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Overwhelming emotions brewed inside me because I understood she was speaking of so much more than our sexual interaction. I now comprehended that, from the second I had met her, she’d been probing and reading beyond my physical sense. She had been touching and caressing my spirit, truly having a sense of the real me.
Trying to diffuse those haunting thoughts, I lightheartedly shrugged, “Gave it my best shot,” still smiling down at her.
Reaching up to touch my face, she kindly urged me, “Please take a moment to look around.”
A part of me didn’t want to. I didn’t want anything to intrude with the blessing in my arms.
Mustering strength, I exhaled then looked around until I spotted two men. They were both in dark clothing and … were frozen in time.
One was squatting, a gun pointed in my direction.
The other was in mid-run, off to my side.
I exhaled again, realizing he was the one who had shot me.
Even though I didn’t know either man, I recognized the darkness in their eyes. It was a presence I not only knew well but also possessed.
With Rosa crashing into my night like a sacred gift, was it possible I wasn’t as evil as I had always believed?
“Your wish…” A tear slipped down her face. “Do you still wish for it?”
Studying her, my mind raced to follow her question. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“When you were a child, after your father punished you for not killing the bird…”
I sucked in air as the childhood memory blasted me. That day, so long ago, had been awful. Piercer had found a tiny baby bird that had fallen from a nest in a tree. The mother bird squawked in alarm from above as I investigated what my four-year-old brother was up to.
“Don’t touch it,” I warned him as I took a knee in front of him, putting the bird between us.
Peering up into the branches, I was trying to figure out how to reunite the family when Dad moseyed over, deciding this was an opportunity to give his eldest son a valuable life lesson. “Dumb fucking bird shouldn’t have leaped before he was ready,” he derided.
I suggested, “Maybe he didn’t mean to?”
Dad finished his beer then ripped the can in half. “If he’s too stupid to stay where it’s safe, he needs to be killed.”
That logic baffled me while making my stomach roll with fear. I knew this man well.
I swallowed down bile while he handed me half the can, casually saying, “Kill it.”
I didn’t dare not accept the can but stared at him, silently begging him to not make me do this.
“Get on with it.”
The tin in my hand shook. “But, Papa—”
The steel toe of his heavy biker boot slammed into my chin, knocking me off my knee and onto my side, the can rolling from my stunned hand. Dirt dug into my face with the hard landing.
I didn’t stay down for more than two seconds because I knew better. Dazed, I quickly corrected my body back up to a knee while grabbing the deadly item. “Yes, Papa.” Shaking in terror, for my own life and the poor bird’s, I fumbled to get the can in my hand correctly, the dull side to my palm. Sharp end toward the bird.
My eyes filling with tears felt like a betrayal. The weakness would cost me.
Knowing as soon as I was done murdering this bird I was going to receive a beating, I became angry at my dad for being so cruel and angry at the bird for putting me in this position.
Holding the can in the air, I begged myself to send it downward to quickly kill the baby, but it was so difficult to snuff out a life. I didn’t want to. It felt … wrong.
I shivered when hearing the ground crunch behind me. Then I quivered at the sound of my mother’s voice. “My son proving he has promise?”
Dad laughed, asking her, “Do you see blood yet?”
