Chapter Nine
Reigniting a fire is impossible if the smoke has already settled. Better just to start anew.
Rezi
My mind continued racingthe entire drive home, even as I stopped in the grocery store for some essentials. Questions, feelings, and memories all collided within my head, one replacing the next in an endless sequence. Running my hands over my face, I decided I was ready to eat and go to bed, but as I arrived home to find DeShawn waiting for me, I knew my wishes were all in vain.
We didn’t make eye contact, or utter a word, as he grabbed my suitcase, following me into my complex and up the stairs until we landed at my apartment. Turning the key in the lock, my heart began pounding as I pushed open the door. Our conversations all week had stopped and begun and ended again abruptly, the cycle seeming like a sign that perhaps there was nothing left to say. However, finally peering at him, as I put up the groceries, I knew that wasn’t true. The tension in his shoulders being apparent even from across my spacious living room floor.
Before taking a seat, he paused, his gaze falling upon a framed quote on my wall. Knowing what it said, I put my head down in anticipation of his reaction.
“When you burn hot and fast, sometimes you burn out too quickly,” he read aloud. “Is this about us?”
I could feel my lips draw inward as the right words to say escaped me. Taking in a deep breath, I murmured, “Of course,” while he settled in his seat, me assuming the one across from him. “It was something my mother once told me before she passed away. I always thought it was about my energy and learning how to conserve it since I was such an excited kid.”
I pulled my legs into my cozy plush chair, both DeShawn and I opting for the single side seats instead of the couch in the middle.
“However, after our engagement ended and the weight of our whirlwind romance came crashing down, then I realized it was about us.” My eyes drifted from him to the words etched in elegant script. It truly did fit us, and now it felt like a part of two of my pasts—him and my mother.
“You know, I fell in love with you the first time I met you,” Shawn stated plainly.
He’d never voiced it that way before. He had obviously said he loved me, but his reasoning for knowing when he’d fallen in love with me often surrounded seeing my kindness toward his family and strangers, or some other logical detail surrounding me being a good person. Therefore, to hear him refer to it as love at first sight, was against his character. He was a realist. He claimed he didn’t even believe in love at first sight. It was only lust.
“You had a light about you,” he continued. “But your strength was always the most impressive. Finding out you lost your mom to cancer at ten years old, followed by your dad less than two years later, always had in me in awe. Wondering how you remained such an optimistic and fearless person, having endured all of that.”
He smiled briefly, before his head fell. “You were always so happy, even when life wasn’t the easiest. Until …”
I glared at him, waiting for him to continue. He could have planned on saying I was happyuntil he realized we’d only known each other for eleven months, and perhaps it was too fast to be engaged and truly know someone.He could have planned on saying I was happyuntil things got hard at work and the stress followed me home. He could have said a lot of things that we both knew wasn’t the truth. The words he couldn’t manage to get out was the only reason that mattered.
“I was happy until we lost our baby.”
I could feel the tears filling in my eyes, but I refused to cry. I’d lost a lot in my life. Both parents and my child, those in themselves being more than any other twenty-five-year-old woman I knew. But I was strong, and breaking down right now would just distract me from the important words that needed to be said.
“See, you still can’t even say it,” I snapped, my breathing growing shallow and uneven as I spoke. “You can’t even say we lost a child.”
“We got engaged after knowing each other six months. The perfect fairytale. Then we got pregnant, and I thought life was finally going easy on me. And then … then I lost her. Our sweet little daughter died inside of me after four months.”
My hands shot over my mouth.
“Fuck,” I cried, releasing the tears I’d been holding.
DeShawn hadn’t known that we were expecting a girl … a fact I feared would pierce his heart with a new surge of grief. Noting the tension in his shoulders, the creased lines of his brow, it was clear he was wrestling with his own thoughts. New facts I hadn’t meant to burden him with.
“You found out it was a girl?” he questioned, his voice barely above a whisper.
“I did.”
The guilt inside of me began creeping up. He never needed to know what we’d loss. He’d never even asked, and here I was blurting it out like an inconsiderate idiot.
“I’m glad I know.” His features were hard to read, his eyes growing cold and distant. When minutes passed without a word, I began fidgeting, the chair fabric twisting in my nervous fingers.
“She was gone, and I felt … relief.”
His head jolted up so quickly, I nearly jumped in my seat despite our distance. His eyes cut with a sharpness I hadn’t seen before, almost silencing my words as they left my mouth.
“You can’t mean that,” he muttered, his tone sounding like a warning.
“I do, but not how you think. Our daughter would never have to endure this broken world that would do nothing but break her heart. A place where pain and suffering seem to lurk around every corner. Where injustice and inequality run rampant, and the darkness often seems to outweigh the light. I realized that this world wouldn’t have loved her like we would have, and that bought me peace after her death. It provided me with relief and … overwhelmed me with guilt,” I admitted, a slight tremble escaping my lips.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this back then?”
“When could I?” My voice caught in my throat as a profound sense of sorrow and pain hit me square in the heart. “When you were pretending like it didn’t happen and telling me it changed nothing? Or maybe when you changed the subject every time I spoke about it? Or how about when you talked about us getting pregnant again within days of our miscarriage, like she hadn’t even existed?”
His hands were clenched into fists on the chair. I’d wanted to say so much of that for so long now, that I grew concerned of my delivery. Was it too much? Too harsh? Should I have held back? It was strange to have so much to say, yet still worry that you’re hurting the other person more by explaining your feelings.
“That’s what you thought?” he asked rhetorically, his expression full of hurt and anguish. “I mourned our child. However, expressing my feelings were always a struggle, so maybe I grieved her silently. But, Rezi, you usually always just knew how I felt. Sometimes anticipating it before I did.”
“I know,” I replied. “But I was sooo broken at that point. Throwing myself into work and everything else just to cope.” I hesitated before continuing. “And it took me months … months after you walked away from me, for me to truly start healing.”
He licked his lips, rubbing them together tightly. Seeing him emotional, while equally feeling unhinged in my own body, made me want to run over and hug him. Have him touch me. Comforting me in a way that only his touch ever seemed to, and vice versa. However, that’s not the place we were in anymore. So, I remained seated, leaving the distance between us.
“I knew you were broken,” he began, “and I shouldn’t have put it on you to know how I felt. I thought brushing it under the rug like it wasn’t a huge loss would help. But maybe that was more for my sake. Honestly, the more you worked, the more I was reminded of my father. Putting his time into his job over anything and anyone else. That wasn’t you, but it drudged up feelings I hadn’t addressed before we lost …”
He paused, lowering his eyes and clearing his throat before meeting my gaze once more.
“Before we lost our daughter. I truly thought leaving was the best thing I could do for you, but a part of me gave into my own demons in making that decision alone.”
He adjusted himself in his seat, directing his body squarely toward mine.
“Perhaps, it’s like you said on the boat when we were back in the Amazon. I’ve learned to cope with uncomfortable situations by ignoring them or belittling them. I need to work on addressing my shit and asking you what you need, rather than assuming I know. And please trust me when I say that I’ve been working on that.”
I paused, again surprised by his words.
“I think that all sounds great,” I voiced sincerely.
His revelation sent soundless vibrations through the air, as I felt my body relax for the first time all day. The silence between us stretched, heavy with the weight of our declarations, but still I felt a buoyancy I hadn’t expected to feel. I wasn’t quite sure what more to say after that, although I agreed with all his shocking admissions.
“How about I cook us something?” I suggested, wiping a few tears from my eyes.
After receiving a nod, I got up, turned, and headed for the kitchen. I could hear him rustling around behind me, but before I could turn and inspect what he was doing, he wrapped his arms around me. My body melted into his curves, my back pressing to his front.
Damn, I needed this. Physical touch was not usually my love language, but it was when it came to him. His tight, muscular arms twisting around me, squeezing the stress out of me while my butt settled against his lap. I could feel his breath on my neck, with a soft kiss on my shoulder sealing the moment. Turning to face him, I placed a light kiss on his lips, hoping it gave him the same comfort it gave me.
Grabbing my waist, he held my lips even tighter before resting his forehead against mine. “I’ll do better,” he whispered.
“I will too,” I stated, the moment taking over my logic. What are we saying? Does it mean something more? Where are we now?
These were all questions that, given the intensity of our talk, did not feel like the right time to ask.
Finally entering the kitchen, a few seconds after our embrace ended, I got to work, my body happy to have a distraction from the extreme emotions before. Sitting at the counter, DeShawn watched as I chopped the vegetables, my ears enjoying the rhythmic sound the knife made against the cutting board. My mom was a great chef, and cooking, no matter how basic, always made me feel closer to her.
The aroma of spices filled the air, mingling with the scent of simmering sauce on the stove. Dumping the vegetables in the pan, I smiled as Shawn joined my side to stir. We fell into a comfortable silence, the clatter of utensils and sizzling food providing the only noise. Flipping on music from one of our old, favorite playlists, singing turned to dancing, which led to light conversation.
Amongst the words we shared, I admitted not being sure I could have healed if he hadn’t left. No malicious intent in my words, but utter honesty. Me enjoying the new person I’d become in the aftermath of everything we faced. He in turn stated that hearing me express losing the baby—the guilt and the relief—put things in a new light.
“You’ll always be one in a million to me,” he claimed. “But I can see now, how my admiration in the past, for how well you handled suffering and pain, might have suffocated you. Preventing you from healing.”
I loved hearing his words, this fresh side of him tugging me in, daring me to take a chance on him again and see if he could be the safe harbor I once believed he was. My Uncle Titan was only twelve years older than me, but in a way had raised me, and was one of the only men in my life I trusted to never let me fall. Similar to how I knew my father would have been had he not died when I was still a kid.
Stirring, dicing, and sautéing our dinner, I listened to the parts of me that were yearning for Shawn to reclaim that place in my heart. My protector. However, knowing I would never fully be the girl he fell in love with again, not after our loss, had me wondering if thoughts of reconciliation made me foolish.
“I don’t want kids,” I blurted as he sat the table. “I never want to put a child through the heartache of losing their parents, or any of the tragedies that happen in this world.”
Clearing my throat, I concluded with, “I don’t know much, but I know that.”
With a heavy sigh, he reached out to me, his fingers interlocking with mine. “I understand.”
I could feel myself growing hot under his intense gaze, wondering if he meant what he said. If he really did comprehend it. My heart raced with a mixture of excitement, confusion, and overwhelmingness. It’d been a long day, filled with ups and downs, and despite us airing everything out, the future still seemed quite uncertain.
However, there was one more thing I was certain about.
“Could you stay with me tonight?” I asked. “Just here with me.”
He smiled, placing our food on the table. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”