4. Maliah #3
I called out as she walked further into my hallway.
I watched as she slipped out of her sneakers near the door like she had every intention of making herself comfortable.
My eyes closed briefly. Of course she was about to get comfortable.
She was so damn stubborn, and I hated that shit, but I swear I loved the fuck out of her anyway despite it.
Although I was pushing her away, I wanted her near me.
Honestly, I needed her right now. But then her father’s warning played in my head again.
“Maliah,” I sighed.
“I’m not leaving.”
Her voice came from somewhere near the living room.
I let out a slow breath, closed the front door, and then followed her.
By the time I got there, she was already pacing back and forth.
The way she always did when she was trying to make sense of something.
She was wearing down my damn carpet. I leaned against the wall and watched her.
She stopped suddenly and turned toward me.
And for the first time since she got here, I could tell that the pieces started clicking together in her head. Her eyes narrowed slightly.
“I know you were with my father.”
I didn’t respond because that was common knowledge. She knew exactly who I was with last. She sat on my sofa and then started bouncing her leg quickly while pointing at me.
“I knew something happened.”
Still, I didn’t give her any words. Her gaze dropped briefly to my arm before lifting from the sofa again.
The wheels in her head were moving fast now. It was written all in her facial expression.
“Tahari.”
My jaw tightened.
“Maliah.”
“He said we couldn’t see each other anymore.”
I looked away because she kept saying the shit.
I guess she felt like her repeating herself would have made me confess to what went on.
If she wanted answers out of me, she was going to have to come direct.
Because I knew that if she gathered up the courage to ask if her father had anything to do with this, that I wouldn’t have it in me to lie. Not to her.
“Did he do this?” she asked in a low tone.
The question hit the room like a gunshot. Because I must have thought this moment up.
Since she popped up in front of my door, she had been talking in circles.
Asking the same damn questions. But this one was one that I couldn’t just keep quiet about.
It was a direct question about some shit that was written on my body.
The proof was securely wrapped under gauze and hospital tape.
Still, it wasn’t something that I could just easily confess to, so I didn’t answer.
For a second, neither one of us moved. Neither one of us breathed.
Because the truth was sitting right there between us.
And if I answered that question… Everything was about to change.
“Did he do this?”
The question came out louder this time. Not because she didn’t think I heard her the first time, but because she was starting to believe the answer.
I looked at her for a second before turning away.
We had been so wrapped up in one another since she bombarded past my threshold that I don’t think she ever paid attention to what I was holding in my hand to my non-injured arm.
The pistol was still in my hand, and the last thing I needed was for her attention to shift from my arm to that.
I walked into the kitchen and opened the drawer beside the stove, setting it inside before pushing the drawer closed.
The sound felt unusually loud in the apartment.
For a moment, I just stood there with my hand resting against the counter.
I was trying to catch a grip and figure out how everything had unraveled this fast. When I finally looked up, Maliah was standing on the opposite side of the island just watching me.
Her eyes hadn’t left me, not once. Every single little movement I made, those brown orbs were trailing me.
I couldn’t tell if she was guarded around me now or if her mind was running about knowing what had happened.
Whatever the reason, I could read the shit all over her body language.
Fear was still there, sitting right beneath the surface, but something else had started mixing with it now.
Uncertainty. She was unsure of what her father was capable of, and I was walking proof that his ass didn’t play any damn games.
“He did, didn’t he?”
Her words were quieter this time. She wasn’t angry, and she wasn’t trying to accuse her dad of anything. She genuinely seemed hurt. I swallowed hard as sweat started to build on my forehead. The apartment suddenly felt too small. And too full of things I didn’t know how to explain.
“Maliah…”
Her eyes immediately filled with frustration.
“No,” she shook her head, “don’t do that.”
“Do what?” I let out a slow breath.
“Keep saying my name like that’s an answer.”
The hurt in her voice landed harder than I expected because I understood where it was coming from.
She had spent the entire day trying to reach me.
Then her father told her she couldn’t see me anymore.
Now she was standing in my apartment looking at blood seeping through a bandage wrapped around my arm.
Still with no concrete answers to all the questions she had.
Nothing about this looked normal. Nothing about this was making sense to her.
“He shot you.”
This time it wasn’t a question. It was a statement.
A realization she had finally arrived at on her own.
I looked, and that was all the answer she needed.
For a second, she just stared at me. Then she laughed softly because I’m sure she was in disbelief.
For her entire life she knew of her father to be one way, and now she was discovering the other side to him.
“My father shot you.”
I closed my eyes briefly. Hearing it out loud sounded just as crazy as it felt. The woman I loved father put a bullet in my arm and then threatened to kill me if he ever saw me again. Yeah, letting those words fly in the air sounded fucking insane.
“My father shot you,” she repeated while shaking her head. “And you’re standing here acting like that’s not the most insane thing I’ve ever heard.”
I leaned back against the counter.
“Maliah…”
“No, because I’m trying to understand.”
Her hands moved as she spoke. I could see the frustration slowly building again.
“I leave my room because nobody will tell me what’s going on. I come all the way over here. I find you bleeding through a bandage.”