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I didn’t hold back, speaking with conviction, “You can tell me your sad story.”
—Kinley—
I walked down to that lake to be alone.
With my thoughts.
My memories.
My trauma.
As much as I hated to admit it, I missed my mom. The sight of her, the smell of her, the sound of her voice, the feel of her warmth, her sadness, her happiness, her love…
Even her hate.
The familiarity of it all.
It was comforting when it was supposed to have been afflicting.
I thought about his request before shaking my head. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“The beginning, Kinley. I want you to tell me everything.”
I stared into his eyes, feeling like we were on the same side. Both of us knew what it was like to pray and not feel heard. In the blink of an eye, my life changed overnight, and I was no longer living under the same roof as the woman who was supposed to be my mother but acted more like the drunk she was.
I shut my eyes, recalling the last time I saw her.
“Please!” she yelled loud enough to break glass. “Please don’t take her from me! She’s all I have! She’s all I fucking have!”
“Ugh!” I grabbed my head in between my hands.
Those were the last words I heard her say as child services dragged me out of our Section 8. Day in and day out, I lived and breathed her demons until one day I was set free, but I still felt like a caged bird. There was no running away from my memories.
Not then.
Not now.
I hadn’t realized I’d begun crying, tears spilling out over what I could never change. It didn’t matter how much I’d tried, how much I’d cried, nothing ever changed.
Not with her.
Not with us.
I might have been her daughter, but she was not my mother, not in the ways that counted.
A wave of emotions took over, and when Christian grabbed my wrist to stop me from leaving and took a seat where I had once sat,I couldn’t have left even if I’d wanted to.
And the truth was, I didn’t want to.
I listened to him with the same longing I had for my mom. The same thoughts, the same fears, the same realizations of what I shouldn’t have experienced at such a young age. The sincerity in his tone had caught me off guard, making me feel like I was the only person he had ever shared these confessions with other than his therapist and family.
Not even Julian.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel so alone. He understood what I went through on a daily basis, and it overwhelmed me as much as it calmed me. I was seeing a side to him he didn’t show anyone, and I had no idea why…
All I knew was that I didn’t want it to go away.
I didn’t want him to go away.
