Chapter 20 Adora
Adora
I’m so used to driving my Impala. However, next to Xai’s Silverado, my baby feels small.
Once I’m inside, I have to adjust the seat, the steering wheel, and the side and rearview mirrors.
Right when I start the engine, I hear my cell vibrating in my purse.
Since the girls are with Kandi, I don’t hesitate to grab it, in case it’s her.
I see two text notifications. As soon as I read them and look at the picture someone took of us at the waterpark, I roll my damn eyes.
Rush’s dumb ass finally got hold of a contraband phone inside.
Although I vowed to never waste my breath on him again, I can’t help but respond. The audacity of his words is sending me. The man who never worried about my daughters before has the nerve to question me and who I have around them.
Me: I can have whoever the fuck I want around MY daughters!
107-686-4433: Who is he?
Me: My man.
107-686-4433: Okay. Man.
107-686-4433: Is he the reason u doing this dumb shit, cutting me off?
Me: I cut you off because I don’t want you in my life anymore. Like I told your momma and your cousins, I don’t owe you shit and I’m never giving you shit again. Call them and worry them. Just leave me alone before I tell them people you got an illegal cell phone, Rushmore Roberts.
107-686-4433: Bitch, u better be glad I’m n here.
Me: One more text and I’m telling. Try me!
My threat obviously lands because after my text, no more follow.
He got the point. Moments like this make me appreciate the man in my life even more.
Being loved properly, my girls seeing me loved the right way, and watching my girls experience love from a man is so priceless one word can’t sum it up.
I might not be able to fully articulate the feeling but I wish it on every woman.
We all deserve someone like Xai, a thoughtful and intentional man who genuinely wants to love and treat his woman right.
Talking to me crazy or disrespecting me like Rush is something I never have to worry about with Xai. Never.
Although I’m blown at Rush’s words. I’m not going to let him or them affect my mood in any way, especially not today.
It’s Xai’s grand opening and he needs me to get his key.
Just like every other number connected with Rush, I block this one and place my phone back into my tote.
Then I reach over and open Xai’s glove box to find his office keys.
There are a few stacks of papers inside so I pull them out. When I do, something catches my eye.
Is that…?
Can’t be.
How?
Convinced that my mind is playing tricks on me, I snatch the phone I see in the glove out and flip it over.
My heart falls to the bottom of my stomach when I see pieces of a red note taped to the back of the flip phone.
I refuse to believe what I’m seeing but eyes aren’t lying and my mind isn’t playing any damn tricks.
My mom’s handwriting and her partial directions are clear.
1424 Cres is still taped to the back of the phone.
My mom’s phone.
In Xai’s truck.
Why does he have it? How did he get it?
What the fuck!
A million thoughts, questions, and scenarios race through my mind as my shaky hands and burning eyes examine the phone. It’s off but I flip it open and attempt to power it on. It works. He’s been charging it too.
The screen loads and I see there are eighteen new voice messages from me.
Only eighteen. I sent eighteen alone the first few days after I found out she was gone.
He’s been listening to my messages. He’s been eavesdropping on my private thoughts.
Why would he do that? Is this why he’s with me?
He feels sorry for me? He wanted to comfort the pitiful girl from the messages?
My anger and desire for answers cause me to grab my tote and hop out of his running truck and damn near run back inside the building. I don’t give a damn about his truck. Somebody can steal it for all I care. The only thing on my mind is the phone, my mother’s phone.
Only Trista and the new front desk girl are in the lobby area. I storm right past them, down the small hall into his office. He’s standing in front of his desk, looking out of the window.
“That was—” he begins, but stops when he sees my face which I’m sure is filled with a cocktail of emotions, fury at the forefront. “What’s wrong, love?” he asks.
My arm moves before my mouth and I slam the phone into his chest. The motion and force of my hand catches him off guard. When he tries to catch the phone, he fumbles and it crashes to the floor.
“Why the fuck do you have this?” I yell and I hear the hurt in my voice.
“Adora,” he says and steps forward.
I step back and shake my head. I can’t have him near me. I can’t. Bile rises in my stomach at just the thought.
“Stop, Xai, and just answer my fucking question. Why do you have my mother’s phone?” I yell even louder.
“It’s, love… I’m… it’s not what you think,” he stutters.
“How the hell do you know what I think? Huh? Is it because you’ve been listening to my voice messages to my mother?
Huh! Because you’ve been listening to my private thoughts?
Is that it? Is that how you know? Because that’s what I’m trying to find out!
How the man I thought loves me has my mother’s fucking phone!
How about you tell me so I can tell you what I think,” I spew.
My words are all over the place, but my sentiment is loud and clear.
I’m fucking furious and need answers from him right now.
Instead of answering me though, he steps forward again and I step back.
“I swear to God if you come any closer to me, I’m gonna slap the shit out of you. Just answer me, gotdamn it!”
At my words, he stops, sighs loud as hell, then runs his hand down his face.
“Kadean was there the night of the accident,” he begins and my foundation crumbles as I lose all balance in my body.
I actually stumble and he reaches for me.
Disgusted, I draw back and brace myself on the stand by the door.
“Adora, please.” He begs to hold me but I can’t.
“Finish,” I manage to say.
“He was there and she ran him off the road.”
“Beverly Mitchell. Her name was Beverly Mitchell!”
“I know,” he murmurs.
“Then call her that because you didn’t know her.”
“It was late and he called me to come,” he says and the little bit of balance I regained totally disappears and my legs wobble. My hand holds onto the stand, fighting to keep me upright.
“You were there?” I question out of pure disbelief and disappointment.
“After the accident,” he confirms. “I got h…Miss Beverly Mitchell out of the car and took her to the hospital.”
That was him! The police had no leads on how she got to the hospital. I’ve always wondered that. Now, I know. It was him.
At his revelation, I lose it, emotionally and physically. Everything I’ve eaten in the past twenty-four hours bubbles in my stomach and erupts out of my mouth uncontrollably. When it stops, I collapse to the floor.
He was there.
Before I can even process what he’s doing or even attempt to stop him, he rushes toward me and lifts me from the floor.
I’m upright and my back is at the door when I finally realize he’s still touching me.
I feel disgusted, betrayed, and foolish.
I need to get away from him before I lose my shit again.
“Get your hands off of me,” I grit and barely recognize my own broken voice. He doesn’t move though. He remains planted in front of me, holding me up. My eyes meet his pleading ones and I refuse to look into them, so I close mine. “Is that why you came to my job?”
“Nah, love. No. I didn’t know where you worked. Hell, I didn’t even know what you looked like. I only knew your voice. And I tried to tell you a few times, but I just never could. It was never the right time.”
“You should’ve kept trying,” I cry, my tears uncontrollable.
“I should have a thousand fucking times. I’m sorry I didn’t,” he says softly.
“You were with her that night. You took her to the hospital, kept her phone, and listened to my messages.”
“I stopped listening after I met you,” he has the nerve to say.
“And that makes it okay?”
“No. I’m just saying.”
“Saying what, Xai? After you got the pitiful girl crying on the other end of those voice messages you stopped listening? Is that what you’re saying?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. You’re putting words in my mouth, love.”
“Don’t call me that,” I spit, repulsed. “And for the last time, take your hands off me.”
He heeds my warning this time and drops his hands.
When he steps back, I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand then shake my head.
This shit is unreal. I’m in total disbelief, even though the pain in my heart proves this is real, this is happening, and he’d done this to me.
Xai listened to my messages, sought me out, made me break down my walls and fall for him, charmed my daughters, and had been keeping this from me the entire time.
Hurt, agony, and pain flood my body like a tsunami and I feel myself on the verge of vomiting again.
I close my eyes, take a few deep ass breaths, and try to hold it together.
I’m failing miserably at pulling myself together, but I can’t and will not give him the satisfaction of knowing he just destroyed me; he doesn’t deserve that.
He was there that night.
It was him who took her to the hospital.
When my eyes open, they land on him, standing arm’s length from me, holding the phone out. It’s broken, just like my heart. When it hit the floor, it opened and cracked at the spine.
“You keep it. You broke it just like you broke my heart. Hopefully you can hear the messages, because that’s the last time you’ll hear my voice.”