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I ain’t never been the soft type.
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Didn’t grow up with room to be. Mama worked doubles, lights cut off more than the power company could count, and I was in the streets young—not to be hard, just to eat. So when I met Keisha, I thought… maybe this was what peace felt like.
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She was loud, fly, always had her hair done and her lip gloss poppin’. That hood kinda pretty. Not quiet pretty, not “stay-home-and-cook” pretty—outside pretty. She made you fight for her attention, then made you wish you never got it.
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But I loved her anyway.
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Spent money I didn’t have. Hustled harder to get her nails done, to keep her in the baddest Fashion Nova fits before they even hit the ‘Gram. Thought I was building something solid. I was twenty-two, thinking about rings and apartments, and this girl was slipping through my fingers the whole damn time.
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It started with her phone.
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She used to keep it locked up like it was the holy grail. Would never leave the room without it. One day she slipped, left it on the bathroom counter while she was in the shower. That shit lit up like Vegas—texts from “Big D.”
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“Be there in 20.”
“You still wearing that red dress for me?”
“You know I miss that mouth.”
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I stood there, phone in my hand, feeling like the floor dropped from under me. My girl—mine—was getting fucked by some older dude who had enough money to make her forget I even existed.
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Later I found out he was some big-time, suit-wearing nigga named Davon. Drove a black Charger. Ran a couple businesses. Had a wife. Clean cut. Looked like he walked out a damn commercial. I wasn’t even in his league. That’s what stung the most.
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She denied it at first. Lied with her whole chest, like I was dumb. Then she cried. Said she was “confused.” Said it “didn’t mean nothing.” That he was just “temporary comfort” while I was “still getting on my feet.”
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Man, fuck that.
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I packed my shit that night and never looked back. Blocked her on everything. Buried the part of me that believed in forever.
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Two Years Later
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I was in the garage working on Ms. Laverne’s busted-ass water heater when my homeboy Ice pulled up with a weird look on his face.
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“Yo, you hear ‘bout Keisha?”
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I barely looked up. “Nah. Don’t care to.”
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He scratched his head. “She gone, bro. Died last night. Stomach cancer.”
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I blinked. “Damn.”
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That was it. Just “damn.” I didn’t feel shit. Not grief. Not sadness. Not even peace. Just a cold, heavy silence sitting on my chest like, “Well, life be lifin’.”
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She lied. She played me. She betrayed me. And now she was gone.
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And the crazy part?
The same man who took her from me—Davon—he died the same damn night. Same hospital. Same cancer. Like some cosmic-ass punishment for all the dirt they did.
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I didn’t go to her funeral. Didn’t send flowers. Didn’t speak her name again for months.
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She chose her lane. And life drove her straight through it.
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