Telling Secrets

*Trigger Warning*
Ramira
I watched my brother as he practically begged Leah to stay. He had no idea that I was learning just as much about him as I was about her. He had only been this way over a female once before, and it had broken him in a way that I wasn’t sure anyone or anything could ever piece him back together again. The look I now saw in his eyes gave me hope that maybe he would be okay, eventually. I just had to do my job and find the best way to help Leah. It wasn’t right, but I could tell that he saw Leah as the one woman he could save. He hadn’t been able to save his family, and I knew that he wouldn’t move on until he felt like he had made up for his sins, even though none of what happened was his fault. They were hers. I wish he would understand that he needed to forgive himself so he could be happy again.
“My real name, princess, and next time I tell you, I want you to remember.”
My attention went back to them when I heard him say that. He told her his real name? I wasn’t even allowed to use my real name here, and he told her his real name? Leah slowly turned back towards him with her eyes wide in surprise.
“Y-your real name?” She stammered.
“Yeah, my real name,” he confirmed.
She scanned his face before walking up to him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned her head against his chest. He stood stiffly for a minute before his eyes softened as he wrapped his arms around her as well with his hands moving up and down her back slowly.
“Please stay, Leah. Let us help you,” he pleaded with her.
She nodded before burying her face in his neck. “Okay.”
Dale glanced at me curiously, and I shook my head. I couldn’t afford to have my focus anywhere but on my brother and his new pet project. The gentle way he held her like she was a piece of fragile porcelain did not escape my watchful eyes. He cleared his throat before untangling himself from her. He glanced back at me.
“This is Dr.-”
“Ramira,” I said loudly, cutting him off.
His jaw clenched as I openly studied his face. I knew I would be getting a lecture later, but on the off chance that she became part of the family, I didn’t want to start off by lying to her. Leah swallowed hard before coming up to me with her hand held out to me.
“Ummm, I’m Leah,” she mumbled.
“So, I heard, Phoenix. Do you want to take a walk? There’s somewhere I would like to take you,” I told her.
“Sure…” She replied.
I smiled at her as I reached for Dale’s hand. “This is Dale. He’s a friend of mine. I just want you to be aware that he will be with us, but he will stay far enough back that he won’t hear what we say to each other, okay?”
“Alright.”
I led her away from Mister’s office building, ignoring Brennan’s glare. Oh, yeah, I was in trouble. She followed me through the streets to the hidden door that led out of the community. Once outside of it, we continued to walk until we reached the top of the hill, where my brother had placed a bench that overlooked the community that he built. I looked over my shoulder to see where Dale was and was happy to see that he was standing at the base of the hill, leaning against a tree with his eyes glued to me. I smiled softly, enjoying the fluttering of my stomach. I pulled my eyes away from him to smile at Leah.
“I suppose this is where I tell you about my shitty life…” She whispered.
I shrugged as I leaned back. “Would it make you feel better if I told you a secret first?”
She glanced at me, shocked. “You would tell me a secret?”
“Yeah. I’m not here in an official capacity. Some of the rules don’t apply to me,” I told her.
“Which rules would those be?” She asked.
“The ones that say I can’t tell you anything about myself.” I shifted on the bench. “How about I talk about myself until you are ready to take over?”
“I’d like that,” she responded.
“My name is Ramira. I have three brothers and one sister. Two of my brothers are lawyers. My sister is a teacher. My last brother is-”
“R.H.M.,” she said softly. “Isn’t he?”
I glanced at her. “He told you about us?”
“Not a lot. Just that, he had two brothers and two sisters. His brothers are also attorneys. One is a criminal attorney, and the other is a divorce attorney.”
I chuckled. “What else has he told you?”
“Not much. Tell me more about R.H.M., please.”
I tapped my fingers on my thigh. “Do you like my brother, Leah?”
“No. I don’t know. Maybe,” she said frustratedly.
I shifted on the bench to face her. “He might like you, too.”
Her lips lifted up a little before she cleared her throat. “He won’t.”
“Why do you think he won’t like you?” I asked curiously.
She moved forward to the edge of the bench, clutching the edge so hard that her fingers began to turn white. I waited patiently for a moment while she worked through whatever she was struggling with mentally.
“Can I tell you a story?” I suddenly asked.
“Sure…”
“I once knew a man who fell in love with a woman. He loved her more than anything. She was his everything. They dated for a long time before he proposed to her. He was head over heels for her, but she only saw him as a way out.”
“A way out of what?” She asked quietly.
“Her father was abusive. He used to beat her every day. Her and her mother. One morning she woke up, made her mother breakfast, and took it into her mother’s room so they could spend the morning together. When she walked in, her father was having sex with her mother’s corpse. He had killed her the night before in a drunken fit of rage.” I paused to take a deep breath. “She barely made it out of the house. She ran to him, and being the man he is, he protected her when her father came for her. He stood by her side while her father’s trial went on. He didn’t miss a single court date. He held her and supported her for years.”
She closed her eyes. “Did they live happily ever after?”
“No. She got involved with drugs and managed to hide it for a very long time, until their first child was stillborn at 26 weeks. He got her into rehab, and she got clean. She seemed like she was doing really well. On the first anniversary of her getting clean, they got married. A year later, they welcomed triplets. When she suffered a miscarriage, instead of leaning on him, she went back to drugs. She started stealing things to sell for money, not that she needed to. The man she was married to was a very well-off businessman. He was brilliant when it came to business, but terrible when it came to picking up on her drug abuse. One day, he went to pick up his kids from daycare, but they were gone. She had picked them up from the daycare and taken off with them.”
“Why did she take the kids? Where did they go?” Leah asked.
“She was angry because she had gone to him and begged him for money for a hit. Just one. Or at least that’s what she said. But a drug addict can’t just have one hit and be satisfied. He immediately reported his triplets missing, but the police refused to help him as they hadn’t been missing for 48 hours. It was also not considered kidnapping when their mother still had her parental rights.” I paused again as sadness filled me. “He went out searching for her, intending to ask her to come home and tell her that he would help her get clean again. On one of his trips to his house, his street was cordoned off. He parked, and when he went to speak to one of the police officers, he saw her car in the ravine by his house.”
I turned my head to avoid her seeing the tears that were welling up in my eyes. “She was on her way home. She was terrified. She wanted to get clean again.” A tear rolled down my cheek. “She was so high that she didn’t strap the kids into their carseats. Two of them were ejected from the vehicle, and they all died on impact. It broke her husband. He spent years in therapy, trying to heal, but he never did.”
“What happened to him?” Leah asked softly.
“He built a community where he was in full control. There are no drugs. There are no abusers. There is no crime. Just people who are being who they are in the way they were meant to be.”
“Is that why Mister created the Garden of Eden?” Leah asked.
“Yes,” she replied.
“What was her name?”
I turned to look at the four headstones in the distance. “Diadra. Her name was Diadra.”