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‘What thing is so big that you won’t be around for a long time? I’m fourteen now, you can tell me.’
“It’s something from my past that I have to clean,” he sighed at my twisted answer. “You’ll be fine, trust me. I’d never put your life in danger, you know it. You’ll adjust with them just the way you adjusted with me.”
‘I’m not adjusting with anybody. I will never love them, or call them mother and father.I’m only doing this for my sister.’He signed with a stern look on his face and I nodded.
I knew he was hurt, the tears welling up his eyes were evidence of that.
“Kendal…” I started, but he sniffed and looked at me.
‘Don’t lie, are we a burden on you?’
“What!? No, you are not a burden on me, you are my brother and Ariana is my sister. I am protecting you, that’s all.” He nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t listening to me, or maybe he didn’t believe me. “You can always trust me to come see you anytime you want me to.”
‘I’ll talk to Ariana, she might hate you.’ I nodded. I'd be shocked if she wasn’t mad.
“Do you?” He nodded immediately and I smiled before dramatically grabbing my heart. “Even my own brother hates me.” He pushed his tongue in the corner of his mouth to stop himself from smiling.
I ruffled his hair and sighed. I just wanted them to be safe and free from everything going on around me. I would be ashamed of myself if I ever got them caught up in the same web I got caught in.
‘I really don’t want to get adopted by anybody, can’t we stay with you?’ He signed after a few minutes of silence. I looked at him and tears were falling from his eyes. My heart clenched when I saw he wasn’t wiping them, he was just letting them fall.
“Kendal…” I trailed off.
‘Why can’t we ever have a normal life? Why should we get adopted just because you’re going somewhere? We will stay here and when you return from your big thing, we’ll live together again. Please don’t let anybody adopt us.”
I shut my eyes and inhaled. There was nothing else I could do. Kendal said no, so it was a no.
Cedric and his sons would have to get past me to lay a finger on them. I placed my index finger under his chin. “Hey look at me.” He looked up at me. “I guess you won’t be getting adopted.” His eyes lit up as he raised his eyebrows at me, and I smiled and nodded. He pulled me in a hug and I wrapped my hands around him.
And just like that, I couldn’t go through with it. I sighed. It’s okay, I'd been protecting them before I started the Antonios mission. It was nothing different, I could do it.
I should go. I still had to see Gideon and Yusuf for the next plan, and I still had a three-hour-drive back home. I pulled away and passed him the four bags of groceries I got. “Is your housekeeper nice?”
He shrugged and nodded, earning a frown. ‘I was just teasing you, she’s cool. She even knows sign language, can you believe that?’
“Yes I can believe that, I employed her.” He facepalmed himself, laughing.
I had made sure the keeper I employed would be able to speak to both Kendal and Ariana without being dependent on someone to translate for her and luckily, I found just the right one.
“I have to go.”
‘Ariana will kill you when she finds out you came.’
“Then don’t tell her. Ah the groceries… just tell her it rained groceries from Heaven.” He laughed and I smiled at his cute giggles.
I stood up and he stood up after me. He carried the four bags of groceries in his hands and shook his head. He tried to drop the bags to sign, but I stopped him. “I didn’t need to buy this much, since you only started last week?” I said the words for him and he nodded, throwing his hands.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “Can I go now?” He nodded and I watched him enter his dorm before leaving. I entered my car and saw the earbud on the seat. I picked it up and drove off.
Curious of what Jayden could be doing, or curious to know if he had disconnected the earbud, I put it in my ear.
“That’s not even a question, John.”
“It is and you haven’t answered,”John replied, and I wondered curiously, what question?
“Of course I love her, you know I do. I have loved her for years. I have searched for her for years, I have imagined a lot of dangers she could be in. I have punished myself for everything over and over again in the hopes that it would make her come back. I have cried over the thoughts that she could have died that night. I don’t have to tell you that I have tried to commit suicide, we met when you saved me from jumping off a building.”
“You don’t know how it feels, John. I love this girl so much, it’s driving me crazy. Now that I found her, I want to glue my hand to hers. I want to be imprinted on her skin, I want her to order me around. I want her to tell me to kill my brothers and make her watch how I put bullets through their skulls. I want to die for her and at the same time I want to live for her. Even you know that if everything was normal, our story would be one hell of a true love trope.”