And If... {completed and edited 2024}

And If... He stayed away ?

I shrugged, smiling as well. "I don't know. You're...interesting to stare at." Her little smile disappeared instantly, letting place to a small frown, making me frown too. "What ? You wanted me to say something else ? " I asked concerned.

She bit the inside of her mouth, then her bottom lip, clearly contemplating on her next words. "Well..." She stared trailing off before letting out an aggravated sigh, "what are we exactly ? Like what are we doing here ?"

I guess, it was about that damn time to have this conversation.

"Shit, I don't know, you tell me. What do you want us to be ? " I shrugged.

"Well...we do love each other, no doubt about it, but...I don't know, Richard. Our relationship ended so suddenly, and it wasn't even a decision from us. You were forced to break up with me...by my father. I'm still processing all of this and I'm not going to lie, it seems harder to do every day. I don't know, it's just too much. Everything happened so fast and those past six years were the most confusing years in my life. My emotions kept going in all type of directions, I couldn't control it. This situation with us is scaring me to be honest. I'm scared to be hurt again, and I'm scared that we end up not making it through. What if we were never meant to be ? We can't force it, you know."

I sat up, "do you feel like we're forcing it ? "

She shrugged, "I don't know."

"Then let's try it. It wouldn't kill us to try. Like you said, we love each other."

"And so what ? It's not enough, Richard and you know it. If you just needed love to make a relationship work, it wouldn't be so complicated. We have to work on a lot. I feel like we spent most of our relationship fighting to be together instead of enjoying being together, and I'm tired Rich ! I just want to be happy."

I frowned, listening to her. Sounded like she was trying to give up on us, and I couldn't let that happen. Deep down in my soul, I knew we were meant to be, and I knew that she knew that as well. Right now, she was mostly talking out of fear. We went through a lot, but what couple doesn't go through all types of ups and downs ?

Okay, it wasn't your typical love story, but it was ours and it couldn't break us. Someway, somehow, it was supposed to get us more solid and teach us valuable lessons about ourselves as individuals, as parents and as a couple. Right now, we were still going through the hard phase, but once out of it we'll see it was all worth it. I firmly believed it, but I also needed Tinashe to believe in us just as strong as me. 

"Tinashe, I know it's a lot. It's tiring and I do feel like giving up sometimes, but this is the real world, baby. You have to remember that you have to fight to get what you want. Nothing come to you easy like that. Things won't just fall in your hands. You have to want and work towards it to make it happen. Unfortunately...you have to fight to be happy, but it'll be worth it at the end. You'll be proud of your journey and everything that you accomplished to get to your goal."

We stayed in silence for a moment, both thinking.

"You really think we can work things out ? " she asked, breaking it. "I feel like we can't really have a new start, because we did and shared so much together, but at the same we can't take it from where we left, because once again so much happened. It would feel weird."

"We can have a new start, and can use our past as a lesson to grow and get a better future. Tinashe, I don't want to and I can't fall out of love when it comes to you. It's too deep and I know you feel the same way about me. Our love is inevitable. We tried to convince ourself for the past six years that we were done with each other, when we knew all along that it wasn't true. Even with all that drama family and friend  kept vouching for us. If even external people  believe in this, why wouldn't we believe too ? "