Burned Bridges

Jetta didn’t wake up planning to see him.

Honestly, she didn’t wake up planning anything at all. Some days were like that—lazy, heavy, aimless. The kind where the sun felt too loud and even your own thoughts had too much attitude. So she left her apartment on Unruh Street and just started walking.

By the time she reached Disston Park, her Wawa iced tea was half-melted and she was tired of dodging people’s eyes. She found a shady spot near the swings, sat down, and tried to breathe like she wasn’t holding everything in. The iced tea in her hand was comfort—cold, sweet, familiar.

Then the universe, with its twisted sense of humor, sent Curtis.

She didn’t see him at first. She heard a laugh—deep, rough, and familiar—and looked up. There he was. Talking with somebody over by the basketball court like nothing in the world was wrong.

Her stomach twisted.

Curtis hadn’t changed much. Still tall, still wore that damn grey hoodie like it was a personality trait. But he looked smaller somehow. Lighter. Like he’d been moving on while she’d been stuck replaying everything on a loop.

She didn’t want him to see her.

Too late.

He did a double take, squinted through the sun, and walked toward her like he wasn’t the reason she’d sworn off love for a minute.

“Damn,” he said, stopping a few feet away. “Jetta?”

She raised an eyebrow. “What’s up, Curtis.”

“You good?”

“I’m breathing.”

He nodded slowly, like he didn’t know what to say next. “Can I sit?”

“It’s a free bench.”

He sat.

Silence.

The kind that screamed.

“You still around here?” he asked, his voice low, cautious.

“I never left.”

“Just wondering. Ain’t seen you in a while.”

“That’s kinda the point.”

Curtis looked away, biting his lip. She hated that she still noticed that—still remembered his habits, his tells. He only did that when he was nervous. Or lying.

“You look good,” he added.

Jetta gave a dry laugh. “I look tired, but thanks.”

They both knew this wasn’t small talk. This was history sitting between them like a third person.

It had been nine months since she kicked him out.

She remembered the night clear as day. He had just showered, left his phone on the couch. A message popped up from a number she didn’t recognize.

“Last night was everything. I wish you didn’t have to leave.”

She didn’t cry. Not right then.

Instead, she turned on her old-school playlist. Let Mary J. Blige’s “Not Gon’ Cry” echo through her one-bedroom while she packed his stuff into trash bags. His shoes, his controller, that hoodie he always wore. She folded it all with the same hands that used to rub his back when life got hard.

She left the bags on the porch.

Texted him two words: We done.

He never knocked.

That silence had screamed louder than the betrayal.

“I messed up,” Curtis said now. “I know I did. I ain’t here to play games or act like it wasn’t foul. I just… I didn’t know how to fix it.”

“You didn’t even try,” Jetta said. Her voice didn’t shake. “You disappeared. Like we were nothing.”

“I thought you hated me.”

“I did,” she said. “For a while. I hated that I loved you. I hated that I let you in.”

Curtis stared at the grass. “I ain’t got no excuse.”

“Nope.”

The breeze blew harder. Across the park, someone had a speaker playing Lauryn Hill’s “Ex-Factor.” Jetta let the lyrics drift through her like they always did—familiar, soft, painful.

“You know what hurt the most?” she asked. “It wasn’t the cheating. I mean yeah, that wrecked me. But what really got me was how easy it was for you to walk away. No apology. No explanation. Just… gone.”

“I was ashamed,” he said quietly. “I didn’t think you’d even let me speak.”

“I didn’t. But you didn’t fight for it either.”

More silence.

“You want to know what I did after you left?” Jetta asked, eyes still on the basketball court.

Curtis nodded.

“I created a fake account. DM’d you like I was somebody new. You fell for it in two days. Told me I had good energy. That I seemed ‘real.’ Same lines you used on me. I screenshotted everything. Sent it to the girl.”

His face dropped.

“Why?” he asked, not mad—more like confused.

“Because everyone told me to forgive you. That it’d free me. But you don’t get free by pretending you weren’t bleeding. I needed you to feel it too. Just a little. I needed you to know what it’s like to be lied to.”

Curtis swallowed hard. “That’s cold.”

“No,” she said. “That’s survival.”

He nodded, but didn’t speak.

The wind shifted again. Faith Evans’s “Soon As I Get Home” came on next. The irony wasn’t lost on either of them.

“I miss you,” he finally said.

Jetta looked at him. And for the first time, she didn’t feel her chest ache at those words.

“I’m not who I was when I loved you,” she said.

“I know.”

“I’m not bitter anymore. I’m just done.”

Curtis nodded again, slower this time.

“You want forgiveness?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he whispered.

She stood. Brushed off her jeans.

“Well, I’m working on it. But don’t wait on it.”

He stood too, hands in his pockets. “Will I see you again?”

Jetta took a sip of her iced tea. Let it cool her down before she answered.

“Maybe. But you won’t know me when you do. Not like before.”

And with that, she walked away.

The music, the park, the past—fading behind her like the last notes of a song she no longer needed on repeat.

---

He nodded slowly, like he knew better than to force a smile. “You mind if I sit?”

“It’s a public bench,” she said, sipping her iced tea without looking at him.

He eased down beside her, not too close, like he knew there were invisible lines he wasn’t allowed to cross no more.

They sat quiet for a moment. Just the wind blowing through the trees and the faint sound of someone’s speaker near the courts. Mary J. Blige’s “Be Without You” floated in the background. Felt like the park was narrating her life without permission.

“I didn’t think I’d run into you out here,” Curtis said.

“That makes two of us.”

He rubbed his palms together. “I’ve been meaning to call.”

Jetta laughed once—dry, no humor. “You been meaning for nine months?”

Curtis winced. “I ain’t know what to say.”

“That’s usually what happens when the truth ain’t pretty.”

He nodded. Looked down at his hands. “I messed up, Jetta. Ain’t no excuse. I just… I was stupid.”

“You were selfish,” she corrected. “You took what we had and threw it away for a couple nights with somebody that couldn’t even spell loyalty.”

He sighed hard. “I think about it every day. I swear I do.”

“But you didn’t say nothing. You just disappeared like a punk.”

“I didn’t know if you’d even hear me out.”

“I wouldn’t have,” she said, finally turning to face him. “And I still don’t know why I am now.”

Silence again. A kid screamed in laughter down by the slides. Life kept moving. Jetta hated that.

“I heard what you did,” Curtis said. “With the messages.”

She smirked. “You mean when I catfished you and your side chick and made y’all confess everything, then sent it to her mama and your cousin like a group project?”

He blinked, almost amused. “Yeah… that.”

“I wanted you to feel what I felt. Not just embarrassed. Exposed. Vulnerable.”

“I did,” he admitted. “Still do.”

“Good.”

He let that sit for a second. Then: “You always had a way of hitting where it hurts.”

“You earned it.”

They both looked out across the park. The air was thick with unspoken things. Then a speaker near the courts changed tracks—Lauryn Hill’s “Ex-Factor.”

Of course.

“I still love you,” he said, just above a whisper.

Jetta didn’t flinch. “That ain’t enough.”

“I know. But it’s real.”

She sipped her tea. “So was the pain. So was the healing. Alone. Without your ‘real’ feelings.”

“I get it.”

“I don’t think you do,” she said, her voice calm but cutting. “You left me with questions I had to answer myself. Nights I had to cry and still go to work like my world ain’t just fall apart. You had a piece of me, Curtis. And you gave it to somebody who didn’t even care enough to keep it.”

He looked like he wanted to cry but wouldn’t dare. Not here. Not in front of her.

“I thought you’d want me to beg,” he said. “To fight for you.”

She shook her head. “No. I wanted you to grow up. But I realized that was my mistake—loving potential instead of reality.”

A breeze rolled by. The kind that felt like fall even though it was barely September.

“I’m not proud of what I did,” Jetta admitted. “Getting revenge. Setting you up. I thought it would make me feel better.”

“Did it?”

“For a minute,” she said. “Then it wore off. And I still had to sit with the ache. But I also realized I ain’t need closure from you. I gave it to myself.”

He looked down. “So what now?”

“Now?” she repeated. “Now you live with it. Just like I had to.”

Curtis nodded. “You ever think… maybe one day—”

“Nope,” she cut in. “This was your one day. Your last one.”

She stood up, dusted off her jeans. The speaker across the park played Angie Stone’s “No More Rain (In This Cloud).” She took it as a sign.

“You done taught me one thing, though,” she said, tossing her empty cup in the trash.

“What’s that?”

“That I’ll never ignore red flags just ‘cause they dressed in loyalty hoodies.”

He laughed once. “That’s cold.”

“It’s the truth.”

She started walking away, head high, heart light.

Curtis watched her go, sinking back into the bench like it was all hitting him at once.

She didn’t look back.

Didn’t need to.

This time, the goodbye was hers.

And this time, it stuck.