”
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She smirked. “Only with men who think they invincible.”
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I knew right then she wasn’t like the others. Nia didn’t want flash. She didn’t want stacks thrown on hotel beds or keys to Bentleys. She wanted time, truth, healing. And for a while, I tried to give her that. I pulled back from the streets just enough to make her think I was serious about change. We got married two years later, small ceremony, just us and her grandmother. I wore a suit I didn’t deserve. She wore a crown of curls and hope.
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But I wasn’t ready to be a man worthy of her.
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The streets ain’t something you just dip in and out of. They grip you, mold you, twist you. I was still deep in, still running plays behind her back, still lying about late nights. And worst of all—I cheated. Once turned into twice, twice turned into a habit. I convinced myself I had it under control, that Nia would never find out.
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But she did. And it broke her.
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She never screamed. Never cursed. She just stopped smiling. Stopped dancing barefoot in the kitchen. Stopped believing in me.
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One night, she sat on the edge of the bed, staring at her wedding ring like it was a shackle. She looked at me and said, “You promised me peace. You promised me forever. And you gave me chaos dressed as love.”
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I ain’t never felt smaller than in that moment.
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I tried to fix it. I swear I did. I cut things off, I started pulling out of the streets for real. But the damage was done. The woman who used to laugh in her sleep started waking up crying. The one who prayed for me stopped praying altogether.
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Then, one night, I came home to silence. No lights. No music. Just a letter on the table and her body in the tub upstairs.
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“I just wanted to be enough for you.”
“But I was never more than a detour on your road to self-destruction.”
“Tell the streets they can have you.”
“I’m done fighting for someone who doesn’t even see me.”
– Nia
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I ain’t never picked up a brick since. I dropped everything that day—every connect, every runner, every dime. The streets ain’t worth it when the only person who ever saw your soul is gone because of you.
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Now I live with the guilt. Every single day. I wear it like a second skin. And when I drive past that bodega, now boarded up, I see her behind the counter, still humming Badu, still looking at me like she knows I’d break her heart again if she gave me the chance.
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But she’s gone.
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And all I got left is ghosts and guilt.
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