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“After you had me, you what? You suddenly decided to stop sleeping with your husband’s best friend? You suddenly named me Kamari because I was the ‘bright moon’ that led you away from darkness, right? The darkness of sleeping with your husband’s best friend. After you had me, you suddenly thought you would say ‘oh hey Cedric, I now have a child, I can’t sleep with you anymore,’ right? But guess what mother, it was too late by then. Ask me why.”
Aunty Laura stayed silent, but Jordan walked closer to her and lifted her head up with the knife.
Jordan looked scary. She looked dark and she looked nothing like Jordan or Flower or even Alexis. I guessed now she was Alex.
I couldn’t help but think that if that was how she looked when on duty, then I could imagine every victim of hers dying from fear before they actually died from her knife.
“I said… Ask. Me.Why,” she spelled and her mother trembled, folding her fingers into each other as she shut her eyes, probably due to the coldness of the blade.
“Wh… why?”
“Good question. Because he already killed his wife, and he expected you to kill your husband. What do you mean by ‘you had me and’… no Mother, that’s not how it works. Your husband had to die, that was the only way to keep it balanced. He killed his wife and had to take care of six boys all by himself, while you suddenly had a change of heart and hoped to live happily with a complete family. I repeat, that is not how it works.”
“You are the woman in this situation. It would have never happened if you didn’t want it. He would have never slept with you if you didn’t want to sleep with him. You also said it yourself in your journal, you said ‘having him so close still makes my heart beat,’ you said ‘he still has an effect on me.’ He’s your husband’s best friend for fucks sake.”
“I would have never killed my dad if I knew what you did. Other than being mad at me for leaving me behind, I never hated him for a day. You ruined the both of us and I know he blamed himself forever. I only killed him because you cried that he cheated on you. I thought ‘how could he do that to you in spite of everything we went through because of him.’ When in reality, weallwent through everything because of you.
“Who knows, maybe he got drunk and slept with a woman out of hurt. He did say it was a one night thing, he did say that. One night flings were used to relieve pain and stress. Maybe he wanted to relieve the pain of you cheating on him with none other than his best friend. God, how didn’t I ever think of this?” She bent down, hid her face in her hands and burst into tears.
Aunty Laura was hiccuping at this point, while Jordan’s body shook with tears on the floor. I wiped the tears that had damped my own face and walked closer to her.
I knew Jordan regretted killing her dad, I knew it. Uncle Chris had his own faults, but she still felt that everything happened because her mom and my dad got involved in the first place, which was true.
Before I could get to her, she stood up and tightened the knife in her hand. My eyes widened in realization and I held her hand to stop her from taking even a step closer to her mother. “Jordan, no. What are you doing?”
She tried to yank her hand, but I held it even tighter. She glared at me, but I didn’t cower. I wasn’t going to let her make another mistake that she might regret in another five years.
“Let go of me, I’m warning you.”
“And I’m warning you, put that knife back in your purse.” She continued glaring and I stared at her. After about a minute of silence, with only Aunty Laura’s sobs in the background, she opened her purse and put her knife back into it.
She walked to her mother who resumed begging and saying how sorry she was. “Forget you have a daughter, Laura Vincenzo.” She stomped out, leaving the journal behind.
As I attempted to run after her, Aunt Laura held my hand.
“Jayden, please help me talk to her, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to all go like this. I swear, I never meant to hurt anyone.”
“But you did, Aunty Laura, you hurt everyone. I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything right now. I’m still on Jordan’s bad side too and I’m doing whatever it takes to get on her good side, including not mentioning your name for now.” I gently removed her hands from mine and ran after Jordan.
28
ALEXIS
After the intense conversation with my mother, Jayden brought us back to the hotel where we had lodged earlier, and honestly, I didn’t even mind. I was too weak, too sad and too angry to argue with him.
The whole conversation with my mother was completely unexpected and I didn’t even know why I was shocked about it.
Of course your enemies would never betray you. It was usually the ones you trusted, the ones you thought you knew like the back of your hand.
She didn’t even apologize properly. Well, not that she owedmean apology –I wasn’t the one she cheated on– but she was apologizing for the wrong thing entirely.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know he knew.’
Maybe Jayden was right, maybe we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, because my mother’s cover was that she was a good wife to her husband and a good mother to her daughter. My mother’s cover was that she was a victim of rape when in fact, everything actually happened because of her.
What was the worst that could have happened if she had told her husband that she once dated his best friend? What was the worst that could have happened if she told him that he tried to kiss her on their date? What was the worst that could have happened if she didn’t let him fuck the headache out of her?
So many things could have been avoided if only she had just talked to her husband about it. So many things could have been the way they used to be if only she had just closed her damn legs.