Part 32

Part 32

They nurses and Doctors gave me some time to get myself together before letting him come in. I still don’t trust him but I love him and that out beats a lot, if he can explain why and how this all happened. Not even all of it but some of it, shit he has to be able to tell me something that make sense. I get out of bed and went into the bathroom. This is the first time that I was able to look in the mirror at myself without feeling that I will be ashamed of how I may look. You know how people look after taking drugs for so long, tired, worn out, and may have aged significantly. Standing there, afraid to see what and who I’ve become. I raise my head and quickly lower it without even looking. Taking deep breaths, I count to ten, and look up just to see this beautiful face greeting me, I smile so big that I can see all of my teeth. They still look great but I could use a cleaning. I did everything I needed to groom myself and walked back into the hospital room I consider home with a big smile.

“Now that’s the woman I fell in love with. How are you my Queen?”

“I’m a lot better now, I want to apologize for some of the things I said to you. It wasn’t fair, I was being mean, and wanted to hurt you because I hurt. I don’t trust you Leo, I just don’t. That’s something that you may be able to fix with the truth.”

“Well, why don’t we go home. We can talk about it on the way.”

“Leo, I’m not leaving here with you. Not until you tell me what your part was in all of this. Whatever you do, tell me the truth even if you think it’ll hurt me. I need to know where I stand, I will always love you, that won’t change. In order for us to be an us, I need to know this person that’s sitting in front of me.”

“Okay, alright, the night you went to bed early and I went out because I couldn’t fall asleep. I ran into Abuelo, he was drunk off his rocker. He started babbling but I couldn’t understand a word he said. I walked away, went into a few stores, grabbed some pizza, and when I saw the ring, the one I gave you when I proposed to you, I knew I had to have it. I got that, then I needed something really nice to wear, something that would make your eyes pop out their sockets. Anyway, a few hours later I was heading back to the hotel and ran into a friend that I haven’t seen in a while. We stood out there talking, I did tell him that we were catching a train to go to New Orleans and suggested he should come. He said that he couldn’t but want to come out there to visit once I get settled. I took down his information and that was it. I came back to the room, took a nap, then you woke me up. I thought about it when I was in the hospital recovering, knowing this was all my fault. I was young and didn’t think that my boy would tell anyone where I was going. I fucked up!”

“You did.”

“You getting hurt was never my intention, if I knew that would’ve happened I wouldn’t have said anything to him about our travels. Aaliyah, I want you to believe me, I love you too much to have done this to you. If I did, why would I look for you? Why would I have stayed in this hospital for eight months waiting for you to want to see me? It’s not because of guilt, a guilty person would’ve never looked for you because they wouldn’t want to face you. A person that doesn’t love someone won’t do all that I have to find you. You can ask them, I don’t leave this hospital. I go as far as the car, and I only go that far to get clothes. If I was allowed to stay here legally with you I would. Whatever floor you moved too, I moved too.” Leo moves closer, getting on his knees. “After meeting you, all I’ve seen was you. In every woman’s face is you, in every mirror, every reflection, my shadow is still connected to yours. So please do look at me and think for one damn second  that I was the reason; because I lost three years, eight months, two weeks, four days, eighteen hours, and thirty-nine minutes of being with you to love you.” Leo yelled out with tears blessing his handsome face.