Heartbroken For Mister

She rubbed her eyes sleepily. “R.H.M.?”
“Hey, Princess.” I reached out to tilt her face in every direction before frowning deeply. “Have you been crying?”
“Yes,” she whispered fearfully.
My hand shifted on her face to cup it gently. I brushed my thumb over her bottom lip when it trembled.
“Did Ramira upset you?” I asked.
“Yes. No. People just suck.” Her eyes widened when I stiffened. “Not Ramira; she was very kind to me.”
“Leah…” I took a deep breath before glancing around. “May I come in? I’m breaking all the rules by even coming over here uninvited.”
She quickly stepped to the side so I could enter her house. I followed her to the kitchen, where she started to make coffee.
“Do you want to talk about what has upset you?” I asked.
“I told Ramira about my childhood.”
“Would you like to tell me about it too?”
“Not really. I like that when you look at me, you don’t look at me like I’m a pathetic waste of space,” she answered.
“Even if you told me, I wouldn’t see you as anything less than a woman who is trying to do better for herself,” he replied.
“Thank you for that. Do you want to talk about why you’re upset?”
“Not really.”
“So, what can I do to make you feel better?” She asked.
I smiled sadly. “Just opening the door was enough.”
She turned around to face me. “I’m sorry, R.H.M., for how I acted the other night.”
“It’s okay, Princess. I was worried about you.”
“What did I say and do?”
“You said you drank because you were jealous of Nero.”
Her face darkened as a blush spread across her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? You didn’t do anything wrong,” I told her.
“I shouldn’t have gotten drunk.”
“No, you should have just told me that you liked me.”
Her blush got darker as she looked down at the floor before meeting my eyes. “What would you have said if I had said that to you?”
“I don’t know.”
She walked to the fridge to get the milk before setting it in front of me next to the sugar bowl. She poured two mugs of coffee before setting one in front of me. I reached for my mug, freezing, when she covered my hand with hers.
“R.H.M., I like you. You make me feel safe. You make me feel like I have the strength to go through this. You give me hope that there are good men out there. I’m really glad that I met you.”
“Leah…”
I turned my hand over to grip her wrist as I pulled her closer to me. I tipped her head back, searching her face for a moment before lowering my mouth to hers, unable to stop myself from showing her how I was starting to feel about her. She closed her eyes as she leaned toward me. I swiveled in my chair so that I could wrap my arm around her waist. The longer I kissed her, the harder it became for me to control myself. When her hand landed on my chest, I forced myself to pull back before pressing my forehead against hers so I could look into her eyes.
“I’m really glad I met you, too, Princess.”
She lifted her fingers to her lips. “You kissed me…”
I chuckled. “I couldn’t help it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I like you, too.”
When I saw emotions cross her face, I let her go so she could back away from me.
“It wasn’t just Nero I was jealous of,” she admitted.
“Oh? What else were you jealous of?” I asked.
“I didn’t like that you were naked in front of everyone else.”
My eyes widened. “I wasn’t naked.”
“All you were wearing was an apron,” she argued. “That’s naked.”
I burst out laughing. “I had boxers on, Leah. Nobody in this community has ever seen me naked.”
“Oh.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Do you want to see me naked?” I asked her.
Her blush returned with a vengeance as she silently sipped her coffee. “Ramira told me about why Eden was built today.”
My body went cold as I stared at her. Ramira didn’t. She wouldn’t. I shook my head.
“She doesn’t discuss other people’s business,” I said.
“I think she was trying to make me feel more comfortable so that I would talk to her,” she told me. “It worked. Well, kind of. I told her what happened to me after she told me about Mister and Diadra.”
Anger flared to life in every last cell in my body, making me want to break something. She reached over the counter to touch my wrist.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I said tensely.
“Are you sure? You’re gripping your coffee so tightly that your fingers are turning white.”
I looked down at my pale fingers before setting the mug down. “I’m sorry. She shouldn’t have told you that. That’s Mister’s business, and he is a very private person.”
She linked our fingers together before squeezing my hand. “I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”
As I was thinking about an excuse to use to leave, she sighed.
“That’s why I was crying. My heart breaks for him. He did all of this because he loved her so much. People like him don’t really exist. At least I never thought they did before I came here. Now everything makes sense—why nobody has ever seen him.”
“You shouldn’t pity him, Miss Adams. There’s probably more to the story than what she told you,” I snapped.
She shook her head as tears began to roll slowly down her face. “I hope not, R.H.M. I don’t know how he is even functioning. I don’t think I even want to know how.”
“So what do you want, then? What are you planning on doing with that information?” I asked, barely holding my anger back.
“I want to wrap my arms around him and tell him that even though I may not understand what he’s going through, I’m here if he ever wanted to talk or just needed someone to be around so that he wasn’t alone. I would tell him that I am going to pray that God grants him peace and helps him to forgive himself. I would thank him for everything that he’s done for me, for the other people here, and for those who have already left.’” She paused to wipe her face. “I would tell him that he doesn’t have to cry alone. I’ll cry with him.”
“What makes you think he cries?”
She turned around to lift her shirt before tracing a particularly deep scar on her shoulder. “I gave this to myself because I grieved for my mother when she passed away. I cried and cried. I couldn’t get out of bed for weeks. My husband… Will, would hit me every day. My mother and I weren’t very close, but she was still my mom. I know that if I cry for her to this day, he cries over the woman he loves and his babies.”
“What makes you think he still loves her?”
“Because a man who did what he did for her isn’t just going to stop because God called her home. I would bet you everything that I owned, that he still talks to her. All of them. And before you ask why I think that, I’ll tell you. It’s because I still talk to my mom. God puts people in our lives that are meant to teach us things and help us along our way.”
“Come here, Leah,” I said as I opened my arms.
She hurried around the counter again to stand between my legs. As I wrapped my arms around her, she wrapped hers around me. I knew she would think that I was holding her because she was upset, but that was only part of the reason. I needed her to do everything she said she would for Mister, only with me. I wanted her to hold me and let me cry. I wanted to be able to have someone close and not feel the need to talk or express how I was feeling. When she buried her face in my chest, I laid my cheek on the top of her head while I ran my hands up and down her back.
“R.H.M.?”
“Yeah, Phoenix?”
“Sugar is scratching at the bedroom door…” I began to lower my arms from where I had them around her, but she stepped closer to me. “Don’t let me go yet,” she whispered.
I closed my eyes for a moment, struggling to remember why I wasn’t supposed to be holding her. I didn’t want to let her go as much as she didn’t want me to let her go. Everything she said about wanting to help Mister touched a chord in me that I hadn’t realized I still had. After a few minutes, she sighed.
“I should go get her,” she mumbled.
“Please don’t go,” I whispered. “And if you really have to go, let me come with you.”
She stood silently for a moment before nodding. “Come on, R.H.M. Let’s go to bed. I think we both could use a good night’s sleep.”
She pulled back, took my hand, and tugged me to my feet before leading me down the short hallway to her bedroom. Her dog immediately started sniffing us as we walked in. She rubbed Sugar’s ears before pulling the blankets back to get into bed. She swallowed hard before meeting my eyes.
“Are you coming?”
I kicked my shoes off before almost diving into the bed next to her. She cleared her throat nervously.
“I… I’m not sure how you want to sleep.”
“You could lay on my chest,” I told her softly.
She started blushing again, but scooted closer to me so she could lay her head on my chest. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders as she put her arm over my waist.
“Goodnight, Princess. Sweet dreams.”
“Goodnight, R.H.M.”
It didn’t take her long to start snoring. I brushed her hair off her forehead before kissing her hair.
“You have no idea how much you soothed my soul tonight, Leah,” I murmured softly. “I know you think that Mister won’t know how you feel about everything, but he does.” I kissed her forehead. “Because I’m Mister, and you have no idea how badly I needed to be held.” I snuggled down into the blankets to hold her tighter. “Thank you for making it okay for me to grieve. Everybody else just wants me to get over losing them. But you’re not like them. You’re not like anyone else, are you?”