by D. L. Sparks
He kept his eyes on me as he walked toward us. His eyes never left mine as he spoke to my twin.
“Hey, India. How are you?”
They hugged. “I’m good. How are you?”
He nodded. “I’m good. Taking Phil to the airport in the morning.”
She looked at him, then to me, and back again. “I ... I’m going to go find something to do.”
We made eye contact and she gave me a wordless bit of encouragement before she turned and disappeared inside. With the closing of the screen door, we were left alone.
“Idalis?” His tone was questioning, almost accusatory. The sound of his voice was heavy with every question mark that I’m sure he’d dug up over the past few weeks. His throwing court papers and seeking paternity results were his ineffective ways of communicating.
He was here because he had run out of things to throw.
“Trip ... ”
His eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Can I—”
He took a step toward me. “Can you what? Explain?” he asked. “Oh, now you wanna talk? Where was all this conversation back then?”
I looked back toward the house, then back to him. “I don’t wanna argue.”
“Why didn’t you ...” He tried to search for the same words that had eluded me all these years. It was just as hard for him to say as it was for me to admit. He turned like he was going to walk back to his truck; then he stopped on a dime and came back to me. He walked up and got in my face. I flinched, wanting to turn and run, but my legs felt like they were full of lead.
I said, “I wanted to tell you.”
“Tell me what, Idalis?” Anger flashed in his eyes.
I swallowed hard. He wanted to hear me say it, but I couldn’t. I fought against tears—and they were stronger than I was—as they rolled down my face.
“Say it, Idalis,” he instigated. “Tell me how you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth.”
“Don’t do that. There was more to it than just coming clean, and you know it. There was so much going on that night, we got caught up and—”
“What happened that night was more than two people getting caught up Idalis and you know it,” he said, cutting me off.
His eyes scanned the front of the house. He studied it for a moment, like he was seeing it for the first time. He turned back to me.
“Do you want to come in and get something to drink?” I asked.
The question fell out because I didn’t know what else to say, and I figured hydrating him was my best option at this point.
He looked at me for a few uncomfortable seconds before he slowly nodded.
Once inside, I got him a bottle of water out of the fridge and we made our way into the living-room. I watched as he scanned the stacks of boxes that lined the hallway and the corners of the living-room. He popped the top off the bottle and walked to my mother’s entertainment center.
His eyes scanned the pictures of Cameron. I watched his facial expression soften when his eyes locked on one of Cameron’s baby pictures. It was that scraggly picture that they take of the newborns in the nursery. My tiny boy looked like a drowned rat, all pink, with his jet-black hair plastered to his head, but I loved it and had it blown up to fit in a frame.
“Can I see him?” he asked, keeping his back to me.
I stood up and headed toward the steps. I felt him behind me, following me as we made our way up the steps and down the hall. We stopped at Cameron’s door and I placed my hand on the knob. I looked at Trip. I knew he was angry, but I didn’t want him disturbing Cameron’s sleep.
“He’s asleep. Please let him sleep.”
He nodded in agreement as I pushed back the door.
The hall light fell across Cameron’s angelic little face.
My baby was lying on his back, knocked out. Trip walked into the room and knelt down next to the bed. I watched from the door as he reached out and gently touched Cameron’s little hand. He stared at him for what seemed like an eternity before looking at me. Guilt washed over me as I watched him try to cram so many missed years into this one moment. After a few more moments, he stood up and adjusted the covers over Cameron’s little body.
He walked past me without saying a word and made his way downstairs. I followed in silence, not sure what to say or how to say whatever it was I was supposed to say. And for some reason right now “I’m sorry” didn’t seem like enough. At this point, I didn’t think anything I could say would ever be enough.
We stood in the middle of the living-room, not saying anything. The sun had officially made its trip to the other side of the world and it was dark outside.
“So Phil’s leaving tomorrow?”
He didn’t respond. He just stood there staring at me.
I tried again. “I never got a chance to thank you for doing what you did.”
He continued standing there, eyes burning a hole through me.
I ran my fingers through my hair and tried to steady my voice. “Trip, would you please say something to me.”
“I can’t do this.”
He turned and headed for the front door.
“So you’re just gonna stay true to form and leave?” I called to his back.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
When he turned around, I could see the resentment in his eyes. “Are you fucking serious?” he shot back, angrily.
“Yes, I am.”
“Idalis, I didn’t ask for this. What do you expect me to do? What you did was fucked up.”
“I know! But I’m trying to make it right. All you kept saying is how much you hate Atlanta. How much you don’t want to have kids. And the next thing I know, I’m pregnant. And Lincoln wasn’t the best, but he was there, ready to give me what I needed and wanted.”
“And?”
“And I felt I was doing what was best for everyone. In spite of all the shit I had to put up with, I thought I was doing the right thing. Making everybody happy.”
“So what am I supposed to do, Idalis? How the hell am I supposed to step in and make up for all these missed years? How am I suddenly supposed to be somebody’s father when I don’t even know what the fuck that means?” he argued.
I dropped my head and rubbed the back of my neck. “I don’t know.”
He stepped a little closer. “What did you say? Speak up, I didn’t hear you?” he taunted.
“I said I don’t know,” I snapped.
“That’s what the fuck I thought you said.” He turned and headed for the door. “I’m gone.”
This time I didn’t stop him.
I sank down on the couch and buried my face in my hands.
I didn’t even hear India come in the room.
“What in the world is going on, why is he leaving?”
I looked up at her. “Nothing. Just let him go.”
“Nothing?” She stepped in front of me. “What do you mean nothing? That didn’t sound like nothing, Twin.”
“Leave it alone, India. It’s over.”
She let out a loud sigh. “So that’s it?”
I shrugged my heavy shoulders. “I guess so.”
He voice was shaky. “But what about Cam? What about you? He can’t just leave.”
The fact that she was about to cry made me feel even worse and forced my own tears up and out. “India, I can’t make him stay. I can’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to do. I have to focus on me and my son now.”
She sat down and put her arms around me and squeezed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s gonna be okay.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay again.”
She smoothed back my hair. “Why don’t you get some sleep, Idalis.”
“Sleep? You really think I can sleep? I have nowhere to live, they seized my club, froze most of my assets and I just let my son’s father walk out of our life. And now he’ll never know that I’ve loved him since I was ten. Not that it matters, though, because I’m pretty sure he hates me.”
My
cry turned into a soul-wrenching sob as my sister held me. I wanted to be strong, accept the choices I’d made and the consequences that came along with them but I had no idea how heavy they were. I was exhausted, both mentally and emotionally, and no amount of sleep was going to make what I’d done right.
“I could never hate you, baby girl.”
India and I broke our hug, looked up and saw Trip standing in the hallway. Neither one of us heard him come back into the house.
He walked over and pulled me up off the couch. “Idalis, you are the first thing I think about when I wake up, and the last thing I think about before I go to sleep at night. I have loved you ever since the first time I laid eyes on you.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
He reached up and wiped the tears from my cheeks. “We can’t change the past; all we can do is move forward. It’s not about us; it’s about that little boy upstairs.”
“So now what?” I asked.
“You do something you haven’t done in a long time.”
“What’s that?”
“You can try trusting me again.”
He wrapped his arms around me; and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I actually felt safe.
For the first time in a long time, everything felt right.
He chuckled. “Oh, and we gotta explain to my mother that I knocked you up.”
We both laughed a little harder as I buried myself deeper inside his embrace.
Urban Books, LLC
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Between Friends Copyright © 2012 D.L. Sparks
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the Publisher, except brief quotes used in reviews.
ISBN: 978-1-5998-3254-8
This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living, or dead, or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places, and incidents is entirely coincidental.
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