Walking into the house was like taking a breath of fresh air after you’ve been stuck in a dusty smoky room for a long time. And as I looked around the living room filled with all my loved ones, there was nothing that I could do to stop the tears.“I missed you, mommy,” Valerie said, placing a kiss on my cheek. She had jumped into my arms the second I walked into the room with Christian behind me, and had refused to let go.“Awww,” I kissed her back. “I missed you too, my baby.”“Was Gamma number two sad that you were leaving?” She asked, and I remembered Christian saying that he had told her I went to the beach to see my mom.I shook my head. “A little bit, but she said she’d be okay. She wanted me to come back home to you.”“I’ll pray tonight and thank Gamma for letting you come home,” she said before her face brightened with an idea. “Oh I know! We can take her cookies too!”“Okay mama, okay,” I assured her as the whole room burst into laughter.“Welcome back, Mrs Walker,” Tina smil
Christian turned to the other side and turned off his bedside lamp, and I followed his lead and did the same too. Darkness instantly flooded the room. Now we were both lying on our sides and facing away from each other, I had one hand under my pillow, and the other busied itself with a stray thread on one end of the pillow. We both stayed silent for a while, and I could hear every intake of breath that he took. I was sure he could hear my heart thudding in my chest, I shut my eyes in embarrassment and tried to control it, but all my efforts proved to be futile. Five minutes passed in silence.“Hazel?” Christian finally called.“Yeah?” I answered, still playing with the fraying end of the pillow.“Were you sleeping already?”I shook my head, but realized the room was dark enough that he couldn’t see me, so I replied out loud instead. “No.”“Okay…”I couldn’t see him, but I could picture him opening and closing his mouth, contemplating if he should say something. I wanted him to talk t
I woke up alone the next morning. The sheets looked slept in, but they were barely rumpled, and if there was one thing I knew, it was that Christian slept like a crazed wild animal. So now I was starting to question if he even slept in the bed with me all night, or if he got creeped out and went to one of the other rooms in the middle of the night. He probably did. Sitting up, I nibbled on the inside of my cheek. It was all sore and had these weird chewed up parts, but ever since I started doing it at the hospital since I woke up, I couldn’t seem to drop the habit no matter how much I tried. I moved on from that as my mind circled back to everything that happened last night and I smiled. I wrapped my arms around myself as I imagined Christian’s strong arm around me. It was like I could still feel his breath on the nape of my neck, and hear the sound of him inhaling as he sniffed my hair. Did I regret last night? Definitely not. But I was definitely confused and nervous. What did this
I tossed the phone across the table and groaned as it slid all the way to the other side of the table. I stood up from my spot on the chair, feeling frustrated “No, this doesn’t make any fucking sense,” i said to myself as i paced around my office, gripping my hair tightly between my fingers.Someone knocked on the door, and a second later, Tiana appeared at the door. “Mr Walker?”“What!?” I yelled as I turned around to look at her.She jumped. “Uhh I’ll come back later.” She said, scurrying out of the room before I could say something or yell at her again.I groaned when I was alone in the room again, and I pulled my hair even tighter. I walked over to his floor to ceiling windows and looked down at the city, nothing made sense. All of my thoughts were jumbled up and I hadn’t even finished reading the messages. Was there even any need to? I already knew what the truth was. And it hurt like hell, I didn’t want to believe it. I walked over the trash can in the corner of the room and
The site wasn’t an actual site. It was just what I called my childhood home. It was a three hour drive from the city and sat on a large expanse of land. And I hadn’t been back there ever since I left for college. It was a grand house, and maybe if the walls weren’t tainted with my father's sins,Maybe I would’ve loved it. I didn’t want to be there, but I felt like I needed to go back to the place where it all started in order to talk to my father, and I needed the long drive anyway. Dennis wasn’t with me, I had given him the day off. So I spent three hours in silence zipping through traffic and wondering what I would even say to my father. Sure I felt like killing the man, there had been many occasions where I had come close to doing it. But was that even the right course of action to take?The house was pretty much the same as the last time I saw it when I arrived there. Still large, still daunting, and still obnoxiously expensive. “Welcome sir, we’ve been expecting you. Your father
My father was arrested a week later. I had carefully gathered all the evidence that Mark had left behind and submitted it to the authorities. He had spat in my face and called me the devil’s spawn, I smirked at him and told him it was fitting. My mother knew nothing about Mark– I made sure to hide everything that tracked back to that fact. She had suffered enough in the hands of my father. It was better if she didn’t know about his other son. Life went back to normal and I was finally able to relax with my family without having to constantly watch our backs.Hazel and I got closer– a lot closer. Walking into the office on a monday morning, I looked exactly like someone who had gotten himself some. It was all smiles galore in the office. I felt like I was walking on clouds, and everyone noticed from the moment I walked through the doors. I said hello to the doorman with a wide smile on my face, and even chatted a bit with the concierge. My head was filled with thoughts of Hazel, and I
HAZELI woke up to a room full of flowers and Valerie nuzzled tightly next to me. Smiling sleepily, I kissed her hair and inhaled her sweet scent before I sat up, looking around the room in wonder. Red roses filled every corner, and each one had a note sticking out of them. Butterflies erupted deep in my belly and my toes instantly tingled. I’d been waking up to flowers and handwritten notes and other gifts for months, and you’d think I’d be used to it by now, but no, I wasn’t. Even though I now had enough flowers of different kinds and colors to open a floral shop, the excitement never died. I still felt like I was on cloud nine every single day.I had no idea how my husband was able to pull something off this measure everyday, but he did it. Yesterday, I had woken up to boxes and boxes of Van Cleefs, and the other day, it was Birkin bags from Hermes. I’d never been one to be super interested in things like that, even though I had always admired them and wished I could have them some
I tucked Valerie into her bed, brushing my fingers over her fat little cheek. Her lips pursed in sleep, and she looked so much like Christian, it made me grin. She had his eyes, full lips, and his smile. She also had his temperament, and when she was frowning, she looked even more like him, right down to the furrow between her brows. I had a feeling she would keep us on our toes for the next twenty years or more. In mere seconds, she was sprawled out on the bed like a starfish. I glanced at my watch, knowing I had thirty minutes of peace at the most. Probably more like twenty if I was being realistic. At almost four years old, Valerie had become a light sleeper and would be up and raring to go in no time. She had been that way for a while now. Down fast, up quick.I walked downstairs, listening to the sound of the rolling thunder that had begun a while ago. I had noticed the dullness of Christian’s eyes this morning and made sure he had some pain medication in his pocket. Storms like