Chapter 12
Sleeping next to Teonny had to be a good and a bad thing. A blessing and a damn curse.
Prosper got the best sleep when laid up next to her.
He’d never felt so rested in his life. The bad part was that he slept hard as hell.
He’d never been like that before. He was most comfortable when he slept lightly, so he could be aware of a surprise attack.
All that went out the window when he slept next to Teonny’s fine ass.
Now, here he was, looking around the safe house frantically for her while rapidly coming to the conclusion that her ass had left.
“Shit!”
It wasn’t that there was a threat anymore.
He had called Lamar the night before to confirm that shit was handled.
Worry filled him because he knew Teonny wasn’t in her right mind at the moment.
He stayed up with her well into the wee hours of the morning.
She didn’t cry much after they left the warehouse, but her spirit wasn’t all the way there either.
Teonny not being at the safe house worried him because he felt her pain. He knew what that kind of hurt could do to a person.
“Why you doin’ this to me, Peanut?” Prosper uttered as he headed for the front door.
It didn’t matter to him that he only had basketball shorts and house shoes on. He felt in his gut that he needed to find Teonny quickly.
The only place he could think to look was her home she shared with her mom and Jerome.
He turned the thirty-minute drive into fifteen.
His heart calmed slightly when he noticed Teonny’s car in the driveway.
He had made sure to get her car to the safe house weeks ago so she never felt like she was trapped, though he was thankful she had never made a move to leave until now.
He was even more glad he was able to find her since she wanted to be a big girl and leave the safe house.
After he hopped out of the car, he took long strides toward the front door and rang the doorbell. Prosper’s patience ran thin as he waited for Teonny to answer. When she didn’t, he rang the doorbell again before he formed a fist and banged on the door.
“Peanut, it’s me!” After a couple of minutes, there was still no answer, so he tried the doorknob. It turned. He felt weird about letting himself in, but something told him the intrusion was necessary. “Peanut!” His deep voice boomed as he took a few steps into the home.
The smell of gasoline put him on high alert.
His face frowned up as he called for her again, now rushing through the first floor of the house to see if he could find her.
He did. She was in the living room tossing gasoline from a large canister around the room, with tears streaming down her face and muttering to herself.
“Took my fuckin’ daughter away from me,” she mumbled.
Prosper ran over to her and wrapped her up in a bear hug. She had been so out of it that she jumped. Apparently, she hadn’t heard him ringing the doorbell or calling out for her.
“Peanut, chill,” he said as she thrashed around in his arms. “It’s me, baby. It’s me.”
“Patrick,” she whispered before she went completely limp in his arms.
The sob that tore out of her shredded his heart to pieces.
She sagged against him. He gently lowered them to the floor and allowed her to cry.
While he rocked back and forth, she continued to mutter about her daughter and her mother, occasionally throwing Jerome’s name around.
He couldn’t make sense of her words, but he got the gist. He understood completely where her pain came from.
How could a person not? Her mother had committed the ultimate betrayal, and unfortunately, it was the thing to make Teonny snap.
“Let it out, baby. I got you,” Prosper assured as he continued to rock her.
“She took my baby from me.” Teonny wailed as she dug her head into his chest.
“I know, baby. I know. I’m so sorry.”
Teonny pulled away from him and hopped up. She grabbed the canister of gasoline again. “I have to burn it down. This house has to go.”
Prosper stood and held his hands up in mock surrender.
He hoped it was a calming gesture to her so he could speak his piece.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, baby.
I’ll help you sell the house. You don’t have to ever come back here again, but burning it ain’t gonna do anything. It won’t help the situation.”
She shook her head. Her face was screwed up like she was in physical agony. “Evil lived here. I lived here with evil. This house has to go.”
Prosper took a small step toward her. “I understand that, but what about Angel’s things, huh? You have her things still, right?”
Teonny stilled for a moment, and her eyes unfocused like she had just realized Angel’s things were, in fact, there.
“Oh God.” She dropped the canister again and put her hands to her face as she sobbed. “My baby’s things.” She moved her hands and looked up at Prosper with red, swollen eyes. “Her things, Patrick. I almost burned down my baby’s things.”
Prosper gathered her in his arms and hugged her to him tightly. He wished his embrace could suck every bad thing out of her life that had happened to her.
“You not in your right mind right now.” He kissed the top of her head. “We gonna do this the right way, okay? I’m gonna help you. You trust me?”
She leaned further into him and nodded her head as she clung to him and sobbed.
They stayed like that for a long time. Long enough for the gasoline smell to make Prosper lightheaded. He knew if he was feeling that way, she was too.
“Is there anything you want to grab from here?”
Teonny didn’t respond at first, and he thought maybe she had zoned out again, but finally, she pulled away from him and moved toward the stairs without a word.
He followed her to make sure she was good. It would be a while before he let her out of his sight again.
When they made it into her room, she went into her closet. He followed and saw her trying to reach for something on the top shelf. He grabbed the box for her, and she took it from him with a sad smile.
She opened it gingerly, and right on the top of the box was a photo of a pretty little girl with curly pigtails.
“This is Angel,” she whispered.
Prosper gazed at the picture and found himself getting a little choked up. Angel looked like such a happy little girl. Teonny’s little mini me.
“She’s beautiful. Just like her mama.”
“She was.” Teonny emphasized was, letting Prosper know it was okay to talk about her in the past tense.
This moment may not look like strength to a lot of people, but to Prosper, it was.
He marveled at her strength as she looked through some of the items in the small box with a smile on her face.
She closed it and looked up at him with glistening eyes.
A sense of calmness seemed to wash over her.
“For now, this is all I want. I need to sell this house though. I can’t have any ties to it. ”
“We’ll handle it. I’ll hire a cleaning company,” he offered, suggesting that someone needed to clean up the mess she made.
“I’ll talk to my realtor about putting it up for sale.
We can come back when you’re ready and go through your things.
Whatever you want to sell or donate, we will handle.
Anything you want to bring to my house, you’re more than welcome. ”
“Your house?” she asked timidly. He hated that she was in such a fragile state, but he promised himself he would nurse her spirit back to health.
“Where else you gonna go?”
She shrugged. “I could go anywhere, really.”
“Is that what you want?” The thought of her leaving him suddenly had him winded. He felt like she’d punched him in the gut for even saying something like that.
She thought about it, which hurt his feelings even more, but he told himself that whatever she wanted, he would make it work for her.
Finally, she shook her head and looked up at him with tears splashing out of her eyes once again. “I need you.”
He wrapped a strong arm around her waist. “You have me. For life.”
“Promise? Everyone else has left me. I can’t handle another heartbreak.” She sounded so vulnerable. So broken. He could never let her down. It wasn’t in his DNA. From that day forward, he lived to make her happy, and there was no greater purpose than that, in his opinion.
“You have my word.”
She nodded tiredly, as if her fatigue wouldn’t allow her to fight him on his response. “Can we leave, please?”
Prosper grabbed the box from her and nodded.
As he followed her out of the house, his mind shifted gears slightly.
Now, he was in plan mode. He wanted to make sure he could get Teonny on the path to healing.
Whatever she needed to bring that pretty smile back to her face was hers. That was his word.