Epilogue #4
Ariah was all me. There was no denying it.
She was ten gallons of trouble in a five-gallon bucket.
She was confident, outspoken, and prone to the more than occasional temper tantrum.
She also looked a lot like me—all legs, same face, same green eyes.
Her skin was about one shade darker and her hair a slight bit more curly.
On the flip side, her three-year-old sister, Bria, was all Tig.
She was calm, quiet, reflective, sweet, good, and accepting.
She also inherited his eyes. Her hair was black and more wavy than curly.
And we had no friggin’ idea where this came from, but she was short of limb, something we were curious to see if she grew out of.
She was incredibly tolerant of her dictator older sister’s demands in play and didn’t even bother to tattle when she did something like pull her hair. That was why I couldn’t look away from the two for a minute, or Ariah would likely get away with something that I didn’t want her to get away with.
I finally understood why my mother had needed to be so firm with me all my life, and I was more than dreading the inevitable teenage rebellion I would be looking forward to in less than ten years.
It seemed as though all I could hope for was that her up and coming wild phase wouldn’t last as long as mine did.
As for Bria, well, I had the distinct feeling she was going to be a lot like her aunt—bookish, introspective, the complete antithesis of her sister. It was like the universe understood that when it sent you a kid like me or like Ariah, that it had to balance it out with a Reese or Bria.
It had been a long, loud winter in our house with the girls all cooped up and climbing the walls, leaving me to pul out my hair. It was the first day where the temperature went over seventy, and we were at the park, enjoying the hell out of it.
Maybe if they ran themselves ragged, there would be no middle-of the-night demands for drinks or another bedtime story. Maybe Tig and I would get a blissful night alone.
“Ariah, you’re gonna lose that Barbie,” I warned as she raised it up over her head, planning on slamming it down on her unknowing sister’s head.
“She looks just like you,” a voice said, moving to sit down beside me on the bench.
And, well, I would know that voice anywhere.
It didn’t matter that it had been seven years, that it belonged to someone whose name I hadn’t even thought of in at least a year.
“What are you doing here, Cass?” I asked, taking a breath and half-turning to her, maybe a bit too paranoid to give her my full attention, unsure if she was reformed or still a criminal, if maybe she would do something to my girls.
She looked different, older certainly, though I was sure she might say the same about me.
Where her hair had been short last I saw her, she now had it long and shining down her back, somehow making her look even more sweet and innocent than she used to.
Her fashion sense had remained the same—classy and simple.
She held up one fine-boned hand, shaking her head slightly. “I just wanted to see you… and the girls.”
“Why?”
She looked down at her feet for a long second.
“I really screwed up, Kenz.”
“Yes, you did,” I agreed, still not the type to sugarcoat anything.
And apparently, she appreciated that because her lips tipped up before she turned back to me. “You seem really happy.”
“I am.”
“And your daughters are beautiful.”
“They are.”
“And Tig has balanced you.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I snorted. I was still me. Nothing had changed. He hadn’t softened me in any way. And, what’s more, he never wanted to do that.
“I’m not here to ask for forgiveness.” Her voice was a little softer.
“Good. Because I wasn’t going to give it.”
“And I’m not here to try to explain myself either.”
“Because no explanation would be sufficient,” I agreed, not giving her an inch. She had done nothing to deserve it. “So what are you here for then?”
“It wasn’t like you were always a mark, Kenz.
You were my best friend. Really, you were my only friend for pretty much my whole life.
I just… I couldn’t imagine not getting to see how you ended up.
You know, I couldn’t have pictured you as a mother seven years ago,” she said, watching the girls chase after some type of bug, squealing as they each tried to grab it out of the air.
“I always saw myself here,” I said, surprised she couldn’t.
“Work was life for you, K. I’m not saying that was wrong, but it never seemed like you would get your head up out of your sketchpad and see a man, focus on a man long enough to make it work.”
“Stranger things have happened,” I said, nodding. “Like my best friend fucking me over in a truly horrific way.”
There, it was out. I had wanted to address it directly since I heard her voice, but wanted to do so in a way that didn’t sound vulnerable, didn’t give her the upper hand.
“You know, I would have given you the money, Cass. If you told me that you needed to move on, that my dream wasn’t yours, that you wanted to go to the city and act, I would have given you the fucking money.
I wouldn’t have even hesitated. You helped me get my dream on its feet; I would have happily done the same for you.
I don’t think I need to tell you what a crazy, fucked-up bitch you were to do that to me.
And not only to me, to my friends and family as well.
I wouldn’t have believed you were capable of something so selfish if I hadn’t seen it myself. ”
“Kenz…”
“What?” I snapped, shaking my head. “Truly, what? What could you possibly come up with to say right now? That Santi talked you into it? You forget, I went to all your plays in high school, Cass. I know when you’re acting.
And that shit on the stand, hanging Santi out to dry like that, that was an act.
Granted, he was a scumbag who went along with it, but I think you were the mastermind here, Cassie.
Because, quite frankly, if his aspirations in life were to join the fucking mob, then he was clearly not the brains of the operation.
You did this. This was one hundred percent on you.
So, all I want to hear from you now is—was it worth it?
Was it worth it to get worked over since those bruises were real?
Was it worth it to lose years of your life behind bars?
Was it worth it to lose the only person who ever truly gave a fuck about you? ”
She looked over to where the girls were lying flat on the ground, staring up at the sky, calm for one blissful moment. Her breath exhaled out of her hard enough to make her whole body move with the motion.
When she looked back at me, there was no acting, just pure, raw emotion on her face.
“No,” she said, standing, pushing her purse further up on her shoulder.
“I know you don’t want to hear it, and I know it won’t change anything, but I am sorry.
And I wish nothing but the best for you, Tig, and the girls. ”
With that, she walked away.
I watched, maybe still a little paranoid about her, until she disappeared into a car driven by a man and vanished.
She was right.
I didn’t want to hear it.
It didn’t change a damn thing.
She would never be in my life again; she would never get to go out with Tig and me and have some drinks; she would never know what my daughters’ voices sounded like. There were some forms of betrayal that could never be forgiven.
But somehow, there was finality to it right then.
While I had absolutely moved on and lived a life and had successfully not even thought Cassie’s name in a long, long time, there was always a crack there.
Her showing up had effectively sealed it.
That moment right there, it was what everyone with a broken heart or crushed betrayal hoped for.
It was closure.
“Mommy!” Ariah screamed, making my gaze jerk back to her, heart beating wildly, only to find her standing there, hands on her hips, legs wide, being a boss babe like her mother.
“What?”
“Bria won’t bow down,” she said, sending her sister small eyes, and I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m the queen, and she won’t bow down.”
Oh, she was going to be a handful, that was for sure.
And she was going to make some poor sap miserably happy someday.
Tig - 17 Years
It was a nightmare.
“Tig, you need to breathe,” Kenzi reminded me, giving me a smirk that said she thought I was being completely ridiculous. To her, I likely was.
“Daddy, you knew this day was coming,” Ariah said, shaking her head at me. “I gave you two weeks notice.”
She had.
It didn’t matter.
Two years’ notice wouldn’t have prepared me.
Was any decent father ever ready for his little girl to start dating?
Of course, for me, the issue was compounded, knowing in painful detail what had happened to my own sister at Ariah’s age. For me, it was hard to draw a line and say that was impossible.
Though the rational part of me knew the situations were completely different. Rainy had been naive and easily led, living in a rough area with shit upbringing, with no self-confidence, and no decent options for men.
Ariah was, well, Kenzi 2.0.
She was the badass, loud-mouthed, hyper-confident, no-holds-barred, smart-as-a-whip, independent, take-no-shit child that had been nothing but a delightful handful all her life.
When Ariah got her mind on something, there was no changing it, no reasoning with her, and no end in sight to the shit she would stir until she got her way.
She had nothing but positive female role models around her from her grandmother and great-aunts to her own mother, aunt, Alex, Jstorm, Riya… the list went on and on.