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“Jessica, what’s wrong?” Myla asked, alarm heavy in her voice.

As long as she had known Jessica, she had never burst into a therapy session. She wouldn’t reprimand Jessica for this because she was appreciative of the distraction from the uncomfortableness between her and Teresa.

“Myla, there’s an officer on the phone for you. She said she couldn’t reach Heaven’s parents, and you were listed as her emergency contact. Myla, Heaven has been in an accident.”

“What?!”

The sound that escaped from Myla’s mouth was unrecognizable to her ears. Agony and true devastation made it impossible for her to breathe. Myla tried to stand, but her body betrayed her. She fell to the floor when her legs buckled. For some reason, the legs she walked on every day could not support her body weight.

Without a word, Teresa got up and left. She was living in her own agony and didn’t care to witness her psychologists. Neither Myla nor Jessica noticed her absence. Jessica struggled to help Myla up from the floor, but it was impossible; Myla was dead weight.

The only thing Jessica could do was answer the call and give the phone to her because picking her up wasn’t going to happen.

“Hello, Officer. Ma’am. Here’s Dr. Pleasant,” Jessica said before handing Myla the phone.

“Where is she? What happened? God, please tell me Heaven is okay! God, please!” Myla screamed as she gripped her office phone so tightly that she thought it would break. Her fingers ached, but she didn’t care. Her only concern was Heaven.

“Myla, it’s me.”

The voice was low, familiar, and masculine. Myla’s brain couldn’t understand what was happening. She heard Jessica say that a woman officer was on the phone. She was positive that she heard her say she and ma’am. Confusion threatened to short-circuit her brain.

“Heaven? Where’s Heaven? Is she ok?”

“Myla, it’s me, Dante. This was the only way I could get you to talk to me.”

She still couldn’t understand.

“Are you at the hospital with Heaven? Where’s Mimi? Where’s Dakota? Put Heaven on the phone!” Myla’s voice cracked. Nothing had ever felt as bad as this.

“Heaven is not in the hospital. I am. I kept calling you, and you wouldn’t answer. Having a nurse call you and mention someone else was the only way I could get you to talk to me.”

Myla lost it.

“You sick son of a bitch! How fucking could you? Because I didn’t answer my phone, you had a nurse call me and say that she was a police officer and say someone else was involved in an accident. What type of hospital official would do that? You thought it was ok to make me think that Heaven was…” She couldn’t even finish the sentence. The thought of Heaven being alone and mangled in a car brought her to her knees.

“I’ve been trying to reach you for weeks. I’ve sent flowers to your job. You wouldn’t respond. I didn’t have a choice.”

Myla was floored. She could not believe Dante’s way of thinking. She couldn’t understand how he thought that it was ok to make up a lie because things weren’t going his way. He hadn’t even thrown in an ‘I’m sorry’; it was simply, I didn’t have a choice as if that excused his behavior.

“You called my fucking job while I was in the middle of a session and said Heaven was in a car accident. You believed that that was your only choice to get my attention. Are you fucking serious?” Myla was livid.

Jessica’s eyebrows dipped low as she listened to the one-sided conversation. What she heard did not sound right. She continued to listen to see how far this conversation would go.

“You just blocked me and shut me out. All the women I love always leave me.” Dante sobbed like a baby.

Myla’s anger softened.

“You told me we were over. So, what are we supposed to talk about? I was protecting myself. The things you’ve said and done were hurtful and disrespectful—”

“I know,” he interrupted, sniffling like a child. He didn’t want to hear or accept that Myla had moved on just as he had suggested. “I was just stressed with work, and I took it out on you. I promise those things won’t happen again. Do you think you could come and pick me up from Redwood Memorial? I don’t have any family. All I have is you,” Dante lied expertly.

Myla sighed.

If he was willing to go to this extreme, he must really need me, she thought, justifying his bad behavior.

“Alright, I’m on the way.”

Dante smiled.