hi boo bears! 🦦💙 I literally adore y'all.

Winter break came to an end, and Monday had finally rolled around–the new semester kicking off on Bethune Cookman's campus. Joziah and Keia returned Sunday afternoon, excited to see their best friend after two weeks. Even though they spoke with Soleil throughout their break, Soleil had to fill them in on what had been going on and vice versa.

Not only was a new semester starting for Soleil, but she would also be starting her first day at her mom's daycare officially. Soleil was unsure of how it would turn out, given that she still wasn't on talking terms with Vanessa. For the sake of her job, she would communicate with her but nothing more.

Soleil and Selah both agreed that they would both wash their hands with the situation. They were leaving the line of communication solely up to their parents now, growing tired of having to be the ones to initiate a tete-a-tete.

Soleil simply didn't have the energy to deal with that anymore–especially with the new emerging problem between her and Siraj. The two have barely spoken since Soleil revealed to him that she wanted to move.

Even the night of, she ended up sleeping on the couch, not wanting to be near him. Although she understood where he was coming from and wished she had spoken up sooner about her plans, Selah's advice kept circulating in her mind.

She wasn't going to put her goals on the backburner for the sake of their relationship. It was something that she simply refused to do. She was young and wanted to explore her options–not to be tied down to a city where she was starting to have many unpleasant memories.

No one knew how she felt, having to pass or drive on the street where her brother ultimately lost his life. To deal with her family's toxic ways and then also have an ex that kept harassing her–she found no reason to stick around after she graduated.

Soleil kept all of this to herself, simply because she felt as if she shouldn't have to explain the factors of why she wanted to move.

Soleil had put others before herself plenty of times before–and she wanted to start being more selfish when it came to her life.

"Ms–Ms. B—Ms. Bennett, Shamari keep tryin' to put his booga' on me!" Kimani, lightly tapped Soleil's leg to get her attention, before pointing at the little boy running towards her with a menacing grin as he held his index finger out.

"Stop it, Shamari!" Soleil sternly told him, grabbing a kleenex. "That's nasty, you don't do that. Would you like it if someone tried putting their boogers on you?" she gently grabbed his arm to pull him closer and wipe his finger off.

Shamari lowered his head and shook it, beginning to pout. "I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, but next time just ask one of us for a tissue instead of trying to put it on your peers, okay?" Soleil explained, reaching over to grab the bottle of hand sanitizer.

"Okay," Shamari raspily answered her, Soleil squeezed a little hand sanitizer on his hand, letting him rub his hands together.

"Good, now go line up by the door for recess," She sat the bottle of sanitizer down on the shelf. Shamari and Kimani started to run over to the other kids that were already lined up to go outside. "Don't run guys, walk!"

As the other teachers did a head count like they usually did before taking the kids outside, Soleil walked out of the playroom and headed toward the kitchen to help prepare for snack time. As she walked down the hallway, she saw her mom coming out of her office.

"Hey," Vanessa spoke. Soleil nodded her head to acknowledge her but continued walking. "Um, Soleil..." she called to her.

Soleil huffed, whipping around. "Not right now, okay? I have to help out in the kitchen–whatever you have to say to me can wait," Soleil told her, before turning back around and walking into the kitchen.

"Hey, girl," Jacqui, one of Soleil's co-workers smiled as she walked in. Soleil returned the friendly smile, approaching the sink to wash her hands. "When you're done, can you grab the other bag of apples for me?"

"Okay," Soleil replied, pulling up her sleeves before placing her hands in the running water. "What else are they having?"

"We're doing all fruit since they seemed to like it the last time–so they have choices of; apple slices, oranges slices, bananas, watermelon, and pineapple." Jacqui listed off, cutting the apple down the middle.

Soleil grabbed a few paper towels to dry off her hands and then turned the knob with the paper towel to turn the water off. She walked over to the industrial-sized fridge, opening the door to grab the extra bag of apples.

"How did the holidays go?" Jacqui asked her, as Soleil dumped the bag of apples into the bowl to wash them.

"It went well, got to see my sister, so that was exciting. How was yours?" Soleil answered, glancing over her shoulder at her. "Seen your man, yet?"

"Girl, no," Jacqui scoffed, Soleil raising her eyebrows in surprise. "Something came up and he was unable to come home like he was supposed to," she told Soleil, referring to her boyfriend in the military.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Soleil grimaced, turning around to face the sink. She poured the water out of the bowl again for the fourth time, before turning off the water again and walking over to Jacqui.

She grabbed a cutting board from below on the shelf and walked away to grab a knife. "Is it hard?" Soleil questioned her. "You know, the whole long-distance relationship?"

"It is, but I knew what I was getting myself into when I decided to stay with him. Even though we're thousands of miles apart, we don't miss a beat. He's still consistent as he was when he was here," Jacqui explained, as Soleil started to intently listen. "I do get lonely, I miss touching him–being held by him, but I know in the end, it'll work out,"

"Have y'all ever thought of parting ways before?"

"Once, I got so fed up with him not being here–he understood and was all for me moving on, even though it would've hurt. But I started to think of all of the stuff we went through, how he treats me, how much my family loves him–how much I love his family. I invested so much energy into this relationship as he did too, I couldn't just throw that away," Jacqui shrugged, grabbing the apple slices and setting them aside in a bowl.

"How long has he been away?" Soleil glimpsed over at her, continuing to cut into the apple.

"Six months now,"

"Wow," Soleil slightly widened her eyes. "That is definitely a li'l minute,"

"Yeah," Jacqui laughed, grabbing an apple from the bowl. "If this was a permanent arrangement, I'd have to move on. But since it's not, I'll stick it out for now,"

"What are your plans? Like, I remember you said that you wanted to be a teacher–but do you have plans on staying here or what?"

"Yeah, once he returns, we have plans to move to North Carolina. We've been searching for places that would be suitable for both of us, plus of course not too far from our family."

Soleil simply nodded her head, focusing on the apple in front of her. Speaking with Jacqui about her situation was making her think about the situation with Siraj.

She wasn't sure how the situation was going to play out, she didn't want to break up but she had her mind set.

She hoped that whenever they spoke, they'd be able to reach some type of compromise. She never meant to hurt Siraj or make him feel as if she was just leading him on the entire time.

But she needed to do what makes her happy–rather than accommodate others to make their life easier.

"Wave to mommy, sweetie," Siraj pointed to his client, standing nearby as her daughter stood in the middle of the backdrop. Her chubby face was graced with a smile, as she danced around to the music. "She's so adorable man,"

"Hi, baby!" Cherise, Siraj's client waved to her daughter.

"Hi, mommy!" The toddler waved back, Siraj snapping the shot of her.

"Ugh, she's just getting so big," Cherise pouted, continuing to watch from the sidelines. "Stop growing up on me,"

"Definitely know how that feels, my son grew up on me, right before my eyes," Siraj said, walking over to the laptop, to look at the shots he captured. "Come take a look,"

Siraj gestured Cherise over, Cherise grabbed her daughter's hand and then walked over to him. He went through the different shots of the toddler and then also the ones of them together.

"Oh my gosh, these are so good!" Cherise exclaimed, smiling widely. "I can just imagine how they'll look on the banners. My baby gone have the baddest birthday party out!"

"You ready for the next outfit change?" Aria approached them, asking Siraj. Siraj nodded in confirmation. Aria led Cherise and her daughter to the back for the next outfit change, as Siraj picked up his phone from the table to check the time.

After he did, he went to his text messages to respond to a few people. His eyes gazed at Soleil's contact, the last message sent between them was a simple 'good morning' text.

The couple had barely spoken to each other since their argument. He was upset with her, there was a huge part of him that didn't want her to leave but there was also another part of him that wanted her to follow her dreams.

He didn't want to be selfish, but he couldn't help that he had gotten so attached to her. He had wished that she'd been upfront with him about her plans before he asked her to be his girlfriend.

While he understood that she was still contemplating her decision, it was something that should've still been discussed with him from the get-go. He would be lying if he wasn't bothered by her lack of communication with him sometimes.

He never let anything important slip by him, he always told her anything that she needed to know or how he felt. He wondered if her last relationship played a part in why she was that way.

Like Soleil mentioned a while back, if it were solely up to her to address a situation–she'd avoid it at all cost.

After Cherise returned with her daughter in the next outfit change, Siraj shot the last half of the shoot. He could admit that this shoot was probably one of his best by far. He loved working with children and their parents–or parents that were expecting.

To capture a bond between the child and the parent, or the happy faces of those who were expecting, made him reflect back on when he first became a parent himself.

He enjoyed every second of it, even at times when Semaj acted brattily. He couldn't understand why there were parents out in the world who treated their children horribly or didn't want a bond with them.

When Soleil vented to him about what had happened between her parents and her sister, he wasn't all too surprised but it did bother him.

Xahir use to vent to him about his parents, and the relationship that they all had with them. Siraj felt bad that Selah and Xahir didn't get to enjoy their childhood or their teenage years since they were too busy raising Soleil and keeping their household in order.

Despite having their grandmother, she was sickly and couldn't do much as they could. Xahir felt as if he had to step up and become the man of the house since Xavier spent most of his time focusing on Vanessa. While Xahir did so, Selah made sure that Soleil received the right guidance.

Siraj understood the pressure that was on Xahir, when his father passed, he felt as if he had to do the same–except, he was able to enjoy most of his adolescent years.

After Vanessa had gotten out of rehab, he would've thought that she would want to repair the relationship between her and her children–but he started to witness how she acted towards them. Whenever she saw her children spending all of their time with her mother, or sharing news before they told her, it visibly bothered her.

When he would visit the house to hang out with Xahir, Vanessa always passed by them, not uttering a word. He saw the looks that they all exchanged with each other when she did.

It wasn't his business to ever speak on it though. Shortly after Vanessa returned home, Xahir and Xavier got into a huge argument after Xavier didn't agree with a decision Xahir made regarding the roofing of the house.

Xahir told his father that if he didn't agree with how he was doing things, then he needed to act like the man he claimed to be and step up to take care of his responsibilities–instead of running behind his wife all day long.

The argument then became physical, resulting in Xavier kicking Xahir out of the house. He stayed with Siraj and his family for a few days but then he ultimately decided that he would move in with his grandmother once she offered.

By then, Selah had already left for New York, and Soleil didn't want to be left alone with her parents, so she followed behind Xahir to live with her grandmother. Six months later, her grandmother would pass, leaving the house behind to her grandchildren.

Siraj couldn't imagine not having a strong bond with his mother or his father. He hated that his friends weren't able to experience the same type of luxury as him. As they got older, he could tell not having a bond with their parents, was taking a toll on their adulthood.

However, he gave props to Selah for continuing to pursue a relationship with her parents–especially after they hadn't bothered to show up to any of the important events in her life.

If his parents had purposely missed out on the birth of his child or his wedding day, he would simply have to sever ties with them.

Once Siraj was done with his last few sessions, he headed upstairs to help his team out with the new orders that came in as the newly launched merch finally dropped, Sunday night. He let his team have two weeks off–like him, wanting the ones who were parents, to have time to spend with their kids.

He also knew that his team needed the break, especially after they were slammed with orders from their Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years' sale. Siraj was proud nonetheless, his team was able to reach the quota he had set for them at the beginning of the year.

Each year, he tried setting the numbers higher–knowing that his team liked a challenge. There were a few times that they weren't able to reach their goals, but that never stopped them from setting new ones. If they were able to reach their end-of-the-year quota, there was always a nice bonus waiting for them as a reward.

This year, they received a hefty one–since the rapper he had shot for in New York, paid him handsomely well.

"So, Raj–your birthday next week, my boy, what you gone do for it?" Hakeem grinned, neatly folding the hoodie and placing it inside the packaging box. The rest of them all turned their attention to Siraj with smirks.

"Man," Siraj let out an exasperated sigh, shrugging. "I don't even know, I'm just thankful to even make it this far. Twenty-four years around the earth–where the hell does the time go?"

"For real," Hakeem agreed, stacking the package over with the rest. "I'm bout to be twenty-five this year, crazy man,"

"I'm probably just gone chill on my birthday. I don't usually do anything unless my folks or my friends plan something for me–and so far, no one ain't said shit about celebrating it, so I'm alright with just working and being in the house," Siraj explained, not bothered by the fact that no one has acknowledged that his birthday was indeed next week.

Whenever Siraj didn't have any plans of his own to celebrate his birthday, his family came together to have a small together and cook his favorite meals, along with spoiling him with a few gifts.

He expected that this year wouldn't be any different, but if so, he was content with just spending his day with his son and Soleil.

"Are you coming in on your birthday?" Destinee asked him, he nodded in response, grabbing a sweatsuit set and beginning to fold it. "Really? You gone work on your birthday?"

"I'm not booking any shoots for that day," Siraj assured them, grabbing some of the stacked packages and placing them in the bin that was half full. "I'll just be helping out with orders and then I also have to go over the pieces for the Valentine's collection–which have to go smoothly, cause I'm doing something special for my girlfriend,"

The girls started cooing, a few placing their hands over their hearts. "That's so sweet, Raj!" Aria pouted a bit.

"Yeah, her birthday is right after Valentine's Day," he grinned, thinking of the plans he had for her. It would be her first birthday without Xahir, at least when Selah was in New York, she still had her brother. Now that she was without both, he wanted to make it as special as her.

Once Siraj was done helping his team package enough orders for the day, he got onto the road to go to his mom's house. He didn't have to go pick up Semaj since Ximena was now on a new schedule.

She would be off around two in the afternoon and would now be able to pick Semaj up from school, rather than Siraj having to do it and having Semaj wait at his workplace until he was done for the day. They both agreed that Siraj would get him on the weekends from now on–unless any other plans came up.

"Ma!" Siraj called out, walking up the stairs and down the hall. When he arrived at Tasha's house, he saw his sister's cars parked outside. He walked into his mom's room, seeing the lights were on. "Ma!"

"Stop yelling boy, I'm in the bathroom," he heard Tasha respond from the bathroom. He walked into the bathroom, seeing Arielle touching up Tasha's makeup. "Hey, baby,"

"Hey ma, hey y'all," he greeted them each with a hug, "What you getting all dolled up for?" he inquired nosily.

"I...have a date," Tasha told him, the girls exchanging nervous glances with one another.

Siraj raised his eyebrows, taken aback. "A date?" he scoffed a laugh, "And why you ain't tell me about it?"

"I'm telling you now," Tasha slightly rolled her neck. Siraj sucked his teeth, waving her off in a dismissive manner.

"Nah, why you ain't tell me when you told them? That's why they over here right?" he gestured towards his sisters. "Had I not come over, I probably wouldn't have known,"

"You're right," Tasha shrugged, getting up from the toilet, to look at herself in the mirror. "I know how you are and I wasn't sure how you would react to the news of me getting back out there,"

"I mean, I'm happy for you. It's been years, you deserve to be happy and I'm sure pops would want the same–but my thing is, who is this man?" Siraj replied.

"I met him at Arielle's restaurant a couple of nights ago, we talked a few times since. He finally asked me on a date yesterday," Tasha said, Siraj hummed, narrowing his eyes at her.

"Hm, a'ight, I guess," Siraj continued to eye her suspiciously.