by Eunice Hart
She was not surprised when he got up from the couch he was on and made his way over to her, sitting just a couple of feet away. Adele inched farther away from him, wondering if it wasn’t too late to bolt for the exit. It was still raining outside, but she was starting to figure it would be better out there than in here. She’d been glad that he got her out of the rain, but she’d never really put enough thought into his reason for doing do. The possibilities coursing through her mind were not pretty.
Josh inched closer, his lips twitching and forming a small smile. Adele’s heart raced, threatening to lodge in her throat forever. She clutched her purse to herself, wondering if was heavy enough to hit him with if he tried anything funny. Just then, her phone buzzed, and she quickly fished it out, thanking her lucky stars for the sudden distraction. She looked at the screen and frowned. There were close to a hundred missed calls from Peter and a message from Betty:
Girl, where are you? Peter was here a minute ago looking for you. He said you left his house crying. Are you okay? Call me when you can, please.
“Who’s that?” Josh asked, leaning over to see what she was looking at; Adele whipped the phone away before he could read the message.
“It’s Peter,” she lied. “My boyfriend. He wants to come see me. I should probably tell him I’m with you so –”
She was hoping the lie would scare him into giving her some space, but if anything, it only seemed to make him more motivated. The expression on his face transformed, quicker than lightning. For a moment, there was panic in his eyes. Then anger. He lunged for the phone, but Adele swept it out of his reach.
“What the hell is your problem?” she snapped at him.
“I don’t want you texting him, Adele,” Josh gushed as he straightened, breathing hard. “I don’t want you with him. I want you for myself.”
“Well, you can’t have me,” she retorted, looking at him like he was something Muffin had dragged in. “You had your chance, Josh. And you blew it.”
Deep down, she was terrified. She was still in his apartment. There was no telling whether he had locked the doors or not. Escape was not certain. This guy clearly had not good intentions towards her.
“Then give me another chance.” Josh inched closer to her until their bodies were almost touching. “I’m not who I was before.”
“Josh, I need to leave.”
He practically snorted. “In this weather? You’ll catch a cold.”
“I’ll take my chances.” Adele got to her feet and made to leave, but just then he grabbed her hand and pulled her back towards him. Before she could process what was going on, he’d covered her mouth with his.
Repulsed, Adele pulled her knee back and drove it up into his groin, where it connected with a sad crunch. Josh’s eyes flew wide open and he went down on the floor like a rock, howling in pain. Adele stared at him for a few seconds, breathing hard, then took off his coat from around her shoulders and threw it over him.
“You sick bastard,” she screamed at him. “I hate you so much!”
She made a dash for the exit. Luckily, the door wasn’t locked. She didn’t bother closing it behind her as she made her way out of the building into the rain, desperate to put as much distance between herself and him as possible. Desperate to find solace.
She couldn’t go back to the Tanakas because Peter had failed her and Aneko was a bitch. She couldn’t stay with Josh because he was an unrepentant manipulative jerk. And her mother? Only God knew how badly she would love to talk to Amara Kincaid about what she was feeling, but she couldn’t go to her mother’s house so late at night. Not today. Not in this weather.
She hurried a few blocks to get further away from Josh, then stopped to hail a cab. There was only one place she could head to right now.
Betty was almost beside herself with worry when Adele let herself into their apartment, ten minutes later. The moment she spotted her, she rushed to meet her, wrapping her into a hug.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she gushed, burying her face into Adele’s shoulder. “You had me worried sick. How are you feeling?”
Less than okay, that was for sure, but Adele really didn’t want to make her best friend get any worried. She hugged her for a while longer but said nothing. When they broke apart, Betty scanned her face, concern in her eyes.
“Peter told me everything.”
“Good of him.” Adele rolled her eyes in distaste. “He didn’t speak up when he should have.”
“Adele, he’s worried sick,” Betty said. “He’s freaking out trying to find you. I should probably let him know you’re okay.”
Adele fixed her with a stern look. “Don’t you dare. I’ll handle it myself.”
“Alright. I’ll give you some space.”
“Thanks.”
With that, she left for the bedroom and sat, wet clothes and all, on the bed. Muffin scampered into the room and leapt up onto the bed, recoiling when he touched her wet thighs.
“I’m a mess, aren’t I, Muffin?” Adele said, smiling mirthlessly at the cat. “Always was.”
Muffin meowed, which she took as a yes. She tried to stroke the cat, but he yowled and leaped out of reach, which only made her feel a lot worse. She wanted to just lie there and do nothing, but she needed to talk to someone. Not Betty, but someone.
She reached for her phone and dialed her mother.
Amara didn’t pick up until the seventh ring. When she did, Adele was grateful she hadn’t decided to go to her place instead.
“Adele Patricia Kincaid!” her mother screamed, so loudly Adele had to put the phone away from her ear for fear of losing her hearing. “What in the world has gotten into you? What’s this I hear about you disappearing at night because of a man?”
Adele couldn’t help smiling a little. Betty must have filled her mother in once Peter had left. “I’m sorry, Mom. I just got so upset I couldn’t think straight. I’m home now.”
“You’d better be.” Amara’s tone slowly lost its sternness. “What happened? Tell me everything.”
And Adele began telling her everything, from the time she’d realized she had feelings for him to the time they’d shared their first kiss. She told her mother about Aneko and how Adele and Peter had been dating in secret for a while. Amara listened patiently until her daughter got to the part where she’d left Peter’s house in tears.
“I’m really sorry about this,” she said. “Aneko sounds like a horrible person. But you really shouldn’t blame Peter for not speaking up as much as you’d have preferred him to back there.”
Adele couldn’t believe her ears. “Huh?”
“It sounds a lot like he was being pressured for a long time and only recently started to recover from it. His sister is the real problem here, not Peter.”
“But I just told you –”
“That at different times he tried to get his sister to stop talking and failed each time. Peter hasn’t really done anything wrong. And from what Betty told me, he’s worried sick about you. Adele, what you need to do isn’t sit and wallow in your misery. You need to get up and fight for what is yours.”
Adele sniffed, but said nothing, just stared down at her wet clothes. Now that she thought about it, maybe her mother was right. She’d been so upset she overthought things and look where that had led her. Peter wasn’t the villain at all. Maybe he had acted like a coward, but that wasn’t really his fault, was it? Had she really expected him to easily let someone like her into his life when he’d practically grown up believing that it was wrong?
“You know, when your father and I were still dating, a lot of people didn’t want to see us together, especially our parents. They did all they could to keep us from being together, but our love was too powerful for us to be separated.” Amara paused, then said, “Is your love strong enough, Adele?”
Adele let the question stew in her mind. She’d been upset with Peter when she left the mansion, but she didn’t hate him. Far from it. She loved him more than anything, and that was
what scared her so much.
“Yes,” she replied. “It is.”
“Then fight for it. You are a strong black woman. Act like it.” There was a pause. Then: “I love you.”
Amara hung up before her daughter could respond. Which was just as well, because if they’d gone on talking like that, Adele would’ve ended up spilling the beans about her pregnancy to her mom, and she didn’t think Amara would be very thrilled to hear that. Especially when the father of the child didn’t even know it existed yet.
Adele shot to her feet and made for the living room, where Betty was. Her best friend looked up when she walked in, but Adele was in no mood to strike up a chat just yet. She grabbed a coat and headed out the door, still wearing her drenched clothes.
She knew what she had to do now. This time, she wasn’t going to fail.
*****
The rain had subsided to a drizzle by the time she arrived at Peter’s home, so she could see quite clearly. His Porsche was nowhere to be seen, but she headed up to the front door anyway, banging on it and yelling his name. A split second later, the door swung open and Aneko appeared in her field of vision, a tired expression on her face.
“I’m here to see Peter,” Adele said firmly.
His sister gave a shrug. “You’re nearly an hour too late. He left shortly after you did, and I haven’t seen him since. He won’t even answer my calls.”
It was then that Adele noticed her eyes were red and slightly puffy. Had Aneko been…crying?
If this wasn’t such a serious situation, Adele might actually have cackled at the absurdity of Aneko crying. But this was serious. Things had gone horribly wrong tonight. And now Peter was missing. Who knew where he was and what he was doing.
Not that it wasn’t his sister’s fault, though. But Adele couldn’t help wondering what must have transpired between Peter and Aneko to make her look like this.
“Would you...would you like to come inside and wait with me?” Aneko offered, startling Adele.
Adele gaped at her. This definitely wasn’t the same Aneko who’d been snickering at her as she fled from the house earlier. She paused, debating with herself, then nodded and followed Aneko into the house. As they made towards the sitting room, Adele noticed all of a sudden that Aneko had changed out of the clothes she’d been wearing earlier; now she wore a simple brown robe two sizes too large for her. And she’d wiped off her makeup, which explained how Adele had been able to see the red marks around her eyes.
Aneko gestured for her to sit and offered to make her some tea, but Adele declined, remembering with a shiver what had happened the last time she’d been offered something to drink. Aneko sat on the couch opposite her and stared at the floor. She withdrew something shiny from within the robe and turned it between her hands. Adele noticed her fingers were trembling slightly and frowned. What really had happened when she left the mansion?
“I want to apologize for what I did earlier,” Aneko said suddenly, and Adele felt a shiver race through her as she realized this was just how it had been with Josh before he tried to get back together with her. Except something about the way Aneko looked made Adele wonder if the woman could possibly have anything up her sleeves.
“I…I was wrong,” Aneko went on. “You see, my brother and I have been together practically all our life. We’ve done everything together. It wasn’t just about the legacy, although that was important too. I was jealous because I didn’t want my brother to be with anyone I didn’t know”
“So that’s why you kept setting him up with your friends,” Adele guessed, remembering Cho.
The woman nodded and gave a sniffle. “Now I see it was stupid of me. I guess I was more focused on upholding our family legacy and keeping my brother around me than I was on making sure he was happy. And now I’ve ruined things.”
This wasn’t like Josh’s apology. Josh had sounded shallow; only his words had really surprised her. But Aneko…Adele could feel her pain as she spoke, and she was almost immediately driven to remorse at the sight of the woman.
Adele leaned forward in her seat, her eyes narrowing with curiosity. “What happened when I left earlier?”
She thought she saw a tear drop from Aneko’s face. The woman didn’t raise her head but spoke anyway. “He got really mad. He yelled at me and told me he would never forgive me if he was unable to find you tonight.”
Adele was taken aback by her words. Had Peter said that? He’d chosen her over his own sister. She felt guilty for feeling a rush at this.
“He banged his fists on the table…he came over to me…”
“He didn’t hit you, did he?” Adele asked, concerned.
Aneko shook her head. “No. Peter would never lay a finger on another woman. But I was scared. I’d never seen him so…angry.”
And all because of me, said a voice in Adele’s head. She felt that familiar flutter in her chest as the realization sank in. Peter was somewhere out there, scouring the city for her.
“Look,” Aneko said, finally raising her head to look at her; her cheeks were shiny with tears “Believe me when I say that I’ve never liked you. I still don’t. I guess that could change, but it's going to take some time to get used to seeing you with my brother. Still, I’m willing to try to fix things. Starting with this.”
She raised the gleaming object she’d been fidgeting with and Adele’s eyes grew to the size of orbs. It was her diamond necklace.
“As long as you make my brother happy,” Aneko said, “then that’s okay with me.”
She held out the necklace. Adele hesitated for a second, staring at it, unable to believe this was actually happening. Surely, she must have hit her head and not realized it. She got up and shuffled over to Aneko, taking the necklace out of her hands.
“Thank you,” she said.
For a moment, she just stared into Aneko’s sad eyes. The next thing she knew, she had bent and was hugging Aneko. The woman stiffened immediately, and Adele thought she must have gone too far too soon, but then she felt Aneko’s arms slowly wrap around her.
“There’s a sight you don’t see every day,” said a voice and they broke apart in shock. Standing beside one of the couches, looking as if he’d been running in the rain, was the love of her life.
“Peter!”
In a flash, both Adele and Aneko were hurrying towards him. Aneko got to him first, throwing her arms around her brother and burying her face in his shoulder. Peter looked surprised, but he enfolded her into his arms. Aneko pulled away from him, furiously wiping her face.
“Peter, I’m sorry –” she began, but he held up a hand to stop her.
“There’s no need to say that,” he said, grinning at her. His eyes twinkled. “I just saw the only apology I needed.” His eyes flicked over to Adele, then back to his sister. “Could you…could you give us a moment? I need to sort things out with my girlfriend.”
Aneko beamed and nodded, then gave Adele a half-smile and headed upstairs, leaving the duo in uncomfortable silence.
“I’m sorry,” Adele said.
“I should have done more,” Peter said at the same time. They fell into silence again.
“You go first,” she told him.
Adele sighed. “I’m really sorry I called you a coward earlier. It was in the heat of the moment and I wasn’t really thinking straight. I –”
“You were right,” he said, coming to stand in front of her. “I should have spoken up when Aneko was saying those things about you. I should be the one apologizing.”
“No, I should.”
A smile tugged at his perfect lips. “There’s the stubborn woman I know and love.”
Her chest was nearly bursting with emotion. “I love you too, Peter.”
She placed her hands on his shoulders and kissed him on the lips. They remained that way for the next few seconds. Then she pulled away. Peter looked at her in surprise.
“What’s wrong?” he wanted to know.
Adele’s heart thumped against her chest. This wa
s the big one. The one thing she hadn’t once stopped worrying about in days. She bit her lip, wondering how she was going to present this new information to him, how he would react. But she wasn’t going to find out unless she told him, was she?
“I’m pregnant,” she blurted.
Peter’s eyebrows rose slowly. “What?” he asked, like he hadn’t heard her correctly.
“I said I’m pregnant, Peter,” she told him. “From you. I wanted to tell you a couple of days ago when I found out, but I wasn’t sure you wanted to hear about anything like it.”
He looked at her like she’d lost his marbles. “Are you kidding me? Of course, I want to hear about this. If it makes you feel less nervous, I’ve been thinking about it myself.”
“Really?”
“Mmhmm.” Peter pulled her towards him. “You and I are going to have such a beautiful baby, Adele.”
They kissed again, and Adele thought she had never felt so alive in her entire life. That was it. That was all that mattered right now, being with Peter, unaffected by everything that happened around them.
This was what Betty had been talking about, she realized. Their relationship would face problems every once in a while. The trick was to not let these problems get the better of them, not to try to avoid them entirely. It did feel really good to work through problems together with the man she loved. If nothing else, it strengthened their bond, made them realize why they were together, why they were perfect for each other.
She couldn’t help beaming when they pulled apart and she buried her face into his chest. And a month later, when they would be married in the very restaurant she worked in, with Aneko, Betty and Cho as her bridesmaids and Brian as his best man, when her mother and the few friends they had invited dabbed at the tears in their eyes, she would have a smile just as bright.
And Peter would too.
The end... but wait:
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