Cherished by You: A Found by You Finale Novella

by Victoria H. Smith

  Oh, my God.

  “And I took it. I endured it.”

  “Your mom. She didn’t… Radha?”

  I couldn’t help interceding. None of this… None of it made sense.

  Cassidy faced me after my words, the smile of hers returning when it hiked up the side of her lips. Nose red and eyes puffy, she was still a scathing beauty, stunning like she called me.

  “Radha’s like a mini version of mom now, Roxie,” she said, jaw moving. “She actually laughed when I asked her for help getting out of the situation.”

  Laughed.

  “And mom… she asked me if divorce was the answer. She asked if I could make it work.”

  Her lips tightened, her breathing heavy and her body shaking. She gripped her arms, looking down and when she did, she pushed a hand over her stomach.

  “I endured it all until this,” she said massaging her tummy. Her tears fell heavy to the carpet. “I couldn’t, not with him or her in there. I refused.”

  As she shouldn’t have… she shouldn’t have.

  Her eyes grew lost again, then closed so tightly, shutting away her tears.

  “I’m so hollow, Roxie,” she said, her lips wobbling. “I’m so hollow all the time, and I hate who I am, what I’ve been. I’ve followed my mom… my sister, my whole life and I’m so tired of it. I thought I was protecting Radha. I thought I was. I thought…”

  Her voice softened into the stormy air, again not making sense. But this time, she didn’t continue.

  Not until I so deeply needed her to.

  She moved when my hand pushed over her shoulder, her dark eyes clumped with tears opening up.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, her own words shaky, my throat thick and burning. “What do you mean about Radha?”

  She wouldn’t say, a stream of tears clipping off when she blinked.

  I squeezed her shoulder. “Please. What. Did. You. Mean?”

  That haunted look took over her brown eyes again. Like she was reliving something, feeling something, and maybe she was.

  “It wasn’t my secret to tell,” she started, head tilting. “It wasn’t my secret to know, but after I did, I couldn’t leave her. I couldn’t, Roxie, and I’m so sorry.”

  “Cassidy, please.” I was crying, the tears hot in my mouth and down my face. I had no idea where they were coming from, but I couldn’t stop them.

  She attempted to, Cassidy’s hand coming to my face.

  A warm thumb pushed tears from underneath my eyes, her fingers pressing into my cheek.

  “Radha… Roxie…”

  I pushed away her tears after her words and her eyes closed, her lips pushing out a breath.

  “Radha was raped, Roxie,” she said, nostrils flaring with her breath. “She was raped right before we started high school, a boy she started seeing over the summer before. A boy… A boy…”

  High school…

  The start of…

  All that was in my stomach heated up through my throat, my limbs shaking and it took her, Cassidy to keep me up.

  She’d change so much, Radha. She’d changed, and I didn’t…

  I hadn’t known why.

  I had no idea who had been holding who after the words, just that they had been said and after they had, we were in each other’s arms.

  Cassidy smoothed her hands down my hair. “Oh, God, Roxie. My behavior… how I treated you. I should never have. There aren’t enough excuses in the whole world no matter how much Radha needed me. I should never have done what I had. I…”

  “Does your mom know?” I asked Cassidy, unconcerned about me. The words had muffled by her hair, but somehow she heard me, somehow she found a way.

  “She does,” she said. “Which was why Radha got anything she wanted, which was why mom hurt you, Roxie. You were so happy, always so happy.”

  It was all fucked, all a mess, and I… I had no idea what to say, to do.

  So I just cried. I cried with a woman. We cried together.

  Possibly for each other.

  We sat on the couch together that night, more silent than anything else. We didn’t need to talk, the air quieting around us both, stillness until there wasn’t.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered in the night. She’d been holding my hand, squeezing, squeezing so hard.

  My heart hadn’t been prepared for it, what she said, and I hadn’t even known what to do with the words.

  Nor how much my soul needed them.

  I didn’t respond to what she said. I simply hugged her, holding her.

  And those fresh tears hit again.

  Roxie

  The evening filled with a woman confessing her soul to me through the night and into the morning. Cassidy hadn’t said much more, just what her life had become and why, but never once had she felt sorry for herself. She didn’t feel sorry. She felt she deserved every bit of the life she’d made for herself, but it had been I who interceded in those words.

  Life… It could be more complicated than some of us could ever imagine. We could be one way, have a lifetime of screw-ups, but it was who we were in the end that mattered the most. It was who we strived to be.

  Our pasts never defined us.

  The words themselves were something that took me so long to realize, but I was so very glad when I had.

  I eventually went to sleep with those words in my head, hugging my child and feeling so warm. I had thoughts of my baby and my husband, my man’s arms around us both.

  He’d held me all night, never left in my dreams and allowed me such a calm and warming sleep.

  His breath in my ear, I shivered at the feel, his calming voice.

  “Baby…”

  Wrapped up in him, I only let myself bury myself deeper in sleep, taking his strong hands in my mind. I wanted them around me always. I never wanted to leave his embrace.

  “Baby, you gotta get up,” his voice told me and though, he held me so tight in my head…

  His voice was anything but calm.

  “Something’s wrong,” his voice in my dreams said. It urged. “You gotta get up. It’s the baby.”

  I woke shortly, ripped out of sleep. I moved around and pulled the sheets away, and found myself in a position I never wanted to be in.

  The bed… me… was soaked, my body in a pool, and I didn’t understand. I didn’t know if it was just coming out of sleep or what, but I didn’t get what was going on.

  It wasn’t until the pains started that it hit me.

  Griffin

  “Here on Chicago soil barely two hours and now you’re getting back on a plane.”

  My buddy, D’s, hand came down on mine, the pair of us standing outside the airport. He’d driven me here so I could head back home, the need for that an urgency on my end.

  In actuality, I was only supposed to be in Illinois one hour, but the ceremony… well, it ran late.

  Taking my boy’s handshake into a hug, I slapped his back, happy as hell for him and damned surprised. But my friend, Diondre, had been nothing but an oddity since I met him in college, so I just chalked today up to the rest of his antics.

  My friend had gotten married today, married and the evidence displayed before me when he pulled back.

  D had on his Sunday best, black and white tux with aviator shades. He topped the outfit off with a gold chain and if he didn’t have the bling that would have thrown me for one.

  I brought my hands down his shoulders.

  “I still can’t believe you got married,” I told him, but his wife in all her glory was sitting right behind us.

  In the front seat of his Escalade, Andie sat, donned in a white, skirted suit due to their surprise nuptials. Apparently, the quick wedding was all they had time for, Andie, a part owner of a nightclub that she couldn’t spare too many moments away from. They’d gotten married so quick even our friend Ryan hadn’t been able to come out, just me and a few close family and friends. The pair had actually met at the club Andie worked at, his new wife the security detail.
/>   It was a… interesting situation, but the two seemed happy enough, though, and well, she had gotten my boy to settle down.

  I slapped his back again. “You keep that one close, okay?” Because not everyone could put up with his arrogant ass.

  D’s chuckling was boisterous, but it melted a little upon looking at me.

  “Things going to be all right?” he asked, those big white teeth of his not showing for the first time since I’d gotten here. “I know you and Roxie are um…”

  I’d given him the quick rundown, not long for us to go through everything, but in my heart, I believed Roxie, and I would be okay. That was the only way I felt comfortable going through with coming out here, the event in my schedule for the week.

  I gave him a smile I knew to be genuine. My wife and I would be all right, and I wanted him to know. Roxie and I had been through a lot, dealt with a lot, and I would readily admit I wasn’t always sure I was doing the right thing when it came to her. But this? This space I had given her, I held full confidence in. She needed it. I just had a feeling.

  After offering the couple my well-wishes, I was back on a plane, a private one so I could get home quickly. I touched the tarmac in less than three hours and was in my car heading back into the city within minutes. I’d been staying with my friend Kendrick and his wife Kerry for the last couple days, the two very accommodating. My phone rang shortly after getting into traffic, and I patted myself down for it. Roxie’s name appeared on the device, and the smile on my face couldn’t be measured. I hadn’t heard my wife’s voice in what felt like eons.

  Sliding my finger across the phone to answer, I hoped the separation we had going on was headed quickly to a close.

  “Hey, baby. I—”

  “Griffin? Hello?”

  It wasn’t Roxie, and I sat back, trying to decipher the voice.

  It sounded like Cassidy, her former step-sister.

  I had no idea why she had my wife’s phone, but I was about to find out.

  “What’s going—”

  “Roxie, it’s him. I got him.”

  Alarm bells went off in my head, my gut turning.

  What the fuck is going on?

  I had no time to ask, no time to think, or even breathe. Because in the next moment, I got short, labored breathing and I had a feeling it wasn’t Cassidy.

  “Griffin?”

  Her voice sent a shock to the system, but not in the way I wanted. Not like this.

  I tried to think, calm my head, as I pressed the receiver hard to my ear.

  “Baby,” I said moving with traffic again. “Roxie baby, it’s me. What’s going on?

  “Griffin…” she started, but she couldn’t get it out. Whatever was up she couldn’t say right away.

  She breathed. “Griffin, it’s the baby. He’s coming early.”

  Jackson…

  Jackson.

  “Are you at the hospital?” I asked, redirecting that way. “Did something go wrong? Is something the matter? Why did he…”

  She said he was early. Why was he early?

  “My water,” she choked out. “It just broke suddenly, but the doctor said everything should be fine. He said the baby should be okay to deliver, but I need you here. Please. Where are you?”

  I breathed a long sigh of relief. Everything was okay. He’d be okay.

  And she needed me like I desperately needed her.

  Charging through traffic, I gave her my location in the city, then asked her all the need-to-know questions—where she was regarding how far along into the labor she was. These were all things we knew backward and forwards, the routine of this day anticipated for a long time, and I said a silent prayer of thanks, I came back home as quickly I did. If I hurried and moved quickly…

  I’d be able to help bring my son into the world in person.

  Roxie

  I couldn’t do this without him. He said I could, coached me over the phone, but I…

  Please. Please. We have to wait for daddy.

  I called out to my child on the deepest level possible. He had to wait. We had to wait together for Griffin. He had to be here for this. It wouldn’t be right. He deserved it. He wanted a child so badly, my rock.

  Crying, I couldn’t even hold the phone anymore, Cassidy putting it on speakerphone while I made desperate attempts to control my breathing and other factors I really had no control of. If Jackson was coming, he’d come, and he wouldn’t wait for my permission, no matter how much I wanted it.

  “Griffin, where are you?”

  He told me he was on his way over, in traffic when Cassidy finally got a hold of him. When he told me all of that, it all seemed fitting. Like he was supposed to be driving, coming here to the baby and me.

  I got no response from my question, turning my head to the phone. The timestamp still ticked, but no words from my husband.

  “Griffin?” I called.

  Cassidy picked up the phone, here through every minute of my tears and just as scared as I was. My fear went beyond scared, though. I was terrified, and it didn’t matter how many classes or books I read to prepare for the day. When one’s in the middle of it, experiencing it for the first time and a girl’s husband wasn’t there to help guide her through it…

  “Seconds away,” came Griffin’s voice, but not from the receiver.

  He came into the room, windswept and looking so handsome and perfect. He still had his phone to his ear, a sports jacket in his balled fist. He wore a tie. The reason escaped me at the moment, and the skinny black material hung loosely at his neck. His shoulders broad, he had his big frame donned in a pale yellow button up shirt, the helm pulled out of well-worn jeans.

  After dropping the jacket to the floor, he was at my side, his mouth on mine so quick I forgot everything.

  The fear, so prevalent before, grew lost, and only he remained, my Griffin. My man and his wonderful smell, my man, and his taste, his love. He held me close, his large hand caging my cheek and I could feel no pain. He managed to dull it, at least for the briefest of seconds. From somewhere in the distance someone told me it was okay. It was okay to push, but I didn’t. I couldn’t until Griffin’s hand came in mine.

  He set his phone down on the bed, staring into my eyes and telling me everything would be okay. He swept my hair away, and I spent the next few moments apologizing to him, apologizing for everything that happened and basically sending him away.

  He wouldn’t hear any of it, though. He told me it was what I needed, that he loved me, and…

  It was time to push.

  Griffin

  A man’s wife going through childbirth was as equally exciting as it was terrifying. Seeing her go through all that, as well as, her body literally changing and painfully bringing life into the world…

  But then there was the aftermath, those tiny fingers, and little toes. There were those eyes that were so new they couldn’t even take in light. The room so bright, they closed at first, adjusting, blinking to see and find the world.

  To find life.

  That’s exactly what my son did, Jackson Ethan Chandler. Chandler…

  I’d been responsible for that, well his momma and me. We created life. We made a tiny human.

  He saw his momma at first when delivered, but that was okay. He should see her first, and his mere existence brought pure joy into her tired eyes, all pain from before gone. I could tell. She saw nothing but him, his tiny, wrinkled fingers reaching and curling in the air.

  Roxie kissed one, the smallest digits touching her nose, making her cry.

  Hell, making me cry, too.

  Roxie looked up at me then, catching me and my slip, but I didn’t care. I simply rubbed my eyes and joined her, she and my newborn son with the wrinkled fingers. His skin flushed all over, rosy with a slight brown tint, and I cupped his head, the top of it already filled with tiny brown curls.

  He found me then, looked at me then, and wouldn’t you know it; he had the bluest, aqua-clear colored eyes. He had eyes like me. Lik
e his pop and in that moment, I realized the importance of that moment.

  And how my life would wonderfully never be the same again.

  My family looked up when I came out into the waiting room, an intimate area the hospital allowed us to have for privacy purposes. The minute the media caught word Roxie was having the baby, the paparazzi had literally gathered outside the hospital and in some of the waiting areas as well. Those had been the crafty ones, celebrity photographers always on their toes. I had no idea how they found out, but I assumed some of my family might have slipped up and spread the word through their social media accounts. That was okay, though. I didn’t mind, as long as the media kept to themselves and let me and mine have this moment. This was our moment, and I was sure that showed all over my face when I arrived in that waiting room to tell them all about the arrival of Jackson.

  They pretty much all were there, Pop and Ann, as well as my brothers and their significant others. Poor Colt was all my himself, but he seemed to be busy enough playing with my nieces at the Lego table in the room. Gram joined them, as well as my Aunt Robin. But not just my family was here.

  Roxie’s friend Clare sat beside Brody’s girl Alexa. She’d been the first to arrive here, apparently already on her way and was located smack dab between Brody and Alexa and my eldest brother Hayden and his wife, Karen. They all chatted amongst themselves, my arrival unknown yet, and in the corner, reading a paper was Roxie’s dad, my old Chancellor from college Greg Peterson. Never had I believed we’d all be in a place for him to be here, be active in my wife’s life without any heartache or turmoil, but life handed us miracles, handed us blessings.

  I pulled the hospital gown off my front, everyone looking up at the sound.

  “He’s here,” I said to everyone really. I smiled. “And mom and baby are doing well. Jackson’s actually ready to meet everyone. The doctor said a few at a time, though.”

  If it were up to me, it would be one at a time. It was crazy how a guy was suddenly aware of the possibility of germs and illness when he had a kid. I trusted the doctor’s decision, though. And of course, I knew my family would be careful.