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“I told her I would also love to know what she looks like without her legs.”
I laughed harder. “So was that you being jealous?”
“No, I wasn’t,” she denied. “But I didn’t like it either,” she continued.
Wasn’t my woman just so clueless about how emotions worked? “That’s the same thing as being jealous, baby. It’s okay, you can totally be jealous, I love a jealous you.” She glared at me and I laughed again, as we walked out of the hotel.
Outside the hotel, I tried to call a green cab which –to be fair– looked really rickety, but Jordan held my hand to stop me. “Don’t call that, we have a long way to go and this car looked like it would never get to our destination.”
“That is dramatic. Besides, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, Flower.”
“Oh but you should, that’s why they’re there.” She droned and called the next healthy looking red cab which we boarded to her mother’s house.
You should, that’s why they are there.God, this woman.
* * *
Jordan tried to ring the doorbell and I held her hand again. I’d been doing that for three minutes and I was surprised that she hadn’t gotten mad and stabbed my hand with the knife inside the purse she strapped around her waist.
She took a deep breath and turned to me with a glare. “Don’t hold my hand again, Jayden. What is wrong with you?”
I was nervous. I was scared that if we went in there, I would hate her mother. I had thought that if I ever met her again, I would be apologizing because of what we did to her, but now the tables have turned.
Jordan raised her hand to ring the doorbell again and I clenched my hands together to stop myself from holding her hand. She glanced at me and shook her head. I didn’t know what the gesture meant, but I guessed it was about what she talked about last night.
‘Your mother got killed because of her. You would have a mother if my mother and your dad weren’t involved with one another. I want you to hate her because I hate her too. I don’t want you to forgive her because of me, I want you to despise her and when we get to her place tomorrow, I want you to confront her.’ I already promised to do what she said.
I looked at her and nodded, and she rang the doorbell. A minute later, the door opened and Aunty Laura stood there in surprise. She still looked the same way she did, almost nothing changed about her. The last night I saw her, she had so many scars with puffy eyes and limping legs. But now, she looked so flawless as if nothing ever happened to her.
She flittered her eyes between Jordan and I, before she settled her gaze on her daughter and curved her lips into a smile.
“Jordan? What are you doing here? Come in, come in,” she said with a smile, urging Jordan and I into the house as she continued peering at me with uncertainty. Did she recognize me or was she just wondering who I was?
“Who is this, baby?”
“Jayden. Jayden Antonio,” Jordan said in a bored tone and I snapped my head to her in shock. No side talk, no sweet talk, she just dropped the bombshell as if it was the one thing she couldn’t wait to tell her mother.
A quiet gasp came from Aunty Laura as she turned her head toward me slowly. “Jayden?” She repeated, looking at me and I nodded at her with a small smile on my face. I remembered the night Raphael and I helped them escape, how I never thought I would see her again, but prayed to anyway. She cupped my face and examined it left and right before she pulled me in a hug.
Her back was turned to Jordan and I caught a glimpse of her rolling her eyes. Aunty Laura released me and even though there was a big smile on her face, I could see tears pooling in her eyes. My hand instinctively made its way to clean her tears until I remembered what we were here for and dropped it.
‘He confessed about taking out her breathing tube with the intent to kill her because he wants me to raise his child.’ We were here to know why she and my dad would hide something like that. We were here to know why they would play us for years and how they even played usfor years, when Jordan and I were very sure that we had never even seen them speak for four hours straight.
Four hours was even way too long, I had never seen them talk for an hour. It was still so baffling to me how they managed to pull it off and if someone had told me that they were involved with each other, I would have laughed in their face and called them a stupid idiot.
If I hadn’t heard what my dad said or read what Jordan’s mom wrote, I would have never believed it.
I still didn’t, and a part of me hoped she would deny and prove that it was all a misunderstanding.
“I am here for a reason mother,” Jordan started, and Aunty Laura and I broke away from each other.
“I missed you so much, my baby.” She beamed again, oblivious to what was waiting for her. I looked at Jordan, trying to tell her with my eyes to take it easy on her mother, but guess what? She wasn’t even looking at me.
She dipped her hand into her waist purse and brought out her mother’s journal. I watched as Aunty Laura’s smile fell and her eyes widened in realization. I could physically see all the blood drain from her face as her –now pale– hand fell from mine.
That was slowly confirming what I already knew, that my dad and Aunty Laura were truly involved with each other. She wouldn’t look like a living dead if that journal didn’t containdirtythings.
“I think you already know what this is,” Jordan started ever so slowly, but Aunty Laura stayed quiet, her chest heaving up and down. Jordan smirked, probably confirming the same thoughts to herself.