Cherished by You: A Found by You Finale Novella

by Victoria H. Smith

  “I want her out, Roxie,” he continued, his tone firm, final. “I want her out, and that’s it. She’s out of the house and after that… After that, you leave all this, her alone.”

  He was talking to me like I wasn’t capable of making my own decisions. I knew what I was doing, the reality of it, and every interaction, every ounce of my help was hard for me.

  I breathed.

  “She’s eating here tonight, Griffin,” I said, which he knew because I blurted that out after he stormed in here. Cassidy would be eating here with us tonight before I drove her to a hotel.

  She chose to bake for us on her own.

  I never approved such a thing. In fact, I hadn’t really spoken to her at all since at Kerry’s office and even the request to help Cassidy had come from my friend’s mouth. It had been Kerry who asked if I could lend a hand, Kerry, who had pretty much done all the talking until my friend got Cassidy in my car and the pair of us drove off together.

  After that had been nothing but silence.

  I got Cassidy here, then when it was time made dinner and left her to her own devices.

  I explained all this to Griffin. I explained the extent of my help for my former step-sister. I owed her nothing, and I knew that. But I was human as well.

  I wasn’t heartless.

  And I didn’t appreciate the ultimatum my husband was giving me here tonight. I realized I told him I’d be helping Cassidy this one time with Kerry’s services. But things changed.

  This was my house too, and I had a say.

  I stepped over to him, taking my seat beside him and could literally feel the hum of his energy coming off him.

  I could feel his tension even more.

  “There’s no harm in helping her this way,” I said, firmly. I mean, didn’t he know this was hard for me?

  This woman had hurt me so much.

  “It’s not like she’ll be here long—”

  “But she is here, Roxie,” he said, challenging me. He faced me, his nostrils flaring. “She’s here when we specifically agreed you wouldn’t be helping her again.”

  He got that wrong completely. He was the one who decided I wouldn’t be helping Cassidy again and he was the one who didn’t ask my opinion first before throwing down the ax on the decision.

  I shook my head. “You gave me no say in that decision,” I said, standing. “You basically took the option away from me.”

  “But in the end, that was the last of it,” he went on, standing too. “In the end, that’s where we left the conversation, and if you had issues with it then, you never voiced them with me.”

  I may not have, but I did have an issue with it. That night, I went along with what he said because he needed the agreement to be okay with me helping her.

  But that didn’t mean that I liked how we left things.

  At this point, Griffin was pacing, passing me and nearly running a path into our floor.

  He faced me. “I don’t even know why you want to help her, why you continue wanting to help her—”

  “Because I’m human,” I admitted, raising and dropping my hands. “Because I have a soul and you know what happened to her at that place she was staying in.”

  I explained that to him when we made it into the bedroom.

  I shrugged. “She needed help.”

  “And as always you’re there to give it,” he said, shaking his head. “You give it despite what she did, despite what she put you through. You’re not a glutton for punishment, Roxie, so I truly don’t get what this is.”

  He wouldn’t, would he? He wouldn’t get that I had a history before him, that myself and that girl out there knew each other in a life and time well before him. We had so much there, so many things that…

  Closing my eyes, I shrank down to the bed. Reaching around my stomach, I massaged as I thought. Cassidy and I did have a history and the truth was, all this?

  I was still trying to figure out myself.

  It was Griffin that brought me out of my head. He was grabbing his ball cap.

  Like he was leaving.

  I shook my head. “Where are you going?”

  He turned around, his shoulders dropping. “I can’t be here while she is, so respectfully, I’m going to go take a drive.”

  Sighing, he put the cap on his head, straightening. “I’ll be back later.”

  He started to walk away, but I said his name.

  Then this.

  “Don’t rush,” I told him, surprising even myself. But he frustrated me.

  I frustrated me, too.

  The sadness that crept across his face was evident.

  And I didn’t chase him once he walked away.

  Roxie

  In the end, Griffin didn’t rush. In fact…

  He ended up staying out all night.

  Worried when I woke up in the middle of the night, and he wasn’t there, I reached for my phone to call him.

  That’s when I saw his text.

  Staying with a friend for the night, was all he said and frustrated, I didn’t even answer his text. I simply put the phone away, then forced myself to sleep.

  It was a restless sleep, active. Between myself and the baby, we were tossing and moving around completely. It was only in the morning when I realized I had forgotten to take Cassidy to a hotel, mostly because she surprised me with her presence.

  I found her and not Griffin that morning, the meek woman bundling up a make shift bed on the couch. I thought to apologize for not thinking about her, forgetting her, but in the end, I said nothing.

  We stood in front of each other, her and me. She was complete dressed, but I noticed a pair of sleep pants and shorts to the side of an open bag she had on the couch. She brought it in with her.

  Fumbling, she turned, stuffing the garments inside before picking up the bags handle.

  She pushed some dark strands behind her ear.

  “You got a message on your answering machine,” she said, pointing to the docked phone near the couch. She shrugged. “The message sound, which is the only reason I heard it. It was a reminder about your Lamaze class today. I couldn’t help noticing.”

  Lamaze class.

  I closed my eyes. Griffin and I were supposed to do that. In fact…

  I checked the time on the back of the docked phone.

  We wouldn’t make it judging by the time.

  Not that it would be a good time for it anyway.

  Pushing my hand over my head, I closed my eyes. I stood by my decision to help Cassidy, but this was all turning into a big mess I wasn’t sure would be so easy to get out of.

  I mean, he didn’t even come home.

  The reality of that had me sitting down as the soft smell of flowers passed me.

  Cassidy was heading away from me, her bag in hand. She turned when I lifted my head.

  She smiled a little, a smile I remembered so much that it hurt. We used to be each other’s everything once. We used to have so much…

  “I appreciate your help,” she said, shaking her head. Her eyes glistened a little for some reason, and she wiped them. “But I’ve overstayed my welcome. I called a cab. I’ll be heading out now.”

  “But where?” tugged at my lips, tugged so hard I nearly said the words.

  I swallowed. “Okay.”

  “Okay,” I settled with, “okay.” It was the only word I basically said to her since she’d come with me the day before.

  It was the best I could do.

  She gave me an out, my former step-sister, and I knew it would all be over the minute I let her walk out of my home. The exit symbolized her departure from my life. I could let it go. This would all be over.

  She turned when I called her name.

  She was standing in the middle of the living room, her cheeks flushed and her dark hair settling down on her shoulders. Her baby bump peeked out of the simple t-shirt she wore, the shirt not maternity wear in the slightest and since she came back into my life, I’d never seen her actually wearing any prop
erly fitting clothing to accommodate her baby. She probably couldn’t afford it.

  “Have you ever been?” I asked, my throat dry, burning. I cleared it. “Have you ever been to a Lamaze class?”

  I had no idea her history, but I had a feeling she never had.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  Lifting my head, I spoke again. I spoke words I never thought I’d say and probably shouldn’t have. Her being her, in my life, had caused so much unneeded drama. She was causing me to fight with my husband and giving me unnecessary stress surrounded the baby. But something made me speak, something made me invite my former step-sister to a Lamaze class, and I had a feeling that something went beyond closure. It was deep.

  It was history.

  Griffin

  A soft voice and kind eyes brought me out of my head, her smile always inviting. I’d been warming her couch for the last hour or so and, she didn’t need to be kind to me, especially since I’d come in unexpected.

  I had arrived with excuses, a laundry list full. I just…hadn’t known what to do or who to go to, but Dr. Dow had entertained me, opening her doors when she didn’t have to. I caught her at lunch, her mealtime free of appointments.

  Roxie and I had actually done our pre-marriage counseling with her therapist, which was ironic since we ended up getting married before we finished the sessions. We’d done it on a whim, unable to wait anymore. We also wanted to fool the press by messing up the dates of our nuptials. In the end, it worked out. We’d been married peacefully without any media interruption, even with how much had changed since then.

  I breathed into my hands, anxious since the minute I filled this poor woman’s couch. I barely fit with the extension of my limbs.

  “Griffin?”

  I swallowed, gazing up to aged eyes. Surrounded by silver locks, Dr. Dow reminded me so much of my gram, their souls both indescribably good.

  She removed her sandwich wrapper from her lap, placing it on the table. I requested she’d continue eating after I’d dropped in on her office doorstep. I interrupted her during lunch, and well, this wasn’t a session.

  At least it hadn’t started out that way.

  I literally laid it all out to the woman, my worries about Roxie… everything. I told her Roxie and I had talked that she’d been coming here, that she told me about the sessions, but had been so casual about the detail. I told her I was scared for the well-being of my wife, that a woman from her past had come in, and I had distanced myself in response.

  My wife basically told me too.

  It all came out like regurgitation, a mess and uncontrollable. But I felt Dr. Dow of all people had been the one to go to. Other than myself, Roxie told her counselor everything. She knew her.

  She could help me.

  As unusual as it was after Roxie’s name had been dropped by me, she hadn’t re-entered much into the conversation. I figured that had been confidential. Dr. Dow wouldn’t tell me anything about Roxie involving her sessions, and that’s not what I wanted anyway. I just wanted some feedback on what to do from a professional standpoint.

  I had no idea we’d be talking about me.

  She used words like “you,” questions surrounding me, and all too quickly, I found myself on the other side of the words and in the chair of a counselor.

  “Griffin,” she started as she sat back and laced her hands across the top of her knee. “Do you ever find yourself feeling stretched too thinly sometimes? I mean, besides this new development with Roxie and even the soon-to-be arrival of your son. Do you ever find yourself being pulled in many directions more often than not?”

  I really didn’t understand what me being pulled in many directions had to do with anything I presented here today.

  And there went another one of those questions, the ones talking about me instead of everything else.

  I figured she had a reason for them, though, and I had come to her, the professional.

  I leaned forward, opening and closing my hands. “I supposed in the sense that my time is usually tied up, but I wouldn’t say I’m feeling stressed or stretched too thin. I always make sure there’s balance in my life.”

  “And you have to balance a lot, right?” she asked tilting her head.

  I nodded because she was right.

  “I do, but they’re all things I enjoy that are both for and involving the people I love. Roxie and her business I fully support. I’m active in it and enjoy doing it. My family business is the same. I’m there for them and do whatever is needed when I can outside of my basketball schedule.”

  She said nothing after that, simply staring at me.

  “I remember you talking about your family and Roxie’s during your pre-marriage counseling,” she said after a beat, smiling at me. “You all seem really close, you and your family.”

  “We are. They’re my everything outside of Roxie and what we’ve built. We’ve had to be there for each other.”

  “Because of your dad,” she cut in, her words, her tone serious. “He had to work, provide, so everyone else came together to make that a little easier for him.”

  I guess I had told her that back then during marriage counseling.

  I shrugged. “It was what it was. My older brothers worked too so I did what I could at home being younger to support the house.”

  I basically had been the parent at home before we moved back to Texas to be closer to my Gram and aunt. When Colton and I were too young to work, I made sure we did what could be done while my brothers and pop were off to work. I made sure the house was clean, had both my homework and my younger brother’s done, all while making sure dinner was ready for everyone when they got home in the evening. We all had our part; mine just happened to be at home.

  My family took care of me. Pop and my brothers made sure Colton and I were fed so one day we could go off and pursue our dreams. And now that we had gained the impossible, we could pay it forward.

  I could pay it forward.

  “And it sounds like you’re still doing a lot of that today,” Dr. Dow said. “Taking care of everything, everyone?”

  I opened my hands. “They’d do the same for me.”

  “But what if they asked you not to help?” she asked, taking me back a little. She shrugged. “What if they wanted to do things for themselves and for you to step back a little?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “I guess I’d wonder why.”

  “Because that’s what you need,” she said, the words a statement, no question in there. “You need to help. You need to help your family, your dad, your brothers… Roxie. You need to help them all because you care about them. They’re your people, your family.”

  Again she gave me no question. She was telling me something, and it was something I didn’t know if I necessarily wanted to hear.

  Her legs crossed after she turned in her seat, and that smile of hers continued on, right at me.

  “You enjoy helping people, Griffin,” she said, her eyes warm. “And I know it comes from a place of love.”

  It did. It does. I didn’t know how not to help my family.

  I didn’t know how not to help Roxie.

  In my world, how I grew up, that’s how things were. A guy helped out. He helped because that’s what his family needed. We weren’t like most families. Before my pop, my brothers, and I moved back to Texas and had the help of my gram and Aunt Robin, it had just been us boys. We had no one else, no other parent to fall back on.

  My mom had left when I’d been so young I barely even remembered her, but even with no memories, no remembrance of the past, I remembered the absence of her. I remembered she wasn’t there and I’d be damned if I let any of my family feel that way about me. I’d always be there for them come hell or high water.

  Always.

  Closing my eyes, I only came out of my head at the sound of Dr. Dow’s voice. She had stood up, came over to me, and took a seat on the edge of her coffee table. She gave me time to crawl out of the space I’d be
en in—I had been so silent before she spoke.

  “It’s okay to help,” she said, her smile widening. “But like your life, remember to find that balance. Be there when you’re needed. Love when you need to.”

  The wind cut through my hair from the open windows of my Range Rover, the Miami sunbeams rolling over the grooves of my knuckles through the windshield. I drove through downtown Miami traffic.

  And I drove unmistakably clouded.

  I was in my head, tense. Considering all the doctor said to me in her office, I was left more than thrown.

  Her few words had packed quite a punch.

  She hadn’t said anything flat out, but I could read between the lines like the best of them. She basically told me to take a step back from Roxie, the situation we were in involving her ex-step-sister. That tactic just felt all kinds of wrong, and I wasn’t sure that was what I should be doing. I was essentially already taking a step back. I had distanced myself, hadn’t I?

  I rifled my hand through my hair. I hated that I had put that distance between myself and Roxie last night. She did say what she had and it… hurt. It killed like the worst blade, but despite the fact, I should have risen above it all. I should have fought harder and challenged the situation more.

  “But like your life, remember to find that balance.”

  Did I have balance in my life really? Because more and more every day, I was starting to wonder and this only confirmed when my phone buzzed in my pocket shortly after getting on the road.

  Lamaze class with Roxie.

  It was the second reminder, the first I guess I missed while I’d been with Dr. Dow. The second reminder currently displayed on my phone screen and I nearly dropped the device in frustration.

  Cursing through my teeth, I slid out of the stream of traffic I was in, heading in a new direction entirely. The clinic we were scheduled to have Lamaze at was about five minutes away. Class had already started about twenty minutes ago, but if I hurried…

  I texted on the road, something foolish I knew but I tallied it up to everything else in the last twenty-hours.

  Are you at Lamaze class? If so, I’m on my way. Please wait for me. I’m sorry I forgot.