Page 11

Leah

Yesterday was one of the most emotional days Leah had experienced in a while.

She’d replayed the moment over in her head when she first saw Nova.

Then she thought of the look Nova had when Quinton walked into the room.

It was as if someone had flipped a switch inside her and caused her whole face to light up.

It was a look Leah would never forget. The look of a woman who was finally reunited with the man she loved.

In addition to the guilt that had settled inside her and made itself at home, Leah also grappled with two new feelings that she hated even more than guilt—fear and inadequacy.

From the very beginning, Leah and Quinton’s relationship had been overshadowed by the amazing one he had with Nova.

Some of Leah’s family members, including her mom, warned her that Quinton could’ve been using her as a replacement for the woman he really wanted but couldn’t have.

Leah dismissed their words of warning. She ignored the nagging feeling that questioned if they were right and convinced herself they were all ridiculous.

But after yesterday, Leah wasn’t so sure anymore.

When Quinton walked into that room, his gaze never left Nova.

He made Leah feel invisible, and he’d never made her feel that way before.

It was almost ten o’clock before they left the hospital last night.

Everyone was exhausted and just wanted to find the nearest hotel and sleep.

Everyone except Martha, who refused to leave Nova’s side.

Leah was too tired to convince her mom to come with them so she could get a good night’s sleep.

Not that it would’ve done any good. If Martha felt anything like Leah, then nothing, including a comfortable bed, would offer a good night’s sleep.

Leah reached over and picked up her phone from the nightstand.

It was three in the morning. She turned over, expecting to see Quinton sleeping beside her, but his side was empty.

She didn’t have to think twice about his whereabouts.

Whenever Quinton had a lot on his mind he always went to the gym.

He said working out helped him to think better, and Leah could tell he had a lot to think about after his conversation with Nova.

He looked like he had the weight of fifteen years on his shoulders.

Skye was in the adjacent room, hopefully sleeping a lot better than Leah and Quinton were. When Leah pushed her door open, she was surprised to see Skye in bed with the light of her cell phone shining in her face.

“Hey, what are you doing up?” Leah asked.

“The door woke me up. I got up to see if something had happened and if y’all were going back to the hospital, but you were still in bed, so I figured Dad must’ve been going downstairs to work out. I couldn’t go back to sleep after that.”

“I must’ve been more out of it than I thought. I didn’t even hear him leave,” Leah said, walking farther into the room and taking a seat on the bed next to Skye. “Well, since you’re up. How are you feeling about all of this?”

“Okay, I guess.” Skye laid her phone down. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. I’ve never had a mom come back to life before.”

Leah chuckled. “Technically, you still haven’t, since someone has to be dead to come back to life.”

“You know what I mean. To us, she was dead, and now she’s back.”

Leah nodded. “This is true.”

“I do want to get to know her, though. She’s always been like this fairy tale that I’ve heard stories about but never seen in person. I feel like I know her, but not really. Does that make sense?”

“Of course. You know her because of what you’ve heard, but you want to get to know her for yourself.”

“Yeah.”

“But, honey, I also want you to remember that the Nova you heard about isn’t the same Nova that you met yesterday.

The Nova you used to hear about would’ve run to that door and picked me and Mama up and spun us around, and the nurses would’ve had to come in and tell her to keep it down.

It didn’t matter where she was, her inside voice didn’t work. ”

“You say the same thing about me.”

Leah nodded. “That’s right, I do.”

“I don’t expect her to be the same as she used to be. I just want to know who she is now.” Skye yawned.

Leah was grateful that the room was dim, and Skye couldn’t see the unease that Leah was sure showed all over her face.

Skye’s playful, just-want-to-have-fun personality was a lot like Nova’s used to be.

Leah wondered how long it would take before parts of the old Nova resurfaced and she and Skye formed a relationship that didn’t have room for Leah.

Leah leaned over and kissed Skye’s forehead. “Get some rest. I’m going to walk down to check on your dad.”

“Okay.” Skye adjusted her pillow. “Teeah?”

“Yeah?” Leah’s hand rested on the doorknob as she turned back to Skye.

“You’re okay with me getting to know her, right?”

Leah’s hand tightened around the doorknob, the cool metal grounding her as she worked to keep her composure.

“Of course, sweetie,” Leah managed to say, her voice steady despite the storm churning inside her.

“Good,” Skye said before turning her phone off and snuggling underneath the covers.

Once she was back in her room, Leah quickly washed up and dressed before going downstairs.

She walked through the dimly lit lobby, where a heavyset middle-aged woman with a long black weave sat behind the desk.

Leah offered her a smile that wasn’t returned.

It was almost four in the morning, after all.

In the gym, which was smaller than Leah and Quinton’s bedroom, she expected to find Quinton working out with the fierceness of a madman, but that wasn’t what she saw. Quinton sat on the weight bench with his head lowered, looking like a man who’d been defeated.

The sight of him caught Leah off guard. Quinton was someone who tackled challenges head-on.

In fact, he looked more relaxed after the flood of 2016 damaged over one hundred thousand homes and businesses in Baton Rouge and other areas in Louisiana.

The flood was so catastrophic that the governor called it a historic, unprecedented event.

Quinton’s insurance agency was inundated with claims, putting intense pressure on the limited manpower he had at the time.

Leah and Skye barely saw him for weeks. And still, he didn’t look as overwhelmed as he did now.

Walking closer, Leah felt a tightness in her chest, as a thousand questions raced through her mind; the main one and the one she couldn’t stop asking herself was if Nova’s return brought back old feelings and he didn’t know how to break the news to Leah.

“Hey,” Quinton said when he lifted his head, and their eyes met.

Leah pointed to the sign. “The gym’s closed.”

“I know. I asked Rochelle if it was okay, and she said she didn’t care,” he said as if Leah knew Rochelle.

“Rochelle?”

“The receptionist.”

“Makes sense. She looked like she couldn’t care less about anything at this hour.”

Quinton straightened his back. “Speaking of time, why aren’t you sleeping?”

“I could ask you the same question.” Leah sat on the bench next to Quinton.

For a moment, they sat in silence while Leah reminded herself that Nova wasn’t the only one who’d suffered.

Quinton had lived through his own kind of trauma, struggling with the loss and uncertainty of Nova’s fate, not to mention the guilt of not being there to save her.

It was more likely that Quinton was submerged in memories and not feelings.

And those memories didn’t hold any weight to the reality of the life they were committed to living together.

“It was Lance,” Quinton said, breaking the silence. He turned his body, so he and Leah were both facing the same way, but his eyes didn’t meet hers.

Oh God. Leah’s body tensed at the mention of Lance’s name. “What was Lance?”

“The argument Nova and I had that night. It was about Lance.”

Leah couldn’t breathe. “What?” That one word took everything she had in her to push out.

“I didn’t say anything because I knew y’all would blame me.

Hell, I blamed me, but you and your parents were the only family I had left in Bayou, and I knew how important it was for Nova for Skye to grow up around her family.

I couldn’t uproot her and move to Texas to be close to Renee.

It wasn’t like we’d see her much anyway.

” Quinton paused as if he realized that talking about his mom was veering off track.

“I’m sorry, Leah. I know I should’ve told you, but I didn’t know how. ”

They always knew that Nova and Quinton had an argument, and that was the reason she’d left the hotel room that night, but Quinton told them that it was about money.

It made sense to Leah because Nova had already expressed how they were barely making ends meet and they were both stressed out about it.

“I don’t understand. Why were you fighting about Lance? He and Nova weren’t even friends anymore.”

“That’s what I thought, too, but apparently, she’d been talking with him behind my back.”

Did Leah know about that and forgot? No, she definitely would’ve remembered.

That was a huge deal between Leah and Quinton.

In fact, Quinton was so against Nova’s friendship with Lance that he had been willing to walk away from their relationship.

He didn’t trust Lance, and hated that Nova was so close to him.

“How did you find out that they’d been talking?

Did Nova tell you, or did you hear it from someone else?

” Leah asked, because it wouldn’t have surprised her if it was secondhand information.

That was one of the reasons Leah didn’t want to live in Bayou.

She loved the small-town feel but hated the small-town gossip.

“No, she told me. That weekend was about putting our relationship back together, and she said she didn’t want there to be any secrets between us.”

“So, she and Lance just talked on the phone or something?” Leah asked.

“I don’t know. I guess, but that’s not the point.

She knew how I felt about Lance, and she was talking with him behind my back.

Needless to say, I didn’t take it well at all.

We both said things we shouldn’t have, and she left.

Everything inside of me screamed that I should go after her, but my stupid pride wouldn’t let me.

I sat in that room, watching TV while she was being kidnapped.

” The veins in Quinton’s neck popped out.

He looked over at Leah again. “You think she’ll ever forgive me? ”

Leah moved closer to Quinton. “I think she’s already forgiven you. The question is if you can forgive yourself.”

Quinton shook his head. “I don’t know if I can. I thought I had, but now that Nova’s back and hearing everything that she’s gone through ... How am I supposed to forgive myself?”

“You have to find a way. Holding on to this isn’t doing anyone any good.”

“And then . . .” Quinton paused.

“And then what?”

“It’s not just the guilt for not being there for her, but ...” He swallowed. “We have such a good life. We’ve accomplished so much, and before now, I thought Nova was in heaven, looking down on us and smiling because we were happy, you know. But now ...”

“You feel guilty that she was locked up and we moved on.” Leah knew what he felt because she felt it too.

He nodded.

“But we had no choice but to move on. You know that, right?”

At least that was what she kept reminding herself. Her words didn’t seem like they were getting through to Quinton any more than they’d gotten through to her. But then, she thought of the one thing that would help both of them to see things in a different light.

“We also have to remember Skye. She needed all of us at our best. What kind of life would she have had if everyone she depended on had shut down and given up? You moved on because you had no choice. None of us had a choice, and we have to believe that Nova will understand that.”