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Chapter Twenty-Three

Ilyana

“F reedom?” Tarek asks. His silvery eyes are full of curiosity. His voice is light, innocent.

“Come at my side let me give you something,” My fingers tremble as I unhook my necklace. The pendant feels warm in my palm. I motion for him to lean down and fasten it around his neck.

“I always see you with this. Where did you get it?”

“I took it from your father years ago.”

Tarek’s smile broadens as his fingers wrap around the pendant. “This is both yours and dad’s.”

“Mon tresor. I want you to promise me something,” I watch him return to his chair, still examining the pendant.

“What?” His eyes are bright and expectant.

“Never chase love. Never run after love. If someone loves you, they will stay,” I state, my voice hitches.

“Ugh, Mom. Love, really?” Tarek wrinkles his nose.

I nod. “While you search for love, never hurt the girls you don’t love.”

“Like a girlfriend?”

“Yes. If you realize you don’t love them, send them on their way with a gift,” I reach across the table and touch his hair.

“Like a chain?” he asks.

“Yes, a small token like a chain, always with an expensive stone like an emerald. Leave them with beauty. Promise me?”

He hesitates, then nods. “Okay, Mom, I promise.”

“Be respectful to your father. He is a good man,” I state.

“I will.”

“Create a career that your heart desires, not what the world tells you too.” I feel like crying.

“I want to be a chef.”

I lean out of my chair and kiss his forehead. “Then be the best chef the world has ever seen. I love you so much Mon Tresor.”

He smirks, still watching the pendant.

“Where is your cell phone?” I ask. He pulls out his Nokia from his pocket. I take mine from my handbag.

“Let’s play a little game. It’s about love.”

“How do you play?”

“I will call your father then hang up. Then you will do the same. Whoever he calls first wins,” I already begin typing out the number, it shows up on a green screen.

“What kind of game is that?”

“A fun one,” I reply.

He frowns “What does the winner get?”.

“Life,” I reply

“And the loser?”

I dial and hang up. He does the same.

“Freedom.”

The phone rings and it’s Tarek. My heart drops because I wish it was my phone he called.

“Hi, Dad, no mom and I were just eating cake.” He grins at me and continues talking to his father. He doesn’t see the small gun I place under my chin. I close my eyes.

“Mom?”

“Goodbye. Mon Tresor.” I give him a smile.

Then I feel the hot steel against my skin. My world tilts. My body folds sideways weightless. Light fractures. Sounds thin. Tarek is screaming, shaking me. His voice breaks through the blur, then fades. Each second pulls me farther from him. My vision narrows. My breath slows. Then silence. Stillness. For the first time in my life my mind is quiet. My soul exhales, finally I am free.

* * *

TAREK–8 months

I don’t know how to begin so all I do is say. “Treasure.”

Seeing her in tears hurts me deeper than I expected.

“What is this?” she asks.

Across the room my mother’s old cabinet gapes open, boxes spilling out. My condoms are on the floor. Some of the pills laid opened. My life, laid bare in a cabinet.

I didn’t tell her that, how do I explain the thoughts associated with this cabinet.

“Say fucking something Tarek?” Penny whispers, she wipes her tears away but they keep coming.

“About the cabinet or the chain in your hand?” I ask. I’m trying to be calm, but I feel exposed. Violated.

“The chains,” Penny weighs them in her hand.

“They’re tokens. For the women I’ve ended things with.” I reply, digging my hand in my pockets.

“You gave me a necklace,” she states.

“I know.”

Part of me wants to beg for her forgiveness. Scream that I love her, that she not like the others. The other part reminds me if they love you they will stay. Never beg, never plead for someone’s love.

“Is that all you have to say?” She asks, her hands grip the end of the bed.

“Ask the questions that you need answered Penny?”

“Why did you give me the necklace? Were you going to break up with me?”

I hesitate “Yes and no.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means I thought I would. But then I didn’t. Because I love you.”

“But you kept the cabinet as a sort of insurance. Just in case,” she replies.

“There is no fucking just in case.” My voice sounds harsher coming out.

She laughs. “No? Then why the fuck is it full of necklaces? Who are they for? Your future lovers.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Don’t I?” she cries. “I have seen this play before Tarek, and I’m not signing up for the lead role.”

I grind my teeth. “I am not your fucking dad Penny.”

Penny recoils “No, but you are exactly like your mom.”

Shots fired, all gloves are off. I step closer to her, my jaw is tight. “You know nothing about my mother.”

She doesn’t flinch. “I know enough to know that she didn’t stick around, and you may do the same to me and my babies.” I feel like someone punched me in my stomach.

My breath stalls as my rage passes through me. How could she think that I would do that?

“Meanwhile you are still trying to prove yourself to your dead mother,” I look down in her eyes feeling happy that they are watering. I want her to feel the pain that she gave me. “Still trying to have your real mother acknowledge you.”

She lifts herself from the bed. “You know nothing about me or my fucking dead mother.”

“No, I do know about your parents. I constantly have to prove myself to you because of them. Over and fucking over again.” My insides are clawing trying to stop me, but I am also filled with rage.

Penny throws the necklaces at my feet. “Meanwhile you are searching for love from different people, a love you should have gotten from your parents.”

A bitter chortle leaves me. “But my parents wanted me. See the difference.”

Her sharp inhale is the only sound in the room. For the first time she falters.

Fuck, I went too far. We should stop; we need to stop. But something in me won’t let it go. I reach for her hand, and she jerks away.

Her voice is quiet, breaking “You were never the kind of man I wanted to love in the first place.

God that hurt but for my own sanity I need to end this shit show. “I can’t keep fighting you for a love that you think wasn’t meant for me.”

The room becomes quiet, and we both stand in pain. She pulls off her ring and rests it in my hand. “I think it’s best that I leave.”

I say nothing, I want to scream at her, I want to kneel and beg her to stay. But I can’t. I just squeeze the ring, warming it in my hand.

She waddles to the door and stops. “I’m sorry, Tarek. I just want…peace.”

I can’t look at her. “If I couldn’t give you peace while loving you, maybe I can by letting you go. Walter will take you home.”

Just like that she was gone. I just stood there, praying that she would come back. That she would say that we were both wrong. But she doesn’t come back, like everyone else I love she left me behind.