Mona started crying as soon as she opened her eyes. Like she couldn’t believe she had survived. Couldn’t believe she was alive. For a while, she looked around, wild eyed. It was as if she was still trying to figure out if she was really alive or not.
“Where is he?” she asked. “Demitri, where is he?”
“He’s alive. On another floor, but alive,” I replied.
“He—he jumped in front of me.”
“I know,” I said.
“He survived?”
I nodded.
“Th-th-the man . . . Did they get him?”
She kept trying to talk, but every time she said something, she took several deep breaths and struggled to get the words out.
“Stop, Mona. Don’t try to talk right now. Just relax,” I said. “They got him. You’re safe.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. I stood, grabbed some tissue, and dried the tears that were falling from her eyes.
After a while, she looked at me. “I love you,” she said
I kissed her lips, rubbed her head. Looked her right in the eyes and said, “Ditto. I love you too. The same, if not more.”
I never told her Amara had been there.
Elliot
Four weeks later I was on a flight to New York. Demi was in a rehab facility, giving those folk all the hell he could. He never accepted no for an answer. Never allowed them to tell him what he couldn’t do. He was determined to walk again by any means necessary. There was a long road to recovery ahead, but I planned to be beside him every step of the way.
But I had to step away for a minute. Had to close one chapter of a book and open another. At the airport, I rented a car and drove to East Hampton. Nicole’s house was an elaborate one. Nestled on a cul-de-sac, the two-story brick house was traditional and tastefully done. The lawn was perfectly manicured; the shrubbery designed and trimmed so it looked appealing. She had done well for herself. But I wasn’t there to give accolades for such things.
I parked my rental in the cobblestone driveway, then hopped out of the car. I walked up to the door and rang the doorbell. I waited patiently. My mind was on whether I was doing the right thing. A few seconds later, Malcolm opened the door. He was dressed in jeans and a polo-style shirt, and there was a grim expression on his face. Jacques stood next to him. His eyes were red, just like his stepfather’s. His siblings stood behind him. There weren’t afraid to let their tears show.
“Are you going to write, like you promised?” one of the twins asked Jacques.
“Don’t I always keep my promises?” Jacques asked.
All five of his siblings nodded.
“I wish you wouldn’t go,” one of his brothers cried, then latched on to Malcolm’s leg.
Jacques’s five siblings all looked up at me like I was the devil. Like I was an evil demon who had come to steal their big brother away.
“Can’t he stay?” one of the twin boys asked me.
I looked at Malcolm.
He saved me. “This is Jacques’s father, and he has a right to see him, be in his life,” he told his children.
The sobbing that ensued almost made me leave my son with them. I didn’t want to be that guy, but I also desperately needed my son in my life. Jacques was a champ, though.
He turned and kneeled. “Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he said. “Bring it in for a hug, guys.”
He took the role of big brother seriously. The way those kids cried broke my heart. It was the saddest thing....
Jacques stood and adjusted his backpack. “I love you guys very much,” he said. “I won’t forget you. I can’t. You’re in my blood, my heart,” he said, pointing to the left side of his chest as he took my hand.
“Thank you,” I said to Malcolm.
He gave a stiff nod. I turned to walk away.
“I did right by you,” he said just as I did so. I stopped walking. Held Jacques’s hand tightly in mine. “I—I told Nicole that . . . told her that she shouldn’t have kept him away so long. Told her he deserved to know the truth. He needed to know you were his father.”
I turned around to look at the man who’d raised my son for the past seven years. Tears freely flowed down his face. He looked at Jacques. The pain in his eyes said he didn’t want him to go.
“I love him, man. I don’t want to see him go, but I know it’s your right to take him. Just . . . these are his sisters and brothers. . . .” He kept stopping as he spoke, swallowing, trying to catch his breath.
Seeing their father cry made the children cry harder. They’d lost their mother, and now their brother was leaving.
“I didn’t fight you when you said you were coming,” Malcolm went on.
I knew what he was trying to ask. Knew his pride was fucking with him. Knew he was still mourning the death of his wife. So I put him out of his misery.
“Once we get settled, I’ll call you. We can talk about visitation,” I said.
Relief swept over Malcolm. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you.”
* * *
On the way to the airport, I had to pull over. My emotions had gotten the better of me. It had been a little over a month, and that night still haunted me. I rarely slept. I hated to close my eyes because I kept seeing all of them being shot down one by one. Nicole never had a chance. Malcolm told me the doctors had said she didn’t suffer. The shot to the heart killed her instantly.
That was what I felt like each time I thought about how much had been taken from me. Why did my son have to lose his mother in order to gain me as his father? I kept replaying the time Nicole and I spent in her hotel room before the madness ensued. When she lay on my chest and slept. All was right in those moments.
I thought about how I’d brought Demi and Mona together. Even my time with them in the weeks and days before the shooting meant more to me now. I couldn’t explain how it felt for me to damn near lose three lovers in one night. I’d have probably lost my mind. I still felt at times that I would. Each time I looked at Demi in that wheelchair or Mona struggled to breath, I lost a little more of my sanity. But I knew my son needed me. Knew I had to keep my wits about me for him.
Even still, I hadn’t cried. I hadn’t cleansed my soul of the bottled-up pain. Finally, after I couldn’t hold it in any longer, I let go. I cried. With my son in the backseat, I let go.
“It’s okay, Dad,” Jacques said. I looked through the rearview mirror to see him crying as well. He looked at me, tried to smile, then looked out the window. “Mom says we’re going to be okay.”
Mona
Epilogue
One year later. . .
Time healed all wounds. That had proven to be true when it came to the physical ones. Wounds of the heart weren’t that simple. For as much as I loved Elliot, I knew I had to let him go. He and Demitri deserved a shot at love without someone standing between them. Never mind the fact that Elliot had jumped headfirst into being a father.
Yes, he stuck around for my rehabilitation. He didn’t let me do it alone. So for a long while Elliot’s life revolved around his son, Demitri, and me. That brush with death put a lot of things into perspective for me. I’d had no idea I was going to slow dance with death when I walked out of that hotel that night. No idea homophobia and all-out hate would take a mother away from her children.
I’d known Nicole for only a little while, but I still cried when I found out she had died. I cried for the children who would have to grow up without their mother. Cried for the husband without a wife. I cried, knowing Demitri had risked his life for me. The man hadn’t really known me then. All we’d known about one another, we’d learned over the course of a few weeks, and yet he’d thrown himself in the line of fire for me. No matter how much I thanked him, it would never be enough.
After all the police interviews and inquiries from different media outlets and blogs, I really didn’t want too much else to do with Atlanta. For a few weeks, our faces and names had been plastered all over Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and the news. A hate crime had been
committed against the LGBT community. It was being sensationalized like all other tragedies. We were the talk of the town, until another senseless act of violence took the lead.
Rehabilitation was hell. I felt like an infant all over again. I had to learn how to breathe on my own again. And even a year later, sometimes when I inhaled and exhaled, I felt the pain of the bullet entering my chest. If bad weather was coming, my shoulder pained me. Yes, I’d turned into one of those people who could tell the weather was about to turn judging by the pain in their limbs.
I finally finished that book. It was hard learning to type with one hand. Hard trying to get my mind to relax so I could work. Every time something fell or I saw someone in a hoodie, I panicked. Damn near had anxiety attacks. Paranoia had become my shadow.
I missed Elliot. I missed him more than I thought I would. I’d thought walking away from him would be easy after all that had happened. I had tried to walk away without crying. Tried not to let those tears fall when he dropped me off at the airport the last time I saw him. But I’d known our time was done. He’d held me like he knew I wouldn’t be back, not to be with him. He hadn’t wanted to let me go. I’d had to let go. He wasn’t mine. Loved him I might have, but he was never mine.
Still, there were times when it rained that I thought of him. Some man would pass me, and I’d smell that distinct scent Elliot had and be thrown back into a time when I felt I couldn’t live without him. Then I’d hear Maxwell, pre-haircut Maxwell, and I’d smile to keep from crying.
For as much as I’d wanted to stay in Atlanta, I couldn’t. I’d had to leave. Had to move on. More stories to write. Characters to create. Elliot had his son to love. He had Demitri to help with rehab. I’d had to move on.
“Ms. de la Cruz, we’re ready for you.”
I looked up from my tablet and smiled at the manager of the bookstore. No matter what had happened, I still did what I loved.
“I’ll be right out,” I said.
He smiled, then nodded.
I stood and took a deep breath. I put my hand over the scar on my chest and shoulder. Then touched the one on my abdomen. I’d survived. I was alive, and as long as I was alive, I’d always have a story to tell.
I ran my hand through my hair. The braids were gone. Jet-black hair that had been pressed and parted down the middle curtained my face. I walked out of the back office. The closer I got to the bookstore’s café area, the more my smile widened. There was a sea of smiling faces waiting for me. The thunderous roar of applause swelled my heart.
And just like before, I laughed with my readers. Talked to them. Asked them just as many questions as they asked me. And every once in a while, when I slouched in my seat, I stood and moved around. I remembered not to alienate my lesbian and bisexual women audience. That bracelet still decorated my wrist. I never left home without it.
“Before we close out, does anyone have any more questions?” I asked.
One woman raised a hand. “I’ve got one.”
I nodded for her to continue.
“Girl, where do you find all these fine-ass bisexual men? Are they just a part of your imagination, or are these real live menfolk? If so, do I need to move to Atlanta?” she asked.
I laughed along with the rest of the readers.
“Well, some of the men in the stories are based on men I may or may not have come across in real life,” I answered.
“Is the dude with the gray eyes real? Because listen, I’d like to meet him,” she said. “Anytime a man is massaging a woman and giving her the D, I need him in my life!”
Boisterous laughter ripped through the crowd.
A brother in the audience asked, “Well, is he? Is he real?”
“Hell, girl, is the teacher real? Because he’s the kind of crazy I like,” said a woman on the other side of the room.
I was sure I had a big, stupid-ass grin on my face. I was all set to respond until I looked up and couldn’t. My smile faltered a bit, and I tilted my head to the side. Most of the room turned around. The gasps and “oh, shits” that followed told of my exact feelings. There he stood. He was standing. My eyes watered, as I thought I’d never see him stand again.
His hair was still wild but groomed around the edges to give him even more of a devilishly sexy appeal than he had before. Dressed like a biker, he had on black biker boots, black jeans, and a baby blue collarless shirt that caressed the muscles in his chest and arms.
“Girl, he’s got gray eyes,” some woman whispered loudly.
“I, uh . . . I have a question,” I heard someone say to the left of me.
The crowd turned from the man with the grays toward the voice of the man who had a question. He’d come from a book aisle behind the customer-service desk. He was dressed in black slacks, a maroon button-down shirt, and black wing-tipped dress shoes. I hadn’t seen him in a year.
He was still as sexy as ever. The waves in his low razor-shaped fade were shiny and perfect. I’d missed him. I’d missed him so much, it scared me, made the scar over my heart hurt.
I giggled to keep from crying. I said, “Go ahead.”
“Did the teacher really just let her walk away after all that had happened between them?” he asked.
“Well, um . . . yes,” I said, then stopped when he shook his head.
“I don’t think she gave him a choice,” he said.
Gray eyes said, “I’m willing to bet that book could have had a different ending if she had given Atlanta a chance.”
“But she ran away before she gave a different kind of love a try,” the other man said.
Gray eyes picked up where he had left off. “Because no two loves are the same. My love ain’t your love, and your love isn’t mine. But love is in its purest form when it’s consummate.”
They were working me over. Tag teaming me like they’d done back in Atlanta. And for a moment, I relapsed, relived those weeks I’d known those two in every way a woman could know a man. I kept replaying the way they’d handled my body. Kept feeling them inside of me. It was intense. So much so that I had to close my eyes and take a deep breath.
I opened them to find Elliot staring at me the way he used to. He looked at the bracelet on my wrist, then back at me with a knowing smile. The neckless still decorated his neck. He almost had me. Yet again, he almost made me go to him without saying a word.
Then I saw him. The man with locs who’d walked in the door with a bouquet of carnations. Dressed like he’d just stepped off the cover of GQ, Devan, the brother I’d met at the book signing back in Atlanta a little over a year ago, walked to the front of the room.
I took the flowers he held out to me. Smiled like a woman open to new beginnings when he kissed my lips and slid his arm around my waist.
The woman who’d asked me if the man with the gray eyes was real yelled, “Girl! Where in hell do you find these men?”
Laughter ripped through the crowd again. I looked at the matching wedding rings on Demitri’s and Elliot’s fingers and knew that no matter what they said, I didn’t belong in the middle of their love.
I said, “It was time for writer girl to find a love of her own. She did the right thing, no matter how hard it was.”
I blinked away the tears. Elliot looked at Devan. No words passed between them. That man-to-man thing happened again when one man showed possessiveness of his woman without saying a word. Only this time, it was Elliot who nodded once, then backed away.
I glanced back to see Demitri watching me. It felt as if he and I had some unfinished business, like there could have been more to our story, but, alas, it was time to let go. Devan gave him the same look he’d given Elliot.
Demitri smirked. Devilment danced in his eyes. But that was just the nature of the beast. He, too, backed away.
* * *
Later that night, as Devan and I lay in bed, he asked, “Will you take that bracelet off?”
I didn’t even think he’d noticed it. “Why?” I asked.
“I read the book. I know w
hat it symbolizes.”
I sat up, fixed my mouth for an argument, but stopped. I nodded. Took the bracelet off, then laid it on the nightstand.
“Will you get rid of it if I ask?”
I took a deep breath. “If you ask . . .”
A Little Jibber-Jabbering
from the Author
Whew! This book took me on a wild ride. Just when I thought I had this story figured out, I realized I had no idea what these characters had in store for me. It is 7:33 a.m. on July 29, 2016. I have just put the finishing touches on the first draft of this story before it heads to the editors. I am happy. I am thrilled. I am ready to move on to something else, but not before taking a break. Elliot, Demitri, and Samona kicked my butt! So I pray that you guys enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it! Now for a glass of wine and, hopefully, some sleep!
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