Second Thoughts (7 page)

“Not a damn thing would have happened,” I whispered to myself, “you have better self-control than that.”

Or did I? I wiped my face with my facecloth that hung behind the bathroom door, and applied my moisturizer. I hoped the lack of sleep didn’t show on my face.

I walked out of the bathroom and stood at the bed staring at my lil man who was still sound asleep. Usually, he would have been up at the crack of dawn, asking for milk and cereal. When I picked him up last night from his nightmare, his heart was pounding, his hair was wet from perspiration, and he was breathing rapidly. He’d held on tightly to my neck with his legs wrapped around me, like he was hanging on for life. This wasn’t like him. He’d kept his eyes tightly shut, and begged me not to leave him. When I got to my room, I’d kissed his forehead, swept his hair from his face, and planted a kiss on my angel.

It seemed the only thing that would calm my nerves this morning was a good, hearty breakfast. I opened the door slowly as if I were breaking some curfew. The last person I wanted to r
un into was Dillon─last night’s run-in was enough. When I entered the kitchen, he stood with his back towards me pouring a cup full of coffee. I turned to leave, but it was like this man had eyes in the back of his head.

“Rough night?” he asked, removing h
is mug from under the spout of the stainless steel coffee maker. 

“I guess. Unlike you, I have a conscience,” I charged. 

“Is that what you call it?”

He handed me the mug of coffee he had prepared and started to pour another for himself.

“Was that what stopped you last night, your conscience?”

I accepted his offering and stood beside him with my back against the counter. I kept my eyes in my mug, keeping them from straying in his direction. Though he still had on his silk pajama bottoms, he had covered his hard pectorals with a white v-neck t-shirt. It hugged every ripple in his torso and stopped just where his pajamas began. 

“Does Devine Intervention sound better?” I answered, bringing the mug to my lips.

Though I wouldn’t look at him, I could feel him now looking at me.

“’Cause we both knew what we were…”

“Tell me why you won’t look me in my eyes,” he interrupted.

“Cause you know what it does to me,” I said, finally allowing my eyes to meet his. “Wait,” I said, as if I had just been bitch-slapped back to my senses. “Look, Dillon. What happened between us last night simply cannot happen again.”

I walked to the other side of the island to distant myself from Dillon.

“But…”

“What can’t happen again?” Vanessa broke in.

She had just rounded the corner and into the kitchen. She walked over to the counter where Dillon stood and removed the second mug of coffee he had just poured for himself.

“Thanks,” she said, and then took a sip from her mug. “So, what can’t happen again?” she continued.

Dillon and I stood, looked each other and then at Nessa. There was so much truth in silence.
Say something, fool
, I thought. I wished he could read my eyes, but he just stood there. I had to think quickly, and what came out of my mouth surprised me.

“I broke down last night telling Dillon about Mom.”

Vanessa quickly placed her mug on the table and walked over to me. With her hands on both of my arms, she pulled me into her. I cringed. My body stiffened. I slowly brought my arms up and rested the palms of my hands on her back.
This moment is going to come back and bite me in the ass,
I thought, staring at Dillon.  

“What made you bring her up last night?” she asked, finally releasing me.

She walked to the refrigerator and stood with both doors open. Dillon was still sta
nding
⎯
mute. His eyes said so much, and I prayed Nessa didn
’
t look at him.

“You haven’t talked about Mommy in years.” I stared at Dillon as I contemplated an escape.

“Every now and then, the image of her lifeless body lying in my arms comes to mind. Usual
ly I would deal with it, but for whatever reason, last night that same image became overwhelming.”

“You’ve been dealing with this since you were fifteen, Taylor, and you refuse to talk to anyone about it.”

“I talked to Dillon.”

Damn,
I thought. I was lying through my teeth, and she was falling for it.     

“I meant to a professional…like I did.”

“You never did mind telling your business to strangers.”

My coffee had become lukewarm, and interest in finishing it had left, along with the interest of continuing this conversation with Nessa.

“I just had a moment, that’s it.”

“Obviously, that’s not it.”

“Honey,” Dillon said, finally finding his words.

“Yes,” Vanessa answered. “Why don’t you come to the hospital on Thursday? You can speak to Dr. Reeves.”

She kept her focus on me.

“Nessa, seriously, that’s not even necessary.”

I despised having to use my mother’s final moments to hide my inappropriate behavior between my sister’s husband and myself. Yes, I was only fifteen years old when she passed. I’d sat on the living room floor with my mother’s head resting in my lap. I was helpless. I felt helpless. In a whisper I kept asking her, “Where is he?” But she couldn’t speak. Nothing I needed to hear came from her. The ambulance was on its way, and although I prayed they would hurry, I knew she would be gone before they arrived. I pleaded with her, “Mom, please don’t leave without telling me,” but all she did was stare up at me with big wide eyes. I’d stroked her face with the back of my hand, but I could feel her getting cold as she slipped further and further away from life. “Mom, please. Don’t leave me,” I pleaded again, but before I could complete my last plea, my mother was gone.  

But I needed to think quickly, and thinking quickly meant coming up with something my sister would believe, though I wasn’t quite convinced she believed everything she heard.

“I’ll speak to her this evening and…”

“Nessa, stop it. There you go trying to take care of everything again.” I snapped.

“Fine,” Vanessa agreed, looked at Dillon and then at me with curiosity, “I just don’t want last night to happen again.”

That makes two of us,
I thought.

“It won’t,” I said aloud.

I directed my response at Dillon. I walked out of the kitchen with my eyes fixed on him. You know what they say: If you can’t stand the heat. 

I left Dillon and Vanessa in the kitchen. I walked to my room feeling double shame. Not only had I lied to my sister again, I had used unresolved feelings about my mother’s death to worm my way out of the possibility of Vanessa finding out about the desires I still had for her husband, or the desires he still had for me.

When I walked into the bedroom, Quinton was still asleep in the center of the bed. I walked over to the dresser and stood looking at my reflection in the mirror. I didn’t like the person staring back at me. The woman who had come between DaMarcus and Belinda looked at me with menacing eyes.
You’re never satisfied,
I thought.
Are you going to do the same thing to your sister’s marriage?

“You had your chance with him,” I spoke aloud, trying to convince myself.

“Taylor,” Vanessa interrupted.

Her interruption startled me.

“Can I talk to you?”

“Come in,” I directed, but Vanessa was already on the inside of the door, and I hadn’t even noticed.

I tried not to look at her as if I was wondering if she were reading my thoughts, or if she had heard my last remark.

“I wanted to talk to you last night. I knocked on your door but you never responded. It was late, so you were probably asleep. Don’t know why I thought you’d still be awake.” 

“Is everything ok?”

I turned to face Nessa with my back towards the mirror.

“I lost a patient last night.”

“Oh my God, Nessa! I’m sorry.”

I walked over to her and hugged her tightly, something I wished I had the nerve to do last night.

She sat on the bed, in the same place where she’d sat in my dream.

“It’s okay. She was expected to go at anytime. I just didn’t know anytime was going to be last night.”

I sat next to Vanessa and listened to her tell me about the patient she’d watched for years as tumors went from benign to malignant, and eventually she’d lost a hard-fought battle. I watched her tear up, and she leaned her head on my shoulder. And this was the relationship I was threatening with an infatuation I still had for Dillon. Vanessa always seemed to get attached to the patients she knew wouldn’t be around too long. I don’t know how she did it.

“She’s in a better place now, right?” I said, hoping my words would console her.

“God, I hope so.”

She looked at me and laughed. “Are you able to do lunch today?”

“Sure. I can get away from the office for a few.”

“Good,” Nessa said.

She got up and began walking towards the door.

“I’ll call or text you later.”

“Okay.”

I sat on the bed, and with this new information, I began to plan my day. I turned looking at Quinton who should be awake by now, but he was still dead to the world.

“Hey,” Nessa interrupted.

I turned to look in her direction.

“Earlier, just before I asked if I could talk to you, you said ‘you had your chance with him’. Who were you talking about?”

I looked at her wide-eyed before responding.

“DaMarcus.”

“Wait, are you still thinking about him?”

“From time to time. I mean, that is his son,” I said, tilting my head in Quinton’s direction.

He was just starting to wake. After the night he’s had, I wasn’t surprised he had slept that long. He had tossed and turned a few times, but still, his sleep remained uninterrupted. 

“Good point,” Nessa said, closing the door behind her.

Sometimes my mind works so fast, I can’t even keep up. I had to tell Nessa I was talking about DaMarcus. What was I supposed to do, tell her I was talking about the chance I had with her husband? I was determined to sweep my past and my present with Dillon under the rug, and if he had enough sense, he would do the same. That had been our plan. My sister may come across as the good wife or the good doctor, but she has the potential to be a vengeful bitch. Trust me. She’s my mother’s daughter and my sister. That blood is definitely in our veins.

Chapter
8

Patrick…

She Can’t Know

Chance’s phone call came in the middle of the
night, after I had finished my conversation with Jacoby. It followed his text asking me if I were asleep, and that he needed to talk. I hated phone calls or text messages that came in the middle of the night. They were never usually good news. Someone was either dead or had just gotten arrested. My conversation with Jacoby was still swirling around in my head, so falling asleep wasn’t the easiest thing.

“This better be good,” I answered, pissed because the only time Chance ever wanted to talk at this three o’clock hour was when he wanted me to help him figure out how to wiggle his way out of some shit.

I love my little brother, but I swear, sometimes I want to knock some sense into him.

“If you’re sleeping, it could wait until the morning.”

“Look, C. If it could’ve waited until morning, why the hell didn’t you just wait until then to text me? Stop playing games and tell me what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into this time.”

“I need your help, bro. I got myself into some shit defending someone.”

“You sound like a damn kid right now, Chance. What do you mean you got into some shit defending someone? Is this another one of you
r
piss-tailed girls?”

Chance didn’t respond.

“I’m tired of telling you, you’re an athlete, a goddamn professional. You need to be dating a lady, not some damn girl who’s going to be putting herself in a position for you to have to defend her. You have too much to lose. And who is this girl anyway?”

“Does it matter
?”

“It matters if you’re going to be getting yourself in trouble defending her.”

You live by the woman, you die by the woman. This had been Chance’s mantra since the girls─and now the ladies─started paying him attention. And just like I had done, even as a spectator at his high school games, I was always defending him. He was always reacting first and thinking later, and when it was time for him to think, it was usually too late─the damage had already been done. He was hotheaded and hot tempered, two of the
reasons I never told him what his father did to me. I also didn’t want him to look at me any different. I was the big brother he respected and came to for anything, and I didn’t want the news of what his father did to cause him to look at me as some fragile boy who couldn’t stop this man from raping me. If I have anything to do with it, Chance will never find out.