Walking Away

When her sobs finally turned into light sniffling, she squeezed me before stepping back as she wiped her tears.
“I’m sorry, R.H.M.,” she whispered. “I’ve never gotten to grieve over her so freely. Will would hit me if I did, so I hid my grief.”
“You can cry here, Leah,” I told her softly. “We understand your grief here. There is a male here who lost his children too–”
“Mister?”
He blinked in surprise. “Not just him. Another male.”
She tilted her head as she studied me, which made me stop speaking. I could tell that she wanted to say something, but I was a little worried about what she was contemplating.
“You?” She asked confidently, shocking me.
“There’s another male,” I repeated, choosing not to directly answer her question as I still wasn’t sure what I said in my sleep.
“Who?”
“I can’t tell you that. It’s his choice if he chooses to divulge that part of his past, but I will say that for as long as he has been here, he has helped every single person who has lost any children. He is a good guy, and he loves people. If you can find him, I’m sure he will help you, too.”
“Do you want me to confide in him?” She asked quietly.
No, I didn’t. I didn’t want her to get close to anyone. I wanted her to lean on me. I wanted her all to myself, but I couldn’t have that. She deserved better than to have me care about her. Every woman that I had cared about in the past had not done well in life. There was a woman before Diadra, and she passed away from addiction as well. She had gotten drunk before walking into the river that ran through our small city. I shook my head to rid it of the image of Janice’s body, bloated from the days she spent in the river. It was better for the women I cared about to not develop a relationship with me, no matter how much either of us might want to be together. I already had two strikes against me. I wasn’t going to have a third one. Leah’s life literally depended on it.
“I want you to heal,” I said, realizing that I had been silent for too long.
“Why do you want everyone else to heal, but you refuse to let yourself do the same thing?”
“There’s nothing that I need to heal from,” I instantly denied.
She turned around to study the portraits on the wall before glancing at me over her shoulder. “I don’t like it when you lie to me, R.H.M. If you don’t want me to lie to you, then please give me the same respect.”
“I’m not…” I sighed. “I’ll try not to.”
“Thank you.”
She stood under the floor-to-ceiling painting of my family, simply running her eyes slowly over each and every one of their faces before reaching out to touch one of my triplets.
“What were their names?” She asked quietly.
“Tonya, Taylor, and Twana,” I instantly replied.
“They are beautiful,” she murmured.
“Yes, they were.”
She reached up to unhook the locket from around her neck before opening it. She stared down at it, and my heart ached for her as silent tears coursed down her face. I tried to resist going over to take her in my arms again, but I gave up in under a minute. I quickly crossed to her side, where I took her in my arms, placing my chin on her shoulder. She raised the locket so that I could see the picture of the premature little girl inside. I studied the picture intently for a moment before allowing my arms to tighten around her.
“She’s beautiful,” I murmured.
“Thank you. She was my dream. I always wanted to have a child. It didn’t matter to me what gender they were or even if they were missing a toe or two. I just wanted a child to nurture with the hopes that when I set them free, they would make the world a better place, but God knew better. He knew I was being selfish. I shouldn’t have wanted to bring a child into that world. He or she would have just been another victim of the cult. Especially her,” she said, snapping the locket closed. “I won’t say that I’m happy she didn’t make it, but I am glad that she never experienced everything that the cult would have done to her. In another time and place, with a different father, I would be happy to bring children into the world. She deserved everything.” She reached out to touch my girls’ happy faces lovingly. “I wish I could have seen her with this look on her face. I wish I could have heard her call me Mama. I wish I could have heard her tell me that she loved me.”
“It would have hurt more when you lost her if she had.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I mentally kicked myself. When she pulled away from me, I regretted them even more. She traced the open area between my triplets before turning around to face me.
“There is no good time to lose a child, R.H.M. It hurts whether you lose them before they have a heartbeat or when they're 30. That’s why it’s so important that you cherish every moment you have with them.” She turned back to look at the portrait again, this time studying Diadra’s face. “Cherishing the people that you love, not just children, is so important.”
“And what happens if you’re afraid to love, Phoenix? What do you do then?” I asked.
“You love harder. If you find someone that you love, you tell them why you're afraid to love and hold onto them tightly. You tell them everything without holding anything back,” she answered.
“And if they don’t want my love?”
“You might get hurt, R.H.M. I’m not saying that everyone you care about will return your feelings, but you can’t just stop living because you get hurt. That just means that person wasn’t meant to be yours.”
“What do you do if you can’t trust someone?”
“You try.”
I sighed. “You are nothing like I thought you would be,” I admitted.
“How did you think I would be?” She asked.
“I don’t know. Brainwashed,” I answered.
“Good thing I like to read books. My favorite authors really taught me about how good men can be when they love you the right way. I just wasn’t lucky enough to have one. When I came here, I was shocked to find out that maybe men like those in the books I read truly existed.” She looked at me from under her eyelashes. “You are like them.”
“I am?” I asked, shocked.
“Yes. You always turn up when I least expect it, during times when I need someone to just be around. Men like that made me hold onto hope that true love exists.”
“Who are some of your favorite authors?” I asked curiously.
“Muhammed Musa, BurntAsh3s, Fiona Wright, Lilly W. Valley, and Michele Dixon. Their men are so dreamy. It really makes me believe that through all the bad there will come good.”
I studied her face for a moment before taking her hand. “It’s good to dream, princess.”
“Do you dream about love?”
“Not really. I don’t deserve love,” I responded.
“Why not?”
“Because my love hurts,” I admitted.
“Then it’s not love,” she said softly.
I let her hand go as I turned away from her. “It was! I loved them so much that it killed them.”
She put her hand on my shoulder. “What do you mean?”
I shrugged her hand off. “I must have smothered them. I must have done something wrong. I must have screwed up somehow to make them both turn to addictive substances.”
“R.H.M., you can’t control how other people handle their problems. There was something deeper going on with them than you knew. You can’t blame yourself for that.”
“Yes, I can because I was the only common denominator.” I pulled my keys out of my pocket to hand her one of the keys to the buildings. “You can come here whenever you need to get away and just think.”
She took it from me before looking up at me. I refused to meet her eyes.
“R.H.M., what happened wasn’t your–”
“Yes, Phoenix, it was. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing that you can say that will change my opinion. I’ll see you tomorrow when Mister reviews your progress.”
I started walking to the door when she called me. I paused but didn’t turn around.
“Tomorrow? You’re not coming over tonight?” She asked.
I stiffened. “I won’t be spending the night again.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not part of your life after your time here,” I told her before walking out of the building.
“Coward,” she whispered as the door shut.
I cursed silently as I walked away from her. I hated treating her like that, but it was necessary. I was only sure of two things. One: I really needed to find out what I said while I was sleeping. I glanced over my shoulder at the building I left her in. And two: letting myself love Leah would only end in disaster, not just for me but for her too.