It had been almost a week since we rescued Miah and delivered her son and my nephew. He was the most gorgeous baby that I had ever laid eyes on and I'm not just saying that because he is my nephew. Everyone says that he looked just like me, but I say that he looks just like his mother except for the eyes. Instead of Miah's dark green eyes, the baby's eyes were steel gray. This bothered me on so many levels. Miah chose the name Jaden David Nichols for her son, opting not to give him Amir's last name.
Antonio thank god, was not seriously injured when he threw himself in the path of the bullet that was meant for me. The bullet lodged itself in his right shoulder and was successfully removed with surgery. He too was due to be released from the hospital tomorrow. But among all of these blessings and gifts we had been bestowed by God, Carmen seemed to be the biggest gift of all. She told us the story of how she was taken from the refugee camp and had been immediately sold to Amir sixteen years ago. She said that she accepted her fate so easily because she was told her children were dead.
Without them her life she had once known seized to have meaning. So she became the Dorri that Amir had renamed her and never looked back. A lot of the scars that Antonio received the night he thought his mother died began to heal. However, the other scars of losing his sister only deepened and brought him a new resolve of finding her. Things had become hard for me and Antonio since the night we rescued Miah. Whenever I came around he always became silent and only spoke to me to answer a question. It was like the bond between him and I had been severed and though he was near, he was lost. Lost to me.
"Okay, this silence is starting to drive me absolutely crazy," Miah said throwing her hands in the air and accidentally knocking the nurse call button off of her hospital bed.
"What?"
"You, standing over there brooding like a tortured artist. I mean, you'd think it was your fiancé who'd had you abducted and sold into slavery." Sarcasm coated Miah's tone.
"I'm sorry Miah." I replied automatically.
"Stop apologizing to me, Kayla! None of this is your fault." Miah sighed.
"I know, but I should have been there to begin with, I should have-"
"Prevented 9/11 because your crystal ball told beforehand that the twin towers would have a plane fly into them. Face it Kayla, the world is not your responsibility, I'm not your responsibility. And I'm not trying to be mean, but I need you to know this so you want constantly blame yourself when something happens to anyone you love which is out of your control," Miah said staring at me with those big green eyes I'd missed so much.
"You put on a brave face, little sister. I know you're hurting, though. What Caleb did-," tears filled her eyes, before she turned away. I let the subject of Caleb drop and moved on to my point, "I could rescue you ten thousand times but never be able to save you from the hurt your feeling right now, and for that I do apologize. Betrayal's a pain I hoped you'd never have to know. It changes you and redefines how you see everything around you," I said walking over to her hospital bed to sit down and touch her cheek.
"I'll admit that I've been suffering ever since you told me Caleb was responsible for what happened to me. It hurts even more to realize that I still love him. But I refuse to let bitterness take control of my life, Kayla. Even through all of my faults and the deplorable decisions I've made in the past, I'm still a woman of god. All of my faith is in him. Everything happens for a reason and though right now it may be hard to find, but God is good. My beautiful baby boy is proof." Miah said her eyes shining with unshed tears. My sister was the rarest soul I had ever known. Only she would be able to find a silver lining in pitch black struggle.
"Miah, most women would be thinking adoption right now, but you embrace this baby. Regardless, of how he was conceived." I replied with a frown.
"This child is a part of me Kayla and no matter what the circumstances were surrounding his birth he will never be loved any less for it. Not by me or my family." Miah said her green eyes flashing with the fierceness of her words.
"Of course not, he'll always be loved. Even now as we speak mom, dad, and Carmen are making fools of their selves down at the nursery." I reassured while taking her hand in mine. That seemed to sooth Miah some and she relaxed back into her pillows.
"So what's the deal between you and Dorri's, I mean Carmen's son?" Miah asked changing the subject.
"What do you mean? He just helped me to find you." I answered with a shrug.
"That's why he took a bullet for you, sure whatever you say Kayla." Miah exclaimed with a grin.
"You know what, okay I'll admit it. I thought Antonio could be the one but now I'm beginning to think that I may have been wrong." I said looking up at the ceiling of the hospital room.
"Why?" Miah asked slapping me on the arm.
"He's been distant lately and I think it's his way of trying to let me down easy," I said letting Miah in on my deepest fears.
"That's stupid, Kayla. A man doesn't take a bullet for you and later decides he's really not that in to you." Miah replied, a wrinkle forming between her brows.
"Antonio is in the business of saving lives so it could have been just another day on the job for him." I explained with a shrug that said that it was no big deal. Miah shook her head, wearing her famous know it all expression.
"You always do this, whenever you start feeling a little too much for a guy, you use any little excuse you can find to put your J's on and get the hell out of dodge. You even did it with Kyle, not saying that was your fault with the way that turned out but your track record still stuck to the usual script." Miah said nodding her head as if something had just been confirmed for her.
"That's not true! I gave my all to Kyle!"
"No, the reason you stayed with Kyle for so long and agreed to marry him was not because you gave him your all, it was because you gave him what you wanted him to have and he never bothered to ask for more, he was what you considered the perfect man." Miah replied smacking her hand down hard on her leg.
"That's crazy." I protested softly.
"Kayla if you love this man, you need to lay all of your cards out on the table, and then demand to know where y'all stand. Instead of sitting around here driving yourself out of your mind trying to figure out what his distance could mean." Miah cried out half coming up out of her hospital bed. At that moment the nurse was coming into the room and when she saw the state Miah was in her eyes half bulged out of her head.
"Mademoiselle, your stitches. You will tear them." The nurse then turned to glare at me. "Visiting hours or now over. Please leave so the patient may rest." The petit nurse demanded pulling herself up to her full five feet nothing height. I threw my hands up in mock surrender.
"Fine, I'm leaving." Before I could get out of the door Miah was leaning half way out her bed yelling behind me.
"Remember what I said, Kayla. You better lay all those cards out on the table, girl!" I turned and gave her one last smile before I walked out of the room. Lord knows that I have missed her. As I was rounding the corner to recovery I saw Antonio talking to his physician by the nurses' station with papers in his hand. I quickly made my way over to him to find out what he was doing out of bed when he wasn't being released until tomorrow.
"Antonio, what's up? Why aren't you still in bed?" I asked just as the doctor was leaving.
"I was just about to come and see you. I checked myself out early; my plane will be leaving in the next couple of hours." Antonio said avoiding eye contact with me.
"Your plane!" I exclaimed with surprise. "You're leaving!" Antonio winced from my reaction to his news.
"Yeah, I have to get back to Miami. I have some things that I have to take care of before I leave to look for Alejandra," Antonio said looking down at the ground. I swallowed. My eyes closed as I attempted to recover from the shock.
"I'm sorry that Miah couldn't tell you more about Alejandra," I said feeling numb.
"It's okay, I have my mother back and that was more than I ever expected was possible," Antonio said looking up into my eyes for the first time since I approached.
"Is Carmen going with you too?" I asked to keep myself from saying what I really wanted to say and that was, please don't go.
"No, she's going to stay with your parents since I won't be staying in Miami for long and don't know when I'll be coming back." Antonio replied breaking eye contact with me again.
"Oh, I thought that you would be sticking around for a little while. You know, for Carmen," I said memorizing all of the lines that made up his beautiful face wishing that I had the nerve to touch him this one last time.
"I wish I could, but I owe it to her to bring Alejandra home. We've already lost too much time as a family." Antonio responded.
"Antonio, I –"
"Kayla, don't. Please, don't make this harder than it already is," Antonio begged, cutting me off.
I closed my eyes and opened them again. I am not going to cry. Crying is for the weak, and I refuse to be weak. But if he walks away now want he take all of my strength with him. Please God don't let him go.
"Kayla, I told you before we began it would end this way." The muscle in his jaw twitched. "Not too long ago you told me love was sacrifice. So please...let me go, because I swear if you asked me to stay, then here is where I would stand for the rest of my life. My sister be damned," Antonio said looking deeply into my eyes and breaking me down with all the pain his held.
Instantly I felt ashamed for becoming what I accused him of and that was being selfish. He was willing to give up on everything that he had been trying to achieve since he was sixteen in order to stay with me and not for this happiness that he would bring me but the happiness he himself would experience. All it would take was a word from me and I would have him until my last breath. But would I ever really be able to forgive myself for doing that to him. No, it would kill us. So I said the words.
"Go, Antonio. Just go." I bit my lip to keep my tears from falling. Antonio grabbed me and crushed his lips down on mine. Kissing me so deeply it felt as if for that one moment we had become one and no one would ever leave. I kept my eyes closed and tried to eternalize this moment.
"I love you, Angel." By the time I build up the courage to open my eyes again Antonio was gone almost as if he had never been there at all.
****
The room was dark when a presence awoke Miah. Groggy, her eyes was still blurry from sleep so she just could make out a shape standing over the portable crib that her son lay in. The sight wiped the last layers of sleep from her mind. She sucked in her breath preparing herself for an earsplitting scream when the man that was standing over her baby turned. She slowly let the breath seep out of her at the familiar outline of his perfectly chiseled features. It was Caleb. She knew that she should probably be screaming her head off, but for some reason she didn't. Maybe it was because she experienced her first real love with this man, even though it might not have been the same for him.
"Jamiah," Caleb murmured as if he was calling out to a deity.
"Why are you here, Caleb?" Miah asked her voice was as calm as she could muster it to be.
"Where else would I be?" Caleb asked closing the distance between them so that he could kneel by her bed.
"I know what you did." Miah replied her voice breaking from the hurt she felt.
"I didn't do this. I swear to you on our son that I didn't do this, but I promise, the people who did will pay, dearly." Caleb assured her lightly touching her cheeks with the tip of his finger.
"What about you being a member of a terrorist group, is that a lie too?" Miah asked, her eyes pleading with him to say that it was. Caleb held her gaze knowing above all else she deserved the truth or a portion of it anyway.
"No, that's not a lie. However, there is more to that truth than I can reveal. You have to trust me," Caleb said taking Miah's hands into his.
"Trust? How can I trust you when everything you've ever told me has been a lie?" Miah asked snatching her hands away from his.
"Not everything, I'm not lying when I love you. What you and I both feel is not a lie, in that you can surely place your trust," Caleb said never raising his voice over a whisper.
"The love I feel for you is based on what you allowed me to believe about yourself. Caleb is probably not even your real name." She sobbed. Caleb flinched at the pain that he heard in Jamiah's voice.
"Caleb is my name," He said, his own voice remaining strong despite the riptide of pain he was feeling inside.
"Which doesn't even really matter. Not when I still have no clue who the man is behind the name. You're a stranger, Caleb." Miah replied tears no running unchecked down her face.
"I am the father of your son, and the man you love. Isn't those truths enough?" He glared at the ceiling. "I wish I could explain everything to you but I cannot. It would be unsafe for you. Hell, they've taken and sold you into slavery. My mind freezes at thought of what else they'd do if they knew that the son you bore was mine and not Al-Esayi's."
Miah stared into Caleb's face while memories of them together rushed through her mind like a dam that had just been broken. Involuntarily, Miah's hand floated up to trace the contours of his features like she always use to do when they laid in bed after long nights of lovemaking. Caleb closed his eyes savoring the feelings her touch brought him.
"God, how I wish I could hate you like a normal person and be done with it." Miah muttered as she stared into his eyes.
"I thank your god that you are not a normal person, but instead are a woman with a brilliant unjudging mind. You're also the woman to whom I've lost my heart." Caleb said leaning over and pressing his lips down on Miah's, enjoying the unique taste of her mouth.
"What are we going to do?" Miah murmured between kisses.
"I have to stay away from you, Miah. As I have said before it's too dangerous for us to be together and if my enemies were to discover that I had a weakness, they'd exploit you and our son." Caleb answered hating that his life had to be so damned complicated. Miah shoved him away from her angrily.
"So you're going to leave me."
"Yes, I must finish this or we'll never know peace," Caleb said standing and staring down at Miah.
He wondered if he would ever seize to be over taken by her indescribable beauty. He turned to leave knowing that it wouldn't be safe for her if he lingered too long. On his way to the door he stopped by the crib that held his son and ran a finger across his cheek. Right then and there he made a vow to the sleeping baby to come back to him and his mother. He then continued on to the door not daring to turn back to look at Miah.
"Caleb no!" He heard her cry out from the bed which made him pause in his exit.
"My, queen...I have to." He glimpsed her over his shoulder. "I love you, and our son is perfect. You have my word, I will be back."
With that Caleb was gone and Miah was left staring at the empty doorway. The tears flowed from eyes as sobs shook her body. In the dark she cried for hours for him, her, and their son. Her wails didn't stop until she finally gave herself over to exhaustion and the nightmares that would torment her for years to come.