Bless
BLESS
As I heard Legacy’s keys in the front door, I sighed reluctantly. Lately, I didn’t know which personality to expect when he came home. Daily, upon his arrival, I tried to have everything just as he liked it, in order to keep the peace. The babies had been fed and bathed and the house was clean and quiet. And I had cooked dinner too. But there was always something that seemed to trigger him, causing him to unfold in anger, sadness, or both.
The door slowly opened. As Legacy entered, his towering frame stumbled a few times. My shoulders sank with disappointment as I recognized the lost, loopy state of his expression.
He was high.
He slammed the door, causing Zara to jump out of her skin as she slept in a pack-and-play in the living room. I stood from the couch and hurried towards it. I then bent down and patted her back soothingly to ensure that she remained asleep.
“Legacy!” I gritted quietly as I glared at him. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
He frowned as he slowly struggled through the living room. “Nothing.”
I glared at him as I returned to the couch. “I can’t tell. Don’t come in here with that shit today.”
He scoffed as he faltered through the living room. “Oh, so you don’t want me here either? There’s nowhere I can go where motherfuckas want me?”
Blowing out a heavy breath, I held my forehead. I reminded myself that he had been suffering, that this wasn't him, that he was under the influence of a much more powerful substance than his love for me,
He closed the space between us with a menacing glare, bringing us nose to nose. “Fuck you,” he gritted.
I inhaled sharply, “Fuck me ?”
“Yeah, fuck you.”
Glaring at him, I said as calmly as I could, “You’re high. Go sleep it off before you say something you can’t take back once you’re sober.”
He held his angry glare on me for a few seconds, his chest heaving up and down. I saw it in his eyes. The rage stirring inside of him was not meant for me, but I couldn’t fix it. As he finally walked away, I released a sigh of relief. Closing my eyes for a brief moment, I gathered myself. But it was so hard to take in a breath.
I breathed Legacy, but the old version of him was gone. Now, I had no air.
I had been in this chaotic routine with Legacy for a year, but I had been experiencing this mania all of my life. I had experienced dealing with the highs and lows of addiction because of my mother, so when I saw the signs in Legacy after Ri’s funeral, I didn’t unravel. I sympathized with him because even though he was also an addict, he was so much different than my mother. He still wanted to be a father. He still made an attempt to love me.
He had yet to admit to being an addict because he related addicts to heroin and crack. Legacy didn’t consider taking a pain pill every day to relax an addiction. He didn’t see the signs of dependency that I knew so well. He hadn’t fallen completely into the rabbit hole. He was still functioning, still taking care of us, and still making money. There were just days that the guilt and grief must have been too much to bear and he numbed it with too many pills.
No part of me wanted to leave the man I couldn’t exist without. I figured that the high was something he needed to get through the rough patch. And even though that rough patch had lasted a year and was damaging the perfect, loving threads of our relationship, I couldn’t see myself walking away from him. But sticking beside him was slowly ruining us. The heavenly joyous connection that we’d shared was now filled with unstable chaos.
The ding of my text-message notification drew my attention. I reached for it and saw that it was from Darrell. After unlocking my phone, I read Legacy’s father text message.
Darrell : Check on Legacy. He just left my house. His mother started in on him again. It was bad.
Sighing, my irritation towards Legacy quickly turned to empathy. I placed my phone down on the couch and went looking for him through our apartment. As I passed the kids’ room, I doubled checked that Eden was still napping as well. Glad that he was, I continued my search. As I took my journey through my place, I could feel the stress in my bones. I hadn’t just been taking care of two toddlers for the last year, I had been taking care of Legacy too.
The closer I got to the back of our apartment I could hear sounds of outside. So, I knew that Legacy was sitting on the balcony outside of our bedroom.
Reluctantly, I tiptoed through the room. Despite the changes that had come between us, I couldn't shake the unconditional love I still harbored for Legacy. That love drew me to him, knowing that he must have been in so much pain. Charon had been relentless since Ri’s death. She took no mercy on Legacy. Some days, she tolerated his presence, but even then, she barely spoke to him, nothing like the loving mother she once was to him. But on days like the ones she had been having as of lately, she fired rage into him that he could barely recover from.
Stepping out onto the balcony, I found him there, his gaze fixed on some distant point beyond the horizon. His expression was of deep sorrow and resignation, and my heart ached watching what was once such a strong, dominate man succumb so weakly.
I approached him slowly, uncertain of how he would receive me. But to my surprise, he made no move to push me away as I sat on his lap. I wrapped my arms around his neck, feeling the warmth of his embrace as he pulled me close. For a passing moment, it was as though nothing had changed between us. I closed my eyes, savoring the familiar sensation of his arms around me, the peace that I usually always felt when I was in his arms.
“You saw your mother today?” My head tilted as I watched him sympathetically.
He nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
My hand brushed his cheek, caressing the tattoo of my lips that he’d gotten a few months prior. “It was bad?”
“Yeah… real bad.”
My chest tightened, causing me to bite down on my bottom lip. My heart sank at the sight of the immense hurt in his eyes. No matter the changes he'd gone through, my connection to him remained unshaken. My heart still stuttered at the sound of his voice, at his presence entering a room. I still longed for him, for him to be close. I couldn't imagine breathing air that he hadn't exhaled first. Despite our constant fights and the heartbreaking sides of him I now witnessed, I couldn't help but sympathize with him. My heart reached out to him, desperately clinging to the memory of the man he used to be. Whatever souls were made of, Legacy’s and mine had been crafted from the same essence. We were one, and it tore me apart to see the other half of me in such ruin.
“I’m so sorry, baby. You know that she doesn’t mean it.”
He looked away, disbelief painting his face.
I gently grabbed his face, forcing his focus on me. “She doesn't mean it,” I pressed. “It’s the grief.”
“She’s so busy grieving Ri that she doesn’t see that she is killing me.”
Tears stung my eyes. My arms looped around his neck tighter, bringing him into my bosom. He clung to my waist, burying his face into the crook of my neck.
“I’m sorry.” His words were muffled against my skin.
“I know.”
“I’m so sorry,” he insisted as he started to press slow, soft kisses on my neck and face. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I replied against his mouth that had now met mine.
As our tongues fell into a passionate, sloppy, wet dance he stood up. I clung to his neck as he walked me through the balcony doors. He held me against him, holding my ass in his confident grip.
Once at the bed, he placed me down and pushed up his wife beater that I’d been wearing around the house that day.
“I love you, baby.” His words brushed against my thighs as his face disappeared between my slowly parting legs due to him using his shoulders to open them wider.
I inhaled deeply when he took my clit into his mouth, sucking slowly, flicking the tip of it with his tongue.
“Please don’t leave me,” he begged with a mouthful of me. He temporarily released me, promising me, “I’ll do better, baby. I’ll get better.”
My heart went out to the need in his words and the longing in his eyes as he stared up at me. My fingers found his waves, brushing over them as I swore, “I’ll never leave you.”