The Hearts We Burn
Page 10
“What I told you. About leaving. Why would you repeat that?”
Naomi shrugged and side-stepped me to lean in the mirror. She absently began smoothing stray strands of hair that had escaped back into her little bun. “I honestly thought it was a joke when you said it,” she said. “So I just brought it back up as a joke. Seems like you have the perfect life, so I knew you couldn’t be serious about leaving.”
I tossed a glance to the stalls behind me, satisfied when I saw they were empty. “Naomi listen,” I started, lowering my voice. “This is serious. It’s not a joke. I need you to help me, for real.”
Naomi met my eyes in the mirror, but she didn’t speak. Maybe she was listening. For real this time.
I was now talking barely above a whisper and I had to lean close to her ear so she could hear me. “My name is not Saida,” I started. “It’s Kimera. I’ve been kidnapped and I’m being held here against my will. I need your help, Naomi.”
Stark fear had Naomi’s eyes ballooning. She shook her head, as if denying my words. As if not listening would make them less true. “No, no, you shouldn’t say that.”
“I am saying it,” I said, trying to keep from grabbing her by the arms and shaking some sense into her. “I’m saying it because it’s true.”
“No, stop Saida—”
“Listen to me,” I pleaded, tears springing into my eyes. My voice carried even more urgency. “I live in Atlanta. Just please do a search and see if you can find my best friend Adria Davis or my brother Keon Davis. Just search my dad’s church, Word of Truth Christian Center. It’s a long and complicated story but I promise I will tell you everything if you—”
The door swung open, and we both gasped as Leo framed the doorway, looking straight at me. Beside me, Naomi stood just as frozen. How much had he heard?
“Naomi, leave us,” Leo said, his voice calm.
Naomi spared me a quick, fearful glance before obediently, scurrying out the door and leaving me alone with this monster. The calm before the storm. I knew what that meant. I had experienced it too many times.
Leo moved closer to me and instinctively, I shifted closer to the open bathroom stall at my back. “Why do you make this so hard, Saida?” Another step forward, I took another step back. A tango between predator and prey.
“Leo,” I was whispering, quietly judging the distance between him and the door. Would I make it?
“Don’t I make you happy, Saida?” Another two-step.
I didn’t answer. He paused a moment longer and I saw his move before he lunged at me. I screamed and ducked into the bathroom stall, quickly turning to try and close the door. But he was too fast, shifting his entire right side into the doorway between the stall and the wall so I couldn’t close it completely.
I pushed the door, hoping, praying the pressure prompted him to pull his body out of the way. “Leo, please,” I didn’t even realize I was yelling or crying but I was doing both. “Just stop it. Leave me alone please.”
He flailed his arm, grunting as I kept trying to push the door against him. At one point he grabbed hold of my wrist and turned it at such a painful angle that I couldn’t do anything but yelp and let the door go. He pushed the door the rest of the way open, still gripping my wrist.
That first punch always hurt the worst. I once told myself if I could just get past that first one, it would make the rest all the more tolerable. Like that first punch was just a lot of built up energy and anger because he hadn’t laid hands on me in a minute. I braced myself for the rest of the blows but he had me at a disadvantage. The stall was so tiny and I only had one hand free to block the strong force of his swings.
The familiar taste of blood hit my lip and when I pulled my hand away from my face, I saw blood had gathered underneath my nose. My face was sore and I could only sink to the toilet, exhausted from the pain. Then, I felt the hits stop and he let my arm go. I slithered to the cold bathroom floor and curled up in a fetal position, a mix of blood and tears pooling on the tile underneath my face.
I heard a set of footsteps storm away, then another set, this pair calmer, approach. I was afraid to move, in too much pain to risk doing anything other than lie there. Then, surprisingly gentle hands stooped down and gathered my head in a lap. Then I smelled that cologne, that delicious scent that had been invading my senses ever since he stepped foot in my room earlier.
I angled my head to look up and sure enough, Kareem was down on his knees with my upper body in his arms. He put a white, cloth napkin to my forehead and the chilled sensation immediately sent a shiver down my spine. “Hold this up here,” he instructed, his voice gentle like he was nursing a baby bird back to health. I lifted my arm and did as I was told, holding the cloth in place against my head. Kareem then reached up and pulled off some tissue from the roll, taking care to gently pat around my nose to soak up the blood.
I was embarrassed and because I didn’t know what to say; I kept my mouth shut as he cleaned me up. Yet still, I was grateful. At least someone cared.
Chapter 9
Adria
“Good evening, Mrs. Davis. This is Evelyn Waller. Listen, I had my assistant Mallory call you the last few days because you have cancelled two appointments with me and I am concerned. I’m not sure if you received our calls but please call me back as soon as you receive this so we can—”
I pulled my cell phone from my face and clicked the option to delete the message. Of course, I had received the calls. The three from her assistant and the two from Evelyn herself last week. Pretty soon I would have to block the number.
I wasn’t trying to be mean. I actually liked Evelyn. She seemed like a nice person but I didn’t see how the therapy sessions were helping me. It wasn’t like my husband was joining me so I was basically making these meetings alone. And frankly, I was getting discouraged. It had been months and I was no better now than I was when I had made my first appointment.
But I certainly couldn’t tell Evelyn that. She would find some way to convince me to come in and talk me out of my own thoughts. Frankly, her persistence was adding to my frustration, so rather than have that compounded on my misery, it was better to wash my hands of it altogether. Especially because I had Barlow for the medicine I needed, the medicine that was actually helping me. I loved my mother-in-law, but therapy had been her idea and what a shitty idea it was. Oh well.
Speaking of which, the next message was from her. Her voice did bring a slight smile to my face. “Hey, Adria, sweetie,” Mama Davis said in the message. “You were on my mind and God told me to play this song for you. I think you need to hear this.” The first few ballads of Mary Mary’s Can’t Give Up Now wafted through the speaker. Recognizing the message, I squeezed my eyes shut to keep the tears from springing free. Of course, God wanted me to hear it. Because every day, every hour, every second, I felt like giving up. Shit why was I even here anyway?
My finger hovered over the delete button but my heart wouldn’t bring me to actually press it. So instead, I saved the message, promptly cutting off the breakdown melody before I had a nervous breakdown of my own. I was again enveloped in silence. Alone with the souls of my precious babies in this nursery.
I rocked in the chair, listening to the quiet. As damaging as it was, I loved when it was like this. Because if I listened closely, really closely, I could almost hear my children’s laughter.
That was where Keon found me. I wasn’t even sure how long I had been sitting in there, but judging from the darkened sky outside the window, it had been close to all day. I felt my husband looking at me but still, I didn’t move. I couldn’t bring myself out of that space, that little bit of gray area between conscious and unconscious where I often pushed myself because it was here I felt most alive. It was here I felt my girls.
Finally, “Adria, look at me.”
Then slowly, the vision subsided, the feeling subsided, and I was once again descended back into that dark, sunken place, devoid of any emotion other than despair. Still, I turned my attent
ion from the crib to Keon who hadn’t so much as stepped a foot over the entryway into the room.
“You still in your pajamas,” he said, his voice laced with pity.
I looked down and sure enough, the sweatpants and t-shirt I had gone to bed with the night before still clung to my body.
“You’ve been sitting here since this morning?”
“No.” Not technically a lie. I didn’t drag myself from the bed until about lunchtime anyway. What was the point? “How was work?”
“Sounds like you’re just asking out of obligation.”
I shrugged. Fuck it. I tried.
“You really need to come out of this room.”
“Why? It’s not like you come in,” I snapped. “Like our children just . . . don’t exist, right?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Oh please, Keon. You don’t even come visit them at the grave. You just go on about your little life like none of this happened.”
“Yeah, I do. But it’s not like you noticed because you have other visitors to entertain don’t you.”
Irritated, I pursed my lips and rolled my eyes. He hadn’t brought up what he’d seen at the cemetery with me and Barlow so I had chalked it up to, maybe he hadn’t seen anything at all. That had just been my paranoia kicking in, maybe a side effect of the meds. “Whatever,” I mumbled.
“Oh now you don’t want to talk.” For the first time in a long time, Keon came in the room and stopped directly in front of me. “No, go ahead and say everything you got to say. Since I act like my kids don’t exist. You sure have some pent up feelings towards me, so go ahead and say it all. Who was ole’ dude at the cemetery Adria?”
I shrugged and tossed bored eyes back up at him. I wasn’t about to entertain his foolishness. As much hell as he had put me through, was putting me through, I was entitled to my own little secrets. Just like him. Wasn’t he meeting someone at the hotel and day spa? So I didn’t respond, which I could tell only infuriated him more.
“You know what?” At my continued silence, Keon tossed up his hands. “I can’t deal with this shit. I can’t.” He turned and stormed from the room.
Pride had me sitting right there as I heard him shuffle around. It wasn’t until I heard drawers slamming and what sounded like bags being dragged around, that curiosity propelled me from the chair and into the master bedroom to see what was going on.
Shocked, I watched my husband’s back as he busied himself with snatching clothes from his drawers and stuffing them into suitcases. The force of his abrupt gestures had perfume bottles and picture frames clattering to litter the carpeted floor. Even though he kept his head down, the clench of his temple and the crease of his forehead revealed his angry reflection in the dresser mirror.
Now, I was riding on stubbornness as I planted my feet and crossed my arms over my breasts. “I don’t know what you’re doing but you’re not going any damn where,” I said.
Keon paused long enough to give me a look that would have anyone questioning my sanity, before he resumed packing. This time when he spoke, he was surprisingly calm. “Adria, we just need some space,” he said. “You’re going through things in your own way, I’m going through things in my own way, and right now it’s just not mixing with each other. All this fighting, all this anger and hostility.”
“I said no.”
“It’s better if we take this little breather right now before we end up hating each other.”
“I already hate you,” I yelled, pissed when the tears started to pour. Of course, I hadn’t meant that at all, but dammit I was hurt. How could he leave me like this? Right when I needed him the most.
Keon lifted his hand in my direction as if to say I had proved his point exactly. “This isn’t healthy,” he went on. “I mean look at you. You get up and stay locked up in that nursery all day. You don’t bathe, don’t eat, don’t do shit. You won’t even go to church with me—”
“Fuck that, Keon. What has church done for me?”
My words seemed to be biting into him like blades and his face slacked a bit. “My father—”
“Your father is dead,” I dug the knife in deeper. “Gone. Dead. Just like your daughters. So you keep on like life goes on. That’s what folks do when they don’t love anyone but themselves any damn way.”
Keon turned from me then, but not before I saw his eyes gloss with what looked like a tear. Damn, I had never seen my husband cry. That stung my heart and I immediately ran to his side and threw my arms around his waist.
“I’m sorry babe,” I sobbed into his back, my tears soaking his shirt. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I’m saying. I didn’t mean that. I love you and you know I loved your father.”
Keon stood for a moment longer and just let me hold him. I felt his labored breathing and wanted to crumble when I felt his body tense before letting loose a little tremble. Then, slowly, he stepped from my arms and hoisted his bags on his arms. Never did he look at me again.
“I honestly don’t know where we go from here,” he said, quietly. “Or if we go somewhere from here.” Stunned, I could only watch him drag the suitcase to the door, stopping only to pick up a duffel bag he had tossed there earlier. He didn’t utter another word as he left and the slam of the door startled a gasp from my lips.
I stayed in place long after I heard the garage open and close. Headlights flashed briefly through the window as he obviously backed his car out of the driveway. Then those too disappeared. My knees weakened and I crumbled to the floor. Biting back sobs, I crawled to my table and pulled my notebook from the drawer. I needed to write. I needed to keep my sanity.
I had never thought about poetry until Dr. Waller suggested it. Then remembering that was something Kimmy had picked up, it seemed only fitting that I tried it to see if it helped. I wasn’t good at it at all. I didn’t want to resort to cutting myself (something I had also tried before), but the way my depression was set up, it was liable to reignite the old wounds I was struggling to keep buried. So instead, I grabbed my pen and started scribbling, the ink so fierce across the paper that my words came out sloppy and illegible. But I knew what was in my heart:
What We Share
Forever my eyes shall grace your face
Forever my fingers should touch your skin
I now know not your heavenly embrace
Our heart will forever be as one
Your soul, one with mine deep within
My eyes are grateful to gaze on such a man
My love for you I can’t ignore
These overwhelming emotions all so new to me
I know I can’t go on without you
Time can only ignite what real love is for . . .
My eyes remained steady on the words staining my page and I sighed. My mind, and heart, was so cluttered, and this shit wasn’t working. Frustrated, I tossed the paper to the side.
Completely numb, I willed my feet to move to the adjoining bathroom. All I needed was my pills. That would make me feel better. I fumbled for the Ziploc baggie I had stashed underneath my sink. Blindly, I shook some into my hand and tossed them into my mouth. Then, another handful. And another. And once more until the empty bag fluttered from my limp fingers and the memory began to materialize.
For some reason, I felt dizzy. I blinked and my wavering gaze met Keon’s. Our teenage bodies were still wrapped in the throngs of our youthful lovemaking but I was snatched out of bliss at the sickening feeling that was consuming me.
“You okay?” Keon asked.
“I think I just need to eat something,” I said, my voice weak.
Keon glanced at his cell phone and jumped from the bed, beginning to put on his clothes. “That’s cool because Jay is picking me up in a sec,” he said, his movements brisk. “I got somewhere to be. Yeah maybe you should chill for a bit. You not looking so good.”
“Gee thanks.”
He rolled his eyes at my sarcasm. “You know what I mean. You got the flu or something?”
Keon narrowed his eyes before readjusting his cap. “Why you asking me that?”
I shrugged. Because as young as I was, being sixteen didn’t make me stupid. I saw the way he looked at other girls and I saw how quickly he would come over for a little quickie, only to be gone just as fast. But I didn’t voice that. Just said, “Because I want to go out or something. We always sneaking around having sex but I want us to go on an actual date. What? You afraid Kimmy will find out?”
Keon rolled his eyes. “Girl, chill out. My sister ain’t got nothing to do with this.”
“Well, what is it then?” I pressed.
Keon’s phone vibrated in his hand and he took a quick glance at the screen. “Hey I got to run. Jahmad is outside. I’ll call you later.” And he was gone in the midst of his lie. He wouldn’t call later. He never did. Until he was horny again. Every time we got together, I always felt unbelievably stupid.
As soon as he left me alone, I climbed to my feet and tried my best to get dressed with what little strength I had. For some reason, I was feeling anxious. I would use the bathroom, maybe eat that nasty ass burger he had left on the table, and take a nap.
I was washing my hands when I felt it again. That nauseous feeling. I gagged a little and swallowed as my mouth watered. What had I eaten? I opened the cabinet to search for some medicine and paused when I saw the tampon box sitting on the shelf. I blinked on a frown. When was the last time I had a period? With everything going on, I hadn’t even thought about it.
As if I would magically see blood in my panties, I pulled at the waist and eyed my crotch. Nothing. When was it supposed to come anyway? A nagging feeling was pulling at me as I eyed the tampon box once more. It was probably nothing. It would come on any minute, any day now, and erase all the doubts that were now trying to creep in. I probably shouldn’t worry about it. I kept telling myself this, even as I crossed back into my bedroom to look for a pregnancy test.