Page 20

CHAPTER 20

MOURNING A SECOND TIME

Nadira

I gasp and shoot up in bed. The residual effects of the dream that’s not a dream but a memory remain clear and terrifying as I try to catch my breath. I barely notice the lack of headache that accompanies these dreams because, for the first time, everything is vividly clear. My mother’s copper brown skin and light brown eyes filled with affection. My father’s soulful black eyes and full lips always on the brink of smiling. And the men who took me from my loving family.

“Nadira?”

When did I fall asleep?

“Nadira!” Julian’s voice penetrates the despair surrounding me. He holds my face between his large hands while concern brackets his mouth.

I blink until he comes into focus. Then I search his eyes, but I don’t know what I’m looking for. From the letter I found at his house, I knew I was abducted, but it felt alien then. As if another child went through the horrors and I experienced the events as a bystander. Not anymore.

Julian presses his forehead against mine. “You’re okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Y stands for Yolanda,” I say, shocking him into releasing me.

A fleeting smile disappears from his lips. “ I want to think you gaining another memory is good, but from your reaction, it’s not all roses, is it?”

I shake my head and get out of bed. I’ve spent longer with Julian than I should have and need to return to my suite before my friends wake. “I remember the men who took me from my parents.” When he moves as if to comfort me, I stall him with an upraised hand. “Don’t. I need to process what I’m feeling before I can accept comfort.”

He firms his lips but ultimately accepts my decision with a nod.

“Thank you,” I say before retrieving my discarded clothes, including the robe I left at the door.

“Here.” Julian hands me a set of pajamas and I smile my gratitude.

If anyone catches me sneaking into my room, at least I won’t have to clutch my robe in fear of exposing my tits and pussy. At the door, I pause and glance back at Julian. He must be fighting something fierce because his expression betrays the conflict inside him. Instead of leaving, I return to him, cup his cheek, and press a soft kiss against his lips.

“If you’re worried about things changing between us because of what I remembered, don’t. I’ll see you again, tonight.”

Relief loosens the tense muscles in his face, and he nods. “Until tonight.”

Leaving Julian after so many highs is harder than I expected. As soon as the door closes behind me, I want to use my key and run into his arms, but I won’t use him as a crutch to forget my problems. But when I enter the suite I share with Moni, Danae, Tamara, and Chelsea, I don’t have time to examine my fresh memory.

Chelsea flicks the light switch before I arrive at my door. She has her arms folded and her aura of silent judgment screams at me to confess my sins.

“You’re up early,” I say.

“Don’t even play with me. Are we having this discussion here so everyone who wakes up hears us or in a bedroom where we have privacy?”

I nod toward her door and follow behind her.

“Where were you tonight?” she demands. “Heels like those mean you went places.”

If she only knew.

“What’s with the interrogation this early in the morning?”

“Are you serious right now?”

I give her a blank look.

She retrieves her phone and shoves it in my face. On the screen is an article about a missing couple.

“What does this have to do with me?”

“Nadira, these are the people Tamara said assaulted her.”

“They are?” I feign surprise and take her phone to peruse the article with more interest. I hand Chelsea the phone and shrug. “I don’t see what that has to do with me.”

“You don’t feel sorry for them?”

“Assuming they didn’t just leave town on a trip, why should I? You saw what they did to Tamara. Anyone who throws hands at my friends deserves the fate they get.”

For a moment, Chelsea’s stare feels more like she’s probing me for something, and if she seeks long enough, she’ll find what she’s searching for.

“Why’re you looking at me like that?” I back away.

Her expression clears. “I guess there’s something different about you, but I can’t figure out what it is.”

Since it’s a toss-up between phenomenal dick and a dream memory, neither of which I intend to tell anyone before I’m ready, I shrug. “Can’t help you there. So if there’s nothing else?—”

“Who said there was nothing else? I’m still waiting to know where you’ve been tonight.”

I turn around to leave. “That pesky curiosity. Shoot that bitch and get some sleep, because she’ll die unsatisfied before I tell you where I’ve been.”

“Damn, Nadira, that’s cold.”

I send her a smile to take the bite out of my comment. “And you should warm up in bed, if only for five minutes before everyone wakes up.”

When I leave Chelsea’s bedroom, I come to a full stop. Moni, Tamara, and Danae are awake and have replicated Chelsea’s pose from when she caught me sneaking in.

“We awake,” Moni says in her bonnet and fluffy slippers she bought while we shopped yesterday. “And we want to know why you’re carrying—” She snatches the bundled garments from my hands before I can stop her. “Lace stockings, a bustier, garter straps, high heels…and crotchless panties? Girl, you got some splaining to do.”

“Did Moni say crotchless panties?” Danae asks.

Tamara gasps. “That’s what I heard. You heard that, too right Chelsea?”

I swing around to see Chelsea standing at her opened door with a stunned expression.

“The man from your office?” Dawning horror takes over her face before she replaces the emotion with amazement.

But I’m stuck on Chelsea’s initial reaction.

“I want some details! Tea and errthing to go along with it; sandwiches, cookies, scones, muffins. I want it all.” Moni retrieves the basket of baked goods the hotel replaces daily and pinches a corner off a Snickerdoodle cookie.

“Wait, when did you have time to buy crotchless panties? And why is no one else shocked that our Nadira is a closet freak?” Danae glances at everyone with her eyebrows raised in what-the-fuck-is going-on-here-ish.

When the other ladies turn equally incredulous glares at me, I cover my mouth and pretend to yawn. “I better get some shuteye.” I spin toward my bedroom, but Chelsea beats me.

“You’ve been outvoted, and we’re not letting you get away without giving us something.” Chelsea nods toward the other women.

“Damn right.” Moni pops the rest of her cookie into her mouth and folds her arms like a prison guard daring the inmates to riot.

But I’m the only inmate here. I have few qualms in life, but I draw the line at hurting my friends. I have to remind myself of this as I eye their weak points, sure I can take every one of them out. Damn, friendships really know how to hamper my privacy.

“I know!” Danae says. “Since y’all are ditching me for Christmas, come over to my place for Thanksgiving.” She points a finger at me. “And don’t think you can show up on my doorstep without that man. We need to vet him, and make sure he’s good enough.”

“We aren’t at the meeting of friends and family stage yet.”

They are deaf to my protests.

“If you’re at the sneaking-out-on-our-girl-time stage, you’re at the time-to-introduce-him-to-your-girls stage.” Tamara’s firmness speaks for everyone.

“And don’t think you can cop out by claiming business travel.” Chelsea’s determination shines brightly through her eyes.

Seeing no way out, for now, I land on one thing to bide my time. “If that’s the case, I’m not spilling anything until Thanksgiving.”

A collective, “What?” resounds in the room. Then a chorus of “Ah, hell no,” “Is this chick really trying us today,” “No the fuck she didn’t just cut us off,” and “Nadira?” comes all at once, making it difficult to distinguish which protest comes from which person.

“I said what I said. And if I hear another word asking, needling, or imagining things about my love life, I’m leaving. I’ve drawn a line, don’t cross it.”

Chelsea is the first to back down and move away from my door.

“Well, damn,” someone whispers behind my back before I close the door and sink to the floor.

I feel awful for shutting them down, but I’ve barely held myself together since leaving Julian and I need time alone to think. I don’t know when I’ll be okay or if I’ll bounce back, but suppressing my feelings could lead to unknown dangers. It’s a hard lesson I learned as I recovered from my accident.

The hours pass and I don’t turn on any of the lights in the room, don’t leave to eat, don’t sleep… I sit against the door and silently weep as I mourn the life stolen from me and the family that raised me. The version of myself in my memory is not the child I remember from being in the hospital. I used to be quick with the smiles and physically affectionate. I used to be a genius. The reason for me starting at a new school was at six years old, I understood concepts middle schoolers struggled to grasp. So much of my life ended because those men stole me from people who loved me.

A soft knock on the door reminds me where I am.

“Nadira?” Chelsea’s whisper is full of concern.

I wipe my face but the puffiness will betray that I’ve been crying. Weary from the emotional toil, I drag myself off the floor and open the door.

Chelsea holds a plate of chocolate cake. “Can I come in?”

I eye the dessert, knowing Chelsea’s generosity ends at everything chocolate, so this offer is big. With a nod, I step aside and let her in.

She sets the cake on the nightstand and returns to lead me onto the bed where she tucks me in before joining me. She hands me the plate and produces two forks. When I quirk my brow, she says, “Cut me some slack. I’m growing. Don’t they say sharing is caring?”

A ghost of a smile whispers across my face before I fork some of the dessert into my mouth.

“Are you crying over that man? Is that why you shut us down?”

I shake my head. “You know I don’t cry over men, I get angry.”

“True, but if he’s not the reason, what’s got you isolating yourself?”

I rest my fork on the plate while I consider if and what to share.

“We’re all worried about you.”

I draw my legs up to hug them to my chest, then I rest my cheek against my knees. “I dreamt about my parents.”

Chelsea’s eyes widen but I can’t identify the underlying emotion behind her reaction. When she clears her expression, I wonder, not for the first time, if she’s hiding something from me.

“That sounds like a big deal. What happened in the dream?”

“A man with a mole by his nose and a driver took me from my parents.” I study Chelsea’s reaction, but she gives me nothing.

“So you had a nightmare.”

I shrug. “I guess… The funny thing is, it wasn’t just a dream. I finally have a memory from before my accident, and it’s nowhere near the joyous occasion I expected.”

Although I have a curated identity, I keep a lot of details as close to the truth as possible. Chelsea knows about the car crash and that I was in an orphanage. From there, my life is a meticulous work of fiction Chelsea has never questioned.

“How—that’s still amazing. What else do you remember?”

Chelsea’s earnestness is on another level. She almost reminds me of… A vision of braided hair in beads flashes in my mind, but it’s too vague for me to place.

“Nadira? Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know…” I frown while trying to hold onto the fleeting image. When it refuses to take shape, I shake my head and stare at her with a furrowed brow. “Did we ever know each other as kids?”