Meant to be Yours

by Sequaia

  “You violated me every chance you got, and now, you’re going to burn in hell,” she sobbed.

  It wasn’t loud enough for the entire room to hear . . . just me and maybe the first two people in the front row, for sure. What she said was clear as day. She didn’t linger after that. She stormed off, and I rushed behind her. I didn’t want to look at Von, but my damn eyes betrayed me, and I caught a glimpse of his ass before quickly turning my head and catching up to Aúrea. Seeing the side of his face, I knew the mortician did a good job on him.

  “Aúrea,” I called out to her, and I thought she would keep running. She didn’t. She stopped, allowing me to catch up.

  I placed my hands on her shoulders and turned her to face me. Tears were streaming down her face. Her bottom lip quivered. Her hands, her entire body, were shaking. Pulling her into me, I held her as tightly and closely as humanly possible.

  “I hate him, Prentice. I know this is the wrong time to be full of hatred, but I am. I truly hate him,” she cried. And I mean, hard. Those small shakes had become full-on tremors.

  “It’s okay, A.” Kissing the top of her head, I rubbed her back and wasn’t letting her go until she calmed down and removed herself from my grasp. It wasn’t until people started filing out of the church that she interrupted our embrace. But fuck these people. I was gonna hold her until the sun went down, in this very spot if it was what she required.

  “I wanna go to the burial.” She took a step back while wiping her tear-stained face.

  “You sure about that?”

  “Positive. Seeing him in there wasn’t enough.” She nodded her head in the church’s direction. “I have to see him be put into the ground. When he’s there, I’m laying down all my burdens he caused in there with him. I’m letting them go forever.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, ushering her to my car.

  We followed behind the long row of cars to the burial ground, which only took about ten minutes. We sat watching everyone exit their vehicles and getting to the designated area before getting out of my car and standing behind the crowd. I held Aúrea’s hand the entire time. I was not paying attention to what was being said, only watching my surroundings and making sure she was holding it together. Other than the tears that continued to fall from her eyes, she was doing fine.

  I heard Amen and looked up to see the crowd dispersing. How I missed the ending of the speech, I didn’t know, but I did.

  “You ready?” I asked her, feeling her body stiffen. Looking down at her with furrowed brows, I tried to figure out what her problem was.

  “Aúrea,” I called out to her, only to be ignored. I stared at her intently, trying to figure out what had her so frozen.

  “Oh, wow, Aúrea. How are you?” some woman asked that I didn’t recognize. She shouldn’t have been familiar to me since I only knew Aúrea’s foster parents. Anyone outside of them would mean nothing to me.

  “H-hi,” Aúrea stuttered. She had finally found her words, I guess.

  “How have you been, sweetheart? Wow, it’s so good to see you. Von and Patricia were worried sick about you.” She approached Aúrea with open arms.

  “Thanks, but no thanks, ma’am. She’s not here for all that,” I cut in, stepping in front of Aúrea. I’m sure whoever this lady was had no clue of the hell she went through living with Von and Patricia. I wasn’t going to allow people to come up to her like she should be sad because some damn saints raised her.

  “Well, excuse me. Aúrea, it was good to see you, baby.”

  She rolled her eyes at me as she walked away. Two more people came up and spoke to her before Aúrea’s and my eyes landed on her foster mother at the same time. I don’t know how we . . . well . . . I missed her before. The saddest person in the area shouldn’t have blended in with the crowd.

  “Aúrea, are you okay?” I asked again. Those seemed to be the only words in my vocabulary today. This was a lot for her. I know it was. I guess asking the same question would eventually resonate within her, and she would be okay.

  “Prentice, please, give me a moment.”

  “All right.” I threw my hands up in surrender. She was gon’ be straight. I was sure of it now. The fire in her tone proved it.

  18

  Aúrea

  When Prentice and I left his house this morning, I felt empty. I told him I was okay and ready for today, but I wasn’t. I barely slept the night before, tossing and turning all night, going back and forth about whether I was doing the right thing. I even texted Rebecca. Well, I sent her an iMessage using Prentice’s Wi-Fi because I still didn’t have a working cell phone. Anyway, messaging her made me feel a little more prepared. Again, I wasn’t as prepared as I would have liked to be. But having Prentice by my side was refreshing. I almost pushed him away after the incident with his girlfriend, who isn’t his “girlfriend.” If she is or isn’t, at this point, I don’t care. He confessed to her that I came first in his life, in front of me, and that spoke volumes. That was all I needed. Adrian would have never done something like that, and I gave his ass so much of me.

  While we were in the church, I was able to keep my emotions tucked in. Prentice held my hand the whole time, giving me strength. When I got up to the casket, my heart thumped hard in my chest. What I expected to see and what I saw were two different things. Von had aged and not for the best. Or, it could have been the job the funeral home did on him. He didn’t look the same. Not like the man I remembered. This man looked old and worn down like he’d lived a stressful life. Like he was in his eighties and not his late forties. He used to favor the man who played Troy in Waiting to Exhale but definitely not anymore.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if guilt from what he’d done to me caught up with him. As I stared at him, I felt tears begin to well up in my eyes, and my anger pulled to the surface. I hadn’t expected to say anything up there, only look at him, tell him how I felt, what he took from me . . . silently. Internally. My emotions wouldn’t allow things to happen that way, so when I spoke to him about how I felt, I didn’t care who heard. Apparently, not many people heard because there weren’t any loud gasps in the room like there usually is when someone dropped something heavy like how I’d done. When I ran out after speaking, I felt some of the burden lifted from my shoulders. It felt good. I knew I wasn’t done, which was why when Prentice asked if I was ready, I told him no because I needed to see Von’s ass put into the ground. Now we were here, watching his body being lowered.

  After watching roses being thrown onto Von’s casket and the crowd starting to disperse, I should have been ready to leave. For some reason, my feet wouldn’t cooperate, and I stood in place as if I were being held down by cement at the ankles. Random people were coming up to me, saying how wonderful it was to see me and that they were sorry for my loss. Not one person asked why I left. When my old caseworker, who happened to be a friend of Patricia and Von’s, came up and spoke to me, I almost lost it. Prentice sensed it, and he sent her ass on her merry way. He kept asking if I was okay, and I knew he only wanted to help, but it wasn’t helping at all.

  I needed a moment and told him, so I walked ahead of him a few steps and stared at the woman who was supposed to protect me yet raised me together with her pedophile-ass husband. Seeing Patricia in a wheelchair and with an oxygen tank did something to me, though. It hurt me. There was no reason for me to feel any remorse for her, but I did. My eyes were stuck on her so long that she must’ve felt me watching because when she turned her head to look at me, her eyes widened as big as golf balls.

  She grabbed the hand of the woman holding the back of her wheelchair, getting her attention before weakly pointing in my direction. She was at least four feet away from me, and I could still make out the shakiness of her hands as she struggled to lift her arm high enough to point at me. I began crying again, and through blurred eyes, I saw the woman walking toward me. I wanted to run because I knew Patricia sent her over, and there was nothing to be said. Prentice had to have been watching because, by the time the
woman had made her way in front of me, he was right behind me with his hand on the small of my back, letting me know he was there.

  “Aúrea,” she spoke with a smile on her face and remorse in her tone, “it’s so good to see you, baby girl. Do you remember me? I’m Patrice, your aunt. Patricia’s sister.”

  She extended her arms to hug me, walking closer to me, and I stepped back right into Prentice. Patrice looked exactly the same from the last time I saw her, just a little older. She had aged well compared to her sister and Von. I remember Patricia looking just as pretty as Patrice. Both women used to look like the actresses Kim Fields and her younger sister, Alexis, Patrice being a replica of Alexis.

  “Nah, she don’t need no hug from you,” Prentice told her, pulling me behind him.

  Damn, this man. He just keeps surprising me.

  “Oh, sorry. It’s . . . We haven’t seen her. We weren’t sure if she was alive. I’m sorry if I scared you,” she spoke, doing her best to look around Prentice to explain herself to me.

  Wiping my tears, I took a deep breath and moved from behind Prentice to the side of him, prompting him to turn and look at me with a puzzled expression.

  “I’m okay. I can do this,” I told him, staring into his beautiful brown orbs. I could do this. Patrice obviously had no idea about the hell I endured living with her sister and brother-in-law, and that wasn’t her fault. What was weird to me, however, was how she said they were worried about me. How could all of them have cared so much when I left, when not one of them cared enough to find out what the hell was going on with me when I was there? I mean, Von surely wasn’t going to tell on himself. Patricia could have tried harder. No one on God’s green earth could convince me Patricia did not have some idea that her husband had been raping and molesting me.

  “Listen, Aúrea, I’m not trying to scare you or pressure you into anything. I’m sure you have good reasons for why you left.” She paused, and I watched as her chest rose and fell. She looked over her shoulder at Patricia, who slowly nodded, and then she turned back to me.

  “My sister is sick, and she doesn’t have much time left from what the doctors have been telling us. She and Von always hoped that you would come back so they could make some things right with you. Now, I’m not sure what those things are because neither ever told me. I was only told that if you ever came back and either or both of them had passed on when you did, I was supposed to direct you to their lawyer. Even though my sister is still alive, she wants you to meet with her and the family attorney in two days. Are you willing to do that?”

  Her eyes were pleading with me to agree while my mind was going a mile a minute, trying to figure out if that was something I wanted to do. Whatever Von and Patricia wanted to make right, did I even care enough now for them even to try? Well, Von was gone now, and I wasn’t even sure I needed an apology from Patricia any longer. I wasn’t sure if I even needed that apology now.

  “Listen, I know it’s a lot to ask, especially on a day like today. So I’ll give you the time and place, and if you can or want to show up, that would be great. If not, then she will understand. If you need more time, you can always call the attorney and set up the meeting later. I just cannot guarantee that Patricia will be there at a later date.” She went into her black bag and removed a business card, handing it to me.

  “The meeting will be in two days at 2:00 p.m. at the address on the card. Patricia and I will be there that day. We hope to see you.” She stepped closer to me again, leaned forward as if she was going to hug me, thought about it, and backed up quickly, offering a smile instead. I nodded my head and watched as she walked off toward my former foster mother, whose eyes were still on me with tears falling from them. I offered her a tight-lipped smile and wondered if, in two days, I would be at this law office able to listen to whatever it was she needed to say to me.

  “I’m ready to go now.” I turned to Prentice, who took me by the hand and led me back to his car. “Thank you for being here.” I’d been doing that a lot . . . thanking him.

  I was sure I sounded like a broken record by now. It was hard not to express my gratitude. He was doing so much for me, way more than he had to, and I appreciated it. I also realized that I would have to pull back from him some. I didn’t want to become dependent on him. I stuck with Adrian as long as I had because of dependency, and the woman I was trying to become would not thrive in a situation where I had to once again depend on a man to live. Aúrea was going to find out who she was and what she wanted without a man.

  “You want to go to the house or out to eat?” he asked me as he pulled the car from the curb.

  “Do you mind ordering in? I would like to go to your house and lie down.”

  Today’s events were enough for me. There was nothing more I wanted to do than message Rebecca and tell her how I did today and Facetime Nijah to tell her the same while getting a little girl talk out of the way. She knew I was staying with Prentice, and, of course, I expressed to her how fine and attentive he was. She loved hearing stories about how good he had been to me. She also continued to say that me jumping into a new relationship was not the best move, and I agreed. I was definitely attracted to him, and more than anything, I was enjoying having my friend back.

  “That’s cool,” he agreed, and I shut my eyes as he drove the rest of the way to his house.

  * * *

  I thanked the Uber driver as I exited his car before slowly making my way to the bottom step of the tall, white building. Removing my phone from my pocket, I searched for available Wi-Fi connections and connected to a free network nearby. I needed to quickly reach Nijah or Rebecca if this meeting didn’t go as planned. Well, as planned was the wrong thing to say as I had no idea what I should even expect. Just as I had done the night before Von’s funeral, I tossed and turned all night, debating on whether I was going to show up. Both Rebecca and Nijah told me I should, but even their advice wasn’t enough to convince me.

  I had created a list of the pros and cons of coming today before deciding to come. The pros had outweighed the cons and the realization that I would probably always wonder what would have come from this meeting if I hadn’t come, hearing what Patricia’s final words to me would be. So here I was, nervous as hell, walking up to this building. Prentice left early this morning with a promise to be back before dark. I was glad he had gotten out of the house because it seemed like he had no life outside of me since I’d been there. Besides, this was one thing I wanted to do without him. The upside of me not having a fully functional phone was him not being able to call me and see where I was and what I was doing. He was overly protective. At times, I didn’t mind it, and other times, he got on my nerves.

  “Okay, Aúrea, you can do this,” I encouraged myself as I opened the glass doors of the Goldstein and Troop Law Offices. Slowly, I walked across the tile floors until I reached the door numbered 110.

  “Welcome to Goldstein and Troop. How may I help you?” the petite Caucasian receptionist inquired.

  “My name is Aúrea Shepard, and I was told to be here for a 2:00 p.m. meeting with the lawyer and Patricia Brown.” My nerves were getting the best of me, and I was sure the woman heard the shakiness in my tone. She nodded at me before picking up the phone and letting someone know that I was here.

  “Have a seat. Someone will be right with you.”

  Doing as asked, I took a seat and looked around. This one area of the building was huge, having at least five additional rooms and two reception areas. I could tell that they were making money here and had made up my mind that I would begin searching for a job of some sort once I left. I hadn’t had to touch the money I saved because Prentice was openly doing everything for me, well, feeding and housing me. I needed to get a new phone, some more clothes, and toiletries. I was starting to get low on all of them, primarily because I had expected to be gone right after the funeral. Now, I wasn’t sure when I would be leaving because I wasn’t ready to walk away from Prentice at the moment. I no longer wanted to depend on
him either, so I needed to get a job.

  “Aúrea?” Someone calling my name pulled me away from my thoughts. I turned toward the sound of the voice, and my eyes slowly rose up the black tailored suit of a very tall figure. When my eyes met him, I instantly noticed how attractive he was. He resembled the rapper T. I., only a chocolate version.

  “Y-yes,” I stammered. I don’t know why I was so nervous. Maybe because he was a grown-ass man, exceptional, Black, and successful. I mean, not that this wasn’t a norm or possibility for a Black man. I just . . . Shit, I don’t know. This whole thing was new to me.

  “Hi, I’m Travis, the attorney your mother—”

  “Foster mother, and since I’m grown, she’s neither. You can address her as Patricia to me.” I didn’t mean to snap at him, but the little trance his looks had me in was gone the moment he tried to acknowledge that woman as my mother. She surely wasn’t that.

  “My apologies. Patricia is in my office and would like to speak with you privately before we go over the other reason you’re here, which would be my job to explain. Of course, the one-on-one is up to you. So would you be open to speaking with her first, or should we get down to business?”

  Putting my thumbnail into my mouth, I nibbled on it, contemplating my answer. I wasn’t sure how we were going to talk. She looked like she had a hard time holding her head up, let alone being able to hold a conversation with me. But getting her side of things was one of the reasons I was here. I knew this was my opportunity to let her know about the horrible job she’d done protecting me.

  “Yes, I’ll talk to her.”

  “Great, follow me.” He waited for me to stand before leading the way down a long, carpeted walkway. We got to the end of that and made a left, showing me that there was far more to this part of the building than I saw when upfront. He knocked twice on the door before opening it.

  Patrice was sitting next to Patricia, who was in her wheelchair at the end of a long cherrywood table.