Текст книги "Gemini"

Автор книги: Penelope Ward

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

“What changed?” he asked.

“Nothing changed. I just woke up this morning and realized…I want to fuck my boyfriend. Is that so bad?” Cedric shook his head and laughed, pulling me into him. “Baby…are you serious? Are you really serious about this?” I didn’t answer him. Instead, I pushed him back down onto the bed and took my shirt off, lowering myself onto him.

Cedric cupped my breasts through the lacy bra and plunged his tongue into my mouth while I grinded against him.

“We don’t have to,” he said muffled, his lips still kissing me.

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“I’m ready, Cedric…see?” I said as I guided his finger down into my underwear.

Cedric kissed me harder and moaned as he touched me. I moaned back through his kiss at the pleasure of his fingers inside me.

Cedric whispered through our kisses.

“Swear on your mother you’re ready.” I wanted to swear a lot of things on my mother, both of them. He didn’t know the half of it.

“I swear…on my mother,” I said.

With that, Cedric kissed me harder as I unzipped his jeans and pulled them down.

I continued to rub against him with my clothes on, kissing him hard and running my fingers through his hair.

“Amanda…you’re so fucking beautiful. I’ve wanted you for so long…waited so long,” Cedric said as he unsnapped my bra and threw it on the floor.

“Cedric…I’m on the pill,” I said.

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“Okay, baby,” he said as he continued to kiss me.

Then, he started to slowly pull my underwear down.

I pulled off his shirt and he slid his boxers off. We were both completely naked.

He lifted up from under me and flipped me over so that I was under him.

He stared into my eyes as I rubbed his face and stared back at him.

We stayed like this for a while until Cedric spoke. “Okay?”

I nodded and bit my bottom lip when I felt the tip of his penis enter me, followed by a burning friction. I wanted to cry from the pain at first but Cedric moved into me very slowly. I closed my eyes and told myself to relax, no matter how painful. With each slow thrust, I got more accustomed to the feeling until eventually the pain turned to pleasure.

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Cedric moaned in ecstasy once he started to realize I was relaxing and enjoying it. His slow movements gradually turned forceful.

Once the pain stopped, I couldn’t get enough and asked him to go faster and deeper until I felt myself starting to climax.

Cedric knew it, because he covered my mouth with his hand, so that I could scream into it while I came. His translucent eyes rolled back and I knew he was coming too.

When his movements slowed, he stayed inside me and kissed my face over and over again and for the first time whispered, “Amanda Rose Thompson…I love you.”

CHAPTER 30

CEDRIC

April 2002

“Cedric…Cedric. Wake up. You really should go home and try to get some sleep at home,” Ed said as he shook me.

Shit.

It wasn’t a dream.

I was really still here in this hospital room.

A nurse’s voice spoke on the intercom in the distance, reminding me exactly where I was. Hospital clerks wheeled by the room pushing food carts. Life went on as usual outside the window; car horns beeping in the distance, part of the hustle and bustle of the Chicago morning commute, as if my life was not falling apart in here.

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I wanted to scream out the window at them to shut the fuck up. Someone walked by the open room, laughing at something that was said at the nurse’s station in the hallway. Life could not be going on when she was lying there, fighting for her life. It wasn’t fair.

“No…no, sir, I can’t leave her,” I told Amanda’s father.

“The doctors said she’s not going to be waking up today, Cedric.” I still couldn’t believe my eyes every time I glanced over at her. She was so beautiful even with all those tubes and medical contraptions. No, I wouldn’t leave…couldn’t leave, not for one second.

“Ed, I really don’t want to leave her,” I said.

He looked over at his daughter andthen back at me, his eyes swollen from crying over the past few days. “Okay, Son.” 494/727

Amanda’s parents, Ed and Elaine and I have been keeping vigil at her bedside for three days. The whole scene was surreal as this beautiful girl lie fighting for her life in a medically induced coma.

“Did they say how much longer until they try to wake her?” I asked.

“Could be a couple of more days,” Elaine said tearily as she sat by Amanda’s side.

What if she doesn’t wake up? What if she never wakes up? How can I ever live with myself?

An Indian doctor walks in and we all stand up in unison.

“Dr. Tripathi, we were wondering if you could tell us when they were planning on ending the coma?” Ed asked.

“The swelling is still too significant.

We are going to keep with it for at leastanother twenty-four hours. Mrs. Thompson,can I talk to you privately?” 495/727

“Sure, doctor.” Amanda’s mother walked out of the room and the doctor followed her out into the hallway.

I walked over to Amanda’s bedside and gently touched her long dark hair. She was so tranquil and beautiful. She looked so peaceful, nothing like the way she looked the last time I saw her. My heart clenched at that thought. Oh, God, please don’t let anything happen to her. Please. I’ll do anything.

Anything.

I whispered so low that Ed couldn’t possibly hear me. When he had gone out to look for his wife, I spoke louder, but still softly.

“Amanda…God, Amanda. I am sosorry, baby. I would take it all back if Icould. Baby, if you wake up, I promise I willnever leave you again. I was being stupid,baby, so, so stupid. Please just be okay andI’ll never leave you. Please. Please. Please. Ilove you, baby. I love you.” 496/727

Tears ran down my cheeks and I began to shake uncontrollably as I recalled the night of the accident.

***

Amanda had taken her father’s car to drive to my dorm in the middle of the night after I hadn’t returned any of her calls that day. It was the first time I had ever done something like that. The truth was, I had been having second thoughts lately about being in such a serious relationship at my age. Things were moving really fast and Amanda was starting to talk about a future with me. I love her…I do…but I was scared, being only twenty-two. She’s only eighteen.

I was her first and she wanted me to be her last? That was a lot of pressure.

My mind was spiraling out of controlthat day and I was scared that if I talked toher, that she would be able to sense it or that 497/727

I would impulsively break up with her, so I ignored her all day. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I ended up doing worse.

It had all just become too much for me. I had myself convinced that I needed to test the waters…see how I really felt about her…by distancing myself…even if Amanda wasn’t aware why.

Sarah was a girl who lived on my floor across the hall on the girl’s side. She was tall, blonde and on the girl’s basketball team. Sarah had been flirting with me since the beginning of the year and I had always ignored her because I had a girlfriend.

That night, my door was open and Sarah happened to walk by and stop in my room. At first, it was innocent. We were just talking about music and jobs after graduation. At one point, she put her hand on my leg and gave me a look. I wasn’t even as attracted to her as I was to Amanda, but like I said, I wanted to test the waters, test myself.

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I pulled her into me and started kissing her.

That moment was the beginning of the end of my life as I knew it.

My door slammed open and I threw Sarah off of me. There stood Amanda, in her sweatpants and Beatles t-shirt she slept in often. Her hair was in two pigtails. She looked angelic, but furious, like she had dragged herself out of bed in the middle of the night to come here.

“Cedric? Oh my God. Oh my God,” she seethed as she covered her mouth in shock.

I was mute, completely speechless and breathless. This was not what I wanted.

I never ever would have chosen to hurt her like this. I finally found the strength to speak.

Panicked, I said, “Amanda, it’s notwhat it looks like. We…just kissed. Nothingmore would have happened.” 499/727

On that note, Sarah jumped off my bed and ran out the door, without saying a word. She knew I had a girlfriend, so was just as guilty as I was and certainly not shocked by this scene.

Amanda stood in the doorway, just staring at me. “I’m gonna be sick. I’m going to throw up,” she said, before suddenly turning around and bolting down the hall.

By the time I tried to reach her, the elevator doors had closed. I pushed the button frantically, hoping to catch her, but it was too late. When I made it to the parking lot, I could see her father’s black Honda Accord speeding off onto the road, before it disappeared.

That was the last time I saw her. Her last words to me that night had been ‘I’m going to throw up.’

I raced back up to my room, dialingher number over and over, maybe a hundred times. Pick up. Pick up. She never 500/727

picked up. After an hour of calling her repeatedly, I had enough.

Running back downstairs, I got in my Volkswagon Golf and sped down the road and onto the highway to head to her parents house in Naperville. I was going to explain everything to her when I got there…let her know that I still wanted her in my life, but that we should slow down. I didn’t want to lose her. The kiss was a mistake, one big mistake that meant nothing.

On my way to her parent’s house, I passed an accident on the highway with multiple police vehicles responding. I didn’t bother to look too closely to see what had happened because I was driving so fast to get to her. It looked like the accident was just clearing anyway.

I just needed to get to her.

When I got to Amanda’s house, I noticed that her father’s car wasn’t there.

Amanda never came home. Her mother’s 501/727

car was gone too. I knocked on the front door loudly, because I could see from inside Amanda’s room in the converted garage that she definitely wasn’t inside her bedroom because she slept with a night light and it was pitch black in there. As no one answered the front door, I felt nauseous and knew something was wrong.

I decided to wait in front of the house, hoping that she or someone would come home. With each passing minute, I worried more and more that something bad had happened.

Then, about an hour later, my phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Cedric,

it’s

Mrs.

Thompson.

Amanda’s been in an accident. You need to come to the hospital. She’s at Chicago Memorial.”

“Wha…Is

she

okay?”

I

asked

frantically.

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She hung up and the phone went dead.

It wasn’t until I got to the hospital that I realized the accident I passed on the highway was Amanda’s car. I fell to my knees in the waiting room as her mother’s brother Todd told me what he had heard.

She was in a coma and fighting for her life.

She had hit a guardrail.

No one else was hurt.

Crying hysterically, I prayed to God to take me, not her.

Please,

God,

save

her.

I’ll

do

anything.

I would never forgive myself for causing her to storm off, probably driving erratically and crashing her car. She was so upset. I kept hearing her voice.

‘I’m going to throw up.’

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The look on her face would be etched in my memory.

Weeping and shaking my head, holding a hand to my trembling mouth in disbelief, I kept replaying the sound of her voice.

‘I’m going to throw up.’

‘I’m going to throw up.’

Begging my mind to stop replaying those words, I couldn’t stop crying.

***

Looking down at her now, three days later, I made a decision that if she pulls through, I would do everything in my power to be a better person. She needs to know that she mattered…matters…to me.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name…

Ed and Elaine walk into the room as Isaid the Our Father to myself silently, closing my eyes. Elaine looks white and Ed faces 504/727

the back wall away from me. My heart drops as I realize that the doctor had pulled Elaine aside in private. What had he told her? Was Amanda going to die? Oh, Jesus, no.

Ed left the room and I looked at Elaine, still sitting at Amanda’s bedside.

“Elaine, please tell me…what’s going on? What did the doctor say?” Elaine shook her head in silence and buried her face in her hands.

“Elaine…please.” My voice shook in fear.

“Cedric…nothing has changed with Amanda’s condition, but the doctor just gave us some news, that I am afraid I wasn’t expecting to hear.”

“What…what news?”

“Cedric…”

“Elaine…what happened?” I yelled.

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Elaine was too shaken up to speak and started to cry, burying her face in her hands.

Ed reappeared, took one look at his wife and walked over to where I was sitting, pulling up a chair.

“Cedric…the doctor said that…routine tests they performed on Amanda revealed…

that she was pregnant at the time of the accident.”

I stared at Ed in disbelief, trying to process it, looking over at Amanda sleeping and back at Ed in disbelief.

“Was…was…pregnant?” I asked.

Ed’s eyes burned into me and I couldn’t tell if he was in shock, upset or wanted to downright kill me.

“That’s right…was. The doctors think she lost the baby on impact.” I nodded slowly, got up and walked out of the room.

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The hospital hallway seemed to be swaying and the walls closing in. A blast of air hit me as I made my way out of the re-volving doors in the front of the building.

Running down the busy sidewalk, I couldn’t catch my breath.

I kneeled down on someone’s stoop about two blocks from the hospital, letting my heart rate slowly normalize. My head in my hands, I started to weep like a baby again. The unimaginable situation of the past few days had just gotten so much worse with that news. I had blamed myself for Amanda’s accident, kept what happened in my dorm room from her parents and now, the realization that I was also responsible for the death of my unborn child was too much to bear.

As I looked up, I noticed a church across the street. I walked across the busy road in a haze, nearly getting run down.

The front door of the gray stone structure 507/727

was open. ‘Welcome to St. Mary’s’ a sign said in the entryway. In the distance, down the long aisle, dozens of candles in red votives flickered.

I slowly made my way down toward them at the front of the church near the desolate altar. I reached in my pocket and grabbed a five-dollar bill stuffing it in the donation slot in front of the candles, then lit one of the candles with a long matchstick.

I made the sign of the cross.

“Dear Jesus, please forgive me for the pain and suffering my actions have caused.” Walking over to the front of the altar, I knelt down, closing my eyes tightly. Tears began to fall again and I covered my face, grateful that there was no one in the church as my sobs

turned

to

wailing

that

echoed

throughout the vast cathedral.

***

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After another night of sleeping poorly in Amanda’s hospital room, my body was beginning to ache.

Ed and Elaine had gotten a room at the hotel around the corner and even though you could literally make it here in three minutes, I refused to leave the room. They couldn’t make me leave if they tried. I think my being here made it easier for them to sleep at the hotel. There was only space for one cot in the room anyway.

Amanda’s parents arrived at the crack of dawn and soon after, Dr. Tripathi walked into the room and told them that Amanda’s vitals were looking a little better and that they were going to try and end the medically

induced

coma,

later

that

morning.

My heart raced with a number of emotions: fear, anticipation, relief, anguish.

What if she didn’t wake up on her own?

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What if the sight of me upsets her when she comes to?

A few hours later, we were asked to the leave the room, while the doctors worked to bring Amanda out of the coma.

Dr. Tripathi said it would be a while before we would be able to see her.

When the doctor emerged, we stood up in synch in the waiting room.

“You can go in now, but one at a time, please,” he said.

Elaine gasped. “Is she awake?”

“She seems to be trying to wake up.

Please go very easy on her. She is still not stable, but she should be able to hear what you are saying,” he said.

Elaine walked in first and Ed and I waited impatiently outside.

Twenty

minutes

later,

Elaine

emerged crying and said, “I was talking to 510/727

her and she was blinking rapidly. I hope she could hear me. Oh, God…Ed…this is just too much. Why our little girl…why?” Ed comforted his wife and then released her to enter Amanda’s room.

The waiting for my turn was killing me.

Amanda’s parents were being amazing about letting me stay here. If they only knew that I was responsible. But I couldn’t think about how they would feel if they knew. I needed to be here for her and I couldn’t risk them keeping me away. That’s why I played dumb when they asked me if I knew why Amanda might have been driving poorly the night of the accident. I think they believed that she fell asleep at the wheel.

Toxicology reports already showed she wasn’t drunk. I knew in my heart that she was upset at me and lost control of her car, although they could never prove it.

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Ed emerged from Amanda’s room, just as upset as Elaine had been. I don’t know if they were expecting her to start talking or something, but the doctor made it clear that wouldn’t happen right away.

“You can go in now, Cedric,” he said, wiping his eyes.

I swallowed hard and walked into the room. Amanda was lying there just as peacefully as I last saw her.

“Hey, baby…it’s me. You look so beautiful. I hope you can hear me,” I whispered.

“Amanda, baby? You know what Iheard on the radio today in the cafeteria? Itwas our favorite dumb song by Hootie andthe Blowfish. You know the one that goes, ‘Ionly wanna be with you?’ The one that wasplaying the night we met? That one. Ismiled, baby, thinking of you. It’s the firsttime I smiled since we ended up here.” 512/727

I bent down and kissed her cheek and could see her eyelids flicker. Grabbing her hand, I placed it in mine. It was cold and clammy and I wished I could warm it up, but I needed to be gentle with her.

“I love you, baby. You’re gonna be okay. Can you hear me?” Amanda continued to lie still, her eyelids flickering again.

Suddenly, I felt pressure on my hand that was holding hers and realized she had squeezed it.

“Baby! You can hear me. You can hear me.” My heart jumped for joy that Amanda responded to my voice and a single tear fell down my cheek.

She stayed still, just breathing, for another

twenty

minutes

and

hadn’t

squeezed my hand again but I kept talking to her gently.

“Amanda…I don’t know how muchyou can understand…but baby, I want you 513/727

to know that when you get out of here…I want us to take a trip somewhere. Maybe Cancun…somewhere warm. You think your parents will let us go?” I smiled to myself. I knew her parents would probably let her do just about anything if she made it out of here okay.

“And baby—”

I was interrupted by an intense hand squeeze and lots of rapid eyelid movement.

Suddenly, her eyes opened.

Shocked and elated, I said, “Amanda, Amanda…it’s me…Cedric. I’m here, baby.

I’m here. You’re okay…everything is fine.” Groggily, she looked over at me and said

nothing.

Did

she

know

what

happened…why she was here?

I ran out of the room and called a nurse. The nurse came in and verified that what was happening was normal, that Amanda would wake up from time to time, but may not be aware of her surroundings.

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By the time the nurse and I made it back to the room though, Amanda looked fast asleep again.

I let her mother go in again and waited anxiously in the hallway.

After about an hour, I was able to go back in her room. Amanda had not opened her eyes since the last time and I hoped and prayed she would wake up again.

***

The next day, something amazing happened. Amanda opened her eyes and said ‘Mom.’

A couple of more days passed and Amanda was slowly regaining the ability to talk. Her physical condition, though, according to the doctors was still serious.

Amanda had a lot of internal bleeding at the 515/727

time of the accident and may have suffered some irreversible organ damage.

She acknowledged me only one time and it was the most precious couple of minutes of my life.

“Ce—dric.”

“Oh my God…Hi, baby…I am here. I am here!” I said.

“Love you,” she whispered.

“I love you too, baby,” I cried through tears.

“Cedric—help me.”

“Help you, baby? Help you get better?” I asked, sobbing now.

“Ye—yes. Help me…fi—

“It’s ok, baby. Don’t force yourself to talk.”

Amanda struggled to get the words out, then said, “Fi…Fi…Find…my sister.”

“Your sister? Baby…your sister…is that what you said?”

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Amanda looked like she was going to cry, nodded and then closed her eyes, dozing off.

Help her find her sister? That made no sense. I wonder if she was delusional from all the meds. My poor Amanda.

When I left her to sleep and joined Ed and Elaine in the cafeteria, I relayed what I thought she said to Ed and Elaine.

The way that Amanda’s parents looked at each other showed me there was something to what she said.

Ed coughed nervously and asked,

“Cedric…did Amanda say anything to you about her some news she received back in December?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Did she tell you what we told her one night?”

I looked down and strained my eyes trying to remember what she told me.

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“She said there was something you told her, that she was angry with you, but that she wasn’t ready to think about it and talk about it and I was cool with that. I knew it had something to do with her adoption, but she never said anything again after the first time she mentioned it to me and I didn’t push it.” Elaine closed her eyes and nodded.

“Yes, yes, it did have something to do with her adoption.”

“Why was she asking for her sister in there? She has a sister?” Ed put his hand on Elaine’s shoulder, looked at me and said, “Because, Cedric.

Amanda was an identical twin. She had a sister born five minutes after she was.” I was floored. There was another half of Amanda out there somewhere?

Holy Shit.

Elaine continued, “The adoptionagency only told us that the birth mother 518/727

was having a girl. A woman in Boston had apparently been promised the other girl.

Both sets of adoptive parents were told that the mother was having only one girl.

Legally, the babies were bound to the respective parents and since both were closed adoptions, there was no information given to us about the other child. The birth mother was a fifteen-year-old drug addict. I knew someone at the adoption agency who leaked this information to me years after Amanda was born, but we chose to keep it a secret until she turned eighteen when we would then tell her, because we felt she had a right to know.”

Elaine grabbed a tissue from her purse and wiped her eyes, then continued,

“We just didn’t want to turn her world upside down when the other mother and childhad no idea Amanda even existed. We don’thave much information on the sister, unfortunately, but promised Amanda that if she 519/727

wanted, we would look into trying to find her. We don’t even have her name.” I sighed in shock at what they just told me. How had Amanda kept this news from me these past few months?

Elaine wiped her eyes again. “She had dropped the subject recently and we thought maybe she was having doubts about finding her. But Cedric, clearly, if she called out to you asking to find her sister, our poor daughter is tormented. My poor baby.” Elaine began to cry uncontrollably now, as Ed comforted her.

I decided in that moment that I would do whatever it took to grant Amanda her wish to find her sister. I had no clue how I was going to do that, but I knew I owed it to her after all of the damage I had done. I couldn’t wait for her to wake up fully, so I could tell her myself and we could work together to find her. Maybe take a trip to Boston.

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That night, Amanda died.

CHAPTER 31

CEDRIC

Present Day

“What in God’s name happened to you?” Allison’s roommate Sonia asked as she arrived at the doorstep of my condo, staring me up and down, clearly amazed by my bearded transformation.

“Come in,” I said somberly, pointing my head in Allison’s direction.

Allison was sitting on my couch with her head in her hands, rubbing her temples, refusing to speak to me. I had grabbed her phone earlier before I started really trying to explain everything, pulled up Sonia’s name in the contacts and texted her my address to come pick up Allison immediately at my place without further explanation. Knowing 522/727

Allison wouldn’t have been in any condition to leave here on her own, I wanted to make sure someone could accompany her home.

Sonia arrived faster than I expected, since someone drove her here and she was apparently already close by at a bar in Kenmore Square when she got my text. That had given me under fifteen minutes to try and explain everything before Sonia got here.

Allison had sat in silent shock as I nervously told her bits and pieces of the truth. I wasn’t expecting to face this today and was unprepared, to say the least. I wasn’t quite sure if she even understood me clearly. She wasn’t saying anything and I was really worried about her state of mind.

I got far enough to tell her that the girl in the picture she was holding was named Amanda, that she was her twin sister and they were separated at birth, that Amanda was my college girlfriend and that Amanda died in an accident.

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But there were so many holes in my story and I couldn’t seem to articulate it all from the beginning to end.

She wasn’t responding coherently to me or asking any questions. She just kept shaking her head in disbelief and wouldn’t say anything when I demanded that she talk to me.

Before I could fully explain the role I played in finding her, Sonia knocked on the door. When I opened it, she burst in.

“Al…are you alright?” Sonia asked as she made her way over to Allison.

Allison shook her head no, her eyes red. She was clearly still in shock and my heart was breaking not being able to comfort her. I knew I was the last person she wanted near her, so I kept my distance standing across the room, still dressed in my robe since I had been unable to change in the time since Allison came here so unexpectedly.

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Sonia was glaring at me and rubbing Allison’s back and after a minute, Allison then managed to look at Sonia and say hoarsely, “Let’s go.”

Just as Allison stood up to leave, Sonia stopped her.

“Wait…what the hell is going on here?

You two weren’t even together, so you couldn’t have broken up…what in the bloody hell happened? She looked to me. “Cedric?

What’s so bad that you thought Allison couldn’t manage to take herself home safely?”

Neither Allison nor I said anything.

Sonia looked back and forth at us.

“No one is going to tell me what the hell is going on?”

A tear ran down Allison’s face and my fists clenched from not being able to wipe it from her cheek.

This moment was one of the worst of my entire life.

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I cleared my throat and forced myself to say something.

“Sonia, Allison may not want to say anything right now. She’s in shock because I just gave her some devastating news. When she is ready, she’ll tell you.” I looked over at Allison, noticing that for the first time gave me a rare bit of eye contact in return.

“And…Allison, when you’re ready, I need to explain more to you. I am so sorry I kept this from you all this time, but when you’re ready to hear it, I’ll try to explain why I did what I did,” I said.

I knew she was in no condition to hear anything more from me tonight. I had done enough damage for one day.

“I am not sure I can believe anything you have to say,” Allison said as she got up and suddenly opened the front door and walked out in tears.

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Sonia followed and looked back at me from the hallway as Allison raced ahead of her. “Good going, asshole.” Her words didn’t penetrate. She could have shot me in the chest at that moment and it might not have mattered.

About a half hour passed and I needed to do something. I hadn’t moved from the same spot I was standing in when she left. I got out my phone and texted her.

Allison, please don’t be scared of

me. I have so much more I need to tell

you. I know you’re not ready to talk

to me. It was never my intention to

keep this from you for so long.

Please, let me know when you are

ready and I promise to explain

everything, if you’ll hear me out.

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She never responded and I hadn’t expected her to. As sick as I felt seeing her leave like that, an eerie bittersweet calm came over me that night as I realized that everything I feared had finally happened and it couldn’t get any worse from here.

The dread of this day had been eating away at me for months and now, for better or worse, the secret was out. Granted, I hadn’t gotten to explain it to her the way I anticipated, but the main facts were out. She would need time to process everything before I would stand a chance of talking to her again and I had to accept that.

The next day, trumpets sounded because…I shaved. It was definitely a longtime coming.

Something else that was a longtime coming

happened:

I finally

confessed

everything to my mother and she cried more than I had ever seen in my entire life, telling 528/727

me that she always felt something was off with me during those months, years ago when Caleb moved out to Chicago to stay with me. She had wrongly suspected it was drugs and that Caleb was keeping it secret.

But of course, at the time, both of us denied that there had been anything wrong.

“Cedric, honey…why did you feel like you couldn’t tell me all of this? All of these years you were keeping the fact that your first love died, from me and Dad?”

“I was ashamed. There are so many parts to what happened that I felt would devastate you back then, given how hard things were with Callie on top of things at that time.

I am so sorry, Ma.”

My mother and I held each other tight as Callie’s iPad made noises next to us in the living room.

“Cedric, this is all so hard to believe.

How am I supposed to handle seeing Allison now…if she comes back to work? That poor 529/727

girl must be so shocked and confused. Tell me again, why you never told her the truth about her sister that very first day?” I ran my hands through my hair, took in a deep breath and exhaled. “That’s the million dollar question isn’t it? I wouldn’t be here in this predicament right now if I had done that, that’s for sure. Mom. That’s something I can’t explain to you. She just had me under a spell from the moment I first laid eyes on her and I didn’t want it to end. It sounds cliché, but I really think I experienced love at first sight. I wanted to be with her and wanted her to see me for me. I knew it would have ended the second I told her the truth. I was selfish, I know.” My mother pulled me in for a hug.