Fast City Slow Hearts

16 | twitterpated

While I don't usually give tabloid speculation my attention, the headlines have been a topic of conversation in my home over the past couple of days. And I want to be the first to say that there is some truth to the rumors. I am continuing to focus on the most important relationship of my life with the most important person in my life: my daughter. While it may come as a surprise to many, she has enjoyed the beauty of a relatively normal life out of the limelight and my hope is that she continues to live her life on her terms. The life she decides she wants to cultivate and the people she chooses to do so with are solely her choices to make. With that said, someone captured a very real moment shared between a father and his daughter, and I won't apologize for being a dad. As many parents might attest, my kid is my world and I take my vow to love and nurture her seriously. While it may come at the cost of my reputation, setting the record straight has never become more crucial. As a team and as a family, we've thought a lot about how we want to address the matter, and with encouragement and my daughter's blessing, I wanted the world to have a little glimpse into mine. Consider this a soft introduction but don't get confused – I may be introducing her, but I'm not sharing her, at least not yet. For now, I'm clinging onto her for as long as she'll allow me to.

Like many others in my profession, my life has been subject to scrutiny, but I ask that you think twice before fueling the fire of the rumor mill. Real lives are at stake, and real humans suffer the repercussions when we don't stand up to gossip.

I'd read and reread the tweet maybe a hundred times, pouring over every word like I was taking a reading comprehension test.

Matthew had posted it almost as soon as he'd left my room, earning him thousands of likes, retweets, and replies. Happy to be willfully and blissfully ignorant of the circus show that my life was turning into, I'd turned my phone off after warning Cash and my mother.

Now I sat in my room, a dull ache and a burgeoning panic rising in my chest as the reality of Matthew's admission materialized as a lump in my throat.

Our extended daddy-daughter day of unworried fun felt like a distant memory. Although mildly corny, we'd baked cookies and enjoyed a picnic in the yard before he surprised me with an archery lesson.

While I was no stranger to using a crossbow, I hadn't spent much time with either a longbow or a compound bow.

Having starred in more than one adventure drama, he'd been saddled with the task of learning to master archery. Somewhere along the way he'd fallen in love with the precision, the adrenaline, and the technicality of it.

We'd ended the day in the pool before sitting down for dinner on the patio. He'd ordered takeout from one of his favorite restaurants.

And now, still wet and towel-wrapped, I sat dumbfounded in my bathing suit, soaking the duvet underneath me.

I didn't dare Google his name, fearing what I'd find. On multiple occasions, I'd considered the implications of race in our debacle. The fear I held of what others might say regarding my being Black was genuine.

The dreamy all-American superstar with a decades-long career and no proven history of ever even dating a Black woman had fathered a Black child?

I sent my support system another couple of texts, advising them to contact Matthew for anything urgent, and returned my phone to off mode.

I shot up in search of Matthew, but he was nowhere to be found.

Paz was gone for the day but had left me a handwritten note on the kitchen counter.

To MY favorite cowgirl,

You are worth every sacrifice. You are his greatest gift, mija. Don't forget it.

P.S. Text me a list of your favorite foods. I will try to prepare in the morning.