“Ain’t tired. I get cat naps.” I laughed and she shook her head.
“That’s going to catch up to you, Li.”
I laughed. “Probably, but not yet. You came back here to tell me you’re closing or what?”
She shook her head. “Nah, I have some new toys and figures you may wanna see about since you seem up for doing inventory with me tonight.”
I cackled. “I absolutely love how you threw that in there. Of course, why not.”
She left me to clean up the stall I had taken. It didn’t take me long because this was lowkey my normal motion and how I moved.
I met her in the back a few minutes later, setting my gun case on her desk.
“You spend more time around here and you know this place as well as I do. Why won’t you let me hire you?” she asked, inspecting a case in front of her.
“Because I promised Lee I’d help him while I’m home. You know he needs me over there.”
“Yeah, right. Now tell me again why you’re still home?” She popped the casing.
I shrugged. “I’m still healing.”Among other things.
“You look healed to me. Much better than you looked when you first came in here trying to shoot something.”
I laughed.
“Shoot it to me straight, Liora. I’m not your father or either of your sisters. I know you, even though you make it damn near impossible for anybody to do so. Stubborn ass.”
I shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. Not having trouble sleeping or any of that jazz. I sleep perfectly fine and I damn sure don’t have any of those trauma disorders. I’m good, but I feel like I’m missing something, like something in me is incomplete with all the work I’ve put in. I could have forced their hand and pushed through the PT and readiness testing, but there’s something about sitting still after ten years of constant motion. I feel like I’m missing something inside of me and going back ain’t gonna fill it.”
“What if it’s not something missing, but an opening for something new? For the last decade of your life, you have served everything and everybody but yourself.”
I shrugged again. “Maybe, but what if the only place I fit is in the service?”
“You don’t remotely believe that. If you did, you wouldn’t be here. You would’ve already been halfway across the damn country doing God knows what in those private spaces.”
Adela and I talked for a while as we did the shop's inventory and I checked out the new pieces.
It was refreshing to talk to somebody who somewhat knew what I was going through, rather than my sisters. While I loved them dearly, our heads were all in different places. Lauryn was in the stage of life where she was starting a family and setting into her career, plus she had never dreamed of leaving Briar South nor had she ever tried. Then there was Sissy, the baby. She was a twenty-four paramedic and mentally lived in Hollywood. With all that being said, there was no spilling the things in mybrain to them because they wouldn’t understand. We were too different and our lives were in different directions. Not only that, but they believed I had everything together. When in all actuality, that was the furthest thing from the truth. I hated that even my father believed I had it together most days because I really didn’t. I was literally hanging by a thread, taking it day by day, even in the moments when I didn’t know what was next.
It was five in the morning when I finally made it into the house. Too bad I wasn’t about to get any sleep because I needed to shower, wash my hair, and go to the shop. Ever since I came back, my father seemed to always need me, like he liked having me around so much that he made himself incompetent. I didn’t complain. Honestly, I’d missed him and my sisters when I was away. I missed the family unit I had been raised in even though I was always gone.
It didn’t take me long to shower and wash my hair. Then I put my hair in six braids so it could dry and be out of my face. I stared at myself in the mirror, faced with the same question I carried daily. I knew who I was when I was in motion, but in moments like this, who was I?
I couldn’t be normal because I didn’t move normally nor did I think that way. I convinced myself that I craved a life on the edge, but did I? I had been home for months and that life on the edge craving had my soul searing. I didn’t even know if it actually belonged to me. Who was I when I wasn’t doing the agency’s bidding and avoiding all attachments?
Once I was finished inspecting myself, I dressed for the day. I left my apartment about thirty minutes later and headed to the pawn shop. When I got there, I parked directly out front and went in.
My father stood at the window being nosy, watching whatever was happening outside, his glasses all the way up on his face.
“You look like you still ain’t sleeping, Liora.” His attention was seemingly outside even though he badgered me.
“I’m sleeping some.”
“You wanna talk about it?” he asked, turning to face me with concerned eyes.So maybe he doesn’t think I have it all together.
“What’s there to talk about? I’m fine. I’m just adjusting.”
He shook his head. “This is your home. Maybe the problem is that ten years you spent on the run has you behind on where you belong.”
