1

The Other Side of Love

By

Magali Ortiz
3 AUDIOBOOK COLLECTIONS

6 BOOK COLLECTIONS
 2

Chapter 1
Donovan was in his room, listening to music while studying for his upcoming math exam. He
was on his first year of college, eighteen, and he had always been an honor-roll student. He was
one of few to graduate high school with a 4.0 final average. Now his first year of college was
almost over, thus he graduated at seventeen. He wasn’t a genius or anything of that sort. He just
studied really hard, but he was strange in a way compared to other students because rather than
distracting him, music would help him study better. It would transmit him to a zone unknown
and set him apart from everything else, where he could only think about what he was studying
because it was classical music with no lyrics, and he would play it on a low volume. Unbeknown
to him, he had studied for three hours now, and he was really tired. Therefore, he closed his
textbook and his three-ring binder with his notes, went out of his room and into the bathroom,
took a quick shower, and changed into his pajamas. Minutes later, he went to sleep in his bed,
but he forgot to turn the music off. The radio was battery powered now and when the battery
would die, it would go off by itself, no problem. Most of his devices were battery-powered for
him to save a little energy. He lived in a two-room apartment that, had it been a hotel, it
would’ve been considered four-star. His rent was really expensive. He worked as a secretary for
a powerful attorney since age sixteen because he’d always been more than a computer freak, and
there was nothing about computers he didn’t know. He even knew how to remove malware
without the help of any computer programs, take computers apart, repair them, replace
parts—everything. He’d been kind of forced to become a computer technician without a license
because every time his father would buy a computer, he would destroy it in a matter of months,
and tired of watching his father waste his money on computers every six to eight months, when
his father was on his third computer in less than a year and a half, Donovan spent his allowance
on all sorts of computer manuals to do everything under the sun and he started repairing his
father’s computer for him at age ten, and because of that, it had been almost eight years and that
damned computer, although old, was still up and running. It was a desktop and Donovan would
help his father Daniel upgrade all of his computer’s hardware and software every time that
Daniel felt it needed an upgrade, about every two years or so. Donovan didn’t mind spending his
money on hardware all in one blow. It was preferable than buying computer after computer every
time Father, as he would call Daniel, needed an upgrade. After all, computers weren’t made to
last forever, but they sure were meant to last more than two years. Daniel’s computer was old on
the outside but new on the inside, and Daniel was thrilled. He had the latest of everything. Every
time he told someone how old his computer really was, no one would believe him, unless they
saw that same model of computer on eBay. Daniel would keep his computer crisp clean and
there were no scratch marks or dents on any of the parts, at all. Even the keyboard was clean as
fresh linen.
 3

The phone rang that night. Although Donovan was dead tired, he picked it up. He wasn’t
the kind to cut a call or reject it because he was sleeping, and he would always pick up and talk
as long as necessary even if it were his dorky best friend, Scott, drunken as a cat, talking utter
nonsense. After all, Donovan was always the only one that would listen. But it wasn’t Scott. It
was his older sister, twenty-three-year-old Diana. Her husband of three years had just beaten her
to a pulp for the zillionth time because she was talking to her cousin, Tony, and stupidly,
Langston thought that even though this was her first cousin, with whom she’d grown up and
spent most of her days, she was cheating on him with Tony. Diana would never cheat with
anyone, much less with kin. That was flat out disgusting, but Langston was so whacked out he
just couldn’t see things the way they really were most of the time and there was a good reason for
this—Langston was a heavy meth user for many years. Diana thought that by being by his side
she could help him rehabilitate. After all, she had helped many people, even total strangers, pull
through from the worst life-situations. She just learned the hard way that her husband was
literally a lost case. He couldn’t be rehabilitated because he didn’t want to be, and if his parents
couldn’t help him get better, what in the world made her think that she could?

“Donovan, oh, God…”

“Let me guess. He beat you up again.”

Hyperventilating, she said, “Yep!”

“What was it this time?”

“He saw me talking to my cousin Tony and he thought I was starting something with him.
He thinks that I am having an affair with my cousin, Donovan. That’s not cool. He’s crazy.”

“And you’ve figured that out just now. I know I was only thirteen at the time, but I’ve
always told you not to marry him, not to even have a relationship with him. I told you that he
was bad news from the start. I guess you were thinking with your heart and not with your head.”

“Donovan you’ve never really fallen in love, and by that, I mean you’ve never had a
relationship, not even a fling, so you don’t understand.”
“Oh, my dear, I do understand. I understand that if I saw one sign of my girlfriend being
physically abusive, I would dump her. If I notice that she is possessive, jealous, sees me talking
to a woman, just talking, like I would one of my friends or a relative, and she’s jealous about that,
I would dump her quicker than it would take you to say my name.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to be in love.”

“And that’s why you accept this nonsense, because you’re ‘in love’. Nice. If I help you out,
promise me that you’re going to leave his ass. I can’t stand this crap anymore.”
 4

“Fine, I promise I will walk out of here to never come back. Now, please come get me and take
me to the hospital.”

“I’ll do better than that. I will just call 911. I’m afraid that when he comes back and sees you
there he’s going to finish you off. If he damaged your lungs this time rather than just slapping you, this
time he means business. He is going to kill you, my dear. I am hanging up and calling 911 before he
can even get there.”
Donovan did as promised and a few minutes later, the ambulance arrived at Langston and
Diana’s house. Just then, Langston got back home because he’d snapped out of his meth-induced
madness and he came back to apologize and try to provide his wife with the medical attention
that she needed. This time, he made a promise to himself, he would stop using meth. He noticed,
having flashbacks of all the times he’d attacked Diana, that he would only put his hands on her
when he was high on meth, and when he was not under the influence of the drug he was normal
and he behaved the way he was supposed to. Perhaps this was the reason why Diana wouldn’t
leave him no matter how many times he would slap her or punch her in the face. She understood
his situation. She loved him. He had to do something, otherwise he would lose her forever. One
good thing about Langston was that when he would promise something to himself or someone
else, he would keep that promise, no matter what. That’s why so many people in town loved him
and trusted him. They didn’t know about his problem. When he would go to work as the
PRESIDENT of a preeminent computer company, he would be cheerful and positive. His
employees always referred to him as the best boss ever, and not even the ones with the lowest
positions in that company would quit their jobs. They thought they wouldn’t find a better boss
than Langston. When they would ask for an advance, he would give it to them and not get it back
until three months after giving it. He would deduct one third of the advance every month until it
was paid in full. He would always compliment his employees just for being there. He would
never penalize those who came to work late. He would never even ask them why they came to
work late, he would just let them work like nothing, and to compensate for this, they would stay
and work for the time that they were late. Everything was good everywhere Langston went
except home. The reason why Langston would binge on meth was because his mother died seven
years before, they’d never gotten along, and she had a heart attack after an argument they had.
He felt guilty for his mother’s death and he wanted to punish himself in some way. He had no
idea that he had put his foot down and decided not to use any more meth just in time. A few
more hits would’ve killed him, and he wouldn’t have had the chance to try to fix everything he’d
done wrong and be a good husband and father to the child he and Diana were expecting.
Thinking that Diana had lost her child, he went up to the paramedics as they were putting her on
the gurney and connecting her to the respirator, without saying anything to the paramedic, he
checked Diana’s pants to see if there was any blood between her legs. As crazy as he was, he
didn’t strike her in the belly or in the back, which would’ve caused the miscarriage. Then he said,
to the paramedics, shocking them, “I know my brother in law only sent the ambulance here, but I
need the police here. I need to report myself for domestic violence and aggravated assault. I
almost killed my wife and I deserve to be locked up. Maybe then I will learn my lesson. It’s been
going on all throughout our marriage, and it’s got to stop.”

****
 5

Hours later, Langston was at the police station while his wife was being cared for at the hospital.
He couldn’t stop crying.
“I must say this is a first in the twenty-three years of my career as a police officer and
detective,” Detective Martin said. “Never have I seen a criminal reporting him or herself for his
or her offense. I’ve seen them give in, but never report themselves, much less a husband for
beating on his wife. I’m stunned.”
“It was all because of the stupid meth! I thought I could never stop using it and being an asshole.
I strangely don’t feel addicted to it because it makes me feel good, but because of what it does to
my body. I wanted to self terminate since my mother died. I wanted a slow, painful death. I
figured a simple gunshot to the head or in the mouth, a stab or an overdose of pills wouldn’t do. I
wanted to make me suffer.”

“Man, you really need help. You know we’re dropping the charges because your wife’s the
victim and she said she didn’t want to press charges, right? We’re giving you another chance.
You’re going to go to a rehabilitation center, get the help you need, rid you of your addiction and
at the same time get you some professional help to take from you the desire of killing yourself
and making yourself suffer. Withdrawal is a bitch. You’re going to regret deciding to stop using
that stupid drug during that period of withdrawal. When meth grabs a hold of its user, most times
it won’t let go until the victim dies. I’m warning you right now. It’s not going to be that easy.
You’re going to be in this program for as long as the judge decides, depending on how severe
your addiction is, and then you’ll take it from there, I guess, but the next time you lay your hand
on your wife, even under the influence of any drug, you’re going to be incarcerated for the next
five years. Second offense after this one, ten years, and then the third offense after this one, it’s
the big three-o. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, I understand. I will comply fully with the program.”

Two hours later, around six o’clock in the morning, while Donovan was getting ready to go to
school, Langston was visiting his wife at the hospital. Unless she would visit him at the rehab
center, she wouldn’t see him again in a while. He held his hand and said, “Sweetie, I’m going
away for a while.”

“What, you want to separate?”

“No! I am going to rehab, and I am going to get help with my mental issues, too.”

“Oh. I thought you wanted to leave me.”

“No, you’re the one who should leave me. If you didn’t want to put me in jail you should’ve
divorced me, but you dropped the charges and you stayed with me. You didn’t even attempt to
leave.”
 6

“That’s because I made a vow, ‘til death do us part.”

“That vow can be broken if one of the parties doesn’t comply with his or her vows of respect,
honoring your wife…”

“Yes, that may be true, but I chose to give you another chance.”

“I didn’t deserve it, but thank you. You don’t have to come visit me.”

“Langston, there’s a huge reason why I didn’t file for divorce or separation, and that reason is the
baby. I can’t let this baby be born without a father because we know that a child born outside of a
marriage is an illegitimate child, and then we’re going to have to make arrangements to change
that.”

“I didn’t know that. You don’t have to stay married or together because of the baby. I will claim
paternity and do what I have to do now that you’ve dropped the charges and my career didn’t get
ruined. I am going to support that child and be there for the child…”

“It’s better for us to do all that together, Langston.”

They hugged. “Thank you. I will see you again if you can visit me, after you recover.”

Langston was taken away. As unbelievable as it may sound, Diana started crying. She’d never
been away from him. She’d only gotten slapped and her face had gotten bruised, but he’d never
gone beyond that. She would always forgive him and give him another chance. And another.
And another. Until she called her brother for help and her brother decided not to give him a
chance. Diana thought that Donovan was going to be angry and he wouldn’t speak to her again
for a long time. She didn’t know Donovan as well as she thought. Donovan could be angry as the
devil defeated, but he would never turn his back on his family and friends, and to prove that,
when Donovan’s school day was over, he went to visit Langston. He brought him a whopper
meal, his favorite, just to show there were no hard feelings.

They hugged. “How are you doing, man?” Langston said. “This is a surprise. I thought you hated
me.”

“I am mad at you, yes. Very mad. That I can’t deny. Nevertheless I don’t hate you. Never have,
never will. I can’t. I could punch you out right now and knock you out like you’ve done my sister
so many times.” He placed his hand on Langston’ shoulder. “But I can’t do that no matter how
much I am burning to. The day you married my sister, you became part of my family. Your
family loves us, and if I hurt you, I’ll be hurting all of them. Your mama died, but she left your
father and your brothers and sisters behind. I couldn’t hurt your family like that. I love them. I
couldn’t possibly hurt you in any way after all they’ve done for us.”
 7

“My family is also very disappointed in me, and just because you love my family that doesn’t
mean you should put up with my shit. From now on nothing’s going to be the same. I am never
going to come back here.”

“How’s withdrawal?”

“No withdrawal for me. I am sick of this shit. When you have withdrawal it’s because you yearn
for something you know you shouldn’t get any of. I don’t want any more meth. I’ve been praying,
meditating ever since I was on my way here, and I really think God hasn’t stopped loving me and
though I’ve been a total asshole, He’s still there for me and He’s going to help me. I know He is.
Otherwise I’d be in freaking withdrawal right now.” He still wasn’t done unpacking his stuff, and
he went right back to that. He then placed his food on the nightstand. “I’m going to eat this in a
minute. Thanks for bringing it over, spending your money on this prick.”

“You really hate yourself, don’t you, Langston Abel?”

“How could I not? I keep fucking up. I keep being given chances and fucking up again, like a
three year old, totally unable to learn from his mistakes. I am twenty-six, damn it! It’s damn time
I grew up and became a real man!”

Donovan hugged him again. “You know what?” he said, still holding him. “I didn’t know
you were this ill. I’m not angry with you anymore. You just concentrate on getting better, all
right?” Donovan let go of Langston. “Become the father your son’s going to be proud of for the
rest of his life, and teach your son that one can learn from his or her mistakes and become a
better person.”
“Son?”

“That’s right, your son. Di just found out that it’s a healthy boy. Congratulations, papa.”
They shook hands. “Get well soon, man. Di and I will visit you often. She loves you more than
ever now that she knows you’re doing everything in your power to right your wrongs and make a
real change instead of making empty promises. There’s nothing better than trying to fix your
mistakes.” Donovan walked away, closed the bedroom door behind him, and left Langston
sitting in his bed, shedding tears of happiness for the first time in his life.
That night, Langston ate his whopper meal in a slow manner, like he would always do with his
food, chewing it until it would disappear from his mouth, just for fear of his stomach getting too
full too soon and him getting a big stomach ache. He didn’t know that was the reason why he
would only earn ten pounds per year, and when he exercised the way he did, he would lose all
those pounds. He just now started going to the gym. He was always big-boned, so within the next
year, he would become as big as a wrestler or a body builder. Right now, in the month that he’d
been going to the gym, he was getting quite muscular, and although Diana fell in love with him
because of his beautiful face and his stunning aquamarine eyes, he wanted to look great for her,
look great and be great. As soon as he finished his meal he got out of his room and joined all of
the other people that were in rehab. It was time for the new people to introduce themselves and
 8

tell everybody why they were here. After the first twenty newcomers did just this, Langston left
everyone speechless with his speech. “I am Langston Abel Ainsworth and I am a meth addict.
My addiction started when my mother died seven years before. We’d never had a good mother
and son relationship. She loved me, but I hated her because she would rarely give me what I
wanted, and then my little brother got sick and she paid more attention to him and gave him
more affection and more care…” He gave a sigh of pain. Then he continued. “So resentment grew
and grew until she and I couldn’t even stand being in the same room. We would argue and
scream at one another all the time. My father would always intervene but then one day when we
went at it again he knew there was nothing he could do and he let us battle it out. I said
something to her, don’t remember what it was, and she slapped me. I started screaming louder.
Said things that got more and more horrendous by the minute. I guess I literally broke her heart
because she started feeling pain in her arm and her chest. She was having a heart attack.”

Some of the people that were present shed thick tears and the others simply looked down,
reflecting on their own relationships with their parents. Some had lost their parents and others
weren’t getting along with them so well. That gave them an overwhelming desire to call them
and apologize for everything they’d done to their parents before it would be too late, so they got
up, left the meeting, excusing themselves one by one and the nurses took them straight to the
phone. The ones that stayed there listening were awed.

“I thought she was faking it.” He started to cry silently and his voice got more broken by the
minute. “I thought she was trying to manipulate me into leaving her alone or into apologizing.
Then she collapsed. I got on my knees and checked her pulse. It was almost nonexistent. I called
911. They took her in the ambulance. She died before arriving at the hospital. You guys have no
clue how I felt when I received that phone call.” He repeated word by word what that nurse told
him that day. She said, ‘Mr. Langston Ainsworth, I am sorry but your mother has just passed
away’. I dropped the phone and I collapsed, too. Next thing I knew I was at the hospital, same
hospital my mother had been taken to. I was disconnected from the world in a matter of minutes
and spent the next year of my life in a psychiatric hospital. I couldn’t handle losing her and not
having the chance to say goodbye or tell her how sorry I was.” He broke down crying and the
male nurse had to console him, but Langston just couldn’t calm down. The nurse had him sit
down on a chair and minutes later, Langston continued summarizing his story. “That’s when I
started getting high on meth. I wasn’t stupid. I knew what it does to people and as ludicrous as it
sounds, that’s precisely why I started using it because I wanted it to destroy me. Sure enough I
got my wish. Meth would never make me feel good. It would make me feel miserable as it
destroyed my brain, and the more I suffered, the more meth I wanted. Like I told a police officer
the other day, I wanted to die a slow and painful death and then have no one at my wake or
funeral, absolutely no one. Die alone, lonely, and die like a worthless animal, like a pig. That’s
what I deserved. Then I met Diana and I decided to change. We married. It was the happiest day
of our lives. I wish I could show you my wedding pictures. You see me right here? On my
 9

wedding day I didn’t look like this. I used to be handsome, incredibly handsome, everyone would
tell me. Now I look like a bum. A bum looks better than me right now. I couldn’t change. I
couldn’t stop. I was so hooked, despite the fact that it didn’t make me feel good. Didn’t help me
deal with the pain but by the time I got married it had its claws so deep in my skin that I couldn’t
let go. I became uglier and uglier every year that passed and my wife still wouldn’t fall out of
love with me. All the while I would slap her, but my hands were so big and strong that I bruised
her face so bad it looked like I’d hit her with a freaking baseball bat. She wouldn’t go to work
until she would recover, but her boss cares about her so much that to this day my wife still has
her job. Mrs. Stevenson never fired her. I don’t think she ever will because I know that Mrs.
Stevenson knows what’s really going on. She knows that Diana is a victim of abuse, and she’d
never fire her no matter how many days of work she would miss. I don’t understand how no one
reported me, not even my neighbors when they heard her screaming, how no one did anything to
stop it. That’s beyond me. I think that everybody thinks that Diana is so used to it that she likes it.
I am a…well, I can’t say that because I can’t insult my mother more than I already have after
apologizing to her after her death so many times. I am an asshole. I don’t think I deserve to live,
but I am going to keep trying, and I am going to get better. I am not going to leave my unborn
son without his father. I know I will have to get plastic surgery. Just cross your fingers, if you
feel any sympathy for me, so that the procedures will help me become the man that I used to be
on the outside. I’ve never been that eye-pleasing on the inside, but I am going to try. That’s all
for my speech. I wish you the best in your endeavors, and may you all get better and be useful to
society, make your loved ones proud. You can do this, so don’t give up.”

He left the center of the room and everyone applauded him. They didn’t say anything
because they were so shaken. Most of them dared to go after him and surround him in a group
hug, showing him their sympathy and their support. One by one, they promised to be there for
him and stay close to him even after leaving rehab. From that day forward, Langston got a lot of
friends and now he had all their phone numbers, home and email addresses in his big, book-style
phonebook. For the next three weeks, all of his family members, including Diana and her entire
family, visited him. The most impacting visit was Tony’s visit. Tony looked saddened,
depressed. He didn’t want to lose his sibling-like relationship with Diana because of Langston’
unjustified jealousy, so he just had to talk to Langston and tell Langston how he felt. “Look,
man, I know it’s going to be hard for you to believe this, but there’s no romantic relationship
between my first cousin and me. Family’s sacred to the Garcia family. I just hope you can get
that through your thick head someday. I am sorry if I sent the wrong message, if I hugged her the
wrong way, or…”
“You don’t have to say these things. I can see it all crystal-clear now. You never hugged
her the wrong way or did anything that might suggest there was incest between the two of you. It
was the meth talking and acting, not you. I know I was wrong, and I am sorry. I was crazy, out of
my mind. Dr. Rivers said I might need anti-psychotic medication, that just quitting the meth
might not be enough to keep me living reality. I am sorry that I was a threat to the relationship
between you and your cousin. No husband or wife should ever come between his or her spouse
and the spouse’s family. Family’s sacred, that’s absolutely right. I hope we can finally be friends
 10

after five years.”

“Man, what do you think?” Tony said, hugging Langston, patting him on the back, like hugging
his brother. “If everyone else is willing to put the past behind them, give you another chance and
let you back into their lives, start over, why should I not do the same?”

“You are an amazing person, you know that?”

“So are you. It’s just that you’ve let resentment toward others and self-loathing get in the way.
When you love yourself, you can love everybody else. When you hate yourself, you hate everybody else.
I hope that you get better and have a real relationship with us. You don’t know what you’re missing. It’s
a thrill being around the Garcia family. You just never hang out with us.” As he and Langston laughed
together, Tony added, “What’s wrong with you, man?” They were hysterical. “Oh, and one of
your peers commented to me that you talked about having plastic surgery done?” Looking at him
closely, Tony said, “Well, you might not need as many procedures as you think. I think botox
and new teeth would do the trick.”
Langston laughed even harder.
“I don’t know. Talk to your future plastic surgeon and see what he thinks. I think that if you are
hell bent on never using meth again, you will not have to worry about getting those wrinkles
back ‘til you’re like sixty. You’re only twenty-six. You should look your age. I will pray for you,
man.” Tony left. Every word that he said was buried in Langston’ wounded heart like a stake. He
would never forget Tony. Now he knew why his wife was so wonderful, so loving. So forgiving.
It ran in the blood.

Langston had to call his father, London. London was in the dining room, drinking coffee, waiting
for his son to call. Despite everything that had happened, London Ainsworth never stopped and
would never stop adoring his older son, just as much as he adored all of his other children,
thirteen children. Some of Langston’ siblings were in diapers, but incredibly, all those children
were only from two women, London’s late wife, Justine and his second wife, Naomi, who was
twenty years younger than he was and had always had a thing for other men. So far, London was
the most handsome and young-looking older man she’d ever had, so she just had to marry him.
Unheard of, London looked exactly the way that Langston was supposed to look, like a man in
his late twenties. He would take very good care of himself, and Langston was the only child that
looked exactly like him. All of his boys looked like him up to eighty percent, some sharing
features of both parents, and some of them looked exactly like their mothers, like Langston’
younger brother from both parents, Liam, for example. Naomi’s two sons looked exactly like her,
but had London’s eyes. “Hey, Langston, what the hell do you think you’re doing? I’ve been
waiting for your call, man!” London would talk to his adult children like he talked to his buddies.

“We talked yesterday, Dad. I call you every single day. You act like we haven’t spoken since
months before I got here.”

“I expect you to call me at least three times a day.”

 11

“Man, I don’t know if they let us do that.”

“I think they let you call whoever you want as much as you want as long as it’s not long
distance.”

“I’m not sure. I’m going to talk to the nurse and ask him. If it’s a no, I’ll just keep calling once a
day and then I’ll email you for the other two times I can’t call you. How does that sound?”

“My computer’s going to be on all day waiting for that notification of new email.”

Langston laughed, moved. “Oh, Dad…”

“You know how I am with you, especially since we lost Justine. You still feel responsible for her
death and you need your family’s support.”

“Your support I know I can count on, but my brothers and sisters… I am sure they abhor me right
now. Wilbert has always expressed his disgust and utter hatred against men who beat women,
and Norman feels the same way against those who prey on the defenseless. They just came to see
me but that doesn’t guarantee we’ll get along again the way siblings are supposed to.”

“If I were you I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Your brothers just arrived here, they heard me
talking to you, and they have something to say.” London put Norman on the phone.

“Hello?” Langston said.

“Langston, it’s Norman, the one that hates those that prey on the defenseless with a passion.”

“Oh, Lord…”

“You should know me by now. I never say things I don’t mean. I said I know why you abused
my sister in law all these years, although I don’t condone or justify it, but I can’t fight against you
or tell every member of my organization to stone you because you’re my brother. My blood.
When your blood is involved, it’s different. I am going to be there for you, walk this through
with you and help you be the man that you’re supposed to be. Then, rather than becoming the
target of our hate, you will become one of our members, the vice-president of this organization
even.”

Langston laughed, surprised. He expected reprimands, reproaches and insults. “Thank you so
much, man. I always knew, no matter how much you abhorred these dimwits that target and
destroy the innocent, you would come through for your blood and help a family member if he
were going through this situation, if he were the abuser. Man, I promise you that I will never lay
a hand on my wife or any other woman ever again, and that I will only unleash my wrath on
those who are threatening or hurting the ones I love.”
 12

“Yes, those are the people you should get angry with and beat the hell out of, not your woman,
man.”

“I promise. And you know me. I am a man of my word.”

“Yes, that I know, and despite everything you did in the past, I am very proud of you because I
know for sure that you will work on correcting all of your mistakes.”

“I’ve heard those words or similar words so many times it’s not even funny.”

“Because everybody sees it, man! Everybody knows that you’re trying. We can see it in your
eyes. You’re determined. For the first time in your life, you’re finally putting your foot down and
decreeing that from now on you will let no one or anything control you. You will be you,
Langston Abel Ainsworth, and from this day forward, you will be making your own decisions
and doing what you want to do and should do, not influenced by anything other than passion.
You will be in control of you, and no one and nothing else. That’s the man I wanted to see, the
person you used to be when you were a child; not giving in to peer pressure, always doing what
you wanted to and should do, like I said, man…I’ve always wanted that little guy back, my
brother! And now it seems that he’s coming back as a grown man.”

Wilbert took the phone from his brother for a minute. “I really have to go, so I don’t have time to
say anything besides I am proud of you and keep up the good work, man. You’re finally walking
forward. Don’t go back, man. Go back to being that person that Norman just described on the
phone, not that meth junkie who’s always beating on his woman and seeing things that aren’t
there, intervening in other people’s relationships and lives.”

“I will make you proud of me, you and my son.”

“I have to go pick up our little brothers from school. I will see you next week, man.” Wilbert
hung up. Then, father and sons shared a true bear hug.

Donovan had finished his school day and he was getting into his car after loading all his school
stuff and his laptop in the back seat. Out of the blue, just as he was turning the key, a girl
knocked on his window. She was a senior, and she’d turned twenty-three three months before.
She was Five behind in school because she got depressed when she was in the seventh grade,
brought her grades way down, and got held back. Her parents opted for her to get held back
instead of having to enroll her in special classes, pushing her behind everyone else that was in
her class when it came to the material that she was studying. Her name was Annalia Henley and
she’d heard that Donovan was a computer whiz. She wanted to talk to him and see if he could fix
her computer. Her hard drive was almost fried and she still had a chance to recover her important
files before the hard drive would give out, but for some reason, she couldn’t access her Windows
account to back them up. Donovan put the driver window down. “How may I help you?”
 13

She put her head down to be at eye level with him. Smiling, she said, “Hi. I am Annalia Henley
and I was wondering if you could fix my computer, or help me back up my files at least, because
my hard drive is about to give out, and if it gives out, I am going to lose all my files,” she started
crying at the thought, “manuscripts, reports, electronic notebooks for class, everything, and then
I won’t know what to do. We’re talking about ten books that I’ve poured my heart and soul into,
composing draft after draft, and perfected, and they’re about to go bye-bye and I will have to
start all over. I know I don’t know you, but…”

“It’s ok, it’s ok. I’ll help you out. Why don’t you start by getting into my car right now and
calling whoever’s going to pick you up to tell them not to pick you up today?”

“How did you know that my car is ruined,” she asked as she walked around the car, opened the
door and got on the passenger seat, laptop on her lap, and fastened her seatbelt, “and I have to
have someone pick me up every day.”

He didn’t know what to answer to that question, so he said, “I. Don’t. Know.” And she laughed
her heart out. “I guess I just guessed since I didn’t see you getting into what would be your car
before you noticed me and came to ask me for help with your laptop and files.
 14

Chapter 2
They pulled out of the university parking lot and Annalia was calling her best friend, Emily at
the moment to tell her she didn’t have to worry about picking her up today. She and Emily
studied in different colleges, but they’d known one another and been like sisters since the first
grade. “Hello, Emily. How are you?”
“I’m doing great, Anna. How about you?”
“Remember that guy I was telling you about, the computer freak?” Donovan looked at her with a
weird smile on his face when he heard the word freak and she looked back at him smiling
apologetically. Almost. “Well, not only is he going to take me to my house, but he’s also fixing
my computer! Can you believe it? He’s going to help me backup my files and everything. I have
less than six hours, according to my hard drive, to retrieve my files, so I hope he can come
through fast. As it is, I can’t even get into my Windows account to save my files. That’s why I
need his help. I think my computer got hacked and locked, or something, and I’m really
worried.”

“No one hacked you,” commented Donovan, still focusing on the road. “You can’t get in because
your hard drive is as corrupt as a policeman who’s always breaking the law rather than enforcing
it. Your files are still safe. About the six hours? No problem. I can get in and retrieve them in
about twenty minutes, so you’ll be all right.”

“Oh, my God, that’s Donovan Thornhart, the computer whiz everyone’s talking about! There are
many ‘computer freaks’ in that university, so I never suspected you were talking about him!”

“Donovan Thornhart, yes, that’s the one. He’s got the name of a spoiled rich boy.”

“Yes, he does. That name is somehow fancy. Ok, so I can go straight home then.”

“Yes. As always, Emily, thank you for everything.”

“That’s what friends are for, remember? I tell you every time you thank me for something.” She
laughed. “You’re such a dork! You know you don’t have to thank me! I’d do anything for you.”

“Same here. I’ll see you tomorrow, God willing.”

Donovan looked at her again. He’d never heard a girl his age talking like that.

“See you tomorrow, baby doll. Call me and keep me updated on your adventures with the
computer freak.”

“Adventures, ok…”

“Oh, come on, cheesecake, I know where this is going. You can bring any guy to his knees,
 15

especially white-winged doves like Donovan.”

“White what?”

Emily hung up with an evil laugh. “That’s why I love her because she’s such a dork!”

“Ah…ok….” Annalia hung up.

“What did she say? Did she offend you?”

“No, Don, she said something that threw me off the wall, but not because it was offensive toward
me. She said something about you being a white-winged dove and that I could bring any guy to
his knees, ‘especially white-winged doves’ like you.”

“How poetic.”

“Yes, but that stunned me. Is it true?”

Looking her in the eyes, blushing, he said, “Yes, it is. Don’t tell anyone. Everyone thinks I’m this
playboy and not to be vain but all the girls are chasing me ‘hoping to be the next one’.” He
laughed. “It surprises me how someone can’t see something like this.”

“It’s obvious in women but it’s not always obvious in men, Donovan. Come to think of it, I don’t
think I want to be more than friends. I’m Christian…”

He cut her off without intention. “I knew that the moment you said, ‘God willing’,” and then
looked back at her and back at the road.

“But that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m a virgin. I’ve made mistakes. I’m telling you that I don’t
think I want to be more than friends because I noticed that you were star struck the moment you
first looked me in the eyes. I don’t know if you noticed it, but you gasped and then smiled before
asking me how you could help me. I fornicated with a guy for over two years. Luckily it was
only one guy in my entire life, but going by what I’ve learned since the moment I got saved, what
I did was wrong. Now I’m celibate. I swore off sex until my wedding night. I don’t think I can
corrupt you or any man like something corrupted my hard drive. I think that if fornicating again
is wrong, corrupting an innocent man or woman, in the case of men, is unforgivable.”

“I am not Christian, but I have read the Bible, and it says that the only unforgivable sin is
blasphemy. I just haven’t given in because thank God no one has approached me asking me the
million dollar question, whether or not I believe Jesus Christ died for my sins… yeah, because if
someone asks me that I won’t say no. I do believe. It’s just that luckily it hasn’t happened. I don’t
think I’m ready for that. I think that once you make that prayer, from that moment on, you can’t
goof off. You have to work to renew your mind and all that, and though I believe, I am still not
 16

ready, you know what I am saying? When I embark on something, I give it my all. I can’t just
make the commitment, start working on renewing my mind, start living a holy life and all of a
sudden just drop everything and go back to my old ways. I don’t know if the backsliding thing
and losing God’s favor, I don’t know if any of that’s true, but once I make a commitment, I start
working my butt off for it and I never drop it and never look back or go back. I am a novelist, too.
I haven’t been published yet. I have three completed novels and I am slowly working on my
fourth one, but when I start a novel, I don’t stop working on it till the novel or story is finished
and I type THE END. No matter how much I think it may suck, I don’t drop it and start working
on another one.”

“I get your drift. When I was younger and I thought a novel sucked, I would stop working on it,
delete it from my hard drive and start working on another one. Then I started reading books
about the art of writing, creating stories. My two latest novels, which are finished, were started
after I got saved and they all contain a beautiful message. People of all ages can read them, as
my other novels pre-salvation. It’s just that none of the novels that I wrote before being saved
contain that beautiful message. They’re just like any other novel you can find in a secular
bookstore. I plan on publishing them so that people can read what I used to write before Christ
changed my life, and noticed the woman I’ve become and how my way of viewing life has
changed.”

“So you’re not publishing your pre-salvation novels under pen names.”

“No. I am publishing all my work under my real name, Annalia Henley. I have a middle name
but I don’t like saying it or writing it down because it’s foreign and it’s really strange.”

“Oh…”

“So I just write Annalia C. Henley on all my title pages.”

“I get you.”

“It’s pretty, really, I just don’t like saying or using it. What I like the most is the meaning of it.
My first name is a combination of two names, Anna and Malia. Anna is my mom, Anna
Christina Henley, and Malia is my dad’s sister, his only sister and that’s why my parents named
me after her.”

“So you’ll leave me wondering what your middle name is.”

Smiling, she said, “I’ll never tell you. You’ll have to find out on your own if you really want to
know.”

“I’m going to find out when we get married and I see it on our marriage certificate, but don’t
worry, I won’t tell anyone and I won’t ever say it.”
 17

“So you know for sure that one day we’ll get married.”

“Yes, believe it or not, I do. You’re the most beautiful and sweetest woman I’ve ever met and I
can’t let you go. I fell in love with you at first sight, something I never believed in until today. I
don’t know, perhaps you can get me on my way toward making the most important commitment
in my life.”

“I don’t know. Perhaps. We’ll see what happens. I like you, too. I can’t deny you’re drop-dead
gorgeous.”

“Then we make a cute couple, don’t we?”

“I think we do, but like I said, we’ll see. For now, help me with my predicament.”

****

Donovan and Annalia arrived at her house.

Annalia’s mother, Anna Christina went out to the driveway to know who this strange
person was bringing her daughter home. She became concerned that Annalia was starting a
relationship with a stranger, and although it was only friendship, she didn’t want her daughter to
make a habit of it because not all people were as nice as it was more than obvious that this young
man was. Five younger than Annalia. If they took things further and became a problem, that
would be hard for the Henley family to digest and accept. It would take them time, and in the
meantime, Annalia and Donovan would have to break up their relationship, if they ever started a
romantic one, and even stay away from each other to keep those feelings from rekindling.

Annalia and Donovan got out of the car at the same time. As always, Annalia greeted her
mother with a big hug. “Mom, this is Donovan Thornhart. He goes to the University of Florida,
as well. He’s eighteen. Don’t get the wrong idea. I only brought him here because I heard he was
one of the best computer guys in school. He’s going to help me get into my user account and
back up my files.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Donovan,” said Anna Christina shaking his hand, smiling. “I hope you
don’t think that my daughter brings guys home regularly because it’s not true. After she broke up
with her ex boyfriend, Larry, you’re the first guy she’s ever brought here.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Henley. Your daughter is a very sweet woman and I would never think those
things of her. I am sorry but we can’t talk more till after I take care of her problem because as of
now, she only has,” he was looking at his watch, “five hours and forty-five minutes to back up
her files or she’s going to lose them forever and they’re essential, critical to her.”

“Ok. I hope you can stay for dinner. Shawn and I would like to get to know our daughter’s new
 18

friend a little better. I have a feeling you’ll be much more than just an acquaintance.”

“Believe me, I don’t want to be just an acquaintance. To be honest with you, I am fascinated with
your daughter, and from this day forward I would like to share my life, my world and my family
with her. I don’t ever want us to be out of touch, lose communication.”

Everyone went inside. Shawn and Anna Christina continued to watch some popular court show
in the living room, while Annalia and Donovan went to Shawn’s office instead of her bedroom.
Even if she left the door open and what they were doing would be in plain sight, she didn’t want
to leave herself open for misunderstandings, to her parents or Donovan. Donovan placed Anna
Christina’s laptop on the secondary computer desk that Shawn had in his office and went right to
work. Annalia’s user account was password protected, but even though Annalia gave him the
correct password and attempted to get in with that password countless times, the computer still
wouldn’t let anyone in. It occurred to Donovan to do the basic thing in this case, get into the
computer itself and erase the password from her account. He tried to get in without the password,
but the computer still wouldn’t let him in. He got into the bios again and went in through the
account labeled Administrator that would always use the password ‘123’ to get in by default.
This time, he got in. Annalia knew this was what she had to do but she didn’t know how. From
the administrator account, in safe mode, Donovan opened the folder that stored all the files in
Annalia’s account. In his backpack, he would always carry an external hard drive that to this day,
even when his laptop was two years old, he hadn’t had to use. He transferred all of Annalia’s files
to that hard drive.

Annalia applauded him, smiling.

“I don’t know why, but for some reason, some voice in my head kept telling me, take the external
hard drive. Take it. Take it. You’re going to need it. This time, you are going to need it. I thought
that something would happen to my laptop, and although it didn’t, I wound up using it for
someone else’s laptop, yours. Ain’t that funny?”

Not being able to wipe that smile off her face, she said, “Yes, it is.”

“You’re going to keep the hard drive and I am going to get another external hard drive for me.”
He pulled his laptop out of his carrying case. He backed up his files on that same hard drive.
He’d only used sixteen gigabytes of hard drive space, luckily, and the external hard drive had
500 gigabytes. Annalia’s files had taken up over 100 gigabytes. She had videos that she’d created,
gospel music she’d downloaded, and of course, her precious files that she was panicked about.
Then, Donovan used his recovery CD to take the computer back to its out-of-box state.

“Why are you performing a system recovery, Don?”

While the process was starting, he said, “Because I am giving my computer to you. You don’t
 19

have money to buy another one, but I do, so I am letting you have this one and buying a new one
for me.”

“You’re able to do that? You work?”

“Oh, yes. I am Attorney Kensington’s secretary. I make over six thousand dollars a month.
Laptops these days, even ones with awesome features are less than one thousand dollars, and
besides my monthly check, I’ve been saving money for emergencies that to this day I haven’t had
to touch—a lot of money. Seven thousand dollars in savings. All my accounts are protected with
Life Lock. It’s a small monthly price to pay to protect the thing most precious to me, my good
name. I even have credit cards, two of them, but I don’t use them. I always use cash and debit. I
let my parents use my credit cards to buy whatever they need. I know I can trust them. They give
me the money to pay for the credit-card bills, and they never spend more than one thousand
dollars a month. My credit cards, one of them has a $30,000 credit line and the other one
$50,000.”

“It’s good to know you and I can both trust our parents. I have one credit card I let my parents
use, too, but that one only has a credit limit of $5,000. They only use it to pay their bills because
they lost their jobs.”

“They got fired?”

“Laid off.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that.” The principal Windows account was ready to use. Donovan gave it
Annalia’s name and set ‘12345’ as her password for her to change later, so she could get in easily
without anyone else getting in at the push of a button. “I am going to talk to my dad and see if he
has positions for them at his company. He would have credit cards of his own except his credit is
ruined. Identity theft. That’s why I got me Life Lock.”

“Wow. Thanks for being willing to help out my parents.”

“No problem. You want me to transfer your files into your computer’s internal hard drive?”

“Only some of them, the manuscripts that are marked as ‘in-progress’ in the My Documents
folder, and the music. I’d like to keep my completed manuscripts and videos in the external hard
drive because, from the Windows Vista Home Premium logo in that computer, I can tell it’s not
very new and it has a smaller hard drive than mine.” Grinding her teeth, she added, “Mine was
only four months old.”

“I did an upgrade recently. It’s true that this computer’s two years old, but now it has a
one-terabyte hard drive.”
 20

“Mine was 500 gigabytes.”

“So you can store your videos here if you want to. All your files will only take up one tenth of
the space.”

“Now I know that, but I’d like to keep my precious files here at home, safe from everyone else. I
am scared to death of hackers.”

Donovan was transferring the files that Annalia wanted in her internal hard drive now.

“It’s unlikely that any of my books will be best-sellers, but I don’t want to take that chance. And
my videos, ooh, I don’t want anything to happen to those, either. They’re very important to me,
and I have a feeling that a hacker will want to steal them, too, although they’re not
pornographic.”

He laughed. “You’re right. My computer is blazing fast despite its age, so these files will finish
transferring in no time. Since this computer is not connected to the internet because my wireless
card is in my laptop’s carrying case, there’s no danger of your files being stolen, so let’s let the
computer do its work and go watch some TV with Mr. and Mrs. Henley. What do you say?”

“Let’s go.” They walked out of the office and she closed the door behind her. As they walked the
hallway back to the living room in this one-story mansion, she said, “Mom usually makes dinner
right after her last favorite court show is over. She watches a two-hour court-show block from
Monday to Friday. It’s three forty five, so dinner will be prepared at five. It’ll be done in no time
because Mom makes great meals, but they all take them less than forty-five minutes.”

“That’s good.”

They went back to the living room. It occurred to Donovan to call Daniel and put the phone on
speaker so that Shawn and Anna Christina could listen to what Daniel was saying to him. Daniel
was still at work and he would get home late.

Daniel answered the phone. “Thornhart Enterprises, this is Daniel Thornhart, president. How
may I help you?” He would let callers know who he was in the company just in case they wanted
to talk to the head of the company.

“Dad, it’s Donovan.”

Smiling, Daniel asked, “Hey, son, how are you doing? For some reason the call came on the
caller ID as unknown.”

“Funny. I never use the star sixty-seven crap, much less to call you. Maybe my phone is in an
area that’s new to me. I’m at the house of a girl I just met at the university. You know how big
 21

UCF is. She lives with her parents, so we’re all kind of hanging out here.”

“She’s a college student still living with her parents.”

“Yes. She promised them not to move away until she got married.”

“That’s original, and sweet. It’s nice to know you’re getting acquainted with classmates like that.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Henley lost their jobs.”

That smiled disappeared from Daniel’s face faster than the ray of light. “Oh.”

“I was just wondering if you had any positions opened by any chance.”

“I have one hundred positions open, but then again, you know how big Thornhart Enterprises is.
I employ over 2,000 people, so a position is always open. For some reason, someone leaves,
quits, or gets fired almost every month. I must be a bad boss or something because the ones that
quit, maybe they’re mad at me.”

“Maybe they demand more than you can give them or maybe they’re just not doing their job.”

“Yes, yes. Fortunately, I have positions of all kinds open. What’s the forte of Mr. and Mrs.
Henley, of each one of them. What are they excellent at? What did they do before getting, fired,
laid off or whatever?”

“They got laid off. They worked in the public relations department of their respective
companies.”

“Public relations. That’s great. My company could really use that right now because two of my
public relations people got fired today.”

“Ouch,” Don said with a serious face. “I wonder what they did wrong.”

“I’ll tell you when I get home, and you call me again. It’s kind of embarrassing. I say that
because I know you’ve got me on speaker and you shouldn’t get me off speaker because then
they’ll think the wrong thing.”

“Ok, Dad. I will call you later. Just know that Mr. and Mrs. Henley will not let you down, and
they won’t do whatever it is these people did. I’m going to stay at their house for dinner.”

“Whatever you do, don’t go into the girl’s bedroom with her. I don’t want an angry father beating
my boy senseless for corrupting his daughter.”

“Don’t worry, Dad. You know something about me that very, very few people know. In fact
people that know about this could be counted with the fingers of one hand, at the most. You
 22

know I’d never do that.”

“That’s good. Ok, son, I will talk to you later. Tell Mr. and Mrs. Henley to come here tomorrow
morning with their ID’s, resumes, and all their important documentation.”

“They heard you.”

“We will, Mr. Thornhart,” commented Shawn. “We won’t disappoint you.”

“I know you won’t,” Daniel replied. “My boy would never knowingly recommend me someone
that would disappoint me or hurt this company. He knows how prestigious it is, and when I
notice an apple has spoiled, I remove it from the bag before it spoils the others.” Daniel hung up.

Everybody screamed in utter joy and hugged.

****

Annalia, Donovan, Shawn and Anna Christina enjoyed lasagna for dinner that afternoon, Coca
Cola to drink and apple pie for dessert. However, each one of them only had one small square of
lasagna, a twelve-ounce can of Coca Cola and a small piece of pie for dessert. The secret of the
Henley family for staying lean was to eat in smaller portions and exercise early every morning.
Annalia and Donovan were still in the dining room, talking. The table was picked up and even
the tablecloth was put on, like no one had eaten there, a ritual performed every night. “So if your
dad is a multimillionaire, why don’t you live off his fortune until you get a career of your own?”
“I don’t like anything in small bits, Annalia. When I get something, it’s the whole thing,
like independence. Independence is absolute. You can’t be independent and live off anyone. I’m
all about absolutes.”
“Absolutes.”

“I’m earning my own money, living in my own place, I have my own credit established…I live a
good life. I’ve always believe that the moment you turn eighteen, it’s time for independence.
Being eighteen is not just about doing anything you want. It’s about getting unattached from
whomever it is you’re depending on, completely.”

Shawn and Anna Christina were watching TV in the living room because all they had in their
room was their bedroom set and their clothes in the closet and different chests. Shawn was
entering the kitchen at that very moment to get him and Anna Christina glasses of chocolate milk,
eight-ounce glasses. He was accidentally listening to the conversation, and he gasped at
Donovan’s last words.
 23

“Don’t get me wrong. You can live with your parents if you want to and if they want you to. Just
don’t depend on them. That’s not being totally independent, but it’s ok. That’s like ninety percent
independent.”

“My parents depend on me. That’s why I’m living with them.”

“That’s even better.”

“I moved back in with them when they got laid off.”

“For a minute I thought you’d never moved out.”

“No, I had. I had a dorm at UCF. When they called me crying saying they got laid off because
the company they were working for was having a rough time at the moment and the head of the
company had no more money to pay their employees, I gave in my dorm and moved right back
in here. I currently work. I have a full time job as a medical assistant. I took a short course and
right now I moved to UCF to study to become a psychologist. I make great money, well enough
to support me and my parents. They’d taken care of me till I was eighteen, so how could I not do
the same thing for them when they needed me the most? People criticize me. They say I don’t
have to do anything for my parents. I am not responsible for them, but I don’t care. I do what I
want and what I think is right, and if I want to provide for my parents, I will. What kind of
daughter would I be if I listened to heartless people and abandoned my mother and my father at a
time like this?”

“You don’t have to listen to them. In fact, you mustn’t. Like you just said, they’re heartless.
Those are people that probably have never done anything good for anyone, people that, instead
of giving others a helping hand, have sucked other people dry. People that take, and take, and
keep on taking, and never give anyone anything. Selfish bastards. Be careful with the people you
hang out with. I know for a fact that God hates that kind of people. Stay away from them. He’s
saddened that you’re even having relationships with people like that.”

“I know I shouldn’t reject people that are doing the wrong thing. After all I am a sinner, too, and
though I am trying very hard I am not living a one hundred percent holy life. In fact I’m just
getting started. However, you’re absolutely right. I should love them from a distance, stay away
from them before they take me right back to my old life and I start messing up again. Like you
said, I’m not sure if the backsliding teachings are true, but I don’t want to take any chances. I
mean what if they are? Jesus will be heartbroken if I turn away from Him. I can’t do that, and I
am starting to feel the influence, the… you know what I am saying? When I am around them, I
am starting to have negative, sinful thoughts.”

“Then cut them out of your life. Stop taking their calls. Stop letting them into your home. Stop
emailing them. Stop the IM’s. Cut off all communication with them. Live your life like you never
 24

met them. Make new friends. Christian friends. Meet them in person and start your own circle of
friends.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“If you have to, and you’re not sure about making friendships on the internet, only hang out with
people who are members of your church.”

“Yes, that’s right. That’s an even better idea.”

“Have them pray with you and take away those negative thoughts, help you get back on track.”

“Believe it or not, since I met you I haven’t had those evil thoughts. All the great advice you’re
giving me, your eyes, your smile…I just feel so peaceful, so good when I’m with you, like I have
someone I could run to every time I find myself having nowhere to turn, and I just met you
today.”

He smiled. “No girl’s ever treated me like this before, like I’m some kind of gift from above or
something. I think that’s why I haven’t let loose. The woman that will catch my heart to keep it
forever hasn’t come my way—till today. I don’t want to give all my love and hear the very next
morning, or a few months down the road, ‘You know what? I don’t love you. I never did. It was
just a fling. I have to leave you. I’m sorry.’ Or what’s more common nowadays. Check this out.
‘What we have is a mistake. I made a mistake. I don’t love you as much as I thought I did. I just
realized it.’ Give me a break. You love me with all your heart and soul and you wake up the next
morning realizing you don’t love me after all!” This made him laugh, reason unknown.

“Oh, Lord, I hate that. That’s what my ex did to me.”

“You’re kidding,” he said, openmouthed.

She shook her head. “Wish I were. I lost my virginity to him at age twenty. Gave him two years
of my life, and the charlatan woke up one morning and told me the exact same words you said
just now.”

“Oh, man!”

“Exactly. Exactly those words. Since I wasn’t saved yet I told him to bleep off and I never
wanted to see him again, and wished extreme eternal unhappiness upon him, that he would never
find a woman who would truly love him or love him as much as I did.”

“Damn…”

“In the year since we broke up, he’s been engaged to get married once and had two other
relationships. Those women dumped him.”
 25

“What the…?” he yelled.

“Yes, I know, and I feel horrible because I wish I could find them and lift the curse, if it really
was a curse.”

“Yes, but what are you going to do if, thinking it was a curse you put upon him, you go to him
and say ‘I lift this curse retracting from everything I said when we broke up’, and one year later
you find out that he’s had three more failed relationships in that time frame. What if it wasn’t a
curse? What if it was just karma? I don’t believe that anyone’s words are that powerful. I don’t
believe in curses, except when witchcraft is involved. You can cast an evil spell on someone and
hurt them or kill them, that I believe because I’ve seen it happen to some of my friends…”

Stunned, she asked, “Really?”

“But I don’t believe that you can just go up to someone, or be with someone at the moment and
say, ‘I curse you to never find true love for as long as you live. May you die alone.’ No. I would
have to see that with my own eyes to believe it, and even if I saw it with my own eyes, I would
think that the power of suggestion is behind it, that it’s happening because I take it seriously,
because I believe it is happening, not because it really is.”

“You’re amazing, you know that?”

“I just have a different view of life. I analyze everything, all the time. Everything I see,
everything I hear and experience, I put it in my journals, of which I have like twenty of them
now—why did this happen? How did this happen? Why did he do that? Why did she say that?
Where did that come from? I go to sleep asking myself questions about every. Single. Little.
Thing. My mind never rests. I do sleep, otherwise I’d be dead, but I analyze while I sleep. It just
never stops. Then I study, and I research the most important things, and that’s how I know. You
know where I get my answers when I wonder why people do what I see them doing? In the
Bible.”

She clapped her hands once. “That’s a great place to turn to for answers. Good job. Sounds like
all I have to do to get you where you need to be and get it over with and make the most important
decision in your whole life, is give you one little push, and bam, you’ll be there.”

“It sounds like it, you got that right.”

“I admire you so much it hurts. I’m not sure if we’ll ever be what you want us to be, but there’s
no doubt in my mind, no minimal doubt that we will be the best of friends. You’ll be my first
friend outside the church.”

Smiling, he replied, “I don’t have to remain outside the church. I could go with you to
church this Sunday. Oh, today is Friday. Darn, we’re talking about the day after tomorrow. What
 26

church do you go to?”

“Haven Church, it’s a Baptist church.”
“Great. I always found Baptists interesting. Don’t ask me why.”

“I won’t. You’ll discover why you find us interesting when you visit our church. I assure you,
you’ll never be disappointed and you’ll never want to leave. These people, at least the people in
my church, they are so kind and welcoming, and they treat you like family. When they found out
you’ve done something wrong, something major, like fornicating or lying or stealing, rather than
reproaching you, making you feel like vermin, and kicking you out of the church, they hold your
hand and pray with you. As soon as you’re done praying with them for forgiveness of your grave
sin, you feel such a relief, and most people, when that happens, they never fall into the same hole
again. It’s amazing. I guarantee you’ll love it.”

“I know I will.” He got up from his chair. “Well, I have to go. I have homework to do, and I am
sure your parents won’t want me spending the night because we just met.”

“Yes, it’s late, but you better go. I hope you can see where you’re going in the dark.”

“I’m not sure about that, but if anything I will just call my sister Desiree and have her pick me up.
Then I can come back here and get my car in the morning. How does that sound?”

“That sounds good.”

“My older sister, Diana had perfect vision until the first time her husband punched her out right
in the eye, three weeks after getting married.”

She got up. “Oh, Lord.” Her breath had been taken away and she had her hand on her chest, her
heart pounding.

“Now, Diana can’t drive after six, and she wears glasses with a lot of ‘zooming’ in them, in her
right eye. Luckily for her, she always picks out the coolest frames and she doesn’t look nerdy.”

“Where’s your brother in law?”

“In rehab, and when he gets out of there, he’s going to a psychiatric hospital. He might have one
mental illness, or several. Avid meth abuser. You get everything once you hear that.”

“Darn. You think I could go see him? What are the days of visitation? I want to go with you so
he doesn’t think that some random woman is going to visit him to tell him things he won’t want
to hear. Then if I tell him I’m his brother in law’s friend, he won’t believe me.”

“Visitation days are Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Visitation time is restricted to fifteen
minutes and nurses are always there making sure that relatives and friends are not bringing drugs
to you, ruining their purpose and your chances of recovery.”
 27

“We’ll go Monday, then, God willing.”

“God willing,” he repeated in some kind of singing tone and they shook hands.

Shawn appeared in the living room. “I can drive any time of day or night. Why don’t you let me
take you home?”

“That’s very nice of you, Mr. Henley.”

“Hey, you’re the son of my future boss, and it was you that provided me with this job opportunity.
You were the connection. Come on.” They walked together to the front door. “Annalia, your
mother would like you to watch a movie with her in the family room. Drama movie. Nice. It’s
not Christian, but…”

“It’s ok. As long as it doesn’t have any sex or drug use. I know in drama movies, violence is
inevitable.”

“Yeah.” The men walked out of the door. “I’ll see you later tonight.” Minutes later, Shawn’s car
was gone. Then, five minutes later, they came back, and Shawn went in to get the laptop he used
at home and he took it out of the house to let Donovan borrow it.

While Annalia watched the movie with her mother, about a boy who’d been abused all his life by
his parents and then found adopted parents who loved him, and all that was in danger of being
taken away, and that was the conflict of the movie, Donovan was back in his room with all his
stuff except his laptop and his external hard drive. Shawn let him borrow his computer so he
could order a new laptop online and do any homework that he needed to do on the computer.
After ordering his new laptop, a super advanced powerhouse with a two-terabyte hard drive,
eight gigabytes of ram, a DVD super-multi drive, the new Intel Processor, and Windows 7 Home
Premium sixty-four bit, with a fifteen-point-four-inch screen, completely black and beautiful, for
fifteen hundred dollars, because he’d specified a lot more hard drive space than the computer
people offered in the laptop, making the laptop custom built, he went on to do his homework,
which, lo and behold, all of it had to be done on the computer. Fortunately, Donovan had blank
DVD’s he could save all of tonight’s homework assignments into, and then his professors would
be kind enough to print out for him anything that needed to be printed out, and when it all was
over, he organized everything and went to sleep. This time, no one would call him and get him to
stay up for the rest of the night as dead-tired as he was, with or without intention. Although it
was Friday, if he had homework during the weekend or a work that had a deadline, he would
work on it that Friday night so he wouldn’t have to rush through it on the dreaded Sunday night.

That Saturday morning would turn out to be the worst day of Langston’ life and this time he
wouldn’t be under the influence of meth to make it so horrible. Barry wanted to talk to him, but
this conversation wouldn’t be friendly. Barry was one of the people that showed him kindness
 28

when he came here. That would explain everything that would happen next. Barry didn’t like him.
Funny thing was that Langston hadn’t done anything wrong to anyone so far. Barry just didn’t
like his attitude, and a small snowball would turn into an avalanche within the next few minutes.
 29

Chapter 3
“I want to talk to you.”
“Yes, Barry.”
Barry closed the door behind him for some privacy.

“You know you’re not supposed to do that. We must stay out of each other’s rooms.”

Barry locked the door.

“What the hell are you doing?” He walked to the door, pushed Barry aside and unlocked it.

“You’re even strong when you’re not on meth.”

“When I’m on meth, my strength is…supernatural, if you will, but when I’m not on it I am just a
strong as you are, so I suggest you don’t mess with me. I don’t care about being kicked out of
here for kicking somebody’s ass. I know they’ll put me on medication and bring me back, and
put me on a state where I can’t hurt anyone, but boy, that’s all they’re going to do, so like I said,
stay off my case.”

“I just came here to talk to you.”

“Yeah? Why did you have to lock the door, huh? You know you’re on violation? If I beat the shit
out of you all they’re going to do is send me to the psych ward early, put me on Xanax and bring
me back because they know I am seriously mentally ill, but you, what you’re doing? You could
be kicked out of here and even put away for suspicions of intent of sexual assault. You don’t lock
my door. You don’t even lock your own door. You’re not even supposed to be in my room. I told
you. When you came here and asked to talk to me I thought you wanted to meet with me in the
entertainment or the gathering room. Those are the only areas where we’re supposed to talk, not
in our rooms. If I make sexual advances toward you, I could also be incarcerated. This is not a
whorehouse.”

“Man, you better hear me out.”

“Ok, then get out of my room and I’m going to go get a nurse. I don’t trust you anymore.” When
Langston was about to get out of the room to get a nurse, Barry pulled his arm, forced him back
inside, closed the door and locked it once again. Barry’s body was a lot smaller than Langston’.
Langston looked like a wrestling superstar in front of him. Still, Langston was scared to death. It
was notable that Barry was under the effect of some powerful drug. He’d violated more than one
rule. “I am the one who’s going to beat the shit out of you because I hate you. You’re on the
losing streak because I’m high on something, and you’re normal. All the effects of the meth are
gone. Your blood is clean. That means you’re defenseless,” he said, walking towards Langston
 30

and trapping him onto the wall.

Suddenly, a nurse, as if sent from heaven, knocked on the door, infuriated because Langston
violated the no-doors-locked rule. “Langston Ainsworth, open the door right now! I came to give
you the first dose of your anti-psychotic! Your psychiatrist just authorized us to treat you here,
and there’s even a psychiatrist here, man, just in case you need an explanation, because you’re
always asking questions, driving everyone crazy! Open the damned door!”

Barry whispered, “If you dare to tell him anything, I will kill you. Do you understand?”

Crying, Langston said, “What did I ever do to you to drive you to hurt me, or kill me?” He
couldn’t help saying this very loud because he was so frightened he wet his pants.

“Langston? What’s going on in there? I know you ain’t talking to yourself! I ain’t stupid! Who’s
in there with you?”

“Tell him you’re talking to yourself,” whispered Barry. “Tell him you’re hallucinating.”

Langston nodded, and then, while Barry hid under his bed, for the first time in his entire life, he
broke a promise. As soon as he opened the door for the nurse, he whispered in the nurse’s ear,
“He said he came in here to beat the shit out of me because he hated me and if I dared to tell you
anything, he would kill me. Then he said to tell you I was hallucinating and indeed talking to
myself. He’s thin framed and considerably smaller than me, but he’s under the influence of meth,
therefore a lot stronger. Help me.”

“Where is he?” the nurse whispered, inaudible to Barry.

“Under my bed.”

The nurse looked under Langston’ bed and although Barry was wearing all black to go unnoticed,
he made the mistake of letting the wire of the headphones of his iPod slip out from under the bed.
Careful not to destroy the artifact, a patient’s property, the nurse pulled the wire delicately to
force Barry to pop his head out from under the bed. Barry’s head was out. Now he was the one
who was in trouble. “Barry Hinds. You were the one to lock the door, weren’t you?”

Barry didn’t know what to say.

“Don’t lie to me. Ainsworth here is a meth addict and ill in the head, but he ain’t no three year
old. He can follow directions, and I know he wouldn’t lock the door, or else he would be
punished.”

Barry came out from under the bed and stood up. Coming toward the nurse as Langston got back
farther and farther until he closed the door with his body, he said, “Yes, I locked the door.”
 31

“He told me about the threats you made to him, and he told me that you were on meth.”

“I’m not…”

“Oh, come on, Barry. You should know. A meth addict that hasn’t had a fix for almost a month
can smell an addict to any drug who’s still going at it from a mile away. I repeat. I am not stupid.
Tell me the truth, Barry. Otherwise you’ll be in serious trouble for breaking the rules and for
lying. Not only will you be kicked out like an unruly dog, but you’re also going to be in legal
trouble for violating all of the judge’s orders. Then, you’re going to jail. Is that what you want,
Barry?”

Langston took this chance to get out of the room and run to any place in the building that he
knew would be full of people.

“Look at that. You’ve got Hulk scared like a little girl, and he’s like ten times bigger than you!
Come on! Fess up or else.”

“Everything he told you is true.”

“You’re finally acting like a real man.” He handed the iPod back to Barry. “Next time you do this,
try not to bring your iPod with you because it’s always going to be evidence of your foul play.
Just my humble suggestion.”

“I won’t do it again,” he said, shedding tears. “It’s just that he drives me crazy. I hate him with a
passion. He thinks he’s the shit, he’s better than everybody, when he’s only what? Twenty-six, and he
looks like a decrepit old man! He might have been handsome once, according to his words, which I
doubt, but he’s fugly now. He doesn’t even look human. I don’t get why his wife hasn’t divorced
his ass. She should divorce him just for looking forty years older than he really is! That son of a
bitch! I can’t stand him!”
“Damn! It’s really the meth and the steroids talking. He was right. You probably just started and that’s
why you haven’t become fugly like Ainsworth, but believe me, if you keep using and abusing,
you’re going to get there so fast you won’t even be able to track your trip there! You won’t know
when you left home and when you arrived there! Oh, and about you doubting him being
handsome once.” He lifted a frame wedding photo of Langston. “This is one of the wedding
pictures Ainsworth was talking about.”

That left Barry out of breath and openmouthed.

“I thought I might bring it to him to remind him of the great-looking lad he used to be, to take
him back there, to make him want to go back to that, to those few moments of happiness.
Hopefully he wouldn’t have to come back here ever again.” He walked to the nightstand and
placed the picture right by the center of the nightstand, where it couldn’t be ignored. “Meth is
really doing a number on you, making you see things that are not there. Did you know that’s why
Ainsworth is taking this antipsychotic? Now I have to go after him just to give it to him because
 32

of you. Meth destroys the body, the mind, and the soul. Ainsworth is by far one of the most
humble and positive patients we’ve ever had. He’s cheerful, he’s always complementing
everyone…what’s more, he’s always telling everyone how much better they are than him! So, you
see, he’s exactly the opposite of the man you see. Rather than threatening him and insulting him,
you should support him, like the majority of us are. That man has gone the lowest anyone can go.
He’s beyond the floor. He has no self-esteem at all. He hates himself.”

“He should.”

“Barry…”

“He’s right in doing so because he’s a…”

“Barry, I was thinking of not reporting you to my superiors, risking my job, and giving you
another chance, but you know what? You don’t deserve it. You’re way out of line.”

“Emmett…”

“No! First it’s Ainsworth! Tomorrow morning it’s going to be like ten other people and then the
day after tomorrow everybody’s going to be your target! No! You’re out of your mind, way out
there, and I am not going to let this happen. I will report you.”

When the nurse turned around to leave, Barry tried to attack him, unaware, but just in time, his
training in tae-kwon-do became useful. Given all the authority to do so when feeling threatened,
the nurse incapacitated Barry temporarily using his techniques of self-defense and then went and
reported him. Emmett didn’t really hurt Barry. He just made him unable to move. Barry was used
to this. He’d been beaten thousands of times and survived.

****

Hours later, Langston was hanging out with his new friends in the entertainment room. Some
people were listening to music on their iPods, some were on their laptops, writing and surfing the
net, others were drawing and others were singing a cappella, quietly enough to have a good time
without disturbing other patients or the staff. They were drinking Coca Cola. All of a sudden,
Pablo started talking about the incident between Langston and Barry this morning, what caused
Larry to be kicked out like a dog, talking about the details he’d heard and wanting to get it all
straightened out because he didn’t know Barry and Langston were enemies. He was a great
friend to both of them, and it saddened him to know that he would probably never see Barry or
talk to him ever again because of a problem he had with his other best friend. “So tell me exactly
 33

what happened between you and Barnaby.”

“That’s his real name?”
“Yes.”

“Well,” Langston said and accommodated himself even more in that reclining chair, “he was
high on meth and he was using steroids. He said he hated me and he was going to beat the shit
out of me. Then Emmett knocked the door, mad at me because he thought I had locked the door.
Barry had locked the door so he could beat me senseless and no one could help me or find me
and make sure I got the medical care I needed. Maybe he was planning to beat me and just leave
me in my room until I died. He hates my guts and I have no clue why.”

“That doesn’t sound like the Barry I’ve known since I came here six months ago. He’d been here
for six months! What the hell came over him?”

“He was high on meth. He wasn’t thinking. He was seeing me as this conceited, megalomaniac
asshole that was rubbing it in everybody’s face how much better I was than them.”

Smiling, but with sadness in his heart, Pablo replied, “But you’ve been doing exactly the
opposite. You tell us day in and day out how much better we are than you and how you don’t
deserve such wonderful friends! At first we would take it as a compliment, but now it makes us
feel sad. Almost four weeks later, we hate hearing that, and we all think you should stop the crap
because frankly, that’s a signal that you’re severely depressed to the point where you have no
self-esteem. That’s horrible. We don’t want to be around someone like that. It makes us feel like
crap, feel the way you’re feeling. You should get better. You know, there are professionals here
and they will give you the help you need. You should request to talk to one of them. This rehab
center had to get its own mental-health professionals because they’ve noticed that there are too
many mentally-ill drug addicts here, and they can’t let them go home like that. They have to
make sure that everyone’s ok before they let us leave or before they allow us to interact with
each other.”
“I understand.”
“Request to talk to a psychologist. I’m sure you will feel so much better within the next few
weeks.”

“I will.” He got up from the recliner. “I’m going to see if I can talk to a psychologist or
psychiatrist right now.”

“You know when you leave here for a few hours and have your plastic-surgery procedures? Well,
they’re working like a charm. You’re already starting to look more like your age. Almost all your
wrinkles are gone.”

“Thank you.” They shook hands and Langston left.

A while later, Langston was talking to a psychiatrist, his psychiatrist, Dr. DePandi. Dr. DePandi
just sat there and listened to what Langston had to say, without saying a word, and writing
 34

everything down. Langston was pouring his heart out to her, letting her know what he’d been
feeling all these years, and what a loser he felt he was for becoming afraid of a scrawny man, all
because that man was on meth and he wasn’t. He had just realized how meth can really destroy
lives, and now, more than ever, he was determined to stay away from that crap. He felt Barry
humiliated him, and now more than ever before, he felt like utter scum.

“I understand how fearing someone smaller and physically weaker than us can make us feel.
However, you don’t have to feel that way. The man was on meth, Langston. Of course he was going to
be stronger than you at the moment. If you had both been normal at the moment and he dared to
threaten you, he wouldn’t have stood a chance. But he was high on meth and steroids. Lethal
combination. Crazy and supernaturally strong. You weren’t high on anything. You were normal.
Of course he was a lot stronger than you at the moment.”
“He was thin-framed, but I could see his bulging muscles. Oh, man…”
“I know. I know. Look, what we have to concentrate on is building your self-esteem.”

“Answer me this. How could I possibly love myself when I’ve destroyed so many lives?”

“Ok, first of all, about your mother—yes, you did destroy her life indeed, but she’s in a much
better place right now. No one can hurt her where she is. I know she’s looking down on you and
she’s very sad that you’re in this state, that you haven’t been able to get over her departure after
seven long years, and you’re killing yourself over it now.”

Crying, Langston said, “What am I supposed to do?”

“You should’ve gotten help seven years ago, the day your mother died, you should’ve sought
help. If you had, you wouldn’t be going through all of this. You would’ve never started using
meth. You wouldn’t have needed to. We all feel guilty about a lot of things, even horrible things
that have happened. I feel responsible for my father’s death because I didn’t have my glasses on,
my vision was blurry, and at the moment I couldn’t see anything, so I gave him the wrong
medication and he passed away. I would’ve gotten arrested if my mother hadn’t begged them not
to press charges for manslaughter.”

“Wow…”

“But I got help. I was sixteen at the time. Now I’m forty-two. I became a functional person,
someone helpful to society once again, and despite everything that happened, I was able to realize my
dream of becoming a psychologist because I left all that behind me. My mind is healthy now, and I
stopped taking antidepressants a long, long time ago, months before I started preparing for this
profession. I haven’t relapsed. I know I am responsible for my father’s death, you know if only I had put
my glasses on before giving him his medication, none of this would’ve happened, but I honestly
thought that since the medication he needed, the bottle was of a different color, I was giving him
the right medication. I didn’t know that two of the medication bottles were blue and all the others
were green. However, I don’t beat myself up over it. I have to put all that behind me, otherwise I
won’t be able to care for my husband, children and grandchildren. I have two grandbabies.”
 35

“Congratulations.”
“Thank you. My husband has cerebral palsy, mild to moderate. Oxygen was depleted from his
brain after a car accident we had. He’s mostly independent, but he still needs help for like two or
three things, like washing his back or reaching things up high because this happened a few
months ago and he still hasn’t gotten his reaching tool. A nurse takes care of him while I work
and then when I get home, I take over. I help him get into the bathtub and wash his back before
he washes the rest of his body so that I don’t have to worry about doing that before helping him
get out so he can get out and get dressed before he leaves the bathroom. I don’t actually help him
in and out, I just watch him.”

“He’s become almost independent in so little time?”

“Yep! He vowed never to give up. He said that as long as he had a breath in his body that he
would fight for what he wanted until taking his very last breath and that no one and nothing would keep
him from realizing his dreams. He’s a songwriter now, and his songs are all top ten in the Superstar
charts. Top ten. He used to be just the vice president of some company and now he’s a
millionaire, practically, with those songs. We moved from a modest, middle-class house to a
mansion, with all the commodities for handicapped people. We’re living the sweet life, like he
says, la dolce vita. He’s Italian.”
“That’s nice. I’ve always wanted to be a singer, but I’m twenty-six, so it’s kind of late.”
“Look at Barbara Cambridge. She released her first album when she was thirty-three. Did you
hear that? Thirty-three! Seven years older than you! And today, she’s one of the top recording
artists of all time, at fifty-five years old, and her incredible voice is still going strong, like the day
her first single was released, back in 1988.”

“That’s true. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but on the other hand…”

“Aha, let me hear it. There’s always a but. Tell me.” She said, arms crossed across her chest.

Langston laughed. “Women can start their singing careers whenever they want, thirty-three,
forty-three, even sixty-three if they want to! But men, we have to start young. Otherwise we
flop.”

“Says who?”

“That’s what I think.”

“Ah, exactly,” she snapped. “There you go! That’s what you think! I’ll tell you what. I know this
is unprofessional, but let’s make a bet, shall we? Yeah, I know you like doing that with your
fellas.”

He laughed harder now, like watching a comedy movie that wouldn’t allow the viewer to stop
laughing. “And how do you know? Tell me that before we make the bet.”
 36

“I know a lot of things about you, Langston. I’ve talked to your family.”

“Oh, now we’re talking. So what are we betting on?”

“I’m going to ask my husband to write a song for you. I’m going to summarize your life story for
him and he can write a song for you based on one of your most painful experiences, just one,
because I know there are a plethora of them, and you can make an autobiographical album.
That’s a great way to start, letting people know who you are and what you’ve been through to
your music. That way, in interviews, less questions have to be asked and answered.”

“Oh, if I were to make an autobiographical album, then my whole repertory would have to be
autobiographical because I have a lot of things to tell, lots of things that I think the world should
know, and I will let them know.”

“So my husband will write one song for you. Then you will release it as a single. If people like
you, then you will have to make your debut album, and if your single is successful, just that
single, you will have to put all that money in an untouched bank account and when I retire, I
want you to give all that money to me, every cent.”

“The money for my single or for my album?”

“For your single.”

“Deal.” They shook hands, sealing the pact.

A few days later, and after several sessions with Dr. DePandi in five days time, a
record-breaking two sessions a day for any mental-health professional in the world, Langston
was feeling a lot better about himself. His self-esteem was at a seventy-three percent. He was
writing a new entry in his journal.

TODAY WAS A GOOD DAY. ANOTHER SESSION WITH DR. DEPANDI AND I FEEL LIKE I AM ON TOP OF THE
WORLD, ALMOST. I AM REGAINING MY PHYSIQUE AT A FASTER PACE THAN I EXPECTED. I HOPE TONY’S
RIGHT IN SAYING THAT IF I DON’T USE THAT SHIT EVER AGAIN I WON’T NEED ANY MORE PLASTIC SURGERY
TO GET MY ‘BEAUTIFUL’ FACE BACK. I AM ALMOST THE MAN I USED TO BE, BEFORE I STARTED BECOMING
JEALOUS OF MY BROTHER. FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER I AM PROUD OF MYSELF. MY ANTIPSYCHOTIC
MEDICATION IS KEEPING ME IN THE REAL WORLD, ALTHOUGH IT MAKES ME SLEEPY, BUT THAT’S OK. I’D
RATHER BE FUNCTIONAL AND SLEEPY THAN INCOMPETENT AND AWAKE ALL DAY, IF I HAVE TO CHOOSE
BETWEEN THE TWO. I JUST HOPE THAT I CAN SEE MY MOTHER ONE DAY, EVEN IF IT’S JUST IN A DREAM, TO
TELL HER HOW SORRY I AM.

RELIEVED, LANGSTON A. AINSWORTH.

 37

When Langston finished his new entry, he suddenly got a vision of his mother in a white gown.
He thought this was either a dream or a hallucination. She was dressed in a white gown, looking
like an angel, but without the wings, her blond hair silky as ever, like a waterfall, long and
beautiful, and her eyes resembling emeralds. “Langston, you don’t have to apologize anymore.”
He refrained from responding so that no one would know that, according to him, he was
hallucinating, and they would give him a medication against schizophrenia because the
medications he was taking were antidepressants. So far, and luckily, depression was the only
mental illness doctors had found in him.
“I know you have suffered and you’re heartbroken,” she started screaming but no one could hear
her but him, although she was really there. She had appeared before him just to talk to him for a
moment, “but for God’s sake, I hate seeing you destroying yourself! I am not in heaven like
everyone thinks. I am with you. I could never leave you after all this time and I won’t be able to
leave this earth until you snap out of this. Punishing and killing yourself is not going to bring me
back. Resuscitation is impossible. Only Christ could do that, no one else. I will stay by your side
until your heart heals, but I don’t want to see you destroy yourself anymore, in any way. If I see
you using drugs to torture or kill yourself, or if you attempt suicide through any means, or even
harm yourself with all intention, I am leaving, and I am taking you with me. You understand?”

He simply nodded.

“Good. Now life your life like everybody else and stop beating yourself up over nothing because
none of that nonsense you’re doing is going to bring me back, I am sorry to say. Once someone
dies, they’re gone, and they never, ever come back. Oh and don’t believe in reincarnation, either.
That’s nonsense, too. Once you leave this earth you never come back. Never. Get that through
your head and live your life the way you’re supposed to because when you die, you’re not going
to be able to come back to do whatever you should’ve done, but didn’t do, or fix whatever you
did wrong. The time is now. Today. Do it. This is your one and only chance. Take it before it’s
gone.” She disappeared.

Overwhelmed with feeling, Langston sat on the edge of the bed, lied down, placed his head on
his pillow and took a thirty-minute nap to relieve his headache and cool down from the emotions
he’d just experienced. When he woke up, something bizarre took place.

Emmett was there to get him out of his room for a moment. “Come on, Ainsworth.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No. You behaved even when you weren’t medicated and now that you are, you behave even
better. You’ve got a phone call.”
 38

“Phone call?” he said as he got up. “From whom?”

“Person asked me not to say.”

“Ooh,” Langston said, genuinely scared. “Must be a life or death matter.” They got out of the
room together. “This is someone that doesn’t want anyone to know we’ve been communicating,
probably threatened to get killed or something.”

You’ve got a tremendous imagination. As soon as you know someone’s contacting you
anonymously, you come up with the craziest ideas. What would you say if you knew the person
contacting you is Barnaby Hines? Emmett thought as he walked him to the phone.
They got to the phone. Langston picked it up. “Hello. Don’t say your name, just talk. I
know you’re being threatened and I know no one can know we got in touch, so just get right to
the point and tell me what you have to tell me and cut the call.”
“Wow. You should be a mystery novelist or something. You can say my name and the whole
world can know we talked. In fact I would like the world to know there are no barriers between
you and me. It’s Barry, dumbass.”

“Barry?”

“I didn’t identify myself to you because I was afraid you would not only reject my call, but also
have the nurses keep my calls to you from coming through. How are you doing? Still don’t need
that trash?”

“Still don’t need it. I’m doing better. I am having as many sessions with my psychiatrist as I
possibly can, and a psychologist, and I am starting to accept me and appreciate the few qualities I
have as a person, loving myself more so I can love others just as much.”

“Few qualities as a person? Now that I am free from meth, I see your truth. I see who you really
are although I am nowhere near you. I know you’re a caring compassionate person who puts
himself last. You put God first, then others, and then you care for yourself. I was wrong. Emmett
was right. Meth had me believing things that were as untrue as anything the devil might say. I am
meth free and I have been for a week now. Withdrawal’s a bitch, but I have to put up with it in
order to free myself from that shit forever. Withstanding withdrawal is the biggest proof you can
give the world that you’re determined to break the chains.”

“I hope that scientists can come up with medications against withdrawal one day.”

“Man… you don’t know how badly I want the exact same thing. You’re strong. Pablo keeps me
informed on what’s going on with you, and he says that five weeks after quitting the shit you’re
still not experiencing withdrawal.”

“I guess God is helping me. I pray to Him every day to keep from feeling that. Every single day,
in the morning, during the day, every time I am relaxing and not doing anything or talking to
 39

anybody, and before I go to sleep. I just don’t stop praying, man. Every moment I have to myself
I just pray. And pray. And keep on praying. That’s what I think gets me through. Where are you,
man?”

“Even though I got reported for violating all the judge’s orders, she gave me one more chance,
placed me in another rehab facility far away from you, for six months at the least, and here I am,
waiting to get back home to my beautiful wife and my adorable children.”

“I can’t wait to get back home to my wife and listen to my baby’s heartbeat. She’s seven months
pregnant now. We’ve been trying to conceive this child since our wedding night and it’s finally
helped. He’s almost here and I can’t wait.”

“That’s awesome. Have you thought about what you’re going to name him?”

“I was thinking of naming him after you because I am going to name one of my boys after me,
Langston Abel Ainsworth, just not my firstborn. I am thinking of saving that for my last son.
That is, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t mind! I’d be honored, as a matter of fact! I guess this means when we leave
rehab, we’re going to be friends.”

“That’s only if there are no hard feelings.”

“If there were I wouldn’t be calling you. When I hate someone I cut off all communication with
that person. That’s what I decided. It’s better just to cut it off rather than trying to hurt them. I
would just be making things worse, you know?”

“I don’t hate anyone, not even my worst enemies. I can’t do that after everyone in my family is
supposed to shun me and abandon me and they’ve all given me one more try and wrapped me in
their loving arms once again. It’s like I’d never done anything wrong. How could I possibly hate
anyone when the whole world loves me? The only being I could ever hate now is Satan.”

“You’re so right. That’s the best attitude.”

“I’ve been given a second chance and I’m not letting my loved ones go this time.”

“All right, we have fifteen minutes and I don’t know how long we’ve been on the phone.”

“Yeah, man. You can call me or email me anytime. Pablo has my email address. Although we’re
in the same place we email one another when we don’t want anyone hearing what we’re saying.”
Langston laughed.

“Good tactic. All right, I am going to get your email address from Pablo. I am hanging up now.
Bye, man and thank you for making peace.” The call came to an end and the next patient got to
 40

make her phone call for the day. As Langston told London, patients were indeed allowed to have
one fifteen-minute call per day. There were one hundred patients in this facility and every one of
them needed their daily phone call. They restricted the amount to one hundred patients so they
didn’t have to limit the call time of patients and no more patients could enter the facility until the
first one hundred left or one more patient finished his program and left. Right now, there was
room for five more patients because some patients had finished their time in rehab and others had
been kicked out.

Pablo and Barry were texting one another. SO HOW DID IT GO?
IT WENT GREAT. HE WANTS FRIENDSHIP WITH ME.
I TOLD YOU HE WOULD. HE’S BECOME A FORGIVING PERSON BECAUSE EVERYONE HE LOVES AND KNOWS
HAS FORGIVEN HIM FOR EVERYTHING HE’S DONE.

I NEED HIS EMAIL ADDRESS SO I CAN CONTACT HIM MORE OFTEN THAN I AM ALLOWED BY PHONE.
HOPEFULLY IT’S ASSOCIATED WITH AN INSTANT-MESSAGING SERVICE LIKE WINDOWS LIVE OR YAHOO.

YES, IT IS. Pablo wrote Langston’ email address in the text. HE HAS BOTH
INSTANT-MESSAGING SERVICES, WINDOWS LIVE AND YAHOO, IN CASE ONE OF HIS CONTACTS PREFERS THE
FORMAT OF ONE OVER THE OTHER.
GOOD. YOU HAVE HIS CELL PHONE NUMBER, TOO, SO I CAN TEXT HIM?
Pablo wrote Langston’ mobile number on the text message.
THANK YOU. KEEP ME INFORMED OF WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH HIM, OK? EVERY LAST DETAIL. I’VE
GOT A SURPRISE FOR HIM. A GOOD ONE OF COURSE. I PROMISED I WOULD NEVER HURT HIM AGAIN.
GOOD.

The exchange of text messages stopped, just for now, until Langston would do something
new that Pablo thought Barry should know about.

****

Donovan was in his room at the moment, doing homework, as he would Monday through Friday,
every week. Suddenly, he got a phone call from someone he didn’t expect. He’d been going with
Annalia to church on every service the church would offer, but no service could prepare him for
this. “Hello.”
“Is this Donovan Thornhart, that son of a bitch?”
“Leave my mother out of this, imbecile, or I will go get you wherever you may be and punch
your face in.”

“Aren’t you going to church?”

“Yes, and I am saved and everything, but I have a long way to go before I renew my mind and go
all the way, so in the meantime, if you mess with my family, you’re going to get what’s coming
to you, you understand? You can do anything you want to me, but don’t touch my family.”

“Oh.” He was pretending to be strong but he was genuinely scared. “I just wanted to demand that
 41

you leave Annalia alone.”

“Demand? Who the hell are you to make any demands? I mean I know who you are, Lawrence
Baker, but who the hell are you to demand I do anything? Screw you! Annalia’s my friend, but
she’s also the love of my life and I can make her my girlfriend and marry her whenever I want to!
Turns out the age difference between us doesn’t matter to her parents after all because they know
I am a good guy. Mr. Henley told me I am better for her daughter than you will ever be. He
prefers me as a son in law over you, and he says we can get married whenever we’re ready. As a
matter of fact, I lied. Sue me. We are boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“You asshole.”

“Yes, that’s right, moron. You are mad because you know I will treat her better than you ever did.
I won’t wake up one morning and tell her that I didn’t love her as much as I thought I did, that I
didn’t love her at all, that I made a mistake, you punk!”

“You…”

“Yes, you insult me all you want because I know you’re trembling with fury. You know that she
found herself someone better and you will never, ever get her back. I know the kind of person she is
and she’s one of few Christians that don’t commit the same grave sin twice.”
“Grave sin? You mother…”

“Hey, hey, hey, don’t even go there, or I will find you and beat you senseless, you sissy!
You coward! Why don’t you tell me all that nonsense face to face, huh? By the end of this
conversation, you will have had at least 106 of your 206 bones, broken.”
“At least you’re not cursing.”

“You don’t deserve it for me to get in trouble with God for doing that. I know I threatened you
and it was wrong, but you stay away from my family, all right? And you stay away from Annalia.
I won’t let you hurt her anymore. You’ve put her through enough pain.”

“Fuck you. I am going to fight for Annalia’s love no matter what you say or do.”

“We’ll see about that.” Donovan hung up.

Donovan just had to get together with Annalia at a simple restaurant that offered economical but
delicious food, and that most people would go to. He had to sort this out with her and make sure
that she had no feelings for Lawrence before asking her to be his wife. Annalia and Donovan
knew they were right for one another and he would get engaged to her and marry her within a
year, but not before making sure that Lawrence wouldn’t be in the way because of her feelings
for him.

“I can’t believe that imbecile called you. How dared he?”

 42

“He demanded I stay away from you.”

“Who in the world does he think he is? He’s no longer in my life. I wish you knew how
controlling he was when we were together. Just because he was my first sex partner ever, he
thought that he could tell me what to do, who to get along with, what to wear, what to eat, and
how much. Sometimes I felt like I had to ask him permission to breathe.”

“He thinks you still love him and I’m your rebound guy. That’s why he did this.”

“He’s egotistical. Of course he thinks I still love him. When you’re egotistical, you don’t use
common sense. You think that every man or woman in the world is laying on his or her bed
waiting for you to jump their bones. That’s the way he is. You know what he told me once? That
none of his ex-girlfriends were ever able to get over him, they were still calling him to sleep with
him. I thought, what the f? F you!”

“Yes, he’s egotistical, all right?” Donovan cleared his throat. “Doesn’t he realize what the prefix
or word ‘ex’ means? It means former. No longer. They’re his exes for a reason. He obviously
didn’t do something right, and if he was controlling as you say, well, there it is.”

“He was only controlling with me because I was his first virgin, and he thought I was not his
girlfriend, but his property.”
“Please! We’re God’s property, no one else’s. We don’t even belong to ourselves!”

A passerby said to him, “Praise the Lord! You are so right son, you don’t even know.
Don’t ever change your mind about that.” Then he walked out of the restaurant.
 43

Chapter 4
Donovan went after the man to try to get his contact information. He was hoping to connect with
another Christian man, even if he was under a different denomination. He went closer and closer
to him. “Excuse me.”
The forty-one-year-old father of six and grandfather of two turned around. “Yes?”
“You have a card?”

“I’m not a businessman, but an early retiree because I’ve been working on the same company and
earning great money since I was sixteen, so they allowed me to retire early and I receive a decent
check, but I do have a contact card, yes.” He pulled his card out of his wallet, put his wallet back
in the side pocket of his pants and handed the card to Donovan. “Our family’s provided for,
thank God Almighty, because I am a minister.”

“Oh, you are?”

“Yes. I just dress casually when I’m not involved in church or ministry activities. Besides, I don’t
live off the members of my church. What I do is spread the good news. My whole family works,
even my adult children, so my family’s well provided for.”

“So you don’t take tithes?”

“Only those who can tithe. Those that are too poor give one-dollar offerings. I can’t leave my
members without their money, you know? I don’t use that money for myself or for my family,
not even for our church. I use that money to give food and clothing to the most needy.”

“That’s beautiful. So you’re the minister,” he said and looked down at the card, “Of Saint Jude
Baptist Church.”

“That’s right,” said the man, smiling. “You have a contact card, too?”

“No. I never thought I’d need one till now. I am going to purchase some on the internet. My
girlfriend’s father let me borrow his computer indefinitely for what I would need, so…I ordered a
computer online over one month ago and someone else got it, it seems. They must’ve gotten the
address wrong, or maybe I was kind of nervous and typed it wrong.”

“Oh, yes, I was wondering how in the world I got a Toshiba Satellite laptop that I never opened. I
never opened it because I never ordered it and obviously I didn’t pay for it. It would’ve been
stealing and the Lord would’ve been disappointed in me.”

“Wait. Did you say Toshiba Satellite laptop?”

“Yes. Did I get your laptop by mistake, son?”

 44

Donovan looked down at the home address on the card again. It was Donovan’s exact same
address, but with a different name of street, and the residence number didn’t have a letter by it,
like A or B, like Donovan’s home address did. “Oh, Dear Lord…!”

“So that computer is yours.”

“Yes, you did get my computer by mistake. I typed the address so wrong, I don’t know what I
was thinking. I was stressed about my brother in law beating my sister, and worried about my
relationship with the woman who’s now my girlfriend, frightened at what the parents might think
of me for pursuing their daughter who was older than me…I just, oh, Lord…”

“Don’t worry. We all make mistakes.”

“I thought the computer got lost and I would never get it and have to buy another one, making
my bank account scream. Thank you for not making it yours and using it.”

“I’d never do that. Like I said, that’s stealing, and the Bible says, in people’s way of talking, ‘You
should not steal’. I know I would’ve paid the consequences for that even if I had asked for
forgiveness, which I always, always do. You want to come over to my house and pick up your
new computer?”

Annalia walked out of the restaurant wondering what was delaying Donovan and was amazed at
the friendship that was being born between these two men. Obviously the older man was a
Christian. Otherwise he and Donovan wouldn’t have clicked this quickly because she knew
Donovan had a hard time trusting people all his life. She walked closer to them.

“Each one of us can go in his or her own car. What do you say? That way you can stay a few
minutes and meet my family. My children no longer live with me and my wife, but Sunday is
family day.”

“Ok.”

As Minister Bentley got into his $30,000, 2011 Toyota Camry, he said, “I don’t have a computer
of my own. All my computer’s hardware got fried, but I don’t do what I know is not right. It’s ok.
I can go to the store and buy any computer I want, thank God Almighty. No problem.”

Minutes later, everyone was gone. Shortly after that, they arrived at the Bentley home. Everyone
got out of the car and Minister Bentley walked right in. Before they were even introduced, Mrs.
Bentley and her older daughter, Britney, loved something they saw in Annalia and Donovan’s
eyes. They couldn’t explain what it was, but it was something great. These were good people. It
was like they could see through Annalia and Donovan. Mrs. Bentley smiled and seconds later,
Britney Bentley did the same. “Hello!”
 45

“Hello, Mrs. Bentley,” said Donovan, offering his hand. “I am Donovan Daniel Thornhart.”

Mrs. Bentley shook Donovan’s hand. “I am Bridget Bentley. It’s a pleasure to meet you,
Donovan.”

“Likewise.”

Shaking Mrs. Bentley’s hand, Annalia said, “I am Annalia Henley.”

“It’s great to meet you too, Annalia. So what brings you here?”

“Let us start by saying that we’re members of another Baptist church,” Annalia said.

“That’s nice. Is it close to ours?”

“About three miles,” said Donovan.

“I like that. Is your church named ‘Haven’?”

“Yes, it is.”

“We’ve had activities with them several times! How come we never met you before?”

“Because I’ve only been a member for the past month and two weeks.”

“Oh. I would’ve loved to meet you then, but it is written that every event has a specific time to
take place.”

“We met your husband at the ‘Maria Bonita’ restaurant. You guys recently received a computer
you didn’t order and you left it somewhere, unopened, sealed, just like it came. Well, that
computer is mine. I put in the wrong address by mistake when I made that order. I put in my
residence number without the letter, because I live in an apartment, and then I put in the name of
your street and my. Zip. Code. Yes. Nice, huh? It was my mistake, so now that I think it over,
you guys can keep the computer if you want to. My dad is the renowned Daniel Didier Thornhart,
and for the first time in a year and a half I am going to ask him to buy me something—a laptop.
You see Minister Bentley told me that all the hardware on your computer was damaged and you
needed a new one. He said that he would go get one at the store and with all due respect, he has a
heck of a lot more money than I do, but I think that if I made a mistake while placing the order
and it got here, that it was meant for you guys, and not for me.”

“Are you serious?” said Britney, stunned, and then went out of the kitchen to get her father.
“Dad…”

“As a matter of fact,” Donovan said, dialing his father’s mobile number, hoping he’d be at his
brother’s house, “I am calling him up right now.”
 46

“That is so sweet of you, Donovan. Thank you. Robert didn’t want to keep it and open it because
he knew that would be stealing something from somebody else and he tries his best not to do the
wrong thing when he knows it’s wrong. He thinks about it over and over again until he ends up
not doing it, ninety-nine percent of the time. He’s human, so he’s not sinless by any means, but
he tries his hardest to be perfect. Most Christians know that perfect doesn’t mean sinless.”

Donovan was talking on the phone with his dad know. “Hey, Daniel Didier, how are you doing?”

“When you call me by my real name instead of calling me Dad or father it’s because you need
something. Ask for anything. You know you haven’t asked me to get you anything in quite some
time, son.”

“You remember the laptop I ordered?”

“Someone else got it by mistake, you can’t get it back and you need another one. I will get it for
you at Office Heaven. Don’t worry. That way this won’t happen again.”

“I found the people that got it by mistake, by pure coincidence and I am here, at their house.
Minister Bentley brought me over to pick it up but I decided to let him keep it because if he got it
instead of me, because I made a mistake in the order and put in the wrong address, instead of it
being brought to the wrong address by mistake, although the address was perfect in the order,
that’s because the laptop was meant for Mr. Bentley and not for me. It just so happens that his
laptop is trashed. All the hardware gave out at the same time.”

“Oh. Well, that’s very kind of you, son. You’re so sweet. Instead of changing for the worse, you
became even better than you used to be. I must say, meeting Annalia Henley and her family and
going to church with them was the best thing that’s ever happened to you and to us, besides your
birth, of course.” Daniel laughed. “All right son, this is what we’re going to do. I am sure that
everyone in that house has his or her own laptop, but you’re going to let Minister Bentley keep it
and enjoy it, and then as soon as you leave there with Annalia, we’re going to go to Office
Heaven to get you a new laptop. Does she want a new one, too?”

“No. She says that she wants to keep mine even when it doesn’t work anymore just because it’s
mine, and she thinks of me every time she uses it.”

“How adorable! Well, ask Annalia if either one of her parents needs a laptop, probably her
mother. I have a hard time remembering her name for some reason.”

“It’s Anna Christina Henley.”

“Right, Anna Christina. Beautiful name. Ask Annalia if Anna Christina would like a computer.”

The call was terminated minutes later, and then, Minister Bentley came back into the kitchen,
 47

just as Annalia and Donovan were leaving, and said to Donovan, “Thank you. I just removed it
from the packaging, opened it and turned it on. When I walk back into my office I am going to
set up my user account.” Minister Bentley took the liberty to hug Donovan. “Thank you so much.
May God bless you endlessly for this and all your genuinely good deeds.”

“Amen. Thank you for becoming my friend and giving me more new friends. I am going to
Office Heaven with my dad to buy me a new laptop. He knows that I am still kind of shaky, I’ll
make the same mistake but put in a totally different address, a second person will get it by
mistake, and that person will not be as good as you and attempt to give my computer to me even
if that person knew that the computer belonged to me and he or she found me.”

“That may be true. Don’t take that chance, son. Go to the Max and buy that new laptop. You
deserve it.”

“You deserve the one I just gave you, too. I will come visit when I have free time and we’ll
gather at the next activity that all Baptist churches in this town have together.”

“Ok, son. Have a great day and once again, thanks for everything.”

Annalia and Donovan walked out the door and a few minutes later, they were gone from the
Bentley mansion.

Minister Bentley said to Mrs. Bentley right at the entrance hallway, “Those kids are good. Really
good. It’s a shame they’re not members of our church. Maybe someday, you know.”

“Yes, maybe someday. We know how everything is today, but you don’t know about tomorrow.
If everything can change from one minute to the next, imagine how things can change from one
day to the next.

****

That night, around six thirty, Daniel, Annalia and Donovan arrived at Office Heaven and got out
of the car. Anna Christina went in her car to get her new laptop. She was planning to pay her
boss back for the computer. After all, this was her boss. She had doubts about accepting this
from him as a gift. As they entered the store, she started talking to him about it. “You don’t want
me to pay you back?”
“Nope!” Daniel said as they started exploring the store, looking at different office
supplies that Daniel and Anna Christina might need.
“Why don’t you deduct a monthly amount from my check?”

“Nooooo….”

“Oh, come on,” she insisted, walking right behind him, all the while, making Annalia and
 48

Donovan laugh their butts off to themselves, sounding like little kids to those who were lucky to
hear them, “if you deduct one hundred dollars a month, and I get a six-hundred or
seven-hundred-dollar-laptop, it can be paid off in six or seven months.”

“Those one hundred dollars could very well be for your satellite-TV service bill.”

“Come on, Mr. Thornhart.”

“I said no. You know how you can pay me back? By being a good employee, doing a good job.
If I deduct that from your check every month and you do a horrible job at the office, what’s the
use? Think about it.”

“Well, now that you put it that way…”

They continued to walk through the store. “You see how this works? You be the best you can be,
for as long as you work for me, and the computer will be paid back in full. I am not giving you
this computer for the fun of it, but because you earned it.”

They stopped walking. “So this is a reward.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Thank you so much.”

“You don’t pay anyone back for a reward they give you, now do you?”

“You’re amazing, with all due respect.”

“Compliment taken and respect appreciated. Now let’s shop for computers and office supplies.
Let’s see, I need printer paper, pens, permanent markers, staples…”

After getting all of the extra supplies that were needed at Thornhart Enterprises, they got to the
section they came for—the laptop computers. Daniel demanded, “Anna Christina, pick the
computer you want, no matter how much it is. Just get what you like.”

“I need nothing extraordinary, just plenty of storage for music, videos I create, eBooks, plenty of
RAM for gaming, I like gaming and software for photos. That’s all. Oh and I want the hard drive
to be less than one terabyte because I don’t need all that space. I only stored 500 songs in the
computer I had and I only created like forty videos in the format that takes up the least space,
like MP4 format, you see, because I do video blogs in YouTube.”

“Interesting…”

“I would just record it from my webcam straight to YouTube, but I’ve tried that before and my
 49

video came out incomplete,” she frowned. “My videos are still on YouTube, luckily. Although
I’m implacable in my opinions, none of them have been taken down. When I see a current even
that has everyone talking or that I find unheard of or amazing, I do a video blog about it,
expressing my thoughts, my opinions, my questions, and people love that. I seldom get negative
comments.” They were still looking at the computers hoping to get exactly what they needed,
style, lots of hard drive space, memory, a great processor, a screen and a keyboard that would be
big enough, and of course an advanced DVD burner and more than one USB port to connect
backup devices like flash drives or media storage like MP3 players. “In fact, only one tenth of
the comments I receive are negative, and they’re usually voted thumbs down.”

“Wow… so you do get opposition, but it’s censored.”

“Yes. I get negativity and animosity on my channel because not everyone’s going to like me, but
usually no one agrees with those who don’t like me. I must be causing some kind of—impact, if
you will. I get video responses congratulating me, and the ones I get that are disrespectful, they
get taken down. The negative video responses that I get that are not disrespectful usually stay.
Usually, not always.”

“Give me the URL of your YouTube channel.”

“You have a YouTube channel, Mr. Thornhart?”

“Yes, but it’s just to watch videos and put my favorite videos and channels in there. I don’t
upload anything of my own. People say I have a great-looking face. My son looks just like me.
See, this is the way Don’s going to look when he’s forty. Nonetheless, I don’t dare to show my
face to the world. I just, I don’t know. I don’t want to become a celebrity. As long as Thornhart
Enterprises continues to thrive, I will be more than happy.”

“That’s a good attitude to have. You look as young as your son, also,” said Anna Christina. She
would never suck up to anyone or say anything that she didn’t mean.

Daniel knew her intentions were the best and took this as a compliment, but didn’t agree. “I look
eighteen?”

Annalia and Donovan laughed hysterically.

Daniel snapped, kidding, “Shut up!”

They got the message and the tone and remained grinning, like five-year-old rascals.

“Yes, believe it or not, you do.”

“I’m known for being outspoken, although I express my opinions with as much respect as I can,
 50

but this time, I will keep my thoughts to myself. All I’m going to say is don’t make me fire you,
Anna Christina, because you’re great and I would loathe to lose you.”

The children laughed again.

“This has been quite a fun day, don’t you think, Annalia?”

“Shut up, Donovan Daniel!”

They laughed again, this time to themselves, looking at one another with mischief.

An associate came up to them. That face was eerily familiar. At least he looked like someone
they knew and loved. It was Wilbert. They recognized him as Langston’ brother, although they
didn’t know him, because the only difference in his and Langston’ faces were the shape and color
of Wilbert’s eyes. His eyes were just a little bigger. “Hello, I am Wilbert. How can I help you? I
see you have a tough time deciding what laptop to get.”

“Are you Wilbert Ainsworth?”

“Yes, sir.”

Daniel shook Wilbert’s hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Daniel Thornhart.”

“No, you’re my twin,” replied Donovan, his laugh sounding like a hyena’s.

“Donovan Daniel Thornhart!”

Donovan was sorry that he couldn’t help but to make fun of his father after the innocent and
well-meant comment that his future mother-in-law made to his father. He laughed in silence with
Annalia so much that he started to feel that uncomfortable burning sensation in his throat. He
yearned for some water and wanted to ask for it but didn’t have the guts to because his father
would know he was laughing at him and slap him.

“It’s nice to meet the legend, with all due respect,” said Wilbert, smiling.

This compliment was also sincere and well-meant. “Thank you, son.”

“It’s not every day you meet the founder of the prestigious Thornhart Enterprises. You know I
never dared to have relationships with anyone in your family and I would rather us never meet in
the past because of everything that my brother put your daughter through. I am just so ashamed
because I always loved Diana, but…”

“You don’t have to be ashamed for the actions of someone else, even if they’re your family. You
did nothing wrong. You didn’t even give us a chance to get to know you because you were
‘ashamed’. You’re a great guy and I am very proud of you. You’re brother’s always saying
 51

wonders about you.”

“Yes, he does that with everyone and then he puts himself down, way down.”

“That doesn’t mean what he said is not true.”

“It’s like he envies everyone. Everyone’s wonderful and he’s scum. Frankly I am sick and tired of
hearing the same crap so I just don’t talk to him. I can’t stand him telling me that I am oh so
much better than he is because I treat my girlfriend like a queen and he treats his wife like trash.
It makes me cry, so I haven’t spoken to him since he entered rehab.”

“Well, I think you should. He’s not like that anymore.”

The guys stop laughing, and Donovan got the relief of that burning that he needed, quick.

“You should talk to him. He is still going to tell you how amazing you are, but he won’t tell you
how worthless he is. It’s been several weeks. He’s improved. I know because I visit him every
time I have time to myself, for a few minutes, three times a week, before coming home from
work.”

“Well, I believe you but I hope he doesn’t change into that spineless man again.”

“I’ve heard that when people change for the better, they seldom go back to their old ways.”

“Let’s hope so,” Will said wiping his tears away. “Ok, let’s cut the drama. Tell me what you do
the most on your computer and I will tell you what’s the computer for you.”

Anna Christina went first. “I download and listen to music, both secular and Christian. I know, I
know… but I stay away from utterly obscene lyrics and stuff like that. I don’t think you’d go to
hell for listening to secular music, unless you do those things they say. Maybe I’m ignorant of the
truth, but oh well, time will tell…and I play my music on iTunes, transfer it to my iPod. I also
create videos, lots of videos. Every time I see something on the news that makes me angry, I
create a video blog and upload it to YouTube, and I make it everything but funny although
some people do laugh at some of my comments. I like gaming. I like playing old Nintendo
games on the computer. I am an expert at that, both on the gaming console and on the computer.
I need a computer that has a program that will help you record the video and edit it and do
anything with it without you having to purchase and download an application from the Net. I
don’t need anything advanced, just something that will record the video and help me edit out any
mistake I made or something like that. I don’t need one of those five-hundred-dollar
video-editing applications.”

Wilbert checked out the computer that had the specs she needed and then he tried to dig in
deeper and find out what the preinstalled programs were on that computer. He had to go to
 52

consult with another specialist that would find out this information because no one had ever
asked him about the programs a computer offered. “I’ll be right back. When I come back I am
going to ask you what computer is the best for you based on what you usually do on one, ok,
twin?”

They laughed again while Wilbert left the area.

For entertainment, they started texting some of their friends and Daniel started watching videos
on his phone, his favorite music videos and comedian videos, but he would watch videos on
YouTube instead of downloading them onto his phone. He found a brand-new video from one of
his favorite YouTube comedians, one of the most acclaimed even. When it came to artists,
Daniel would always feast on la crème de la crème and enjoy their talents to the max, watch
them every time he had time to spare and wasn’t working.

A few minutes later, Wilbert came back with another associate, one that carried an extensive list
of the programs that each computer in stock had pre installed. She looked up that computer,
which fortunately they hadn’t run out of and Anna Christina was about to get the last one, and
she would because once that people saw her there, they wouldn’t go anywhere near that
computer because this computer was officially owned. “Ok,” Kara said, “first of all no one’s ever
asked for this information before, so I am glad I have this handy, and whoever redacted this, I
wish the best upon him or her, wherever he or she is, if he or she’s no longer working here.”

Everybody laughed.

“This computer you’ve chosen in particular, Mrs. Henley, it has Microsoft Office 2010, all the
other programs that come even with the older computers, like Solitaire, Word Pad and Notepad
for example, it comes with the My Toshiba program in case you need support or to buy
accessories online and you can do so with one click, and the advanced programs, well, you’ve
got Windows Media Player preinstalled, but you said you used iTunes, so you can download that,
no problem, because it’s free and the computer storage space is 780 gigabytes…”

“Whoa, mama,” said Donovan.

Anna Christina smiled.

“It has a DVD player, a DVD creator, elite CD-creator program, and the list of programs is so
extensive it would take me all night to read it to you…”

They laughed harder now. Passersby heard them and laughed with them without knowing what
they were laughing about.

“What we’re looking for…oh, yes, you’re in luck! This has a brand-new video recording and
editing program, the basics, just what you asked, and it’s free. You don’t have to pay to
 53

download it once again or activate it if you have to do a recovery of your system, or to upgrade it.
It’s free.”

“Yea!” said Anna Christina, excited, but with a low voice.

“And what I said about the extensive list of programs, don’t fret about that. According to this
sheet, all the programs on this machine are only taking up sixteen gigabytes.”

“Oh, that’s a relief.”

“You shouldn’t need to download additional programs except iTunes because even Windows
Live Messenger is installed on here. You only need to download upgrades of your programs
when you’re notified it’s time for an upgrade, ok?”

“Fantastic!”

“So you like the machine, the color and everything.”

“Colored Toshiba laptops are not common except silver and black, so yes, I like whatever color
is on the box. I know the computer on display is red, my favorite color, but you never know
what’s in the box.”

“So you’re going to buy the machine for sure, even if it’s not red.”

“Yes.”

“Ok.” Kara unlocked the compartment of the space the computer was in and carried it out. She
looked at the box for the color. Lo and behold, it was red. Oh, happy day. “What do you know?
The computer in display and the computer in the box are both red.”

Everyone was able to contain their inner screams of joy.

“It’s your lucky day, Mrs. Henley! So, Mr. Thornhart, the twin of the other kooky Mr.
Thornhart…”

They felt the desire to go to the bathroom because of how hard they laughed.

“Would you like to get a summary of the programs your computer has, too, or you haven’t
chosen one. We have over 500 computers in stock because this is one of our biggest stores,
twenty different brands, and an array of different sizes.”

“Are there any Toshibas left?”

“Yes, but as you can see, no pretty-color Toshibas. Your mother in law got the last one.”
 54

Everyone looked at each other in awe and disbelief at that comment.

“Ok…” Donovan said, clearing his throat. “Color doesn’t really matter. Silver ones are kind of
cute except I wouldn’t know what to do if the silver parts got dirty, how often I would have to
clean those parts to keep them as pretty as they are when you buy the computer, so I’m hoping
there’s an all-black Toshiba with white or yellow-colored keys, you know the characters…”

“Yes, I know what you’re talking about, except we have like ten different Toshiba computers that
are all black and offer different specs and features, so you’re going to have to tell us what are the
hardware specs you need, and if you need specific programs.”

“Specs…hmmm, let’s see. I want a hard drive 320 gigabytes or larger, but the largest it could be
is one terabyte.”

“Come on, get the one-terabyte one, boy,” commented Daniel. “You know I can afford it. I have
designated five grand for your laptop alone, and up to twelve grand for both laptops. Anna
Christina picked a one-grand computer. That’s not bad. She’s not a very demanding person I see.
I like what I am discovering in her, in her personality. That’s good. That makes an excellent
Thornhart Enterprise worker.”

“Thank you.”

“Not a doormat, but not too demanding either, balanced if you will.”

“Thank you, Mr. Thornhart. You’ve made my day.”

“When you marry my son, you have to call me Daniel even at work, understood?”

“I somehow knew you’re meant for each other,” said Kara. “That’s great.”

“Ok, since my father’s buying it for me, I’m going to go ahead and get the 1T. I also want the
maximum RAM and a DVD super-multi drive. I don’t want the maximum to everything, just the
second to the maximum. I also want the top-of-the-line processor and of course,
fifteen-point-four-inch display and of course, the best Windows. Programs don’t really matter.
As long as I have something to open and read PDF’s and word-processing files of all kinds,
iTunes, which I will download, and the other programs that every computer has, and a DVD
player and DVD creator for my home movies and kooky videos, to upload to YouTube, I’m good.
If I find I need a program the computer doesn’t have, I will download it, and pay for it with my
own dough.”

“That sounds like a plan.”

“Oh, and I also need Adobe Acrobat to scan and edit documents, and all that. Does it have Adobe
 55

Acrobat preinstalled?”

“It seems like some genie has appeared and made all your wishes come true one by one because
the darned thing does have Adobe Acrobat, the computer you want, the pretty, black Toshiba.”

“That is so awesome. So how much is it?”

Daniel patted him on the back. “You don’t ask that question around Daniel Thornhart, you give
me? You know the money never stops coming in, no matter how much of it goes out, and we
don’t waste money on things we don’t need. We never have.”

“That’s cool.”

“If you really want to know how much the computer’s will be, you can see it on the monitor of
the scanner. Thank you very much. We’re not spending one million on anything, just twelve
grand. Twelve grand can overdraw your bank-account, but it would be like withdrawing ten
cents from mine. Speaking of that, I am going to make sure that money you spent on that laptop
you never got is back in that account, and then some.”

They went to pay for the computers as Kara and Wilbert left them waiting, and the cashier
charged them for the items. Fifteen minutes later, a big surprise. The head of this particular store
found out about what happened to Donovan with his computer weeks before and gave him
another computer to make up for that one, for him to give to someone he cared about, if he
wanted to, or just keep it as an extra, like a spare tire. Daniel gasped.

“We heard about what happened with the other computer you ordered online. We want you to
know that it was this store that processed that order, and contrary to what you think happened,
the address on that order was correct, your address. Look at the order sheet.”

An awestruck Donovan looked at the order sheet and was stunned to find that he’d typed his
address in the address pane and not someone else’s address by mistake, and although the Bentley
family’s home address was as real as the universe and the stars, it went there because it was
meant to go there no matter what Donovan would do or not do. Something strange had happened.

“See the address? 1282A Lockhart Street, Hialeah, Florida, and the zip code.”

“Oh, my God, I’m not a sissy, but I’m about to faint.”

“Don’t faint. Just take our computer that I am trying to give you right now. If you think you
ended up with one computer you don’t need, just give it to a friend.”

“I’m going to give it to Langston.”

“Ok. We didn’t make a mistake and neither did you. We shipped it to your apartment, but it got
 56

to someone else’s house, Robert Bentley I think it is. His address is 1282 Longwood Street, and
of course, it has no A. I see the confirmation from UPS right here. The machine was supposed to
get to you within twenty-four to forty-eight hours. I don’t know how this happened, but it did,
and although it wasn’t our fault, we want to make sure that our customers get what they order
because this has never happened to us before. When the customer types in the address, we have a
system that verifies that the person ordering it does live at that address, in case the customer
types the address incorrectly and our system does not recognize such address or the person
ordering it doesn’t live there, and what we do is compare the physical address with the address
on the customer’s credit or debit card. If the two addresses don’t match, we put the order on hold,
call the customer, and if the customer did this knowingly because he or she’s attempting to give
the computer to someone that doesn’t share his or her residence, and if that’s the case, we process
the order and let it go. If that’s not the case, we change the shipping address and ship it to the
address we put in with the customer on the line. We are trying to make sure that someone out
there doesn’t get someone else’s item for free.”

“Wow…”

“And all stores that offer online shopping do this now.”

“That’s great. I didn’t know about any of this.”

“But in this case, we couldn’t do anything to stop this from happening because it was meant to
happen. We even called you to make sure that we got the right shipping address, and you said
yes.”

“Oh, yes, I remember that. The name of the associate was Tamara.”

“Yep! It’s Tamara’s day off today, but if you have something to tell her you can send her a post
card or an email. The email addresses of all our employees, work email addresses consist of their
first names and then @store13359.officemax.com.”

“Cool.”

Daniel wrote that down in a sticky note on his phone.

“Tamara will hear from me,” Daniel said, while Wilbert placed all the items on a shopping cart
and filled another shopping cart with the items that didn’t fit, like the laptops that would’ve fallen
if placed on top of the rest of the items, and exited the store to help them accommodate all these
things in the big trunk of Daniel’s 2011 black Mercedes, which offered seating room for four
people, exactly the people that were running this errand today.

Donovan gave Wilbert a big hug with pats on the back and said, shaking his hand, “You’re an
outstanding person. I wish you had given me the chance to meet you and get to know you sooner.
 57

You would’ve been an outstanding friend.”

“I can start being an outstanding friend now, can’t I?” Wilbert said, smiling.

“You sure can.”

“Remember the protection plans you bought. First time the computer starts malfunctioning
because of a defect from the factory or circumstances out of your control, you bring it in for
repair, and the second time, too. After the third time needing repair under circumstances that had
nothing to do with you, a brand-new product, in this case laptop, of the same price you paid, is
given to you.”

“Thanks for everything, man.”

“Give me your email address, Don. That way I can contact you from my personal email
addresses and add you as a friend in my social-network accounts.”

“It’s
“All right. I will see you later, online. You and I have a lot to talk about. I can tell you
things about my dear older brother you don’t know about that are important to you and the entire
Thornhart family, ok?”
“Sure thing.” The family left the store shortly after and returned home. Annalia got to spend the
night at the Thornhart home, watching movies all night with Donovan’s mother, Desiree. The
movies were all about Jesus Christ. Desiree loved religious entertainment media, like music,
movies and books. She’d gotten saved, she just didn’t go to church because she would always
have a verbal quarrel and then enmity with someone in the church for some unknown reason, and
she was tired of that, so she would receive Bible studies and religious services at home, from the
Baptist church that she had gone to once and never returned to years back because an unruly
woman was the one who made going to that church impossible to Desiree, and that member had
been expelled from the church because they discovered horrifying things about her that no one
even dared to talk about because they were so shameful even to innocent church members that
hadn’t and would never even think about doing those things. Those things involved horrible
crimes. Today, that woman was in jail for the crimes she’d committed while making everyone
think that she was a good Christian woman. She was on death row even, scheduled to be put out
of her misery within the next three years. No one could do anything to keep her from getting
executed. Everyone hated her, people who knew her, and people who’d only heard about the
things she’d done on the TV. No one would defend her. She was by far the most despicable fake
Christian people have ever heard of. Most people wanted her dead more than anything. She’d
murdered her three husbands, making the fatalities seem to be natural. She’d abused her own
children and the children of her best friends, physically. She had poisoned innocent dogs and cats
from the neighborhood. She had even popped a cat’s eyes out with a pen, and to keep everyone
from finding out, she buried the creature alive in her backyard. Now, she was all alone in jail,
 58

crying, and nobody cared. Not even God because she’d blasphemed, this being the only
unforgivable and never forgiven sin.
 59

Chapter 5
The morning after, Annalia and Donovan got ready for school like each one had spent the night
at their own house. They didn’t see each other that morning until they were outside, getting into
Daniel’s sapphire-blue Mercedes, that Daniel would always leave their for Don to use in case
Don’s car would break down. Shortly after, they arrived at the campus, shared a kiss on the lips
and went to their respective classes instead of hanging out with people like they used to.
Although these people would swear on their balls that they cared about the hottest couple on
campus, and although not dressed sexy, the most provocative and beautiful couple, they were
really working toward tearing them apart, and without knowing their true intentions, they got
fixed on staying away from them because these people were ‘giving them bad advice and
challenging their new beliefs’. Little did they know that was the best thing they could’ve done if
they wanted their relationship to prosper, and if they didn’t want to do things they would later
regret?

In her creative-writing class, Annalia came to a realization. All these people were giving
her bad advice, right? Day in and day out, every time they saw her on campus, they would tell
her that it was the twenty-first century, the second decade of this one, to eat the forbidden fruit,
stain Donovan’s shirt and then throwing it out instead of washing it. Use him, spit him out, kick
him back to your life, go as far away as you can and never see him again. In the meantime they
were telling him not to take her seriously, not to even think about even starting a serious
relationship with her, to let this be his first adventure, and then dump her because she was ‘far
too experienced’ and older than he was and the marriage would never work. They would divorce
within months, and the divorce would be their worst nightmare come true. Not only would he
ruin his and her life if he went through with this madness, but he would also ruin the lives of his
family and friends. Now that he wasn’t innocent anymore, he would go crazy and start sleeping
around. Then no woman would take him seriously or marry him, because all women would think
he was a total asshole who didn’t care about women at all. It would be a fiasco and it wouldn’t
end pretty. It would probably end in death, either because of a terrible disease or suicide—or
murder. She figured out what her and Donovan’s so-called friends were trying to do, get them to
break up and abhor one another. Instead of just cutting them out of her life like she’d been doing
for the past few weeks, she would take action. She wouldn’t take reprisal against them in any
way, just expose them as the true charlatans they were, prove to everyone that these people could
not be trusted at all. After class, she blueprinted what she was going to do, having it all very clear
in her head, and was ready to execute her plan.
The plan was simple. As simple as a damaging email. On the last fifteen minutes of her
second class, she got her laptop back on the desktop after it was on standby for a few minutes,
opened her email program, and composed a new email to everyone she knew in the school. She
had audio clips of every conversation that she’d had with these traitors. This would leave no
doubt in anyone’s mind that while these people were being friendly and compassionate to you
when you were with them, they would turn around and talk shit behind your back and try to ruin
your reputation, not just for your time you studied at UCF, but forever, and you’d have to move
out of the state to leave all that nonsense behind and start a new life. She couldn’t allow them to
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keep doing this to her and her boyfriend or to do it to other people. She had to stop the snowball
from becoming an avalanche that no one could control and would destroy everything in its path.
She attached five of the audio clips, nine megabytes each because they were kind of long, but
they were worth downloading and listening to.
Everyone was in for a shock when they got the email, 1,000 people, because that’s the
maximum amount her advanced email program would allow her to put in a chain email. Then
she pressed send and she never got a notification that the mailer had failed to deliver the
message. Only hours later, the whole school was talking about it, and then next morning, none of
these backstabbers could pass by anyone without having them look at them dirty and whisper
things in each other’s ears or texting other people when they were alone. That left them
wondering what the hell was going on. Rather than deleting the email from her sent-messages
folder to protect herself, she left it in there because she wanted everyone to know that she sent it
and it wasn’t someone that hacked her account and sent the email pretending to be her. Hours
after that, the whole world knew, even the idiots whose masks were taken off, that Annalia had
sent the email and when they went to confront her, Donovan was standing by her side, like a
statue, and everyone that surrounded them serving them as a shield was doing anything but
standing there.
“Gee, guys, is there a problem?” Annalia said, in a tone and manner they’d never seen before.
They didn’t know that this side of her, which was in all of us, would ever come out. “You don’t
look too happy. Something happened?”

“Yes, something happened. You happened. If you didn’t have all these nosy-ass people with you,
I guarantee you we would all beat the shit out of you,” Ursula said. “How dared you, Annalia?”

“Excuse me? How dared I?” For the first time in a long time, those that knew her since
elementary or middle school saw part of the old Annalia resurface, and they were beside
themselves. “How dared you? How dared you do that to me and Donovan? We didn’t do
anything to you! We’ve got something great going, and we’re finally setting a ground for the
castles we’ve designed, before we start building them. Why do you want to tear us apart?”

“Annalia…” said Noelle trying to cut her off.

“Zip it, Noelle. Cut the act right now. It’s over. You can’t manipulate me anymore.”

“Whatever happened to the good Christian woman we were getting to know?”

“Christian doesn’t mean doormat, Noelle. Shut the hell up and listen to me. It’s over. Everybody
hates you. The people that I couldn’t send the email to, because I wasn’t allowed to put any more
email addresses in when composing and preparing it, they know, and they can’t stand you.
Everyone knows who you really are, and they can’t wait for you to get the hell out of this
school.”

Everyone that surrounded the lovebirds screamed insults in agreement and some were ready to
beat the bad gang senseless.
 61

“I don’t understand it,” Charlene said. “Where did all this come from? What did we do?”

“Don’t ask me what you did, Charlene, ask me what you were doing. I know, girl, I understand
that you weren’t a real participant, you were just playing along, always the follower, doing what
you’re told so you don’t lose the friendship of these good-for-nothing bastards, well, you know
what, Charlie? Lamentably you are working your ass off in an effort to keep the wrong friends.
They’re not worth it, so get out of this while you still can, before you wind up committing a
crime for them or helping them do so. You’re still in time, Charlie.”

With no hesitation, Charlie ran towards Annalia, Donovan and their crowd, looking at the bad
gang with a face of horror and disbelief.

“Charlene Michelle, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Hannah screamed, trying to pull
her back towards her crowd by the left arm.

But Charlie said, snatching her arm from Hannah, “No, I am not doing this anymore. I’m tired of
hurting others just to get you to stay by my side! I don’t need people like you around me! I’d
rather hang out with Jason Voorhees! I know he’s going to get right down to it and kill my ass in
one swing of his machete rather than stabbing me in the back over, and over and over, and
watching me die a slow death when I can’t take any more of the stabbing!” She was screaming at
the top of her lungs. “That’s right, you guys are using me, abusing me, and when I’m no longer
good for any of your games or plans, you’ll discard me like a used-up piece of gum and die of
misery, lonely, with no friends, right? Well I am not vain or anything, but I love myself too much
to let that happen knowing I can do something to put an end to it before the downward spiral
starts. It’s time I had some backbone, don’t you think? Only spineless people can submit to your
desires, and I am saying this in every sense of the word, Alex!” Alex was Langston’ first cousin
on his mother’s side, he and Langston named after their mothers’ father, Abel Alexander Bell.

“What is she talking about, Alex?” snapped Sonya.

“Don’t listen to her. She’s going to twist everything, she’s got it all wrong, and even if she were
seeing things the way they really are, she’s not talking about what you’re thinking.” This was true.
“Let me explain. What she’s talking about is how I got her doing things for me all day. Every
time I need something to eat, I have her make me something. Every time I need something to
drink I tell her to get me something to drink and she just has to get it. Otherwise, she thinks that
if she doesn’t do what I want her to, when she needs me, I’m not going to do anything to help her.
I’m just going to sit there and watch her going through whatever turmoil. That’s not the way I am.
I may gossip and make fun of people and all that, but I am not the kind of person she’s describing.
She’s not my little slave, in or out of the bedroom, much less in. True, I ask her to get me things,
yes, when she’s at my house and I’m too damn lazy to get it myself, whatever it is I want, but I
don’t have her going all around the house all day, serving me. No. I’m not going to let her make
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everyone think that I am someone I’m not and I do things that I really don’t.”

“But you do admit that you are a shit talker,” Kylie said.

“I gossip, but I don’t talk shit. I don’t tell people lies about other people. Everything I help spread
around is 100% true.”

“Even when you say that our relationship’s a sham and it’ll end as quickly as it started,” Annalia
added.

“Yes, even that…”

Everyone cut him off with their hysterical laughs.

“But that’s because this is what I believe!” he screamed. “I don’t think this, ‘relationship’,” he did
the quotes around the last word with his fingers, “is going anywhere, and that’s what I say to
everybody. I voice my opinion and I don’t give a flying pig if they agree with me or not. It’s just
my opinion. Prove me wrong and stop defending what I deem something that should not be
defended right now. I admit I gossip much more than girls do.”

Although it wouldn’t sound funny to every person that would ever hear it, they laughed hard at
that one, too.

“Yes, I admit it. I admit that I talk too much.” He said this simulating a talking mouth with his
right hand. “And I admit that I am nosy as hell and I love getting into other people’s business, but
I never make up stuff and then spread it around like vermin and I never spread something around
unless I see irrefutable evidence that it’s true, ok? So give me some credit.”

“That’s smooth, Alex,” commented Carmen, “real smooth.”

“Yes, Carmen, it is. I think it is. I was going to show my true colors to these two eventually and
to everyone that doesn’t know me as well as they think they do—after breaking them up.”

“Why, instead of letting time fly by and wait for something to go wrong, and for them to break
up as a result, and then laugh in their faces and saying, ‘See? I told you it would never work…’ why were
you trying to break them up? How does it affect you that they’re together? Perhaps they are meant for
each other, and will be in the end of all this, and you would’ve destroyed a great love between
two fabulous people!” Paula retorted. “Don’t you care about that? I mean, Alex,” she gave an
angry laugh, like a scoff, “I don’t know how many relationships or flings you’ve had because
unlike you I don’t get into other people’s business. Living my own life is hard for me, so why try
to live everyone else’s lives, even the life of only one other person? But think about this…how
would you feel if you had a great relationship, if you thought you’ve found the one, and then
someone comes and tries to break you up, taking the love of your life from you forever, and then
after everything’s over, you found out that she was the love of your life? What would you do?
Wouldn’t you feel hurt?”
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“Yeah.”
“Well, so how…?”

“But you see, Paula, I am too young to see life that way. I am going to enjoy my life, not by
sleeping around, like most men my age do, twenty-two, but by doing what I want.”

“…And destroying people’s lives,” Donovan added.

“No, Donovan, I don’t think I ruin lives.”

“I think so.”

“But I don’t! You know why, Donovan, dear? Because if you don’t want people to know, then
don’t do it.”

“You think it’s as simple as that.”

“I heard that from a Latino guy, translated into Spanish, and that’s the motto I live by now, sir,
and yes, I do think and will always think it’s as simple as that.”

“…Until you make a mistake that will ruin your life forever even if only one person found out
about it, like committing a crime.” Donovan started a tragic story narrative that could happen to
anyone in real life. “Say you enamor a girl and when you are about to do the deed, she says no.
You have sex with her anyway, despite her pleas and screams. The morning after or whenever
it’s done, you realize you’ve raped someone. You have to find a way to silence your victim or
everyone will find out. It will ruin your life. You go to jail. Would you still think that if you don’t
want people to know something terrible you’ve done, then simply don’t do it? Would you still
believe that and live by that, and keep unearthing people’s darkest secrets?”

“If I did something like that, you know how everyone would know? Everyone would find out
after I went to the police station and turned myself in, because I know better than that. I’m not
saying I wouldn’t commit a crime if I lost control of myself or common sense, just not that. That
is…despicable, just don’t use that example, all right? Don’t even make up a story about that using
me as the main character and villain of said story. That’s not right.”

“All right, Alex, I realize I went too far with my example. I am sorry. But you don’t deny that if
you were desperate enough and just out of your mind enough, you’d steal or you would murder
someone, and upon knowing what you’ve done when you come back to your senses, you wouldn’t
want anyone to find out, not even your very closest friend.”
“Yes, Donovan, I admit that. That’s common sense, isn’t it?”
“So if it makes perfect sense to you, why do you keep throwing people under the bus?”

Alex let his head down and reflected on his past misdeeds for a minute. Then, he
reckoned that all this time, he was so, so wrong…and the last time he did this was this morning,
 64

as soon as he got to school. No one would do anything against him because he was the one
through whom everyone could find out the most terrifying truths about students that seemed to
be so sweet and non-threatening. Alex had unmasked so many people they all had to leave UCF
and try to transfer the credits they’d earned there to another university or college. Some
succeeded in doing that and some didn’t. They only had to thank Alex for their demise, and they
would never forget him. Most of those people would be left without a career, but if they ever got
to face him again, that day would be the last day of his life. They weren’t the kind of people to
sit there and do nothing when they felt they’ve been wronged. None of the people who were the
target of their revenge survived to tell the story. They were so callous that if revenge led to
murder, they didn’t care. That son of a bitch just had to pay for what he did, no matter what it
took. The worst of all this was that these demons in the flesh didn’t know their day was also
coming, for some, sooner than expected. They wouldn’t have many years ahead of them to
continue to do evil things to innocent people. Alex was innocent too in a way. Showing people
the true colors of other people was not harm to those that were stripped. It was, as a matter of
fact, the right thing to do. It was our duty as good people to expose liars, thieves, and murderers,
or just plain old dirty, nasty hypocrites that frankly, society didn’t need, according to Alex and
according to most people in this world, people who used common sense at all times and were
sane, and knew where they were and what they were doing. Those that had no empathy for
anyone or were sociopaths felt differently. Some of them didn’t have five years to live. Some of
them didn’t have five months. Two of these men and women didn’t even have five days. They
were destined to die the way they deserved, and no one in the world could keep that from
happening.

****

Alex was in his room, crying. He was depressed, just for a moment, but even if the sadness went
away, he wouldn’t change his mind for the third time about what he’d just experienced. From
now on, he would only worry about him and ignore everybody else. If he caught a young couple
cheating on each one of their significant others like he’d done a million times, he would pass
them by and forget about the whole thing. He didn’t know that he wouldn’t be minding his own
business for long. In the near future, he would change his mind again and become a private
investigator, and then, he wouldn’t turn back again. This earned him great money and gave him a
chance to do what he loved the most, unmasking hypocrites.
The phone rang in his dorm. He didn’t want to talk to anyone right now, or until
tomorrow even, but he had to answer this call. What if it was something important? His parents
and siblings were fine at home, but what if something horrible had happened to Langston, the
only family member who was going through a rough time right now, his cousin, whom he loved
like an older brother, thus he was the oldest sibling in his immediate family, whom he loved
playing and hanging out with more than anybody else, the boy that had taught him so many great
things that would serve him as life lessons, before he literally went bad? “Hello, Alexander
Bell?” Only his family and friends would call him Alex, but when saying or giving a first and
last name, he’d go by Alexander Bell to avoid confusion with his true first and last name.
“Hello, Alex.” Langston was the only one that called him Alex. “How are you?”

“I’m fine. Question is, how are you doing?”

 65

“Ah, we’re not sharing my grave vexation, but you’re not ‘fine’. I can hear it in your
voice, it’s kind of broken, and your tone…”
“Fine, I am not fine, but we’ll get back to my problem later. How are you?”

“Alex…”

“It’s not a drug or sex problem. That’s all I am going to tell you for now so that you don’t freak
out imagining the millions of possibilities. Answer my question, Langston, damn it!”

“Every day I’m getting better, and I hope it keeps going this way for me because I’ve been doing
so well that I am going to get released from rehab early, and I won’t have to go to a psychiatric
hospital afterwards. Can you believe it? They actually trust me to stay on the right track!”

“Weren’t you like way out there, Langston?”

“No, I wasn’t. Turns out all I had was severe, but not chronic depression, thank God. I am still
depressed because you can’t get over pain you’ve endured for years in a couple of months. It’s
just impossible.”

“Yeah.”

“But I’m getting there. I am coming around.”

“So how much earlier are you going to get released? Heard it would be three to six months
depending on how you would respond to the treatment.”

“As much earlier as—tomorrow.”

Alex screamed, “Oh, my God, are you serious?”

Overhearing the conversation from behind the door, Olivia, his girlfriend, assumed it was bad
news, and opened the door without warning or permission. Then she stormed into the room,
closed the door behind her, as Alex heard her coming in, and then sat in front of him on his
comfortable computer-desk chair.

“Yes,” Langston said, with a bright smile on his face, “I am. My prayers have been answered.
That means that after all I have done, God Almighty still loves me.”

“God will never leave us or forsake us. Remember that. Besides you’ve never blasphemed. I
know that for a fact, so when it comes to how it is between you and Him, all is a-ok.”

“Thanks for the reassurance, man. You don’t know how good that makes me feel.”

“Hey, he answers your prayers giving you exactly what you want. You must be pretty special
because, I don’t know if you know this, but in reality, God answers all our prayers, just not the
 66

way that we want most of the time. He doesn’t always give us what he want. Sometimes he gives
us the exact opposite and sometimes he sends us a sign, a message.”

“I thought our prayers were only answered when we got what we wanted.”

“Not uh.”

“You know a lot more about this than I do, Alex.”

“I read the Bible every day, not all day and all night long like some people do, but I do read it,
especially when I don’t understand something that happened, you know, the reason why someone
told me something that shook me to the core, like today.”

“Who told you what, and what made it that bad?”

“First the person reproached me for everything I’d done and then he asked me if I would keep
secret something horrible that I did, like killing someone in a fit of rage or a moment of madness,
or stealing something when I really need it and I don’t have money to buy it at the moment. I said
yes. He said that if I felt that way, why wouldn’t I just let people be and let them deal with the
aftermath of each of their wrongdoings and stop being some kind of watchdog. I mean I am
saying it in my own words, but the words mean the same thing to you, right, just the way that I
interpreted them?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I read the Bible today because I was wondering why this person…?”

“Tell me who it is and what drove him or her to say these things to you.”

“I don’t want to cause problems between you and that person.”

“You mean it’s someone I know? Oh, now I want to know who it is even more, and if you don’t
tell me everything, I won’t give you candy.”

“Why you have to do this to me, take me right back to those times when you threatened to deny
me my favorite candy when you knew you had it if I didn’t tell you something that intrigued
you?”

“You know me. You know I have influence over you, and although I know longer exert total
control because we’re both adults, I still have influence over you, like the moon over the earth. It
doesn’t have total control over it like when we could see it huge and bright right in front of us
like it was walking to us, but despite being millions and millions of miles away from the earth,
and moving away a little bit farther every year, the moon still has influence over the earth. We
can’t live without it. We never will be able to. Without the moon by its side, the planet will
 67

literally spin out of control and all of us will die in a horrifying manner. That’s the way our
relationship is, dear first cousin.”

“Ok, Langston, I will tell you, but promise me you won’t be mad at your family member and at
me because you must know, we both did something very, very wrong.”

“Family member? Hold on…what family member are you talking about? Tell me what happened
like it’s a story so I can understand and I don’t have to keep asking questions!”

“Ok…”

“You’ve got me spinning around right now! I see the planets revolving around me like I’m the
sun!”

“Calm down. Remember how formidable you’re doing so far and we don’t want to ruin that. Ok,
I will tell you like giving a narrative, but please promise you won’t hate me.”

“Nothing would make me hate you. Despite all my unruly behavior you never stopped loving
me.”

“Ok. It’s about Annalia Henley and your brother in law, Donovan Thornhart. This is what
happened. I’ve been trying to break them up ever since they got together, just because I didn’t
think the relationship would work, because they’d been lying to one another and pretending to be
people that they were so not. Because…come on, man, Annalia Henley a truly-converted
Christian? You know how hard that is to believe.”

“The fact that Annalia Henley made some grave mistakes in the past doesn’t mean that she
doesn’t believe in the sacrifice Jesus Christ made for all of us, with all her heart and everything
she has. She’s always believed. All she had to do to make it…complete if you will was take Him
in, accept Him as her Lord and Savior. It was easy, and the renewing of her mind and change in
her way of life will also be easy. Just give her time. I promise you that within the next couple of
years, you’re going to think that this is really another woman living in Annalia Henley’s body.
Ok, moving on. So you tried to break them up.”

“Along with my group of so-called friends.”

“They’re not your friends anymore.”

“I just realized how evil they are. They don’t care about anyone but themselves! Hell, they don’t
even care about each other!”

“That’s terrible. Continue.”

“Annalia figured it all out. Then she sent an email to over 1,000 different people that she knew
 68

personally on campus, people that also knew the ‘Killer Gang’ as we were called, but in a good
way, not too long ago, ‘killer’ meaning awesome and now ‘killer’ meaning
terrible—anyway...and she told everyone the truth about us. Problem is that Annalia always
backs up what she says. Even when she says something as simple as it’s raining outside, she
won’t just tell you, she’ll take a pretty photo of the rain.”

“I think that’s the way to go when you’re telling or about to tell someone, something this
important. Ok, so she found out what you guys were doing behind her and Donovan’s backs.
Then, to make a long story short, the confrontation happened between you, Annalia, and
Donovan, you as in the ‘Killer Gang’, and then Donovan told you those things, asked you to
imagine yourself in a situation similar or just like the people you were ratting out and reflecting
on how you would feel, what you would do if you knew your fatal secret was about to come
out.”

“Yes, exactly, but you forgot one little detail. The 1,000 people that Annalia emailed also
participated on the confrontation, and another little detail that I didn’t tell you. Annalia attached
audio clips of some of the conversations we had with her, about Donovan, to the email that she
sent.”

“Sounds like there’s just a little bit of the old Annalia Henley lurking and then wreaking havoc
when least expected.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“That doesn’t mean she’s faking being Christian. That just means that she’s working toward
renewing her mind for her transformation to be complete, but man…”

“I know. That’s exactly what I thought when I found out she did this. I never thought she’d go
back to taking reprisal against people. That’s what made me start distrusting her again…until I
realized what I was doing was beyond wrong and that like Donovan meant to say, I should let
people take the heat for their own misdeeds. Karma’s such a bitch she doesn’t need me helping
her.”

Langston laughed.

“She can do a pretty damn good job on her own. Oh, no…you’ve gone way past the fifteen
minutes your allowed per daily call. That could make them hold you back another month.”

“They’re letting me use my cell phone now.”

“Oh!”

“You know minutes are unlimited in most phones nowadays.”

 69

“Except mine. I only have 600 minutes and since I have to promote my newest-released book,
they’re not enough. I always go way over the limit and wind up paying twice and sometimes
even thrice what I am supposed to pay.”

“Man, ditch that shitty mobile-phone company and I’ll get you a phone with mine!”

“You’ll get me a phone with Stardust Mobile, under your name?”

“Why not? You know I can pay it. Piece of cake. Diana has her own phone under my name, an
extra line, and she does everything on that phone. Even so, I only pay $20.99 for her line, what I
am supposed to pay. I don’t have to worry about her going over. It’s awesome. I can go with you
to Sunset Mobile tomorrow, add another line to my plan, a line for you, and I can pay it while
you get on your feet and make your own Benjamins.”

“Langston, I used to think there was a good guy lurking in that obnoxious, insupportable, and
unruly badass. Now I think you’re awesome. In fact, you’re the best.”

Smiling, Langston said, “Thank you. So are you. You deserve everything anyone could possibly
do for you. If it weren’t for your friendship, I don’t know where in the world I would be. You
were much more than my cousin, you were my very best friend, and you adored and supported
me even when I was that ‘obnoxious, insupportable and unruly badass’.”

Alex laughed and then said, “That’s what you used to be and you know I tell it like it is, but
you’ve changed and grown up so much. I daresay you’ve finally become a man—a real man, and
not a man just because of age, but because you’ve finally grown up. I am very proud of you,
Langston. Oh, and about me loving and supporting you despite everything. You’re my cousin.
You’re my friend. You always were and always will be. You know that when I love, it’s for real,
no matter who it is. It can be a new friend. If he or she catches my heart, I love him or her with
everything I’ve got and I stand by him or her through thick and thin. Everyone in campus thinks
I’m some kind of Don Juan who gets all the girls, but you and I both know that’s not so. I’ve had
a few romances because I’m not the kind of guy to sleep around, but although I wasn’t committed
to those women, I would sleep with those women and those women only, and there have only
been four women in my whole life, in five years.”

Olivia was stunned.

“I am committed to Olivia. She’s my real love. We’re engaged to be married, and although the
wedding is set for mid June of 2011, and that’s one whole year away, our parents are making
arrangements so that everything’s perfect when the big day comes,” Alex said, excited. “Oh, I
can’t wait for her to be my wife.” She hugged him and gave him a kiss on the cheek and then
hugged him again. “I love her, man, you have no idea how intensely. You were right in telling
me she was the one and I was right in listening to you.”
 70

“You aren’t always right in listening to me, but I promise that from now on, you will.”

“You know it’s all good, man, and it was all thanks to you. When it came to everything else, you
would rarely give me good advice, but when it came to women, you were always right on the
money. When you would tell me, ‘She’s not the one for you. She doesn’t love you. She doesn’t
like commitment, just the casual thing,’ you were always right.”

“The moment I looked Olivia in the eyes for the first time I saw the two of you in the altar, and
then I saw the two of you rocking in your rocking chairs, hand in hand, seventy-nine years old.”

“Wow…”

“My visions, positive or negative, are almost always true. I am thrilled that vision turned out
true.”

“Yes, man, so am I. Thank you for helping me out in my love life.”

“That’s the only thing I’ve helped you with, and I am ashamed of that, but you’re welcome. I
promise to be a better cousin and a much better friend, like we used to be when we were innocent
little children.”

“That would be great,” said Alex, shedding tears, but smiling at the same time.

“I have to warn you, though, not all your exes have gotten over you. I bet you anything one of
them will try to stop the wedding, so be prepared to stand your ground and defend the woman
you love. Defend your love.”

Not knowing why, it occurred to Alex to put Langston on speaker phone as soon as he said the
words ‘I have to warn you’. Olivia heard all that and her joy turned into terror. She knew that
we couldn’t always get over a past love so easily, especially when it was our first love, the
woman that Olivia suspected would try to stop the wedding. She had a feeling that this woman,
Tatiana, was the one that would try to ruin the most important day of their lives, and what she
brought with her would make Alex doubt wanting to marry her. Olivia imagined all the
worst-case scenario. “Oh, no,” she whispered.

Alex saw the preoccupation in her face. “Something wrong?”

“Yes, her! Whatever her name is, she’s threatening our relationship even if she’s far away from
us!”

“Yes, she is, Alex. Listen to Olivia. You better put a stop to this before that crazy Tatiana kills
you or your wife on your wedding day. Think about your baby, man. Do you want that unborn
angel dead?”
 71

“No, I don’t, but what can I do to stop her without resorting to crime?”

“Don’t worry about that. I have a friend that can help us out. Maybe he can help her forget all
about you forever, get over you, finally. His name is Andrew Haynes, and he loves experienced
women like Tatiana. I just hope that he never finds out how the so-called relationship between
you and Tatiana started because then that’s really going to turn him off.”

“Yeah. Once again, thank you for coming through for me when I need you the most.”

“I promised, didn’t I? I am going to talk to Andrew tonight. Then Andrew can meet Tatiana in
one of the places she frequents and no one will never know we were behind all this. When it
comes to love and war, no matter how much you’d hate to, sometimes you have to play dirty.”

“I know right? It’s sad and unfair, but that’s the way it is. When Tatiana finds out the truth about
how her relationship with this Andrew dude started, it’s going to be too late. She won’t be able to
leave him.”
“Oh, you say that and you don’t know the half of it. Andrew…man. He leaves wounds in
women’s hearts. He’s…you’re going to know when you meet him.”
“Yes, but we can’t really be friends, him and me because then Tatiana’s going to know in a
lightning strike.”

“Yes, I know he and you can’t ever be friends or even contact one another, but you should meet
him just once so you can see why women that he shared his life with have not really been able to
get over him, although they are now married and have children, and have apparently moved on.
It’s sad. Let’s start with his looks. Andrew has black, short straight hair. Caramel skin tone.
Piercing sapphire blue eyes that you just can’t stop staring directly into whether you are a man or
a woman. When you’re a man you want to pull those eyes out of his sockets and put them in your
sockets, and when you’re a woman you want to stare into those eyes forever, while doing you
know what. His face, oh, geez…it’s refined. He looks like a model. Fine nose, thin lips, dazzling
Colgate smile, and his body, well, place his face on my body and you’ll have a perfect picture of
him.”

“Wow…”

“All the girls fall in love with him in one way or the other. Some just admire him and think he’s
the most gorgeous man in the world and others want to jump him and wear him out. He’s
actually caught men and women taking photos of him with their digital cameras and cell phones
in public places, even in the doctor’s office when he needs to go there because he’s physically
sick, you know, his health. You know ‘sick’ has many different connotations.”

“Taking photos of him?”

“It doesn’t worry him because he’s never caught anyone trying to contact him or harass him, but
 72

yes, they do take pictures of him because that’s just how good-looking he is, to say the least, me
being a man. To be honest with you, I am certain he’s the only man I’m never going to be able to
stop envying.”

“You’re an Adonis, too. Everyone who’s ever seen you says so, and now more than ever being
that you got your new teeth and your face is firm and beautiful again, as soft as the skin of a baby
and so…radiant.”

“Some cute guys cannot stop envying other cute guys. You know that. You told me once you
wish you looked like me. Of course you don’t have to do that because you’re candy to women’s
eyes, too, and eyesore to men’s eyes because they see you and the next thing they know they
wish they had your face. And another thing about Andrew is that when he enamors a woman,
he’s relentless and persistent. He won’t stop until he catches the girl and has her entangled in his
web to the point that she just can’t break free no matter how hard she tries. Imagine what a guy
like that is like in bed. I mean I bet you anything I am boring in bed compared to him because
this man tattoos the women he gets with. He leaves his mark forever.”

“I just have to meet him and know what Tatiana will be getting into because I am starting to have
compassion for her.”

Chapter 6
The next day, Diana went to pick up Langston from the rehab facility. Langston exited the
doors, just one hour later, with two big suitcases and his laptop carrying case in his hand, with
the brand-new computer that Donovan gave him days before, and he had that smile in his face
that Diana fell in love with six years before. They were boyfriend and girlfriend for a year, and
then they got engaged, and one month later, they got married. Although Diana regretted
marrying Langston many times, especially after he would beat her up, but deep down in her
heart, she always had hope that he would change and she would dream about it every night.
Now, her dream finally came true. Langston was back to being that loving young guy that was
head over heels in love with her and treated her like a queen, something that stopped when they
married. He was wearing new teeth, but his smile was just the same, just as sweet, and his face
was just as young and soft as before, and it would always be like this before age seventy, unless
he started using meth again, something he would never do. He didn’t want that monster to come
back. They went to Diana’s car, placed all of Langston’s stuff in the trunk and got in
simultaneously.
“You have anywhere to go before we go home, Langston?”
“I don’t have to go anywhere but home.”

“What I mean is are you ordered to go anywhere before we get home.”

“No. I am going straight home.”

“Ok.”
 73

Two hours later, they got home. Langston was so tired because of his antidepressant, and
because he became tired of looking at the road and the sides of the road for two straight hours,
and sitting in the car, that would drain him now. He couldn’t sit in the car for hours and hours,
taking long rides while running his errands like he used to. It was very unlikely that he would
ever be able to drive again because of how high the dosage of his medication was, and Diana
would make damn sure he wouldn’t drive. She didn’t want to lose him in a car crash, in an instant,
after they’ve been through so much together. Losing him like that would be sad and stupid. She
firmly believed in ‘til death do us part and would never divorced, but she didn’t want to be
widowed at twenty-five, either. Hell no! If possible, she wanted to spend at least fifty more years
with him, making him her one and only man. She would, however, start over with another man if
he died, but she wanted him to die a natural death instead of getting killed. That’s why, from now
on, she would make sure to hide the keys from him, in a safe, and not let him drive until the
dosage of his medication got way lowered or he would get taken off the medication altogether.
She would go as far as hire a chauffeur to take him places that he needed to go because she had
to keep working to support the family now that Langston would have to work less hours, and
there was a baby on the way. That baby had to have everything he needed and she would have to
work harder for him and the family than before. She was twenty-five, healthy and strong. She
could handle it.

Langston took a shower, changed into his pajamas, although it was only eleven o’clock in
the morning, and went to take a nap. Diana did the same thing and then lied down beside him.
They didn’t notice that while they slept, when they were into like the fourth stage of sleep, they
were holding hands. The hours passed until it was seven o’clock at night. Diana woke up and it
was pitch-black outside. “Holy cow,” she said. “Did we really sleep this much?” Well, we might
as well stay in our pajamas because at this time of night we are not going anywhere unless we
have an emergency.
Langston woke up. “What was that, sweetheart?” He sat up in the bed. You could only
see his neck, his arms and his hands with those pajamas, nothing revealing, but she still wanted
to rip his clothes off. She turned around, looked at him and gasped. He’d never looked so sexy.
They had a very active sex life before because despite the problems they were having, they were
very addicted to one another, and couldn’t keep their hands off of each other. It got so ridiculous
that one year before, she had to go to the hospital and the doctor told him it wasn’t his fault that
he was much more than well-endowed, but that he had to slow down and take it easy, otherwise
he would cause damage in her reproductive system or even cause her a heart attack, killing her.
Langston had never been like this with a woman before. His ten previous partners, he would only
get with them like three times a week, for a few minutes a day. She was just so beautiful. There
was something about her. He couldn’t explain it, but now, she felt this way about him. He still
felt this way about her, but he was careful to touch her because he didn’t want her to relive that
horrible experience. “Something wrong?”
“No. Nothing’s wrong. It’s just so we woke up so damn late, and I was planning to go to my
parents’ house to spend some time with them and now we can’t go anywhere because it’s late.”

He got up. “What time is it, midnight?”

 74

“No, it’s seven ten.”

“Seven ten?” He changed his clothes in a matter of minutes. “We can still go. Why not? It’s
early.”

“You’re not driving. Let me tell you that right now.”

“Oh, trust me, after the way I felt with that ride from the rehab center to here, I don’t even want
to drive. If I feel like that just riding, I know that I can’t drive. I won’t be able to drive until the
dosage of my medication is lowered.”

“As tired as I am, I am going to drive.”

Minutes later, they got in the car and drove to Diana’s parents’ house. On their way there,
Langston got thirsty and they had to stop at the gas station and buy a twenty-four-ounce bottle of
water because water was the only drink that would quench his thirst besides Gatorade, so he
wanted water tonight. Before they got to Ariel and Melanie’s house, Langston finished the bottle
of water. She knew he loved water, but it didn’t take him five minutes, which was the drive from
the gas station to her parents’ house, to drink a sixteen-ounce bottle of water, much less a
twenty-four-ounce one. Something strange was going on, but for the moment, Diana ignored it
because she didn’t want her parents to worry. They got out of the car and said hi to Ariel and
Melanie and went in. The unbelievable happened. Langston asked for more water and wound up
drinking a whole gallon of water in less than an hour. Diana became worried, but it was nothing
out of line. It was just that his antidepressant would make him really thirsty, so thirsty that he
would have to drink water all day. Undoubtedly, the damned medicine was making him thirsty
for some reason. It was way too strong, and doctors had no idea what they were doing to him.
Diana couldn’t make a fuss about it tonight, but she would take care of it in a couple days, make
Langston an appointment with his psychiatrist and explain to him the side effects of the medicine.
This medicine was not for Langston, but for people that had schizophrenia and were aggressive.
Someone had made it so that Langston would be given the wrong medication and for now, it
wouldn’t have effects on his mind, but on his body, so Diana had to do something fast. Monica,
Ariel, Diana and Langston had a good time together tonight, talking about how life was treating
them lately, and then, Diana and Langston went back home, at midnight. Monica was really
worried when she noticed how much water Langston had to drink, and he would probably drink
even more water when he got home. If Diana didn’t do something about this soon, the so-called
medicine would wreak havoc on Langston’s mind and it would really drive him crazy, causing
him to be locked up in a mental hospital for the rest of his life, and then he and Diana wouldn’t
be able to have any more children because they would inherit his schizophrenia.

Two days later, first thing in the morning, and without making an appointment, Diana took
Langston to see his psychiatrist, hoping that he would change Langston’s medication. Dr.
Seymour knew this had to be an emergency and something horrible was going on. After greeting,
 75

he and Langston got right down to business. “You say you’re having bizarre symptoms that ‘an
antidepressant is not supposed to trigger’. Would you please tell me what those symptoms are?
Because I’m really worried.”

“I’m always sleepy, and I know that antidepressants do that, but I am also extremely thirsty. I
got up like one hour ago to come here and so far, I’ve drunk one gallon of water. Last night I had one
gallon and twenty-four ounces of water. Yesterday in the morning I had a half a gallon of water and I
didn’t tell my wife because I knew she would freak out. I heard that we are only supposed to have a half
a gallon of water a day, not every half hour, and I am going to the bathroom a lot more than I’m
supposed to. I do the number one four times a day, usually, because I do have my half-gallon of
water a day, but ever since I started taking that medication, I am drinking five gallons of water a
day, something unheard of, even for people with dry mouth, and going to the bathroom twenty
times a day.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I am not exaggerating. I even had my wife record me in a one day period, over five six-hour
long DVD’s, completely filled of one day in my life, and you see me going to the bathroom and
you even hear me peeing twenty times in one day.” He got a spindle of DVD-R’s out of the
inside pocket of his jacket. “I brought the movies here to prove it.”

Dr. Seymour gasped. “What kind of medicine am I giving you? Are you taking the medicine I
ordered you to take, Zoloft? Zoloft does not do that. I know I’m giving you the highest dosage,
but still, it’s not supposed to do that.”

“I’m not taking Zoloft.”

“You are not taking Zoloft!” Dr. Seymour screamed, standing up from his chair.

“No.”

“Then what medicine are you taking, Langston?”

“I thought you’d prescribed me another medicine.” He pulled the medicine bottle out of the
pocket of his navy-blue jeans and gave it to Dr. Seymour. That’s what I thought you’d prescribed
me. Of course, I didn’t see the prescription, the people at rehab handled that, and I trusted them.”

Dr. Seymour looked at the bottle and felt like his heart had gone up his throat and it was about to
pop out of his mouth. At the top of his lungs, he screamed, “Oh, my God!” and then said,
breathing erratically, “You can’t keep on taking this. I have to make arrangements to take you to
the hospital and have your blood washed off this junk. You have any idea what this is doing to
you? This is for people who have schizophrenia! It could fuck you up so bad…oh, my God. Tell
me something, have you had hallucinations, visionary or auditory?”

“No.”
 76

“If you don’t have schizophrenia, which you don’t, you’re not supposed to take this because this
could…” he had to pick up the phone and make an urgent phone call, but before the person in the other
line responded, he said, “A lot of people are going to jail in that center, a lot of people, everyone who
ever worked with you, even the nurses who took you from one place to another, they’re all going to go
to jail because if they were working with you, they knew that this was going on. I mean they must’ve
had a notion and they did nothing to stop it. It’s like having a stench all around your house and not doing
anything to get rid of it.” The person responded. “Yes, hello. I have one of my patients here, who came
without an appointment because he was having symptoms caused by a medication, but he thought
those symptoms were nothing serious—well, those symptoms are nothing but the warning signs that
he’s going to wind up in a psychiatric ward twenty-four to forty-eight hours from now if he doesn’t have
his blood and his brain cleansed from this shit, do you understand me?” This psychiatrist would behave
like no other. He would curse like reading an article from a newspaper, like say a curse word every five
minutes, he would be rough with his patients if they became aggressive with him, he would scold them
senseless if he found out they weren’t following his directions…but those were things that couldn’t get
him to lose his license, only something really out of the line could because everyone had to have their
own personality. Otherwise this would be a really boring world, and since his treatment would always
work on all patients and he would always give them the right medication and they wouldn’t have to
change it, ever, the medical board would ignore his minor defects, but eventually, he would settle down
and behave the way a medical professional was supposed to, and it was precisely Langston who would
shake him badly enough to put him in his place. “I need an ambulance here and that emergency
treatment now. He was given a medication that I didn’t prescribe, and I am going to sue these
motherfuckers because they could jeopardize my prestige and my career.”
Hours after giving Langston the treatment he needed, and his blood was cleansed of all
medication, Langston woke up crying from his lethargy for no reason. He was depressed and he
needed his real medicine. The nurse didn’t hesitate to give it to him. Then, Donovan gave him
another whopper meal, his first in several weeks, to make him feel better. It worked. All the
family was relieved. They’d had a horrible scare. They were sure Langston would lose his mind
and it would take years for him to get back to normal, and to them, that was as horrible as if
Langston had died. They celebrated the fact that Langston’s very life was saved by getting
together in a group hug and eating delicious whoppers and greasy fries. For the next seven days,
Langston went back to normal, peeing less than he used to before taking the medication against
schizophrenia, because he didn’t feel thirsty or have to drink water all the time. Since he’d had
that scare, now he would only drink thirty-two ounces of water daily…and Gatorade.

****

Langston and Diana got together again, Langston not knowing that they had another son
two years ago, but the baby was taken away from Diana because Diana suffered temporary
insanity and rejected the baby. This happened four years ago, and since Diana was always out of
the house, Langston didn't even know that she'd gotten pregnant. Diana was always out of the
house in a center for abused women so Langston never saw her belly or saw her throw up or
anything. By the time that Diana tried to get her baby back, she couldn't because the adoption
was a closed adoption. The adopted parents of little Bryce figured that, since the birthmother
didn't want Bryce, his birthfather didn't either, so what was the use of trying to have the
 77

biological parents keep in touch with Little Bryce? However, they'd changed their minds and
somehow switched to open-adoption. They sent Diana the papers to sign and she agreed, and
now she was waiting to see the four-year-old adorable angel...and introduce him to his father.
Now, Langston and Diana could visit Bryce a maximum of three times a week, and of course,
they wouldn't have to support the child unless the financial situation of the adopted parents
changed. In that case, the birthparents would have to support the child like a father or mother
supports his or her child when they divorce. So far, it was all good. The adopted father, Brody
Haynes had a prestigious cosmetics company that he inherited from his late parents, Linda and
Howard Haynes, and now he was the head of the company, and so far, he was a multimillionaire.
The adopted mother, Rebecca Haynes, even though she didn't have to, by any means, she worked
as a registered nurse, for entertainment and to have something to do, and because it was always
her dream to help heal the sick. All that passion was born inside her when her Aunt Alicia fell ill
with spinal meningitis, becoming completely disabled and bedridden. She couldn't even feed
herself. Amazingly, Rebecca was the one to do everything for Aunt Alicia, although it was the
responsibility of her mother, Rachel, because Rachel was Alicia's legal guardian. However,
Rachel suffered from diabetes and the moment Rebecca found out about this she decided that
Rachel wouldn't do any physical work, to let her daddy, Stephen, work for the family and to let
her take care of Aunt Alicia, despite being only ten years old at the time, while Rachel would do
minor household chores like doing the dishes and the laundry, cleaning the household surfaces
and sweeping and mopping the floors, but Rebecca wouldn't let her clean the windows and the
doors, or clean the bathrooms, and she would do those chores as soon as she finished caring for
Aunt Alicia for the day, even though poor Aunt Alicia couldn't help it but to call Rebecca for
help in the middle of the night because she got hungry or needed her brief changed, or simply
was in pain, but Rebecca didn't mind helping her out every time she needed it. Rebecca would
bathe her aunt every day, but instead of doing that on the bed, the family had a Hoyer lift and
Rebecca would take her to the shower on the Hoyer lift and give her a great bath. Then she
would change her brief over three times a day to make sure Even though Rebecca would stay
up until three o'clock in the morning and two hours later she had to get up to aid Aunt Alicia
again, Rebecca would always go to school and function in school. It wasn't until Rebecca started
her first year of college, precisely when Aunt Alicia passed on, that being up all night started
draining her. For the first few years of college, Rebecca had to go to school at night and sleep
from seven o'clock in the morning 'til three o'clock in the afternoon because she just couldn't do
it the other way around. Her sleep cycle had changed, become the opposite of what it was
supposed to be. Then, she had to train her body to change her sleep cycle back to the normal one
and that took her like two years to do, and she couldn't do it without the help of different doctors.
It was around that time that she met Brody Haynes and fell head over heels in love with him, at
first sight, and that was because Brody Haynes was the older brother of Andrew Haynes, and
they looked like they were twins, inheriting the great looks of their father, Anthony Haynes.
Anthony Haynes was a doctor, the doctor that helped thousands and thousands of babies come
into this world. It was the doctor that helped Anthony Garcia, Diana's cousin be born, and thus
was named after Dr. Anthony Haynes. Anthony Haynes became Anthony Garcia's godfather, and
of course, he and the Garcia family were in constant contact every day. They would call each
other every day and the Garcia family would visit Dr. Haynes at his home at least twice a week,
every weekend. The Garcia and the Ainsworth families loved spending time together, especially
with Dr. Haynes' grandchildren, adopted grandson Bryce and biological grandchildren,
Northland and Brody Haynes, Jr, who were born after Rebecca and Brody adopted Bryce.
 78

Despite the fact that the Ainsworth and Garcia families would always hang out with the Haynes
family and spend time with Baby Bryce, for some reason, Langston wouldn't participate in such
gatherings. For some unknown reason, this was bizarre, but Langston would never want to go to
the Haynes family home. He would always want to go out and hang out with his buddies instead.
It was as if something was trying to keep Langston from his child, but those the adoption with
Bryce was a closed one up until a few days ago, Rebecca and Brody wouldn't do anything to
keep Bryce away from his biological mother. As soon as Bryce turned four three months ago,
Brody and Rebecca told him that Diana Ainsworth wasn't just a friend that would visit them all
the time, member of the Garcia family, but that she was his mother, the woman who conceived
him, carried him inside her for nine months and gave birth to him. Ever since then, Bryce would
always talk to Diana in private and ask her why, if she would come see him all the time, even if
the adoption was closed, knowing that he was her son, then why his daddy wouldn't come visit
him, too. Diana didn't know what to say because every time it was time for her to go over to the
Haynes house, Langston became angry, screamed insults and tell her he wasn't going to that
house, as if a supernatural force would take over him and make him angry at the sole mention of
the Haynes name.
However, all that changed when it was time to visit the Haynes family again, that
Saturday, after Langston and Diana had spent the whole week together making time for
themselves, doing the dirty dancing only for like forty-five minutes a day, and then the rest of the
time they were together, even when Langston had taken a week off of work to spend time with
her, they would go out to breakfast and lunch, go out to dinner, visit Diana's parents, siblings and
cousins, and late at night, from ten to midnight, they would go to the movies. Diana felt like her
relationship with Langston had started all over again because they'd gone back to the time when
they were dating. When it was time to go to the Haynes home for the family gathering, this time,
Langston was eager to go, leaving everyone in the Garcia family stunned. For a moment there,
everyone thought he was only doing this to make it up to Diana and Tony for everything he'd put
them through. Granted, that was one of the reasons, but it wasn't the biggest one. After all of
Diana's prayers to God, something happened, and Langston knew that there was something
special for him at the Haynes home. Shortly after, they arrived, and Brody was astounded to see
Langston dressed in his best clothes! Tuxedo and everything.
Brody had to get Diana alone for a minute to understand all this. "When did you divorce
your husband and marry his twin?"

Laughing, Diana said, "What are you talking about?"

"That's not Langston! What happened to Langston? Did he leave you, going far, far away,
and have his twin get together with you or something?"

"Langston does have a twin. His family just found out, but we haven't gotten the chance
to reunite with him, so no, that's not possible."

"What if the man you're really with is his twin and he left you to be with someone else
because he felt he didn't deserve you? That's a possibility. In this world, anything can happen.
You won't believe the things people would do to either get what they want or rid of something
they don't want, or in this case, something they think they don't deserve."
 79

Smiling, Diana said, "I know it's hard to believe, and sometimes it's even harder to
believe for me, but that man is my husband, Langston, he's become a totally different man...you
know, the man he was before rehab and the man that came back from rehab are day and night,
but I know that is Langston Ainsworth and not his identical twin, Ivan Northwood, because I
went and picked up Langston from rehab the moment he was released, and the look in his eyes is
still the same, not that empty, dead-man, world-hater look, but the look he had in his eyes when
we met and started dating. Ivan would never have that look. He would never talk the way
Langston talks. That is my husband. Ivan doesn't talk or walk like that. His tone of voice is
higher than Langston's. I haven't met him in person, but ever since we found out about him,
we've kept informed of everything in his life because we met his friend, Miguel, and Miguel tells
us everything so we can get to know him before we actually meet him and we can have a good
relationship with them, you know, no conflict because of things we don't know that upset him or
something like that. Besides, Brody, if I found out that Langston switched places with Ivan and
handed his wife over to his brother in a silver platter, I would leave Ivan and get with another
man, because that is disgusting. I mean that makes me gag. I can't have sex with men of the same
family, whether they are cousins, second cousins, third cousins...it doesn't matter! And brothers,"
she did gag, "oh, my God, that's beyond nasty. I repeat that is disgusting. I would feel so
ashamed of knowing that I had sex with twin brothers that, oh, man." She started walking around
the kitchen. "Man, let's change the subject, all right? You're making me afraid of meeting Ivan
right now. Stop, seriously." She gagged again.

"Ok, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said, giving her a brotherly hug, and just then, Langston
walked into the kitchen to get some Coca Cola to drink. "I didn't mean to place those thoughts in
your mind, I'm sorry."

Langston retrieved the can of Coca Cola from the twelve-pack in the refrigerator. "What
happened?"

Luckily, Bryce called Diana over to come play a video game with him. "Mama, Diana, I
need you to help me beat this level! I've lost forty-five lives in this level alone already!" He was
playing Super Mario World on Super Nintendo, a game from the year 1991.

Diana ran over to his room. Although the room was far, far away because the mansion
was so colossal, over 8,000 square feet, when Bryce screamed, the whole neighborhood could
hear him. Luckily he'd never scream for being abused even by his little brothers, because they
treated him like a prince. "Pause the game, I'm on my way to help you!"

Just when Diana got out of the kitchen, Brody said to Langston, "Man, you are so
different from the way you used to be that I came up with the notion that maybe you had given
your wife in to your twin and run away to try to find a woman you would be worthy of. She
became sick in the stomach and she gagged. She says that's disgusting and if she found out you
switched places with your twin, she'd know for sure you don't want her anymore and she'd get
with somebody else."
 80

"Diana has a very delicate stomach and just talking about something disgusting in front
of her or saying something disgusting to her causes her to gag and throw up, especially now that
she's pregnant."
"I just found out without warning, man. I am so sorry."

"It's ok. Most of the time things happen without prior warning. It’s not the first time I’ve
hurt Diana unknowingly.”

“Ready to meet your little son?”

“I wasn’t sure if you’d agree.”

“If I didn’t agree on you having a relationship with him I wouldn’t have let you come into my
home.”

“That makes sense. I want you to know that I won’t fight you for custody of my son. Adoption is
forever, you have total custody and total control until he turns eighteen, just like I would if I had
him. As long as I can have a good relationship with him and see him regularly, I’m happy. I just
hope that he becomes proud of his biological father someday, you know, knowing that because
of his biological father, no matter how you raise him, he’s going to end up a criminal or a
horrible person. You don’t have to worry about that. I am doing everything in my power to get
back on track.”

“I know you are. You are in such good shape that they let you off rehab early. That ought to
count for something. That means you’re determined to make a change and nothing can make you
go back to that dark place. You decided to be there for the child you’re expecting, without
knowing about Bryce, and be the father that your children deserve. I am very proud of you. Your
whole family is. You want to come to the room and meet Bryce? He knows about you. Diana has
showed him pictures of you. He knows what you look like and what your name is.”

“Problem is he doesn’t know who I am, and that’s the most important thing. He doesn’t know
anything about my past.”

“That’s true. He doesn’t know who you used to be. Diana didn’t want to say bad things to her
child about his biological father because then the child would be afraid of inheriting the worst
defects of his biological father and therefore disappointing me and his mother in the future and
stop being part of the Haynes family.”

“That’s true. This is not the time to tell him the truth about me, tell him all my secrets, because I
have to tell him before someone else tells him in his or her own way. I can’t have someone else
tell him the truth about me and add his or her own little twisted story, but now is definitely not
the time to tell him. He’s way too young. Probably by the time he’s eight or ten, when he’s
surpassed the age of reason, he will understand better, and God willing, by that time, I will be in
a much better shape than I am now.” Langston looked around to make sure that no one was
 81

watching or listening to this conversation even from corners slightly far away.

“Don’t worry. We’re alone. Go introduce yourself to your son and play some video games with
him. He hasn’t seen you face to face because he’s been in his room playing that game all morning
long. It’s like that every weekend. He doesn’t stop playing a particular game until he wins all
levels of it.” They got out of the kitchen and started walking the hallway to the other hallway
where the bedrooms were, and then got out of there and started walking the bedroom hallway of
the first story of the house. The house had a total of twelve rooms, four rooms in each story, and
it had three stories. Every story of the house was a different house on its own and three large
families of at least six members could live there comfortably, but only one family lived there.
Every now and then, Rebecca’s parents would spend the night here and also Brody’s uncles,
siblings, nephews and nieces, but that would only happen in the holidays, and on every other day
of the year, they would just visit, seven days a week, for a while. The whole family would get
together for dinner. Fortunately, the Haynes family had cooks, but they didn’t have a maid.
Rebecca’s younger sister, who was born five years before Aunt Alicia died and was now fifteen,
just when Rebecca’s parents thought that Rebecca would be their only child, she was in charge of
cleaning the house along with her best friends, Charlotte and Amanda. Each girl would clean one
story of the house every Sunday afternoon, and Brody and Rebecca would pay each of them
$5,000 for it, in a month. They were happy to make money without having to search for a job.
Each month they would only use half of that money and save the rest for their college education,
and they’d done this for three years, so by now, they’d saved up a lot of money, and the bank
account where this money would always go was always untouched. The girls’ parents, all six of
them worked like donkey to get them what they needed so they could save up all that money for
college. Besides, they didn’t need a lot of things, just food, seven sets of shirts and pants per
week, seven sets of underwear per week, computers to do their schoolwork, because the girls
would never chat with anyone online but each other and with family members that were far away,
printers and back-up media, just in case they needed to print homework or a report and ran out of
ink at the moment, and then after that it was about the things they wanted that they wouldn’t
always get, like music CD’s and DVD’s. They weren’t fans of movies. They preferred TV series
and things like that, and most of the time, they would make DVD’s of their own, of doing crazy
things with their friends and making mini-films to enjoy with their friends and family. They had
no idea that if they uploaded those videos to video-sharing sites, they would become famous
because they were really talented actors and actresses, but when the girls and their friends would
film themselves with their crazy stories that their friend, Holly would write, they would avoid
romance and risqué stuff and always go for the comedy or the horror, or science-fiction. They
loved making horror films, and they would do it like pros, taking tips from the most famous
horror films of all time, in Hollywood and outside Hollywood, being careful not to steal the
executions of these stories and making every horror film they made, inspired by other horror
films, would be three times scarier and it would make those that would watch these nine to
fifteen minute long films wet their pants. Their families should know. They’d seen all those films
 82

and really wet their pants, and they’d even advise their children not to make them so gory, but of
all the things they were told day in and day out, this was the only advice they wouldn’t take. The
more gore, the more fun. They would use internal organs of old, dead pigs, and they would use
pig blood because one of the guys, Greg, he lived in a farm, and every time one of the pigs got
old and sick, his father would kill it and give the blood away for the next horror film. Bryce had
a feeling that his father would finally come and see him today, so the day before, he called
Rihanna and her friends to have Holly write a series of movies about a serial killer that would
remove people’s internal organs from their bodies to make them suffer more than they should
and then cut their heads off—and the one to play that serial killer would be his biological father,
who would gladly participate in this project, ignoring that when those movies would be uploaded
somewhere on the internet, which they would within the next three months, a talent he never
knew about would be discovered and that would change Langston Ainsworth’s life forever.

Without warning, Langston walked into the room, while Brody left and closed the door behind
him without making any noise, approached his son, wrapped him in his arms and gave him a big
hug. Only his father would hug him like this, but it wasn’t Daddy Brody, this was another man.
Bryce turned his face without pausing the game, and then Diana took the controller from him and
paused it. For the first time ever, Bryce saw that face, up close and personal, no photo. He looked
at the man, stunned, and then turned around, stood up and hugged his father back. Langston
lifted him up and had him sit on a recliner that he had in his room. Then, Langston sat on the
floor just to be at his level.

“Hi,” Bryce said, smiling, like he was looking at an angel. His father now had the look of an
angel. He’d become a different person and this time, he wouldn’t go back. This was for real.

Shedding tears, and trying to wipe them away from his eyes, Langston said, “Wow, this is like
seeing myself when I was a child, like I’ve gone back in time and met myself as a child. This is
awesome. I never imagined you would look so much like me. I always knew I had a child
somewhere in the world because when I was younger I wasn’t always responsible and I wouldn’t
always protect myself, but I never thought my wife would be that child’s mother, which makes
this even more outstanding.”

“I hope you don’t have an even older child out there.”

“I hope so, too.”

“Before you ask me how I know about those things, well, I have an idea, I don’t know it all. You
know that talk show that always gives results of paternity and lie-detector tests? Well one of those days
I didn’t have school, I watched a segment of that show once, and since they were talking about that
thing that I am not supposed to discuss with anyone, Mama Rebecca sent me to my room to listen to
some music, but I did hear the host talking about teenagers having children and not knowing who their
fathers were, like these girls having paternity tests between three and sometimes even four
guys—that’s disgusting. Anyway, I am supposed to know absolutely nothing about these things, but I
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learned some of this by accident. Mama Rebecca was afraid of me learning even more about that
and she blocked all the channels except for the twenty-four-hour cartoon channels.”
“So you can only watch cartoons now.”
“Yes, only cartoons, and I can only watch the ‘TV-Y’ ones, not the ‘TV-Y7’ ones and above.”

“Now I know what you can watch and what you can’t, and if your parents ever allow me to take
you to my house and spend a few hours with me and your mother there, I promise that I won’t let
you watch programs they don’t want you to watch. When you’re living with me, if ever, you’ll go
by the same rules. Diana and I won’t violate any of Mama Rebecca and Papa Brody’s rules.”

“I know you won’t because you’re an angel, and I am an angel, just because you’re my father,
and when I grow up, I will continue to be an angel and make my four parents proud.”

Brody had come back into the room to give Bryce his Super Mario Brothers 2 game so he could
play it with Diana on his Nintendo, and he’d heard all this by accident! When Diana turned
around, she saw him and padded Langston on the back to get his attention so he could see Brody
standing there, too. Langston carried his child as he walked up to Brody. “I hope you don’t
misinterpret anything you have heard. I’m not trying to…”

“When Bryce knows you better, then you’ll be able to take him home and he can spend the
weekend with you to get to know his grandfather, his uncles and all of his blood family. In the
meantime you will visit him here, only during the family gatherings between the Haynes and
Garcia families, but I am glad I heard all of this. I am glad that for Bryce, living with you will be
like living with us, and the only things that will change are the houses and the parents’ faces. We
are going to talk this over with our attorney and then a decision will have to be made in court as
to whether or not it is possible for custody to be shared between adoptive and biological parents,
so you can have all that and you can take Bryce home with you.”

“I don’t intend to share custody. You can have the custody 100%, and you will. I just want to
spend time with my oldest son and for him to watch his little brother be born and grow up and
have quality time with his little brother so they can have a good relationship and when they grow
up, they won’t be total strangers and enemies, too, because most of the time, that’s exactly what
happens when siblings don’t grow up together. They go from strangers to enemies. Siblings that
didn’t grow up together seldom get along.”

“I know that, but still, I am going to see if it’s possible for adopted parents and biological parents
to share custody so Bryce can spend time with all four of us and get to know his birth family
better.”

Excited, Bryce asked, “I’m going to have a little brother?”

“Yes. It’s just been confirmed it’s a boy. He will be born three months and three weeks from
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now.”

“That’s awesome! Do I get to give him his name?”

Brody and Langston looked at each other, amazed, while Diana stood beside Langston with her
arm around her son, and Bryce placed his hand firmly on Diana’s belly. “Would you like to?”

“Yes. It would be my dream, to guide my little brother and be his helping hand, his shoulder to
cry on, and I certainly don’t want him to have to play along while you guys have another baby,
and then my brother will have to wait for that baby to grow up a little to be able to play with him
or her. We’ll have a great time together. I’m going to share my toys with him so you guys don’t
have to buy him any toys unless he wants a toy that I don’t have. I am going to give him all my
baby toys, and then, as he continues to grow up, I am going to continue to give him the toys that
I am too big to play with, except my video games. Those I am going to share because they’re
hard to get nowadays. You can only get them at eBay and Amazon.com.”

“You’re right, but I don’t think the baby will want a toy that you don’t have because you have all
the toys in the world, it’s like your parents bought you everything in the store and then every year
they did an upgrade.” Looking around the room, Langston said, “I mean you have toys here that
they haven’t announced on TV yet! What, do you get them straight from the factory they’re
fabricated at?”
Brody and Bryce laughed. “Yes, some of the toys we get straight from the factory.”
“I knew it!”

“My old toys don’t look used because I take very good care of them, so every time I give my
baby brother a toy it’ll be like he got a new one from the store—or from the factory.”

Everybody laughed.

Hours passed until the next thing everybody knew, it was three o’clock in the morning. Langston
and Diana went back home and went right back to sleep shortly after.
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Chapter 7
Ivan Northwood was adopted by the Northwood family because at the time that he and Langston
were born, the Ainsworth family was going through a rough time and they didn't think they could
raise two children. Fortunately, luck smiled at London Ainsworth, Langston's father, and with
the help of his best friend, he could start his own enterprise, a chain of that kind of department
store that would have everything one could possibly think of for sale: food, clothing, electronics,
appliances, storage objects like CD towers and chests, backup media, music CD's, m3 players,
school supplies, office supplies--everything. the chain of stores was called simply London.
London Ainsworth would've given it another name, but he was just so proud that this company
was his and he would be able to do something like this, competing with all stores that were like
this one, and always winning. London, or as some people would call them, London Stores, they
had all the best items at the best prices, competitor to stores like Wal-Mart, which was the same
way. On the other hand, Israel Northwood always worked as a pharmacist, and a nurse, and he
would work sixteen hours a day. Although he wasn't a multimillionaire like the biological father
of his only son, Mr. Northwood did extremely well, and his family always had food on the table,
clothes to wear, and everything they needed. The only thing they couldn't afford was luxury, but
Blair and Ivan Northwood were simply thrilled that Israel would work his ass off for them. Blair
couldn't have married a better man, although he was the infertile one. Blair had had one child
from her first marriage, and that child lived with Ivan for a few years of his life because he was
eight years older. Blair was fifty-nine years old. Israel was sixty-three, but he looked fifteen
years younger. Blair also looked younger, but that was because she would always eat right and
exercise and she would use those anti-aging creams because she didn't want to look age seventy
when she was really age fifty-nine. She would let her wrinkles be when she turned seventy, and
have them on her face with pride, just not now. Now was much too early. Blair had her first and
only biological child at age twenty-five and she'd been married to her first husband, Manuel, for
five years at the time. Manuel died in a car accident when Blair was thirty, and it took Blair two
years to get over the dolor. Then, at age thirty-two, she married gorgeous Israel Northwood, but
before their wedding day, Israel warned her that it was confirmed that he was infertile. She loved
him so much that she married him anyway, because he was a wonderful, wonderful man,
dedicated to other people's health, with a great heart. He was so talented he could've chosen
another profession, but he wanted to be a pharmacist, so he was working as one since age
twenty-eight, and by the time he married Blair, he was thirty-six, so he had plenty of experience.
Then, after many years in college, even after finishing his studies to become a pharmacist, Israel
completed his studies to become a registered nurse to have more money now that he got married.
Israel was happy with Emmanuel, Blair's first child, and he even adopted him as his son now that
the child's father was dead, but Israel wanted two children, so when he and Blair heard that a
child was born in the hospital and his parents were unable to take care of him because he had a
twin and his parents only had enough money to take care of one child, they raced to the hospital
and adopted that baby, naming him Ivan, after Israel's older brother, who had passed away victim
of muscular dystrophy. Israel didn't know that when he was seventeen, his father rendered him
infertile through an operation because he was afraid that Israel's biological children would inherit
their uncle's disease. Jake, Israel's father was afraid Israel would abhor him upon finding out the
truth about his infertility, but in reality, Israel embraced his father and told him he understood
what he did, even though doctors told him it was unlikely for a child to inherit MD from an uncle
or an aunt, and that it could only be inherited from a parent. Right now, Israel and his father Jake
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had an excellent relationship, like Jake had never made that mistake, and Israel was happy with
those two children he had. Emmanuel was a doctor of internal medicine. Ivan was a physical
therapist and the founder of a company of medical supplies, working sixteen hours a day just like
his father. Ivan had a mild case of cerebral palsy after hitting his head when getting out of the
shower when he slipped into some water, and that caused him slight brain damage, very slight,
cerebral palsy, but it was so mild people wouldn't notice it unless he had trouble saying certain
words because all it had affected was his speech and a few nerves in his extremities, but rigorous
physical therapy fixed all that, and now he was walking and doing everything like someone who
didn't have cerebral palsy. He would jog and run. He would jog every morning, not to lose
weight or keep in shape, but to keep the nerves and muscles in his legs working hard, and he
came up with this, but that also kept him in shape. His body was just like Langston's, incredibly
brawny and his body was to women 'a work of art'. Women would fall in love with him but they
wouldn't commit to him because he was disabled. That's why, in twenty-six years, Ivan had only
been with six women. He decided not to give in to any woman that expressed interest in him
because he wasn't that kind of man, but of all these six women, only one committed to him, and
that woman died in a fire. Now, Ivan had been alone for six months after he got tired of having
casual relationships. He wanted to get married and have the children that his father couldn't have.
Ivan had one child, however, and he was three years old. The mother had died in a car crash and
his grandparents had cancer in the terminal stage and they could no longer take care of him, so
they were desperately searching for the child's biological father, and the child's maternal
grandmother found Ivan in the strangest of circumstances, while buying milk at the grocery
store...and the child, Aaron was with her!
Ivan was stunned when he noticed that this adorable child was identical to him, black,
silky-straight hair, aquamarine eyes, pretty face, medium-sized lips, a pretty nose and a dazzling
smile. It was seeing himself as a child all over again. The child smiled at him even though he'd
just seen him for the first time. The woman looked at Aaron, then she looked at Ivan, and she
said, not knowing Ivan had a twin, "Yep, you are the father, just like that show."

Ivan bent over to be at the child's level and the child couldn't stop smiling at him and
clapping. He was excited. Aaron's first words to his father were, "Oh, my gosh, I look just like
you! Are you my daddy?"

Ivan was so stunned he didn't know what to say. Lots of people looked alike in this world.
It was a fact that each person in this world could have as many as one hundred other people
whom, despite being unrelated, looked a lot like them or were identical to them, but this child
had something that made the connection obvious: the look in his eyes and his attitude, his
personality. This was exactly the way Ivan was when he was a child. He would look at people
with those sweet eyes, he was friendly, sweet and caring, and the way he smiled. Yep, this was
his child, the child he never knew about because that woman never told him that she was
pregnant. By that time, Ivan had already suffered his bathroom accident, at age twenty-two, and
the woman was afraid that her child would inherit his condition and she didn't want Ivan to be
part of the child's life. She was even planning to give Aaron up for adoption, but when she
noticed that the child remained healthy as the months and years went by, she decided to keep him
and still not tell his father anything about him. Karma got her good. Because of her evil heart,
 87

she lost her life. She had no right to play God with everyone's lives like that. She had even
played God with the lives of her parents. She was the reason why they had cancer, because every
time they wanted to sunbathe she would hide the sunscreen from them, and although they
couldn't find the sunscreen, they would go outside and sunbathe anyway. She did this to them
because when she was growing up, they would give her some of the things she wanted, but not
everything. She knew that their skins were delicate and sensitive to the sun, and if they
sunbathed too much, without three pounds of sun block on them, they would get skin cancer and
die. She'd gotten her wish. They were dying, but she would never experience the joy of watching
them die. Their grandson, Aaron had given them hope and something to live for, but as soon as
Cherie, the mother, noticed how hard it was for her to get out of bed now, she decided she better
find Aaron's biological father and give him in soon, because right now, they had a nurse at home.
She couldn't take care of her husband or even herself.

Cherie knew that Ivan would ask her questions that she couldn't answer in front of Aaron,
so she got him out of the section of the car where babies were usually placed and told him to go
to the candy aisle and pick out anything he wanted, as much as he wanted, that she would pay for
it all. Fortunately, Cherie and Abram's son, Cesar, he was with them. In fact, since none of them
could drive, Cesar brought them over, and then, just as they were about to leave to the candy
aisle, Cesar said, "I am going to take him to other aisles in the store so he can buy things he
wants that are not candy and then I'll pay for them, ok, Mom?"

"That sounds like a plan!"

Excited, as they went away, Aaron said, "Thank you, Uncle Cesar!"

Once they were alone in the aisle, Cherie said, "Ivan, I am so sorry that things turned out
to be this way. My husband and I really wanted you to have a relationship with your child
because you're a great guy. You are the best man our daughter's ever had. No one ever treated
her like you, but since she was the mother, I couldn't do anything regarding the child without her
consent, you know? Grandparents don't have rights or authority over their grandchildren unless
they get custody of them, which is something very hard."

"I understand. Why didn't she tell me she was pregnant?"

"Because you were 'damaged goods' and 'sex was the only thing you were good for'."

Laughing, Ivan said, "Really? I mean I know that us being together was out of the
question, but I could still have paid child-support. I mean even a completely-handicapped man,
that has a sound mind, can pay child-support for his child, don't you think? All it takes is being
mentally-competent."

"Marissa's view of the perfect man was very, very wrong. Any man that treats his woman
right and provides for her is the perfect man. The man doesn't have to be gorgeous, he doesn't
 88

have to be...you know..."

"Right."

"I mean, you are gorgeous, with all due respect, very much so. You're just imperfect."

"Yeah, who isn't?"

"When she would say that she would mean 'imperfect' as in 'defective'."

"Yeah, but aren't imperfect and defective the same thing, Cherie? And aren't we all
imperfect and defective? Your daughter was living in La-La Land because she would've never
found 'the perfect man'. There is no such thing. Human beings, none of us have 'everything'. We
have faults. We have defects. We are all defective, and like you said, all it takes to be the perfect
man is to treat your woman right and provide for her, support her, be there for her. If any woman
demands more than that, she's delusional, same for men. I don't mind being 'defective' because
I'm certain that I am never going to find the perfect woman. It's very unlikely that I am ever
going to get married and have other children, so I am going to live my life and have fun."

"Just watch out for STD's and unwanted pregnancies, you know? That's something a
fourteen-year-old should be aware of, and you're twenty-six, Ivan."

"No, I didn't mean like that."

"Oh."

"I've never been promiscuous and I never will be. What I meant was keep working, and
going to Europe on my vacations, and playing board games and video games with my friends,
throwing parties just because, where there would be no sex...you know, things like that. I don't
use women, you know, and I don't have sex unless I have a mate. That casual-sex bullshit, I am
tired of that. I want the impossible. I want marriage and children but if I can't have that I am just
going to have another girlfriend, and..."

"Why is that 'the impossible' for you, Ivan?" she said, crossing her arms across her chest.

"Let's see...because no woman takes me seriously?"

"Just because Marissa didn't take you seriously doesn't mean that no woman has or that
no woman ever will. I think it's time you found out that Marissa never took any of her boyfriends
seriously, and she's had several. More than I could possibly count."

"Oh, really?" he said, raising his voice for a second, astounded. "So my disability was
just an excuse to use me?"
 89

"She's had so many flings...oh, God...and she's never, ever been faithful to any of the men
that she would call her boyfriends. In fact, I am surprised that Aaron turned out to be yours
because around the time she was pregnant she was sleeping with like eight other guys,
unprotected. I am sorry to say this, but it's the truth. My daughter was a whore. She would
participate in bachelor parties and she was the one to give the bachelor his last fling before he
would get married. She would participate in parties and have orgies."

"Maybe, out of all those guys that were giving her their sperm, I was the lucky one to
fertilize her egg at the time," he said, smiling widely. "I guess this happened because I was meant
to be a father before getting married or I was just meant to be a father because like I said, I don't
think I'll ever get married."

"Remember how old your parents were when they got married and adopted you,
thirty-two. You're twenty-six. It's never too late to start a family, and if you wind up getting
married in your late thirties or even your late forties and you can no longer conceive children
around that time, you can always repeat your parents' story and adopt. Think about it. It's not like
your bloodline has stopped. You already have a biological child, so you will have an inheritance
and the Northwood name will get extended. It won't stop there. You never know how many
children Aaron's going to have. He could have one child, just like he could have three, five or
even nine."

"That's true."

"So don't give up. I have a feeling that the woman you are going to marry and spend the
rest of your life with is closer to you than you think. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be
someone that you see every day. You know, I've got to go. I don't think I deserve to interact with
you because knowing that my daughter was never the best daughter in the world, I never stood
up to her and I never attempted to do the right thing, which was making sure that you would have
a relationship with your child. I didn't even call you, knowing where you lived, and let you see
him behind her back, so you know what? I am going to go, keep on shopping, and you're going
to do the same thing, ok?"

She turned around to leave, but he placed his hand on her shoulder, stopping her. "Come
on, Cherie. Don't be like that. You are the grandmother of my child, and you've raised him for
three years."

"That's right," she said, turning back around, "for three years because Aaron is about to
turn four, and she died when he was a year and a half."

"So don't tell me that we can't have a relationship and work together for what's best for
Aaron."

"But I am going to die."

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"You still have hope. I've always believed that the only time you no longer have hope is
when you stop breathing."

"Haven't you heard the phrase, 'it's too late'?"

"Yes, I've heard it millions of times. I've heard it from my patients. They always say to
me, 'My doctor says that it's too late for me to walk again, or to walk at all'. Then I give him their
therapy. Next thing they know, they enter the therapy room in a wheelchair and exit it in a
walker."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. That's the way we all are, all therapists at the New Hope Center. Look at me.
I thought I would spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. I started getting therapy from those
people and I thought I would leave the center in a walker. Next thing I know, I am walking on
my own. I can walk, run, play, and do everything someone that doesn't have cerebral palsy, can
do. That's what drove me to become a physical therapist. I wanted other people to experience
what I experienced, to show other people that it's never too late, and I will show you, too. I can
talk to your doctor to see if he will send you to a cancer-treatment center. They have saved
thousands of lives and they're going to save yours and Merlin's. I am not giving up on you, and
you shouldn't either."

After buying all the candy and all the things Aaron wanted, Ivan went after Aaron and
holding his hand, he said to him, "Your grandparents are going away for a while. You want to
come live with daddy while they get better?" smiling.

"But Mama and Papa always tell me that the moment I leave with you I am not going
back to live with them because they're dying."

"You're going to live with me for a while, and I am going to send them away, they're
going to get better, and you're going to spend time with them and then spend time with me.
They're your legal guardians so as long as they're alive and not on life-support, you still have to
stay with them and then, if they agree with it, you come over to spend some time with me, got
it?"

"Ok, if you think they will survive..."

"I don't think so. I am sure of it. They will survive. We are not going to lose them." Ivan
hugged Aaron. "We're not going to lose them, I promise you. They are going to pull through and
come right back to us."

Hours later, Aaron went into his father's house for the first time. It was very pretty, one of
those model-houses, and it had four bedrooms, three bathrooms, one gigantic kitchen with new,
luxurious appliances, brand-new floors, a combination of the most-expensive tile and the
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most-expensive and prettiest wood floors. The windows were shaped in a way he'd never seen
before. All the doors were beautiful and of high quality. Each room in the house was painted a
different color. The furniture was not that new, but it seemed to be. It was very well taken care of.
Ok, now I know that when I'm in this house, I can't eat or drink anything outside the dining room,
and I have to eat at the table. All of the room sets were the most expensive and luxurious ones
three years before, and the electronics, oh, man. We're talking about gigantic, flat screen TV's in
every room of the house, satellite TV, digital video recorders for receivers all over the house, and
the family room had every entertainment means one could possibly want, a Blu-ray player and
recorder with an extensive collection of movies of all genres, except porn of course. Ivan was
smart. He would keep all the rated-R movies away in a special drawer of the entertainment
center that had a key and the DVD's that were rated PG-13 and below were in wide display. Ivan
had over two thousand CD's put away in a special book-case kind of stand because he got tired
of buying CD-towers every time the CD count reached 300, and he had a stereo that could play
CD's and even cassette tapes, and of course radio stations. The stereo was small, but just like
everything in the house, it seemed to be brand new even when some of the things in the house
weren't brand new. The oldest items were some of the DVD's, and everything else that was not
brand new was only three years old, just like little Aaron. Although the stereo was small, the
speakers were slightly bigger. Ivan wasn't using it anymore. He played all his media on his
blu-ray player now because that machine would play everything. It was clear to Ivan that Aaron
could listen to very little of the music that he had because although Ivan had very few
parental-advisory labeled CD's, Aaron couldn't listen to most of the music he had because
ninety-nine percent of music wasn't suitable for three-year-olds, so he made up for the material
that was not suitable for children by providing them with hundreds and hundreds of Disney
DVD's and other DVD's that were made for children or just rated G. Most of Ivan's friends had
children below the age of five, so he would always provide them with entertainment that was
safe for them when they would come over.

Without thinking about it, Aaron kneeled on the floor, opened one of the glass
compartments of the entertainment center, the top section, retrieved a Disney movie, loaded it
into the Blu-Ray player, turned on the TV, changed the input to video-three and started watching
it. His legs were tired after walking all over the grocery store and walking through the whole
house, like taking a tour. The house was big, over four thousand square feet, and he hadn't
explored the outside of it yet. Ivan had a big garden. Ivan had bought this house on his own,
gotten it on an auction, after the original homeowners didn't pay it for several months and it went
on foreclosure. Incredibly, the house only cost Ivan seventy-eight thousand dollars, and his best
friend, Barry, had given him the money, Barry, the man that had a problem with his twin brother
several days back. Barry's father wasn't a millionaire, but he had a bank-account as fat as a
sumo wrestler. Since he didn't like taking advantage of people, Ivan was paying back every cent
of the money, six hundred dollars every month, like he was paying a mortgage, and he'd been
doing this for seven years. He'd paid fifty thousand four hundred dollars already, and he owed
twenty-seven thousand six hundred dollars now. Barry's father, Benjamin, could care less if Ivan
 92

paid him back the full amount or not. He loved him like a son and he knew about the problem
that Barry had had with Ivan's twin brother, Langston. He'd kept it a secret from everyone that
didn't know, like Ivan himself for example, because he didn’t want to ruin the relationship
between the twin brothers before they would even get a chance to reunite, and he didn’t want to
ruin Barry’s relationship with Ivan.

Ivan went to the family room with his son when he heard the movie playing. Meanwhile,
Cherie and Merlin’s doctor had already authorized their stay at the cancer treatment center and
they were on their way over there, in Pennsylvania! “That’s one of the best ones, G-Force,
simply amazing. I loved the message behind it, also, the importance of family and loyalty. At
least that was the way I interpreted it.” Ivan’s cell phone rang. Cherie and Merlin were traveling
to Pennsylvania by plane because they couldn’t drive, and they didn’t want to put Cesar through
the torment of having to drive so many hours, although he would do it for them in a heartbeat,
and he would do anything for his parents. “Hello, Ivan Northwood.”
“Ivan, sweetheart, this is Mom. How are you doing? I am just calling to tell you that
we’re on our way to the cancer-treatment center in Pennsylvania. The doctor approved
everything, and well, we did it. I am calling because we finally got the green light to make phone
calls from the phone here, in the airplane, those little phones they have. We don’t know how long
we’re going to be there. We want to talk to Aaron to tell him how much we love him and that
we’re going to be right back, we’re going to come back to him.”
Ivan handed Aaron the phone. “Mama wants to talk to you.”

Aaron took the phone in his hand and said, “Mama?”

“Sweetie, how are you doing? Are you having a good time with your dad?”

“Yes, Mama. My dad is even better than I ever imagined. He’s the greatest. He has a pretty house
where everything’s big, meaning all the rooms are big, and my dad even designated a bedroom
for me that I will be able to sleep in even after you guys come back, if you let me spend the
weekends with him, when you come back.”

“Of course we’re going to let you spend the weekends with him. So did you get a pretty room?”

“Yes. It’s green, my favorite color, grass-green. It has a flat-screen TV, a DVR, a desk for me to
do my homework in…the only thing it doesn’t have is a computer because Dad says I’m too
young to use a computer. He says he’s going to get me school supplies and clothes.”

“That’s good.”

“It has a big bed, it’s like queen sized. It’s up against the wall to make sure I don’t fall off, and I
promised him I would sleep right next to the wall, to keep safe. My closet is big.”

“Remember you’re only allowed to watch cartoons for now, ok? And rated-G shows.”

“How could I forget something that important?” His vocabulary was really advanced, and he
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talked like a ten-year-old. “My dad has a lot of friends with little kids, so he knows what
entertainment media we can have access to and which entertainment media we shouldn’t use.”

“That’s great. Sounds like we put you in good hands.”

“Yes, you sure did. I don’t understand why my mom was always saying that my dad was
defective and worthless because he couldn’t be more perfect. I don’t see why cerebral palsy’s a
defect. If we were all healthy, there wouldn’t be any doctors, there wouldn’t be medicine, no
scientific research, and we wouldn’t learn anything. There wouldn’t even be science, I bet.”

“I love your way of thinking. You’re a genius, just like your father. Did you know your father
graduated high school at age fourteen and that’s why he’s been able to start his own enterprise at
an early age and become a physical therapist? He started going to college at age fifteen and then
he studied one profession and then the other.”

“That’s great!” he said looking his father in his eyes. “He didn’t tell me anything about that.”

“I guess he wants you to get to know him and see things for yourself rather than telling you and
then having you find out it was all a lie.”

“My dad would never lie to me.” They hugged and Ivan kissed Aaron’s forehead. “May I say hi
to Papa?”

“Papa can’t talk much because he’s really sleepy, but you can say hi.”

“I know he’ll get better.”

Cherie handed the phone to Merlin. Merlin said, “Hello, who’s this?” Cherie placed her hand on
her forehead, feeling a headache coming on. He was so drained and so out of it he didn’t know
that Cherie called their grandson.

“Papa, are you ok?”

Merlin woke up in an instant. “Oh, hi, Aaron!” Aaron was his energy source, the adrenaline that
kept his blood pumping. Cherie was afraid that upon finding out some horrible things about
Marissa’s past, Ivan would fight to get custody of Aaron, they would lose him forever, and
Merlin would go on a downward spiral, and then, no one would be able to save him. Cherie
didn’t know Ivan well enough because she hadn’t spent enough time with him or talked much to
his family about him. Ivan would never do that after they’d provided his child with a lot of love
and a good home, and treated him like a little prince, giving him everything he wanted despite
the fact that they didn’t have as much money as he did. Ivan hadn’t paid his self-imposed debt
with Benjamin, self-imposed because Ben didn’t consider it a debt, because he was saving up a
lot of money in his bank account for his future wife and children. He was also saving up
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thousands and thousands of dollars in the bank because he didn’t want to have to buy life
insurance. He thought he only had sixty thousand dollars saved up, and since he never touched
that money, he wouldn’t check the balance on his account when the statement came in the mail,
he would just burn every document that had his name on it that he considered deeply personal
and then throw out the ashes, to prevent identity theft because he didn’t think that shredding
documents was the best method of destroying them. In reality, the balance of his bank account
was one-point-five million dollars because he’d been accumulating money in there since the day
he got his medical-supply company up and running.

“I’m doing great. Mama says you’re tired.”

“Yes, I’m a little sleepy, but you know you give me my energy no matter how tired or weak I feel.
Just hearing your sweet voice is… you mean everything to us, grandson. I hope you never forget
that and I hope you never stop loving us no matter what people say.”

“I couldn’t possibly do that after all you’ve done for me.”

“You’re the best. Ok, I have to go back to sleep while I still have a chance. We still have thirty
minutes remaining in our flight. I will talk to you when we get to the center, ok?”

“Ok.”

“Dad gave Mama his phone number and that’s how we were able to call you, so I’m going to call
you later.”

“Ok, Papa. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“And I always will.”

“Same here.” He hung up the phone.

****

Langston was in his room, taking a nap. Diana was in the kitchen, preparing dinner. Now,
Langston couldn’t be up from the time he woke up in the morning ‘til the time to go to sleep at
night. Every afternoon, when coming home from work, Langston had to take a nap. It was only a
thirty-minute nap, and he would always time it. The phone rang. Diana answered it from the
dining room. They had a phone extension in every room of the house, even in the living room.
“Hello.”
“Hello. May I speak to Mr. Ivan Northwood?”
“Ivan Northwood? That’s my husband’s identical-twin brother. I don’t know where he lives or
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how to get in touch with him. What do you want from Mr. Northwood? Maybe my husband can
help you, Langston Ainsworth.”

“I do know how to localize him. I guess I dialed your number by mistake, but I don’t understand
how this happened because your phone numbers are completely different.”

“Oh, my God, do you think you can give me my brother-in-law’s phone number, please? My
husband and I, and the whole Ainsworth family are dying to see him. Please.”

“I’m not supposed to do this, but since I dialed his number and got you by mistake, I am going to
do it. This is your brother in law’s basic contact information. Got paper and pen?”

“Hold on a second.” She went to the kitchen and got a little notepad and a blue-ink pen from one
of the drawers of her kitchen counter and then she raced back to the dining room and picked up
the cordless phone. She got back on the line with the woman. “Yes, I’ve got a pen and paper
ready,” she said, pen on the notepad, ready to write.

The woman gave her all the information that she needed. “Don’t tell anyone. I never recorded
this call like I’m supposed to because I thought I would reach Mr. Northwood and talk to him
about a delicate matter. It’s about identity theft. Someone got a credit card under his name, with
our company, and maxed it out, over one hundred thousand dollars.”

“How did you find out that credit card is not really Ivan’s?”

“That’s just it. Identity theft cases are really difficult to prove, so I trust that this wasn’t him, but
he’s still responsible for this. He wouldn’t do something like this. For starters, he doesn’t need
credit cards. He’s the owner of Norway Medical. I know he’s got a lot of money. I just feel bad
for him because if he didn’t get this credit card, he’s going to pay for someone else’s debt. For
some reason I’ve been unable to contact him. When I call him, he’s never home, and his cell
phone is always on vibration when he’s giving his patients physical therapy, so he never gets our
calls. I email him and I guess he doesn’t have internet access anymore. He never responds, and
he’s not known for ignoring anyone, much less a corporation. I don’t know what else to do.”

“I am going to call him and have him call you, ok? We’ll get this taken care of, and you will get
your money and I will convince Ivan to enroll in Life Lock so no one can get shit under his name
ever again.”

Langston was standing right behind her! Getting some of the spaghetti she was making, which
had just finished cooking. “Who’s getting credit cards or loans under Ivan’s name?”

She turned around and looked at him. “Oh. Ah, this lady’s calling…”

Langston took the phone gently from her hand. “Hello, this is Langston Ainsworth, Ivan
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Northwood’s twin brother. What’s this all about? What can I do to help? I don’t want him to wind
up paying for something that’s not his. How much money does he supposedly owe?”

Lisa took her time to explain everything to him. “Thank you for offering your help. Like I was
telling Mrs. Ainsworth, for some reason we can never reach your brother. We keep calling him at
his home phone, cell phone, and we keep emailing him and he never responds. I am giving him
the benefit of the doubt and trusting that he wouldn’t deliberately ignore us.”

“No, he’s not ignoring you. I don’t know my brother but I keep in touch with his friends and I
know he’s not like that. I am going to talk to my father-in-law to see if he can help us out, and
then I will make a payment plan with him to give him his money back.”

“You know my dad would never want you to pay him back.”

“We’ll talk about this when I get off the phone with the lady,” he said to Diana and then said to
Lisa, “Ok, I am going to call my father in law and then you’re going to hear from him, ok?”

“Ok, Mr. Ainsworth, thank you for trying to help us out.”

Minutes later, Langston was on the phone with Daniel. He explained the situation to Daniel, and
Daniel’s response was shocking. “One hundred thousand dollars is chump change to me! You
don’t have to pay me back. You know how much money my company generates everyday and at
how much my fortune is estimated? I am one of the most-powerful businessmen in America
according to the Dream Magazine, dedicated to people who have realized their dreams. I think
the only way you can repay me is by treating my daughter the way she deserves, loving her and
honoring her.”

Kind of disappointed, because he wanted to pay his father in law back, because his intention was
not to take advantage of anyone, Langston said, “Ok, I will do that. Thank you so much. When
will you be able to send the money directly to these people?”

“I’m going to talk to them. Give me their phone number, son. Is it in your caller ID?”

Langston looked at his caller ID in a matter of seconds, from the kitchen, and dictated the
number to Daniel.

“And what was the name of the woman you talked to?”

“It was Lisa Everhart.”

Daniel wrote all that information down. “Ok, I am going to get in touch with her and anything
that happens, I am going to call you back. I’ll let you know when that payment is made. If Ivan
finds out about this right now, he’s going to freak out.”
 97

“Ok.”

“If they haven’t been able to get in touch with him it’s because he shouldn’t find out about this
right now.”

“Maybe you’re right. Thanks for helping my brother even though you don’t know him.”

“Hey, your family is my family, boy. It’s ok. I hope I get to meet him soon. I am looking forward
to it. Word is that he’s a prodigal citizen. He graduated high school at fourteen and by age
twenty-six he’s an impresario and a physical therapist. Quite impressive credentials.”

“I know, right. Sounds like he’s been doing a lot better than I have because I did none of those
things except becoming an entrepreneur, but I do ok.”

“You just hold on and watch how your company’s going to prosper, boy. You can count on that.”
Daniel hung up the phone.

****

Three days later, Ivan’s debt with the credit-card company had been paid in full by Daniel
Thornhart, and the account had been closed, and Ivan was not even aware of it. In seventy-two
hours a lot happened. The account was paid off, the person that was really responsible for this
went to jail, and then she was the one who was ordered to pay Daniel back, otherwise her jail
time would be dramatically increased, and Ivan’s identity was placed on Life Lock. That woman
didn’t intend to become him or usurp his name, just to get a few things, according to her, that she
wanted, and she couldn’t buy on her own. Now, she was in jail and would have plenty of time to
reflect on what she did.
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Chapter 8
Just when Alex and Langston had canceled their plan with Andrew and Tatiana because they
didn’t want to hurt anyone, and they would find some other way to get Tatiana off Alex’s back,
Andrew went to the restaurant that Tatiana worked at to get some breakfast. Tatiana had been
fired from her job as a secretary because she was caught talking on the phone with a man, telling
him indecent things that she wanted them to do together, and her boss, Attorney Nancy Handler,
couldn’t handle such behavior. She was doing it in front of a client that was waiting for Attorney
Handler to attend to her, and the client brought her eight-year-old-son with her, who had never
received child-support from her father, and the woman, Sharon Berkley wanted to see if there
was a way to force this deadbeat dad to pay up. Nancy Handler specialized in family-related
cases, and she was known for not losing one case in her entire twenty-five-year-long career, and
she’d tracked down so many deadbeat dads that men in this town and in the entire state of Florida
were scared to death of her. That happened two weeks before, and as always, an irresponsible
father was no match for Attorney Handler. She didn’t stop until she tracked him down, and now
he had to pay one thousand dollars of child-support every month from now on and retroactive
child support, at one thousand dollars a month, for eight years. That was a total of ninety-six
thousand dollars, and he would have to come up with that money quick. That wasn’t a problem
because he was a computer technician and he would earn up to one hundred and fifty thousand
dollars a year. He worked for everyone in town and one job could make him up to four thousand
dollars in one day. He just wouldn’t earn four thousand dollars every single day because most of
his jobs were economical. They involved anything from removing malware to replacing
hardware to fixing laptops that had come apart because of an accident, and putting a laptop back
together was one of the most expensive jobs, as well as replacing all of the hardware in a
computer, a job that Cameron had recently done. The reason why he would make loads of money
was because he would do up to five jobs every single day. Every job and the money he’d made
for that job would be written down on a piece of paper for when tax time came, and he had
copies of all the receipts. Cameron received notification of the court’s decision today, and his
little world would come crashing down in the blink of an eye. He was a good guy, relatively. His
only defect was his inability to take responsibility for what was his. Fortunately, Courtney was
Cameron’s only child. He was already screwed up enough as it was.
That morning, Andrew called the waitress over, Tatiana, and when she came over with
the little writing pad for the order, he asked for a sandwich made of sausage and egg, a big one,
hash browns on the side, coffee, and orange juice to drink. This was one of the most famous
restaurants in America, part of one of the most prestigious restaurant chains. Tatiana couldn’t
stop looking directly at Andrew while she took his order. When he finished ordering, he looked
back at her, stunned, thinking he’d offended her somehow. Smiling politely, he asked, “Did I say
or do something wrong?”
“No, you didn’t. You’re a gentleman. It’s just…” She’d learned a lesson after being fired for her
naughty behavior. “I don’t know how to say this without being disrespectful. You’re very
handsome.”

“Why, thank you! That wasn’t disrespectful at all. In fact, you’ve made my day because although
I’ve heard this said in a thousand different ways that were very vulgar and disrespectful, I’d
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never heard it said so beautifully by such a stunning woman like you.”

She smiled. “Thanks. Your order will be here shortly.” She walked away, still with that smile in
her face, the smile of a teenage girl that has fallen in love for the very first time, and then she
gave the order to the cooks. “Give him some pancakes on the side,” she told the cooks, “and tell
the boss to deduct that from my check.”

“Wow,” commented Lee, one of the cooks. “You really like this customer, don’t you?”

Blushing, she said, “Don’t ask questions. Just do it,” and walked away from there to attend to the
next customer.

Fifteen minutes later, Andrew’s order was brought to his table with a little something extra.
Surprised with Tatiana’s honesty, her boss heard about what happened and refused to take the
money of those pancakes from her paycheck this month and he didn’t make Andrew pay for
them either because he didn’t order them. Andrew was told that the pancakes were on the house,
and although he didn’t expect this to happen ever again, he was impressed. He took the waitress’
breath away. Tatiana got so distracted that on her way to the restroom, her name tag fell from
where it was a little above her breast. When she finished doing her business in the bathroom, she
found her name tag on the floor right by the door, picked it up, put it back on, and walked out of
the restroom, and went back to work.

Andrew enjoyed his breakfast, but even though he was satisfied and happy, he called the waitress
over again. Thinking he wanted something more to eat, and that he was a bottomless pit despite
being so muscular and having a six pack, and having only the body fat his skin needed to stay
healthy, Tatiana went over to him. “I see you finished your breakfast. I thought there was
something you didn’t like when you called me over and we would have to make it again,
although we gladly do, every time a customer is not satisfied with his food. Do you want more?”
She was stunned.

“No, I am like one more plain-old ham and cheese sandwich made of two slices of bread, from
being full. I just want your phone number.”

“My phone number?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t mind.” She wrote her number down in her writing pad, tore off the page and
handed it to him. Fortunately nobody saw that. They were too busy calling out other waiters and
waitresses to make an order, messing with their net books and smart phones, or eating. Minutes
later, Andrew shook her hand and walked out of the restaurant.

For the rest of the day, at work as the vice president of his father’s company, Andrew
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couldn’t stop thinking about Tatiana. Andrew wrote poetry for a hobby, but none of his poems
would be erotic. They would always focused on how he felt when he saw something he liked,
when he saw something he didn’t like, when something was eating him and he just had to write it
down, and most importantly, when he was in love. The only body parts of a woman that he
would describe were her face, her smile and her hands, and it would all be so romantic. Whoever
would read this poems would either fall in love, melt, or feel unbelievably depressed for a few
moments because in most poems, Andrew would describe in minute detail things that he was
upset about and explain why he felt that way. These poems would eventually be published in
book form, and the title of the book would be Emotions and consist of over 1,000 poems. In the
meantime, Andrew would keep writing poetry without knowing that he would later want to
publish this collection of poems, or rewrite those poems in journal form to turn that book into a
memoir. Yep, now that he thought about it, that’s what he would do when it was time to publish
these emotions. He was taking some of his lunch time to write a poem about Tatiana Gonzalez,
his first, but it wouldn’t be the last, and there would be many more to come.
Alex decided not to meet Andrew in person because when the bomb would blow up in
everybody’s faces, Alex would be the one that Tatiana would suspect was responsible for this
mess, and her revenge wouldn’t be pretty. It would be relentless and she wouldn’t stop until she
destroyed him for using another man to break her heart, now that he was way too weak to do that
on his own. Meanwhile, Langston also decided to cut ties with Andrew, but Andrew wouldn’t let
him do that because they’d been friends for too long. Nonetheless Tatiana would think nothing of
Langston. Langston would have no reason to hurt her. He hadn’t even met her because he wasn’t
interested in meeting her. He didn’t like girls who would corrupt innocent guys or guys who
would corrupt innocent girls. He knew that people had to lose their virginity somehow, but when
the person taking the other person’s virginity was much older and more experienced, Langston
hated that. Alex was eighteen years old when he got together with Tatiana for the first time. No
problem. Alex was an adult. The problem was that at the time, Tatiana was twenty-five, and she
wasn’t known for being committed with a man, and famous for having had many one-night
stands. Langston just knew that Tatiana wasn’t right for Alex, although Alex was head over heels
in love with her. Langston thought that Alex deserved someone better, a woman who would at
least have the ability to commit to the man that she claimed to love, a woman who would take a
man like Alex seriously. There were plenty of women like that out there, and Alex found one of
them, Olivia, but his relationship was still threatened. Alex was still beating himself up, trying to
figure out how to get Tatiana out of the way. He had no idea that fate was a step ahead from him.
Andrew and Tatiana had already met and fallen in love at first sight, and he and his friends had
nothing to do with that. It was something that was meant to happen, that no one could do
anything to stop. It was written in the books of Tatiana and Andrew’s lives. Now, the path to
Tatiana’s destruction or eternal happiness had just begun. What would happen from here on out
depended solely on her.
Ivan was in his space, giving physical therapy to one of his patients. When he bent her leg as he
would always do, she screamed out in pain. He thought he was hurting her. “I’m so, so sorry!”
He felt so bad he could cry.

“No, it doesn’t have anything to do with you,” she said, between heavy breaths. “It was my
sister.”
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“Your sister? What did your sister do to you?”

“She keeps hitting me in the legs with any hard object she can find, like broomsticks, baseball
bats…I don’t know what her problem is because we’ve always gotten along and she never hurt me,
even in my feelings, but her behavior is bizarre, and horrifying. I think she needs professional
help. Something’s wrong. For no reason she just hits me, in my extremities mostly, where it hurts
the most. She hasn’t hit me in the head because she knows she would cause further brain damage
or kill me, but damn…I didn’t want to tell anyone anything about this, but I’m afraid if this
doesn’t stop, my condition’s going to get worse.”

“You have cerebral palsy, just like I do, but yours is more serious than mine, and the older you
get, the weaker and more delicate you become. I mean it doesn’t mean that people can’t touch
you or hug you, just that you can’t be physically abused. You can’t recover from it the way other
people do. She’s going to kill you. You know something? I’m calling the police.” He got up to go
to his office and call the police, but she stopped him by grabbing him by the leg.

“Wait. I can’t do anything against her because she’s my legal guardian?”

“So?” he said and made her let go. “Legal guardians are just like parents. You know that parents
can’t abuse their children. The moment that the Department of Children and Families finds out,
they take those kids away. Legal guardianship is not any different. The moment your guardian
abuses or neglects you, you are taken away from him or her, forever, and she can’t even have
contact with you anymore. She can’t see you again. Do you understand me? It doesn’t matter if
you’re sisters. She can’t have a relationship with you ever again. I think you’ve stayed silent way
too long. I’ve been hiding it from you but this is not the first time I noticed something wrong.
Every time I move one of your extremities, you complain. You don’t scream the way you did just
now, but you complain. Don’t think I can’t hear you because I have very good hearing. Believe it
or not, I can hear people whispering things to each other, from a distance, if I am standing there.”

“Ok.”

“I have to report her because if I don’t, I could lose my license and I could lose everything
because by not saying anything, I am becoming her accomplice. This is a crime, Nicole, just like
murder, just like rape, and just like theft. People who know and say nothing are accomplices.
Even if I weren’t a healthcare professional, it is my duty to report this. Even Jane Doe can report
this, because otherwise, it will be just like she were participating in this abuse. Do you
understand me? That’s what an accomplice is. Both the person who commits the crime and the
person who keeps their mouth shut are just as guilty.” He went into his office and shut the door
to make the call.

Just then, Aubrey, Nicole’s second sister, Nicole being the youngest, walked in. “What’s going
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on?” she said walking toward her sister and then she got on her knees. She had to pick her up
from her therapy session early because Nicole had an appointment with her physician. Blood
tests needed to be performed on her and he needed to know how she was doing. It was an
emergency appointment because Dr. Hamilton hadn’t seen Nicole in eight months. Her follow up
appointment was supposed to be two months before today and Ashley just didn’t feel like taking
Nicole to her appointment. Without the denunciation that Ivan was making, Nicole was in big
enough trouble already, and the court that awarded Ashley guardianship of Nicole, that judge
would hear about this, and he would be extremely angry. Just failing to take Nicole to her
appointment was neglect. If Ashley had had a last-minute complication, she should’ve
rescheduled the appointment and the doctor would’ve seen Nicole three business days to one
week later, but she didn’t even bother. Ashley could’ve cared less about her sister, but that would
cost her everything, her freedom, and ultimately, her life.

Nicole asked her sister, “Haven’t you noticed the bruises in my arms and legs? She hits me.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“Ever since she got my legal guardianship.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess she’s on drugs or something.”

“She’s going to deal with me.”

“Aubrey, don’t, please…”

“I’m going to kick her ass!” she screamed. “I’m going to show her how it feels.”

Ivan came back out. The police would go over to Ashley, Aubrey, and Nicole’s house to
investigate the situation. No one knew that Ashley was perfectly healthy. She wasn’t under the
influence of any legal or illegal drugs. She was doing this because she was heartless, because she
had always secretly abhorred Nicole, because of the three orphaned sisters, Nicole and Aubrey
would always get what they wanted no matter how outrageous or expensive, and since Ashley
was always the black sheep of her family, she would never do anything to deserve anything
from her parents. She would disrespect them, she would abuse them physically, they would send
her to foster homes constantly and then she’d beg them for another chance, they’d allow her back
into their home, and this was a Russian roulette that seemed would never stop, until Aubrey and
Dalton Ward died, at the hands of their daughter, Ashley Ward. Ashley poisoned them both with
arsenic one night, putting it in their dinner, but the dosage was so high that the poison killed
them in one blow. They died a horrible death, and Ashley was going crazy because ever since
her parents died, they wouldn’t leave her alone. Every night she would dream about them trying
to kill her with their own hands and wake up so frightened that her heart was pounding, and she
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had to wait over a half an hour to calm down and be able to get up. She suffered from SUNDS, a
condition that would soon kill her, not before she suffered the consequences of her evil and
unjustified actions. Ashley’s reign of terror would stop today.

“What happened?” Ivan asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, Ivan, you did nothing wrong. Quite the contrary, you’ve been wonderful to my sister. She
says that you’re the only man she’s ever trusted besides our father, and you know our father’s
gone.”

Nicole looked at Aubrey, stunned. She didn’t mind Aubrey telling him this, thus he
would know eventually, one way or the other, but she was surprised. Although Aubrey treated
her with respect, Nicole had always thought that Aubrey didn’t really want her to be happy, that
deep down, she hated her just as much as Ashley, and that the only reason why she wouldn’t
abuse Nicole, not even verbally or psychologically, was because she knew how much weaker
Nicole was than her, and Aubrey would never abuse the defenseless. She always had compassion
for them. Today, Nicole discovered that she was wrong about Aubrey. Aubrey loved her more
than anything in this world. It was just that Aubrey would never tell people the way she felt
about them. She preferred to show them, whether it was love or hate, because to Aubrey, actions
were everything and words were absolutely nothing. She’d been lied to and betrayed so many
times, even when she was very little, by her own family, that she no longer believe in expressing
her feelings to people. What was the use? It was better to show them that she meant it than it was
to say it without meaning it.
“I just came to pick her up because she has an emergency appointment with the doctor.
The doctor is waiting for her as we speak. He cancelled all his other appointments and he won’t
leave his office till he sees Nicole.”
“Oh, my God,” he said, looking at Nicole, “Nikki, what’s wrong?” He got on his knees again.
“Why has the doctor gone to these extremes?”

“My sister had an appointment with him, a follow up appointment, nine weeks ago, and Ashley
didn’t take her because she didn’t feel like it, because, she gestured the quotes around her words
with her fingers, ‘Nicole wasn’t going to die for missing a stupid appointment, and Ashley had
more important things to do’. I hate my sister. She’s a bitch, a whore, and I want to punch her out
so bad…”

“Aubrey…!”

“I know you love her and you still have a soft spot for her because she’s your sister, but this is
just too much! The whore has got to be stopped! She’s gone too damn far!” Aubrey looked at the
bruises on and under her thighs and her legs. “Oh, my God, Nicole, how could you hide this from
me?”

“I didn’t want you and Ashley fighting. She’s aggressive. She could kill you.”
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“Oh, with all due respect, I’m not you, honey. I can defend myself extremely well, and I am
much stronger than her. She’s afraid of me. I slapped her silly the other day for talking shit and
she trembled, fell on the floor, and pissed her pants, literally. Then, she said, ‘I’m going to get
you for this’, and I said, ‘What you’re going to poison me like you did Mom and Dad? You try,
bitch, just try’.”

Ivan gasped and placed both hands on his face to hide his tears.

“You know what really happened to our parents?” Nicole screamed.

“Yes, I do. Of course I do. I haven’t told anyone anything because I don’t have proof, and I don’t
think proof will ever be gathered. It would be my word against hers and our Dear Ashley’s
always had a way with people. You know that, well, she can and always could manipulate
everyone except Mom and Dad. That’s another of many reasons why she killed them but she
ain’t killing me. I’ll kill her first and dance, laugh and sing all the way to jail, and keep dancing,
laughing and singing all throughout the ninety-nine years of my sentence.”

Ivan and Nicole stared at her, stunned. They’d never heard anyone talk like this about
going to jail before. Most people that were on their right minds were scared to death of jail and
they would do anything to stay out of there no matter what kind of crime they’d committed, but
Aubrey despised her older sister so much that she would be thrilled to go to jail for killing her
sister and stay thrilled all throughout her life sentence, like she said. And the worst of all this was
that Aubrey was on her right mind. Her hatred for her sister was just too intense, just too
uncontrollable. They didn’t say anything to her after that. They didn’t blame her. Ivan’s brother,
Emmanuel was a good man, but if Emmanuel had turned out like Aubrey, Ivan wouldn’t talk
about killing him. He would’ve already killed him a long, long time ago.
Hours later, Dr. Hamilton was checking out and documenting with his old-fashioned camera, in
which photos couldn’t be altered unless they were scanned into a computer and altered in the
computer. After taking twenty photos of her different injuries, he handed them over to the police
officers that went all the way to his office to investigate given the graveness of this case. Since it
was a doctor who had taken the photos, there was no doubt that this proof of the crime was as
real as the world itself. Within minutes, Ashley was arrested for physical abuse and negligence
and taken to jail. She couldn’t handle it. She went crazy as soon as she arrived to the county jail.
She had a bond of five thousand dollars, her aunt paid it, and she was released, but she was
ordered not to have contact with either one of her sisters ever again. She was really sorry for
everything she’d done, but she doubted that this ordinance would ever be lifted. She was
depressed and because she couldn’t sleep, thus every time she tried to, she would have a horrible
nightmare about her parents, she wanted to kill herself. She would leave her sisters alone in a
while, but eventually, she would fight the courts to have the right to have a relationship with her
sisters again. She would prove to the world that she changed, and then time would tell if she
would be able to get back what was left of her family. She also felt that during all this time she’d
been locked up, hours that seemed like years, she’d paid for what she did to her parents because
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the girls there would beat her up just for looking at them and they would humiliate her by
pouring their food on her. The first thing she did when she got to her aunt’s house was sit with
her aunt at the dining room, drink coffee and discuss the latest events in her life. Aunt Aurora
noticed that Ashley just wasn’t the same. She was willing to make a change in her life. Ashley
had never even attempted to apologize for anything. Before now, Ashley’s only virtue was being
honest at all times and not saying something unless she meant it and felt it with all her heart.
When Ashley looked Aurora in the eyes for the very first time since she walked in the door, after
she rode in her car with her and everything, Aurora noticed that the normal brightness in human
eyes was gone in Ashley’s eyes, and even her beautiful bright-green irises looked dark, like she
was dying. After a long conversation the two women hugged and didn’t let go of one another,
crying in each other’s shoulders, for hours. Ashley was amazed that despite everything that she
had done, Aunt Aurora was the only one that supported her and still loved her like a daughter,
even knowing that Ashley had killed her brother in law and her beloved sister, Aubrey. Aurora
was convinced that Ashley killed her parents because she had serious emotional problems, and
because, since she was little, she would have something important to say and her parents would
brush her off. She was a big girl. She could take care of herself and deal with her problems of
everyday life, unless she got sick or someone in the family or in school would do something
horrible to her. Ashley would feel sad, come home to her parents for some comfort, and they
would tell her to grow up and stop crying, while they took their time to listen to and comfort
their younger daughters. Ashley was eight years older than Aubrey and ten years older than
Nicole. Nicole was twenty-one and Aubrey was twenty-three. Aubrey had just divorced her
husband after finding out that he was cheating on her with a woman in her fifties since the
beginning of her marriage, but sadly, Aubrey was pregnant with her first child, a child she would
name Nicole Renee, Nicole after her sister and Renee after her best friend. Maury, Nicole’s
husband, wasn’t as horrible a guy as everyone thought. Yes, Aubrey was unbelievably beautiful
and dazzling, and a woman who would do anything to keep her man happy except degrade
herself in any way, because luckily, Maury didn’t enjoy any sexual behaviors that were
considered bizarre by most, acts that were humiliating to women, just good old sex, but Maury
had always had a thing for older women, and preferred them over younger women, much, much
older women, fifty being the youngest, sixty-five being the oldest. No matter how hard he tried
to get over that and be happy with Aubrey, he couldn’t do it. It was awkward because Maury was
only twenty-four years old. Nevertheless, Maury was willing to take care of his child and support
her. He wasn’t a deadbeat father and he would take care of what was his, very well. He knew that
he was Aubrey’s only sex partner. She’d been with him since she was nineteen, and they married
when she was twenty, but despite trying to have babies, she couldn’t get pregnant until now, for
some reason, the worst-possible time. Nicole was following her sister’s footsteps and waiting for
the man of her life. She knew that despite her physical disability, she could attract lots of men. In
fact, every time she passed by, men would ignore her power chair and see her like she was
walking, and with all the treatment she was getting, she would walk soon, for the first time, and
for the rest of her life. She just needed to know how to use her nerves and her legs. She’d only
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used them to transfer from one place to another, and her legs were weak, before she started
getting therapy and she’d been receiving therapy for six months. With every therapy session, her
arms and legs would become stronger, and every time that Ivan persuaded Nicole to do her
walking exercises, she would, and she was learning how to use her legs, how to walk, so now, it
didn’t feel as awkward anymore. She thought that someday she’d be able to walk on her own.
She would just need one operation, to help her legs bend and stretch all the way, and she would
be able to walk much better than she did now. She had balance, great balance, but her legs were
too weak to walk through a room. She could stand up and stay standing up, but only for a few
minutes at a time. That was a great start because when she was little, she couldn’t stand up at all,
up to age ten. She’d just started her first nine months of her tenth cycle of physical therapy.
Every year she would get the therapy and she would improve, but she was dead bent on walking,
so Dr. Hamilton, the doctor who had been treating her since she was twelve, he kept on giving
her authorization to have more and more therapy done. Now that Ashley was a few miles away,
like 100 miles at Aunt Aurora’s house, Nicole knew that she would accomplish her goal and no
one would hurt her body anymore. She was aware of the fact that people would hurt her feelings,
perhaps even on a daily basis, but then again, who didn’t get their feelings hurt often, right?

Nicole was in her room, lying down on her bed. Her therapy sessions rendered her tired, not
sleepy, but physically weak. Despite having worked so hard, she was alert, and with her eyes
open. Rather than writing down her journal entry for today, she recorded it on her digital voice
recorder. She had over 100 entries recorded, and she felt freer because the recorder offered over
100 GB of space when she bought it six months before, and she wasn’t limited by the small
journal and the little amount of pages it had. She could really let it out, and she would use her
written journal to record random, short thoughts that really got to her, while on her recorder, she
would talk about everything, and when it would run out of space, which it still had forty
gigabytes free, she would record all of her material on CD-R’s to immortalize it, hoping that one
day, someone would find those CD’s and type it up in a biography or assemble such biography
as an audio book, enabling listeners to hear all those thoughts and preoccupations from Nicole
herself, unaltered. Only time would tell what that lucky person would do because Nicole didn’t
dare to take that huge step on her own. She wanted to keep it all to herself to avoid hurting
anybody’s feelings, but once that she passed away and left those CD’s behind, she couldn’t
control what would happen to them, who would take them in their hands and what that person
would do with them, so one day, the whole world would know what this woman went through,
because in the future, this woman would become an icon, someone that millions and millions of
people would adore, and her lifelong dream would come true. Until then, she kept pouring her
heart and soul in her recorder, having no idea what would happen next.

Ivan is awesome. I admire him more and more every day. Some people, like Aubrey, mistake it
for love, like the love a woman feels for a man, you know, romantic, passionate love, but that’s
not true. I have never felt that before, and I still have a lot to learn and experience at twenty-one,
so I don’t think that’s the case. I think that what I feel for him is admiration. I ignore his face and
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just listen to his voice. I ignore his physical appearance and just see him as an angel, listening to
me, talking to me, taking in and appreciating what I have to say, comforting me. Like Aubrey
told him, besides my father, he’s the only man in this world that I have ever trusted. I’d rather
think she didn’t mean to do that. It just slipped out of her for some reason. I bet anything Aubrey
thinks that, by telling him that, she’s going to pull us closer together in a way that we’ve never
been before. She couldn’t be more mistaken. I’ve only known Ivan Northwood for six months. I
don’t know if he has a girlfriend or if he’s married. That’s the only thing about his life that I
never ask him about because it doesn’t interest me. Probably, as we get to know one another
better, and the YEARS pass, there will be a romantic relationship between us. I just don’t think…I
mean, that’s not right. Hooking up with someone you’ve known for so little time is just not right. I
fear that if I do that, things won’t work out and I will wind up with my heart broken. Perhaps
there will be something more between us, but the way I feel about him now, the way I idolize him,
practically, and how precious I think he is, I don’t think I’d ever touch him. When I love someone
this way, even if it’s a man, I think that person is a diamond that should be left alone, untouched.

She finished her entry and sat up on her pretty queen-sized bed, took the
satellite-TV-receiver remote that Aubrey had left at the foot of the bed minutes before, and
turned on the TV and the satellite-TV receiver at the same time. She browsed the guide for a
movie or a good show to watch and tuned to a movie in which a woman was talking to a man
named Ivan, arguing with him. She would just pronounce the name differently than usual, in
Spanish, like pronouncing the name Yvonne but with a slight change of tone at the vowel in the
name, and that woman was talking to the man in English. They would just keep arguing and
arguing. She got bored of that because they were discussing prostitution and this was one of the
topics that irked her. She wasn’t close-minded, but she would only take things so far and think of
things a certain way, and prostitution was just. So. Wrong! Then she tuned to another channel,
the local news. They were talking about a man named Ivan, who had raped a forty-year-old
woman at a parking lot in a local Sears store. Since the reporter hadn’t yet said his last name, for
a minute there, Nicole gasped, thinking that it was the only man she knew, named Ivan, but when
she heard the last name, Paranova, she felt relieved. She guessed he was Russian or born from
Russian parents in America. It was a shame that he’d done that because the man was handsome,
a college student, and only twenty-three years old. What had come over him? She just had to get
in a more comfortable sitting position and write about this on her book form journal, asking one
question simply, What drove this promising young college student, named Ivan Paranova, to
rape a defenseless forty-year-old woman, of all places, in a parking lot, and of all times of day,
in broad daylight? Then, she closed her little journal and rather that continuing to watch the
report, because this hurt her immensely as a woman and as a person, she tuned to another
channel. This time no other men named Ivan would appear, either real men or fictional
characters in movies and series, for the rest of the day, and she felt good about that. She was
starting to wonder why this was happening in the first place. It was like she was getting a
message about Ivan Northwood, like something bad was happening to him at this very moment,
or something of that sort. She couldn’t take the itch anymore, the pesky itch. She just had to call
him and try to find out what the hell was going on. She was praying he would be home and not
out there somewhere, getting beaten up or shot, or even in a car accident.
Langston picked up the phone while Ivan was bathing his adorable pit bull, Bella,
outside. The twins had finally reunited hours before because of that call from Linda, and Ivan
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knew what had happened with that damned credit card that, hadn’t it been for his brother and
Daniel Thornhart, would’ve ruined the rest of his life. It didn’t bother him. The idiot who did this
to him was in jail, paying for her crime, his credit was protected from future usurpations, and
he’d even gone to the social-security office with Langston to take care of everything. He did
everything before going to work today, and that’s why he didn’t get to work and couldn’t give
Nicole his therapy until three o’clock today, and Nicole was his first patient of the day, but after
what happened to Nicole, he couldn’t take in any more patients that day, and he apologized to
them and rescheduled his sessions with them. Luckily, they were understanding. Shit happens.
“Hello.”
“Hello. This is Nicole Ward. Is this the house of Mr. Ivan Northwood?”

“Oh, yes, Nicole,” said Langston, excited to have the chance to talk to her, “this is Ivan’s twin
brother, Langston Ainsworth. How are you doing? Since we reunited, Ivan can’t stop talking
about how proud he is of you. He really loves you, you know?”

This comment made her dizzy. He’d never told her he loved her before, in any way. She
preferred to think that he only loved her as a friend. She wouldn’t know what to do if he had
romantic feelings for her and she didn’t feel the same, just because she’d never had romantic
feelings for anyone, not even platonic love for celebrities and other men that she just couldn’t
have. “Really?”

“Yes. He says you inspire him. You’re so driven and determined. He’s never quite had a patient
like you.”

She interpreted this as mere admiration. “Oh. Well, is he home? Please tell me he is. I am
worried. I can’t stop dreaming of him and hearing his name on different channels and programs
on TV!”

“And you see it as a premonition, right? Well, he’s ok. He’s outside bathing his pit bull, Bella.”

“Oh, yeah, Bella. He talks to me about her all the time, and he’s even shown me photos. You
know, his name for her was spot on because she’s the most beautiful dog I’ve ever seen, of all
breeds. I tell him I want to meet her, to bring her to the outside of the Center if he can, and he
asks me why I don’t just come over to his house and play with her for as long as I want. He
knows how much I love dogs. I tell him I don’t dare to go to his house.” She said that last thing
grinding her teeth.

“Why not? You’re friends,” he said, surprised. “Haven’t you ever had a male friend you’ve hung
around before without necessarily, and knowing you won’t…because he’s only your friend?”

“No.”

“Oh. That explains so much. Well, I can tell you one thing. Although I just met Ivan, I know he’s
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not the kind of guy to abuse a woman’s trust, you know, to give her unwanted attention or affection? I
talked to his friends and even his female friends and they all say that no woman has had a problem with
him for that reason, that all women that know him trust him, so when it comes to that, you have
absolutely nothing to worry about. You can come over, and I guarantee you, the only places you’ll visit in
this house are the living room, the family room, and the bathroom, never any of the bedrooms, unless
your feelings for one another change and you become an item.”
“Ok I am going to go play with Bella one of these days, then, in the weekend. In the
meantime, would you please have Ivan call me back as soon as he can?”
Langston saw Ivan coming in through the kitchen, where he was. “Oh, here he comes now. It
seems Bella got playful with him, as always, and got his clothes all dirty and torn.”

Nicole laughed.

“No wonder Ivan’s buying new clothes all the time. Ok, here he is. Have a good night, Nicole.”
Langston handed the phone to Ivan.

Ivan said, “Hello. This is a first. We never communicate outside the therapy room. Something
wrong?”

“I’m the one who made it that way, never communicating outside that room, but today I had to
call you because I was really worried about you.”

“Why?”

“Because I couldn’t stop dreaming about you and hearing your name on TV, Ivan! I thought
something horrible was happening to you right this minute, and I just had to call you. I don’t
know what I would do if I lost you.”

“I feel the same way about you, but I’m fine. You should know that, despite my condition, I am
black belt in karate. I’ve been practicing it since I was a child, about four, and I didn’t have CP. I
didn’t get it until I was twenty-two, but I am constantly practicing my moves and they’re still
good. I can defend myself from anyone. The other day some 400-pound guy, six feet eight inches
tall, tried to attack me and I incapacitated him and left. Needless to say, he’s seen me around
after that, but he never dared approach me again.”

“Oh.”

“Guess I forgot to tell you about that. We tell each other everything.”

“Well sometimes we leave things out without intention, Ivan. It’s ok.”
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Chapter 9
A few days later, on that Saturday afternoon, at 3:55 PM, Nicole was on the outside of Ivan’s
house, sitting on her power chair, playing with Bella. Bella saw something in her eyes that she
liked and she adored her from the moment that she approached her. Bella couldn’t stop trying to
jump her and licking her hands. Ivan had trained her to never lick people’s faces, but she couldn’t
help showing her love the way only dogs could when she saw this sweet young lady who just
loved dogs. Nicole always wanted a dog of her own, but she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to
feed him because she would have to bend over in her chair and put the dog dish on the floor, and
although that was the only thing that she couldn’t do while taking care of her dog, she felt that
if she couldn’t do that, she couldn’t have a dog. She didn’t know that if she got a dog, Aubrey
would help her feed him or her. As a matter of fact, Aubrey was at the pet shop right now,
shopping for a baby pit bull! A boy. Oh, bummer. Then, Aubrey decided to buy two baby pit
bulls, the one she came to buy for Nicole, and another one for herself. She had four thousand
dollars to spend on these dogs, at the maximum. It wasn’t a waste of money because when these
two boy dogs would grow up, they would protect Aubrey and Nicole’s house, and them, every
time that they had to go outside, both alone, and together. After getting help from an associate,
Aubrey opted for two adorable pit bulls, one completely white and one white and brown, with
the white chest and the rest of the body brown. He looked just like Bella, and the reason for that
was that he was Bella’s son. Bella had given birth to puppies one month before, and rather than
selling the puppies to people, thus he would have compassion for people and wind up giving
them away to them, Ivan sold them to the pet shop, and Aubrey bought Bella’s baby son without
knowing any of this. Bella’s puppies were pure-breed pit bulls because Ivan made sure to breed
her, a pure-breed, with another pure-breed pit bull, when he noticed that she was in heat. He bred
her with Emmanuel’s dog, Todd, named after a bully who had made his life a living hell in
middle school and in high school. Todd was neutered when those puppies were born to ensure he
wouldn’t get any other female dogs in the neighborhood pregnant, causing births of mutts,
because Todd was the only pit bull in the entire neighborhood, and although mutts were more
accepted and loved, today than yesterday, Emmanuel was sure that the last thing that his
neighbors wanted was for Todd to get their dogs pregnant, and if that happened, they would hate
Todd and Emmanuel. Sure, the neighbors knew that their females would get pregnant one day.
They just didn’t want them getting pregnant with the pups of a pit bull. Bella also got fixed two
weeks after the puppies were born. Ivan heard, when Bella was in heat for the first time, that
every time a female dog gave birth, seven dog years would be added to her age, and she would
get weaker and weaker every time, and she could even get sick, have complications while giving
birth, or before, and die, and he didn’t want that for Bella. Bella was a rare one. She gave birth to
ten pups and Ivan sold them to the pet store for big bucks. He made so much money, he bought a
laptop for him, one for Emmanuel, and since each of his parents had new laptops and didn’t want
newer ones, he even bought a brand-new Kia Rio Cinco station wagon with that money,
blue-green color, beautiful. It cost him $12,648, and he bought it in cash. He never knew these
puppies would give him so much, but he didn’t want to do that again, and he wouldn’t, just for
the sake of Bella, to keep her good health and strength. He’d had that dog for one and a half
years and he loved her as much as he loved his family and friends, and she worshiped him. Every
day, when he would come home from work, he would take his work-clothes off, take a shower,
change his clothes, go outside and play with her for the next forty-five minutes to one hour.
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Then, he would take another shower, change into his pajamas, no matter how early it was in the
afternoon or in the night, make dinner for himself and for Aaron, and then they would watch TV
together for a little while, in the family room and finally, they would go to sleep, each one in his
own room. Aaron loved Nicole. All this time, since he started living with his dad, he’d heard
wonderful things about Nicole, but he was thrilled now that he finally met her. He told his father
that there was something in her eyes, that he liked what he saw in her, that she had an angelic
soul and she was an outstanding person. Although Aaron was young and couldn’t be more
innocent, he noticed the way Nicole would look at Ivan and Ivan would look at her. Nicole
would look at Ivan like she was her favorite movie or pop star, someone outstanding that she
couldn’t love more. Aaron knew that they’d only known one another for six months, and that
Nicole would never even be his girlfriend after knowing him for so little time, same thing with
him, but Aaron couldn’t help thinking that Nicole was the perfect woman for his dad, and he
would love it for her to marry his dad and adopt him because he no longer had a true mother. His
grandmother was just that, a grandmother, and there were certain things a mother could give him
that his grandmother couldn’t give him, like her youth. Aaron knew that even if his grandparents
survived their cancer, because of their age, forty-four years old, they wouldn’t probably live to
know his children. Aaron wanted what he never had, a true family. He’d always had his mother
or his father, never both, and every night, he dreamt of having a mother and a father, as well as a
few brothers and sisters, like two or three of them. That would be awesome.
Nicole came inside after playing with Bella for over three hours. She went to the family
room to watch a rated-G, non-animated Disney movie with Aaron. She loved this child like the
little brother she never had, and she already loved spending time with him because she’d been
with him practically all day. Aubrey dropped her sister off at Ivan’s house at seven o’clock in the
morning because she had to take her best friend, Jordan, and her best friend’s baby, to the
hospital because Jordan woke up that morning having problems breathing at five fifteen in the
morning, and since Jordan’s child wasn’t disabled, and therefore she didn’t have the kind of
medical insurance that would pay for almost everything, Jordan didn’t dare to dial 911 and have
an ambulance come over, but fortunately, Aubrey was there to help. At five thirty in the
morning, Aubrey arrived at Jordan’s house, and by five forty-five, the two women were racing to
the hospital with the two-year-old angel. Aubrey left them at the hospital for a few moments,
went back home, and when she arrived, her sister was ready to go to Ivan’s house, so Aubrey
picked her up and left her at Ivan’s house. Ivan had never woken up to such a marvelous surprise.
Of course, he made himself, his best friend and his son some breakfast. Around noon, he made
them some lunch because Nicole’s meals were always four hours apart or more, and when the
clock hit six o’clock in the afternoon, she wouldn’t eat anything for the rest of the day. She would
just drink water, and that would help her keep her weight in check and her cholesterol, thyroid,
and everything of that sort healthy. Every meal would be in small portions and the only sweets
that she would have, for desserts or snacks, would be fruit. She avoided candy and she avoided
cakes and every other kind of sweets at all costs because when she was fifteen, she would eat
anything and everything, although still in small portions, and Dr. Hamilton warned her to watch
what she was eating because her thyroid had become a little unstable, and if she lost total control
of her thyroid, there was no going back, and it would’ve been sad to see an incredible woman
having a problem like this at such a young age. She would only eat pastas and other kinds of
starches, foods that the doctor told her to eat of as little as possible, once every two months, and
that would be only when she would go to Italian restaurants, her favorite, and eat the very-best
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pastas. However, she would always ask the waiter to try to get the cooks to make her portions a
little smaller than everybody else’s, and since everyone at the restaurant loved her for being a
fantastic customer, the cooks and the waiter would always comply with her simple request.
Conscious of this, Ivan prepared for everyone the healthiest meals he could think of, meals that
would do his patient, and now best friend, very well, when it came to her health. In reality,
Nicole had always been thin framed and that’s why she would enjoy every food under the sun
when she was younger, because she knew her metabolism was a ray of light, and from birth to
age thirty, she would never get fat, but now, she followed Dr. Hamilton’s directions to the tee
and even ask him for more advice when she wasn’t sure about something, and ask him questions.
Every time she would visit his office, she had questions for him, and he appreciated that because
that meant that she really cared about herself and her health. Aubrey and Ashley were the same
way, thin-framed, although not too skinny, and they would never get fat. They inherited that
from their grandmother, Alison, and their mother, Aubrey. That was the reason why Dalton
Ward fell in love with her at first sight, because she had a shapely, perfect and at the same time
voluptuous body in all the right places that the first time he saw her, he went insane. She was
never interested in him because although he was drop-dead gorgeous, she was always hearing
that he was a playboy, but he relentlessly pursued her, sending her flowers, candy, postcards,
showing up at her workplace to recite poems to her, writing love songs for her and then having
his friends perform them for her, on live radio, and he would even serenade her in front of her
window, almost every day. She saw no other option but to give him a chance, and at the end of
the day, she was glad she did, and she married him and gave him three beautiful daughters,
having no idea that one of them, the oldest one, would turn out to be their murderer.
Nicole wanted to stay on her power chair as she was watching the movie with Aaron, but when
Ivan joined them in the family room, he noticed that she was starting to get uncomfortable from
sitting in her chair all day, starting to feel a little pain in her lower back. Then, he had Aaron sit
on the other side of the long sofa and helped her transfer to the side of the sofa that her chair was
closest to, far enough from Aaron for them not to have any physical contact. It was more than
clear that Nicole and Aaron loved each other only as siblings, and they showed it, but visitors
would always show up without calling or texting first, and Ivan didn’t want any of his visitors to
get the wrong idea about Nicole and Aaron, although Ivan knew for sure that Nicole would be
incapable of hurting a child. If Nicole was never affectionate to adult men, she would much less
be physically-affectionate to children. She would never kiss or hug a man or a child, only her
sisters and her aunts, and when Nicole was introduced to a man for the first time, the only
physical contact she would have with him for the rest of the lives of both of them would be a
five-second handshake. Men who knew Nicole were very puzzled with her attitude towards them.
They’d never met a woman like her. They wondered why she acted this way, if she’d been raped
or even molested. The truth was that she hadn’t, and now that she had Ivan in her life, forever,
whether they would be husband and wife in the future or not, she would never be molested or
raped. Nicole’s mother always raised their daughters to be as distant from men as they could
possibly be, not to be affectionate even to their own father, because that kind of behavior would
be widely open to misinterpretations, even if it was clearly well-meant, and misinterpretations
could lead to making mistakes they would regret, or even worse—rape. The Ward Sisters never
forgot or ignored their mother’s advice, and that caused her problems with some men, because
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those men thought that they were lesbians or that they hated men, although they weren’t lesbians,
but most of the time it was beneficial to them to be this way because the other men that didn’t
feel this way, they respected them for being like this, admired them, and knew that they could
trust them, that they were good, decent young women. Ashley was married twice in her
thirty-three years of life. Her first marriage only lasted for seven years and her second, only for
three. Ashley got married for the first time when she was twenty, and for the second time when
she was twenty-eight, and now, she was thirty-three. She hadn’t had a man for a few years, and
after all that happened recently, she felt she shouldn’t have one until she got her life back
together and became a completely-sane, stable person, after relearning to have healthy
relationships with people. Now she knew why both her previous marriages had failed, and why
God hadn’t blessed her with children. If she was never a good daughter or sister, she could never
be a good wife or mother. She needed to learn empathy and compassion for herself and others
again, to learn how to love all over again, like she did when she was a child. She needed
professional help. She realized this and she was planning to go to her new physician, Dr. Costas,
the next day, so he could refer her to a psychiatrist and she could have her first session with him
or her as soon as possible.

Ivan sat right beside Nicole, but not too close to her. Once again, Aaron noticed the connection
between them. They were more than friends, although they didn’t know it.

“You like this movie?”

“Yes, I like all Disney movies. I’m corny, if you will. I go crazy for romance. I don’t like terror,
but I like romance, not the stuff you see in rated-R movies. That’s not romance, and let’s just
leave it like that.”

“I like all kinds of movies. The only movies I am not a big fan of are NC-17.”

It was amazing, but since they were saying that they disliked these movies, they were both adults,
and Ivan was his father, Aaron didn’t bother to ask them why they didn’t like those movies and
he just continued to watch the movie, acting like they were talking about the weather.

They looked at him both at the same time. Any other child his age would start asking questions
when they would hear conversations like these. Aaron just continued to watch the movie. They
started texting one another right beside each other instead of getting up to go talk in a different
room because they didn’t want Aaron to think they were going to talk about things he shouldn’t
hear or that they were simply talking behind his back.

YOU SEE THAT? HE’S NOT ASKING QUESTIONS, IVAN!

THAT’S THE WAY HE IS. I NOTICED THAT SINCE THE DAY WE MET AND I BROUGHT HIM HOME. I
WAS TALKING TO BARRY THAT DAY AND AS SOON AS WE STARTED TALKING, HE GOT UP AND WENT TO HIS
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ROOM. HE DOESN’T GET INTO OTHER PEOPLE’S CONVERSATIONS, MUCH LESS ADULTS.
THAT’S GOOD. MAYBE HIS GRANDPARENTS TAUGHT HIM THAT.

I USED TO BE THAT WAY WHEN I WAS A CHILD AND EVEN WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER. IF MY PARENTS
WEREN’T TALKING TO ME, THAT MEANT I WASN’T PART OF THE CONVERSATION, SO I WOULD JUST LEAVE
THE ROOM.

THAT’S INTERESTING BECAUSE MOST KIDS DON’T LEARN THAT ON THEIR OWN. ACTUALLY, YOU AND
AARON ARE THE ONLY PEOPLE I’VE MET THAT ARE LIKE THIS.

THEY COULD BE TALKING ABOUT ME, EVEN, AND I WOULD LEAVE. I DIDN’T CARE.
WOW.
YEP, I HAVE AN AMAZING CHILD, AND I WILL ALWAYS THANK GOD FOR HIM.

YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN. DON’T TAKE THIS THE WRONG WAY, BUT I LOVE YOUR SON.

I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU MEAN. YOU’RE NOT LIKE THAT. YOU ARE SANE AND HEALTHY IN THE HEAD.
YOU’RE NOT A SEXUAL PREDATOR OR ANYTHING OF THAT SORT. YOU’RE THE ONLY WOMAN BESIDES MY
MOTHER AND MY CHILD’S GRANDMOTHER THAT I TRUST WITH AND AROUND MY CHILD.

THANK YOU.

The conversation ended and they left their phones alone. Aaron didn’t even know that
they were talking about him.

****

Someone rang the bell two hours later. The movie was over, Ivan was sleeping in the sofa, and
Nicole was sitting by the front door, far away from Ivan, at the end of the hallway that led to the
front door, waiting for her sister to pick her up. Aubrey told her that she would pick her up
within fifteen minutes and that she was on her way to Ivan’s house. Problem was that Aubrey’s
transmission had failed on the way there and she couldn’t do any of the things that she was
planning to do tonight. She couldn’t pick up her sister and bring her to the hospital to see Jordan
and Jordan’s baby, Jayden, and she couldn’t go to sleep early tonight. She was in the middle of
the road, waiting for someone to help her out of this deep whole she’d gotten into. She never
considered for a second, when she bought this piece of junk of a car, upon arriving at Florida,
that the transmission was bad. She bought the car as it was, but the original owner promised her
that despite its deplorable cosmetic condition, the cars parts were great, that before selling the
car, he’d gotten new parts from a friend, who was the owner of an auto-part store. His friend
would’ve gladly given him the parts if this had been true, but this man was known for ripping
people off. She had to do the unthinkable. She had to call Ivan back to see if he could take Nicole
out of the house with him, go pick her up where she was, and take them home, so that Aubrey
could go back to the hospital to be by Jordan and Jayden’s side tomorrow in the early morning.
Ivan’s home phone rang, and as asleep as he was, he didn’t miss it because the ringtone
was loud, with rock music that would’ve woken up even a dead person if the phone had been
right beside them. He didn’t recognize the number, but it was someone that he knew if he or she
was calling at this hour. “Hello.”
“Ivan, I’m in trouble!” Aubrey cried. She wasn’t just upset because she was stuck, but also
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because she’d been ripped off, and if she saw that son of a bitch again, she would yank his eyes
out from his sockets in the time it took someone to take one breath.

“Aubrey?”

The sound of her sister’s name made Nicole rush back to the family room, one of the farthest
rooms from the front door of the house, in a matter of seconds, setting her chair at the highest
speed, something she’d never do at home for fear of breaking all the walls and hurting herself
bad in the process. “What happened to my sister?”

“This son of a bitch that sold me this worthless piece of shit! Oh, my God, the transmission
turned out to be bad as expired milk!”

“Calm down. Though you’re healthy and you are not hypertensive or have heart problems, you
could easily have a heart attack and drop dead. I should know. I had to train myself to keep calm
even in the worst of situations because the last time this happened to me at age fourteen, I had to
be rushed to the hospital and I almost died. I know you got as angry as a person could be, and
even a thousand times more so. Just take a deep breath.”

“You think you can bring my sister, pick me up here and take us home?”

“Sure. Where are you?”

“I don’t know exactly. I don’t know if by turning on my GPS utility you could track me.”

Within a few minutes, when they turned on their GPS programs and got connected, Ivan knew
Aubrey’s exact location from where he was right now. “Ok, I found you.” He got up from the
sofa and exited the family room, leaving the house in a matter of minutes, without taking a
shower and changing his clothes first, for the first time in his life, although he’d taken a shower
five hours before. He put Aubrey on hold and called Langston to bring his pick-up truck over to
transport Nicole’s wheelchair. Aubrey also had a pick-up truck and that’s how she was able to
transport her sister with her wheelchair and take her to places, in her wheelchair. She would do
this all the time, until now. Langston responded immediately, learned the situation, and got up
from bed, picked up his keys from the nightstand, and storm out of the house to help his brother
and his new friend, Nicole—in his pajamas! Luckily, this didn’t wake Diana who was sleeping
right beside him, snoring, unaware of everything.

Just twenty minutes later, Langston arrived and Ivan accommodated Nicole in the passenger’s
seat of her car. Then, he lifted the power chair like lifting a baby, and loaded it on the back of
Langston’s truck. Finally, he got into the driver’s seat of his car and the brothers headed to
Aubrey’s current location. Aubrey gasped when, less than a half an hour after Ivan told her on
the phone that he called his brother to use his pick- up truck to transport Nicole’s power chair,
she saw the Kia Rio and the 2009 burgundy-colored Chevy Silverado approaching her pick-up
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truck. She recognized the twin brothers. Then, Ivan asked her a question that shocked her
because she couldn’t believe that he could be thinking about this right now. “Hey, Aubrey, are
you planning to go anywhere before going home tonight?”

“Ivan, I asked you to take me home. I was planning to go to the hospital back with Jordan and
Jayden tonight, although I’ve practically been there all day, but you don’t have to go through that.
I am not going to let you guys stay up all night just for me and Jordan.”

“It’s not about you and Jordan, it’s about the baby. It doesn’t bother us to lose sleep for one night,
for taking you to the hospital and staying there with you.”

“Ivan…”

Langston commented, “It’s really not a problem, Aubrey,” and she turned her face to look at him.
“We promised to be there in good times and in bad times, especially in bad times, no matter what,
and we’ll do anything for you guys. I mean you, Nicole and the baby you’re expecting mean the
world to us now, just like all our friends and our families do.”

“But Langston, you really don’t have to do this.”

“We think we do, and we’re going to. We’re not going to leave you by yourselves during this
difficult time. Jayden’s sick. You don’t know if he’s going to live to see the sun rise tomorrow
morning.”

“Oh, my God,” Nicole yelped.

“We refuse to take you guys home, go home and live our lives like everything’s ok, because it’s
not. You need all the support you can get, and so does Jordan. We don’t know her, but it would
make her feel so much better if she knew that two total strangers care about her and her child.”

“What about Aaron?”

“Aaron’s with his Uncle Wilbert right now. He just texted me to tell me he just got to my house,”
Ivan said.

“So all this time you’ve lived incredibly close from one another, huh?”

“Yep, all this time we’ve only been a few minutes apart. Blood is blood, and the bond between
two twin brothers who love each other is unbreakable, and the love between those brothers
knows no bounds. So, you’re going, or do we go to the hospital without you, Langston, Nicole
and I, huh?”

“I’m going,” she said and got on the back seat of Ivan’s Kia. Within minutes, they were gone.
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****

Shortly after, Jordan and Aubrey hugged in the hospital once again. A miracle had happened.
Jayden pulled through, and he was in stable condition. He’d just undergone another operation
and he had a seventy-percent survival rate. Jordan gasped when she saw Langston, Ivan and
Nicole. She knew Nicole would be here, but not the men. “So this is your physical therapist,
Nicole, and his brother?” she asked.
“Yes, Jordan, that’s right. Meet Ivan Northwood and his twin, Langston Ainsworth. Ivan
was adopted. That’s why they have different last names.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” said Jordan, smiling.

“Yes, Ivan has a mother and I don’t,” commented Langston, and Ivan turned to look at him,
awestruck at that remark, “but Mrs. Northwood said she’d gladly be a second mother to me
because I am awesome. That made me feel great. I will never forget those words as long as I live,
and you know what’s even more astonishing? For a moment, while Mrs. Northwood was talking
to me for the first time, I thought I saw my mother’s face instead of hers, smiling at me.”

“That’s beautiful. Ivan told me what happened to the birth mother of both of you, and I am really
sorry,” said Nicole. “Ivan told me when we started our session, when Aubrey had to pick me up
early for my appointment with Dr. Hamilton. Don’t feel sad, Langston. Your mother’s with you
at all times. She won’t let anything bad happen to you. You also commented to Ivan that your
mother promised your father to be by your side at all times even after death.”

“Yes,” Langston said, tears in his eyes for a moment, and he wiped them away, “that’s right.”

“I believe that when someone makes a promise on their deathbed, they keep it, no matter how
outrageous it may be, even when they vow to take revenge against someone that hurt them, or
the very person who killed them, when those people die violent deaths. That’s the reason for
haunted houses and other haunted places. Those people never rest in peace, until they keep their
promises or their threats, which means, Langston, that your mother will be by your side until the
day you die, and when you die, she’s going to take you with her.”

“That scares me, but I know it’s true because I saw it happen to a few of my friends I lost.
Moving on, how’s Jayden doing?”

“Jayden’s doing a lot better. Doctors say he has a seventy-percent survival rate,” Jordan said.

“We’re glad. We’ll be praying for him together. You go into his room with him and we’ll stay in
the waiting room because we’re not relatives,” said Ivan.

“You’re not relatives,” Jordan said, holding both the twins’ hands, “but you’re family, and I am
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grateful to you for being here and for showing your support, without knowing us just because
you’re connected to Nicole. You don’t know how much that means to me. I’m a single mother,
not just single because I don’t live with Jayden’s father, but because he’s not here. Look around
you. Look in the waiting room. In the information desk downstairs, go on through the elevator
and see if you can find Jayden’s dad in the information desk downstairs. You won’t. Like I said,
he’s nowhere to be found. He’s never been. He knows Jayden’s his son. He never even needed a
paternity test to know because although he wasn’t my first man by any means, he was my only
man for three and a half years. That’s right, I am four years older than Aubrey, the daughter of
Mrs. Ward’s childhood friend, Joanna, and you know what? He doesn’t give a damn. You know
why? Because he’s an asshole. Yet, here you are, you guys, you don’t even know us, and just
because you’re directly linked to Nicole now, you come here and offer your respects and support,
something Mark has never done and will never do.”

“Man, we didn’t know about the situation you’re in. I thought your son’s father was your live-in
boyfriend, at the very least.”

“Not uh. Not a chance.” Jordan stood there in front of them, both hands on her hips, and she was
starting to become fond of Ivan, for many reasons other than what he was doing for her son. This
made her feel ashamed. If he was hanging around Nicole all the time now, and he loved her and
her sisters the way he did, it was because a romantic relationship, at the very least, was imminent,
between Ivan and Nicole. It didn’t hurt to have a platonic love. She’d had several, but what
would happen if this love became more than platonic? She knew one thing. If that happened, she
couldn’t be Nicole, Ashley and Aubrey’s friend anymore, even if she didn’t necessarily take Ivan
away from Nicole. She cleared her throat before saying her next words. “With all due respect,
guys, you both have been much more a father than Mark has.”

“Hey, I promise to be there for Jayden and give him anything he needs,” said Ivan.

“Me, too,” said Langston.

“If you need money for him, anything you need,” Ivan said and handed her his contact card.
“Call me.”

Langston handed her his contact card, too.

Jordan looked down at the cards and then an astonishing question escaped her lips when she
looked them in the eyes again, “Langston, are you sure that your wife won’t mind you financially
supporting a child that’s not yours?”

“To tell you the truth, if I cheated and had a baby with my mistress, in the beginning, it would be
a problem for Diana, a big one, and it would shatter her heart, but I know she would eventually
accept it just like she’s accepted and put up with my abuse all these years.”
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“If you talk about something like this, not shaken, that means you know you were wrong, and
you are so conscious of that it’s not hard for you to tell even total strangers what you’ve done,”
Jordan said, hands on her hips. “It takes a real man to do that, Langston.”

“Thank you. I tell everyone about it, not because I’m shameless and proud of it, but to let people
know that I know I’m not perfect, and I’m not exactly the best example to go by, so they know
that most of the time, people are not what they seem to be.”

“I commend you, Langston. I wish Mark would grow up and act the way you’re acting. At least
that would make me give the benefit of the doubt, but nope, he’s as shameless as they come. Gee, I
wonder how his new so-called relationship is going. Heard they just started dating. I bet you anything
he’s going to get her pregnant and abandon her and her child, too. Jayden’s not Mark’s only child. He
has six kids, unmarried, and he’s not that old, either. He’s twenty-eight.”
“Holy cow,” Ivan screamed and then covered his own mouth to calm down. “Spreading
himself around like a damn plague!”
“Yep, and he doesn’t support any of them. Prick started getting girls pregnant at sweet sixteen.
Luckily all his baby mamas fell in love with real men, got married, and those men adopted and
are supporting those kids, being the fathers those kids deserve. It was like a miracle. God was
interceding for those children. God is good. The Bible tells the truth. ‘God will never leave us or
forsake us’.”

Donovan and Daniel arrived. The moment the twins’ first conversation started taking place,
Langston took his time to text Donovan, and all this time, Jordan was amazed anyone could talk
to someone, pay their full attention to them and text someone else at the same time. Talk about
multi-tasking. If these guys were computers, they would be the most powerful computers in the
world. Donovan got beside Langston and Daniel patted Ivan on the shoulder. Then Daniel said,
“Jordan Polo, right?”

“That’s right, I am Jordan Polo. I expected my baby’s father to show up here more than I
expected you to do so, Mr. Thornhart, no disrespect intended. What brings such a busy and
powerful man like you here. Let me guess, these guys contacted you. How are you connected to
them?”
“I am Langston’s father in law.”
“Oh, Langston, you literally have the world at your fingertips, don’t you?” she said, impressed.
“Lucky you!”

Langston smiled, blushing.

“That’s correct, he’s literally got the world at his fingertips with me by his side, and now that we
met, so do you. I demand that you show me the hospital bill as soon as you get it. Actually, I
won’t wait that long. I’ll pay it right here as soon as the child is discharged.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that. It’s more than enough for you to be here for me, without knowing
me, like your son in law and his brother here are doing.”
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“Oh, but I insist, and the person that’s said no to Daniel Thornhart without relenting minutes later,
he or she hasn’t been born yet, so shut up and let me pay the bill or I will have them mail the bill
directly to me. No one in this hospital, or anywhere in this country, for that matter, declines
Daniel Thorn hart’s requests, so you decide what you’re going to do, Ms. Polo.”

Without saying one more word to him, she just threw himself in his arms and gave him a big hug,
sobbing. “I don’t know what else to say except thank you, all of you!” Then she wrapped them
up in a big group hug. “God, I don’t know what I did that was so incredible to deserve so many
total strangers coming in and offering me their shoulder to cry on and their unconditional support
in this time of need. Thank you so, so much. I love all of you. Thank you, God.” Then, she let go
of them and said to Daniel, “but I won’t ask you for money unless I need a colossal amount, or
something like that, and if I have to do that, solely because I have no other choice, we’ll meet
and I will discuss a payment plan with you, like paying a loan to a bank.”

Daniel didn’t agree with this, but he decided to play along with her because he didn’t want to
argue. “Sure, Ms. Polo, whatever you say, yes.”

The twins laughed.

Ivan whispered in Langston’s ear, “He’s not going to accept her paying him back, is he?”

Langston whispered in Ivan’s ear. “Nope!”

They laughed again.

Daniel turned to look at the two of them and said, “Shut up.”

Donovan and the twins smiled at one another.

“Shall we go to the waiting room, then, while Mama spends some quality time with her son?”
Daniel said.

“Yes,” as they prepared to go to the waiting room, leaving Jordan alone there for her to go into
Jayden’s room, Dr. Perkins went up to them and said, “Where are you going? Aren’t you all the
boy’s family members?”

“None of us are his family members, not even the woman you’ve seen by Ms. Polo’s side all day,
so we’re going to the waiting room.

“But you’re here offering your helping hand, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Ivan said.

“Well, then I am going to do something I’ve never done before. I’m going to let two of you walk
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into the room with the mother, to see the child, be there for thirty minutes to connect with Jayden,
and then two more of you are going in, until all of you have had a chance to see the child. Do
you agree with this, Ms. Polo?”

“Of course I do!” said Jordan, smiling for the very first time in over twelve hours. “That’s what I
want!”

“Well then, choose two people from this room to come in with you first.”

“Since my son knows Nicole and Aubrey extremely well, I want them to come in with me first,
then Ivan and Langston, and last but not least, both men named Mr. Thornhart, the father and the
son. Don’t know their first names.”

“I’m Daniel.”

Smiling, Donovan said, “And I am Donovan Thornhart.”

Before Nicole, Aubrey and Jordan had a chance to go to Jayden’s room, in which case Jayden
had gone directly to a room instead of the ICU because he was doing so much better, Annalia,
Anna Christina, and Shawn showed up at the hospital, too, and approached everybody else.

“This is surreal,” Jordan said, and looked at Nicole and Aubrey, stunned.

All of Ivan and Langston’s brother’s, and even London, the twins’ father, were right behind them.

“Well, I must say,” said Aubrey, “the twins came over and brought their entire family with them.
Only ones that are not here yet are Mr. and Mrs. Northwood, and Emmanuel Northwood, Ivan’s
adoptive brother, and I won’t be surprised if they show up here minutes or hours later.
 122

Chapter 10

Jayden returned home to his mother, Jordan, three days after being admitted to the hospital, and
so far, he was out of the woods. Jordan and Ivan were living together now because he and Nicole
had agreed to give themselves some time apart to see how they felt and if they could really be
apart from each other for a little while, and maybe start dating other people. It was clear that
Nicole still didn’t have romantic, sexual feelings for Ivan, that she only saw him as her idol, so
Jordan took her only opportunity to at least enjoy his company for a while, before it would slip
away forever because once that Ivan was in Nicole’s arms, Jordan would never be able to get
him because she’d never take another woman’s man, much less the man of one of her very best
friends. Everyone in his family threw a party at Ivan’s house to celebrate his return. His adopted
parents were there along with all the family members of his adopted parents, and his immediate
family, the Ainsworth family, of course. Bella, the adorable dog, was there to receive him. This
time, Ivan didn’t allow her to jump on him the way she would always do because just by doing
that, she would be sending him right back to the hospital, and this time, he could die, if her big
paws and legs end on his chest. The entire Thornhart family and everyone directly related to
them, they were also there to support Jayden. Jayden would need one more operation to ensure
that he would live a normal life because it turns out that his lungs were not the problem, like
everyone thought in the beginning. The problem was his heart. He was working himself up too
hard and playing too much sports, playing too much, period, too much rigorous activity that a
child his age couldn’t handle, living too fast, wanting to do everything at once. From now on,
little Jayden would have to take medication to keep his heart functioning correctly, and of course
take it easy, live one day at a time, and do one thing at a time, and not too much of it, either. He
could still enjoy doing the things he loved to do, but he needed to cut back on the work and on
the time. He didn’t mind, really. Right now, though he was very young, Jayden had the heart of a
sixty-year-old man, and if he didn’t get a heart transplant soon, he would die by age twenty. It
was a very sad situation, but Jayden wasn’t willing to let this get him down. No way. He was
going to keep living and enjoying his life, and if he only lived to age twenty, then so it was going
to be. It will have been twenty years well lived instead of twenty sad, miserable years.
The main living room, where it was now the place to celebrate a big event instead of a
normal living room, was like a stage where everyone, good singer or not would put on a show for
the honored one. Jayden loved music, and he was allowed to listen to all kinds of music now,
except for albums that had parental-advisory labels on them or songs that had cuss words or were
way too sexually-explicit, like underground music. It was peculiar because Jayden loved
listening to artists like Alice Cooper and those who would sing lyrics like his. Jayden felt that
this music had a message to deliver, a moral. He loved protest music, in which the artists would
complain about something they thought was unfair or just wrong. He was intrigued by feminist
music. He wanted to listen to those lyrics, write them down and analyze them, what it was that
bothered feminists about men so much, why they had become feminists in the first place.
Listening to them talking trash about men didn’t bother him at all, unless they would talk trash
all throughout the song and not explain why they felt this way, what the heck men were doing
wrong to drive them to this. He hated listening to chauvinistic music, though, that music in
which artists objectified and devalued women, like saying that we were only good for sex or
stuff like that, and the things they wanted to do to us. He classified that as underground music,
just nasty, although we had the right to freedom of speech, religion and the press, but to Jayden,
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that music should remain underground. Unbeknown to them, these men were disrespecting their
mothers and their sisters, according to everyone in these families that were enjoying this party.
Whoever would disrespect one woman for any reason was disrespecting all of them. Everyone in
these families thought that women were sacred, that they were created to be the man’s
companion, not the man’s sex slave or slave in any other form. All these men that were in this
house, they would treat their women with respect and give them their place, and even though
Langston used to beat on Diana when he was under the influence of that trash called
methamphetamine, or crank, he would never rape her or enslave her. He would only hit her
because in reality he didn’t know what the hell he was doing, and when he wasn’t under the
effect of any drug, he would never lay a hand on her. Most of the time, he would hit her for no
reason. There would be no argument or provocation prior to that. Most of the time, he would see
her in front of them and strike her, seeing her as some wrestler or some gang member or thug
who was threatening him. He only realized he was hitting his wife that day that the ambulance
took her away. All the time, he would hit her and then forget about it a few hours later. Then,
when she would throw it in his face, he would ask her what the hell she was talking about, and
when the argument started, he would leave her there, with her words in her mind, not able to
escape her mouth. Back then, not too long ago, Langston Ainsworth was the most terrible
husband in the world. The only thing that would make him the very worst of all was the one
thing he’d never done, rape her or humiliate her. Diana didn’t know that he was abusing
methamphetamine until one day, while slapping her, he told her that she was a Nazi that
deserved to die, and unwillingly explained to her all of the things he was hallucinating about.
This drug made him behave like an untreated schizophrenic. Then, one day, Diana talked this
over with her doctor and her doctor told her that there was something seriously wrong with her
husband, that he was either schizophrenic or under the effect of a dangerous drug.
Tonight was the night to leave all of that behind and celebrate the survival of a little angel. That
little boy got on the podium they had right in the middle of the living room and said a few words.
“I would just like to thank everyone I didn’t know before I was admitted to the hospital for being
here to support my mother and me. I’d like to thank the twins, Ivan and Langston for being a
shoulder for my mother to cry on in this difficult time, and Mr. Daniel Thornhart for his financial
support, and I would also like to thank the twins for being father figures for me when I don’t
really have a father. My father’s alive, my real father, alive and well, but he’s just not here with
me.”

Mark was outside the window, crying. His friends had just told him that instead of going home
with his mother, Jordan, Jayden went home with a guy named Ivan Northwood who was now
wanting to be a father figure for the child and give him everything that Mark had never given
him. He was not about to let that happen. He wanted Jordan and his child back. He’d never had
doubts about being Jayden’s father. He was just not ready to be a father. He was young and he
wanted to enjoy life the only way he knew how--by sleeping around. Now he was ready to do the
right thing. He wanted Jordan all to himself, and no other man could have her. He knew that
eventually Ivan and Jordan would be more than friends and he could take her away from him for
good. He was going to kill him.

“I would also like to thank God for giving me another chance. I realize now that this was my
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fault because…”

Jordan interrupted him. “Don’t say that.”

“Because I played too hard and worked too little. I didn’t want to do the only chore my mother
asked me to, wash the dishes, which was easy for me. All that had to be done was for me to get
on a two-foot ladder and it would be done. I even know how to wash the dishes right. I didn’t
want to do my homework. I just wanted to play, and run, all day and all night. I’ve been in
kindergarten since age three and despite not doing my homework, the only reason why I haven’t
failed is because my teacher always gives me another chance. That’s going to stop. I promise to
change and become responsible, be the person I was always meant to be. I’m still going to play,
but after doing my homework, and not too much.” He got down from the podium, left and
everyone applauded him.

****

Meanwhile, Jordan was in the bathroom, washing her face to reapply her makeup. Jayden’s
speech made her cry the moment it started. Just when she was reapplying her foundation, the
makeup she would put on first, someone knocked on the door. Ivan had to go to the bathroom,
and all of the other bathrooms in the house were occupied. Everyone had too much soda, milk,
water, and juice, to the point where now Ivan’s refrigerator was empty for the first time in his
whole life. He didn’t mind. He liked going shopping for groceries any time after midnight. There
would be much less people at the store and lots more parking space. Jordan said, “I’ll be right
out!”

“Oh, shit, another woman!” screamed Ivan doing the I-want-to-go-to-the-bathroom-dance.

“Guess I’m going to have to go pee outside!” He walked the hallway to go outside. When he said
something, even in a moment of desperation, he meant it, it wasn’t just theatrics. She opened the
door and as he walked the hallway, she said, “Wait, wait!”

He turned around.

“I wasn’t doing anything important, just putting makeup on! I don’t need it anyway! I’ll take
everything off. It’s almost time to sleep anyway. Come on. Come on in.” She went into one of
the guestrooms with her makeup removing pads and her makeup kit and finished removing her
messed-up makeup and putting on her new one, lipstick and everything.

In the meantime, Ivan did what he had to do in the bathroom, the number one. Then he got fixed
up again, flushed the toilet, and just as he was going to get out of the bathroom, Jordan had to go
back in to get her left earring, which had fallen off and she didn’t know about this before.
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“My earring.” She got it from the sink.

“This is awkward,” he said, getting out of the bathroom and cleared his throat.

Minutes later, she found him again in the family room. Everyone was gone by now. They knew
they couldn’t stay without constantly getting something to eat, they were full, and there were no
drinks, so they just left. “Oh, my god, not you again.”

“Why? What’s the matter?”

“Something weird is going on.” His laptop was on that sofa. “I really think you’re doing this on
purpose.”

“Doing what on purpose? It’s not my fault that we keep bumping into each other and when I
come to get one of my belongings you are right there, in the same room, now is it?”

“I don’t know. It seems you’re doing it on purpose because this has happened twice already.”

“Why are you so anxious about it? Don’t you like me? And no, that is not what I mean. What I
mean is that I thought you were my friend. What, did I do something wrong?” She sat on the
sofa.
“Jordan…”
“Talk to me! I am not leaving this house until you tell me what I did that made you so damn
angry all of a sudden. You can pull me by my hair and throw me out, and I will be standing in
front of your door.”

“Jordan, don’t…”

“My car will not leave your driveway. I will sit right in front of your door, sleep in front of it, in
the clothes I’m wearing, if I have to. Eventually you’re going to have to talk to me, and if you
keep ignoring me, no matter for how long, I will be right here, and if you get the police to make
me leave, I will come right back. And if you get a restraining order against me, I will violate it
and go to jail. I will do whatever it takes, but Jordan Polo will not be ignored, much less by a
man, by a man who promised to be my friend. Friends talk when they have a disagreement or
when your friend does something that bothers you. Friendship is not just about doing good things
for your friend. It’s about communication. If there’s no communication, if two people don’t have
good communication, there is no relationship whatsoever. Think about that.”

“Jordan, I just…”

“Tell me what I did.”

He set the laptop aside and sat beside her. “Jordan, that’s just it. I have nothing to tell you
because you’ve done nothing wrong. On the contrary, you’ve been wonderful. It’s just that when
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I’m around you, I feel like…”

“Like what?”

“Like a man alone on the desert feels when he sees a bottle of water in the middle of the desert.”

“You’re telling me…”

“Yes, that’s what I am telling you, and I want you to stay away from me because I don’t know if
you feel the same way about me and I don’t want to do something that I will regret.”

She started taking off her dress and sat there, almost topless. “What if I told you I feel the same
way about you?”

“Jordan, are you doing this just to calm me down?”

“No. If I did this every time a man got horny around me, do you have any idea of how many sex
partners I would’ve had?” She finished taking her top off and then her dress. She had underwear
on. Sexy underwear, and he drooled without realizing it. Damn, what a body! “I sleep with
whom I want to, not with whomever wants to sleep with me. I don’t give it up just like that, just
because the man is horny. I’d have to be horny, too, for him, and frankly, that’s what’s going on
right now.” She got up and got on her knees, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I want you
just as desperately but I thought you’d turn me down because you’re in love with Nicole and
you’re not the kind of man who would sleep with someone he doesn’t love.”

“You’re right,” he said, caressing her hair, “I never sleep with a woman if I don’t have feelings for
her. My past one-night stands have been one-night stands on the parts of those women, because they
decided I was only a one-night thing, the man they wanted for tonight, not because I wanted it that
way. I don’t use women because they’re not objects. If it turns out the woman used me, then I
don’t fret. I say, ‘You know what? If you used me only for one night, I hope you enjoyed it
because you ain’t ever getting this again. Ever.’ You don’t pick up from the trash something you
threw in the trash. I am a man. I am human. That explains everything.”
“And you never sleep with those women again?”
“Never. Some of them have gotten the message and I have never seen them again, but some of
them come back and beg me to take them to my bed again. I said no and I meant no, so I kick
their asses out.”

“What do they do? Do they cry?”

“Yes, they do, and then they do something to get back at me for turning them down. I even had
to put some of them on jail because some of them slashed my tires, trashed my whole car, some
of them vandalized my house, some of them called my workplace, telling my superiors I raped
them…it’s just crazy.”
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“But your superiors know you’d never do that.”

“They just ask where the police report is and hang up on the bitch.” Jordan burst out laughing. “I
mean it doesn’t make sense to get raped, not file a police report, and then going and telling
someone that can do nothing for you. First you file the report. Then you go around telling
everyone if you want to. What I want to know is what makes you think I would turn you down
because I’m in love with Nicole Ward.”

Surprised and serious now, she asked, “Are you not in love with Nicole Ward?”

“Yes, I am, but I wouldn’t turn down a woman who loves me for that reason. I mean Nicole can
be my platonic love. Everyone has had or still has a platonic love, even people who are married
and have kids…they always fantasize about a movie star or a rock star, or just an Average Jane
they’re crazy about. Not all my platonic loves are celebrities, you know? Why can’t Nicole Ward
just be one more? You know, I don’t throw out the bird I have in my hands to go get a bird that’s
flying out and I can’t reach. That just doesn’t make sense.”

“So we’re going to have a little adventure? I mean, come on, Ivan,” she said, caressing his neck
and then unbuttoning his shirt, “we both know that Nicole is only your platonic love for a while.
She was born for you. No other man’s going to have her, and I do have feelings for you, but I
don’t love you like I will the man I’m going to marry. I just love you as a friend, a friend I want
in my bed, nothing more, and we both know I can’t help you get over her. No woman can, not
even one of those scorching-hot celebrities all men are in love with.”

He laughed. “Are you just saying this to make me feel better, or can you really predict the future?
Everybody knows I can’t have Nicole Ward. If I want her this bad and she doesn’t want me back,
it’s obvious that she’s never going to be mine. Granted, she’s always going to be there because
Nicole never abandons someone she cares about, but she’s not going to be in my bed. Ever. She’s
too wonderful for me. She’s a Bentley and I am my Kia Rio.”

Jordan laughed her ass off. “It’s funny, that’s exactly the same way she feels about you!”

“Oh, really?”

“I bet you anything you’re the only man that makes her wet her panties, just like you’re making
mine wet right now,” she said with a devilish grin.

“Oh, really?” he repeated, this time, altered. “Well,” he then said, “Why don’t we take care of
that problem right now?” Next thing they knew he threw her on the sofa, the laptop fell, breaking
in two, but he didn’t realize it and he banged her like he was going to die within the next ten
minutes.
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****

The next morning, she woke up in his bed after going at it all night, dizzy and disoriented. She
had never made her body work this hard. “Oh, my god, I guess you’re going to be a one-night
stand for me, too, because I think you just killed me, you bastard.”
He laughed. “You can’t be serious. When women tell me this, they don’t say it like that,
they say, ‘Thanks, but it’s over’, and then they leave.” He was still smiling. “I think you’re
exaggerating.”
“No!” she said, getting up. “I am not exaggerating. Now I know why those women dumped you.”
She covered her body with his sheets. Fortunately he was still wearing his boxers, having put
them on after the last round to make sure it would be the last round. “I bet you a million dollars
they didn’t intend to make it a one-night stand and they did want you, and they just couldn’t
handle you, got scared and ran off.” She walked into the bathroom but he could still hear her. “If
that weren’t the case, none of them would’ve come back. Like you said,” she got in the shower,
“women have evolved, and we don’t pick up something from the trash after throwing it out.
When you’re a piece of gum, you’re a piece of gum, honey.”

He got up from the bed.

“There’s no changing that. I mean I am going to try again because I am not a fan of one-night
stands, and I don’t use men, either, but man, you have to take it easy or one of these days, you’ll
really kill me.”

He came into the bathroom to talk to her for a minute. He wanted to take a shower, but he would
go to another bathroom. He wasn’t even going to wait until she got out because the mere image
of her naked, and then her coming out naked, or with a towel wrapped around her body would
make him jump her again--and he weighed 250 pounds in pure muscle, while she only weighed
125 pounds. He was no longer the normal-looking man he used to be six months ago when he’d
just met Nicole. He’d become a lot more muscular and he’d even grown a few inches taller, and
the same thing had happened to Langston. He accomplished these monumental muscles without
the help of steroids. He just worked out at the gym and lifted weights, a lot, more than the
average guy, not to be bigger or look better, but to take out his frustrations. Exercise and lifting
weights were the only things that would make him feel better after an upset with a patient or a
coworker, before going home and reaching his entertainment media. Before going home, he
would just have to change his clothes and work out. “I just wanted to let it out, you know? I
didn’t think I’d be way out of line. That had never happened to me before. When I want it, I get it,
but only once, not five times in one night. That’s just crazy. And don’t blame it all on me,
because you couldn’t stop either!”

“I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess sexual desire is more powerful than any other drug.”
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“I guess so. I’m going to take a shower in the guest bathroom.”

She opened the curtain. “Why don’t you take a shower here?” She was sore as hell, but she didn’t
think it would happen again.

“Oh, no, no, no,” he said, getting out of the room. “No way!”

Ivan went to the guest bathroom and took a quick shower, but he forgot to get his change of
clothes and bring them to the bathroom before getting in the shower. This wasn’t his day. He was
lucky that he always put a towel in the bathroom for all his guests, and provided them with
hygiene products in case something happened and they needed to take a shower. He grabbed that
pine-green towel, put it around his waist and raced out of the bathroom. Then he raced into the
room, and Jordan was hiding in his bed sheets. He didn’t see her under the white sheets, and
she’d seen him get into the room with a towel wrapped around his waist. She uncovered her head
and grinned like an evil little girl, watching him get dressed. He was very muscular, but since he
was six feet and six inches tall, it wasn’t as overwhelming as it would’ve been with a shorter man,
but the huge muscles in his arms, chest and back were impossible to miss, especially when he
wasn’t wearing a shirt. Right now he was putting on a white, long-sleeved, button shirt, a
sleeveless gray jacket and elegant red pants. It was a suit, but he wouldn’t wear the long-sleeved
jacket that would complete the outfit today. He turned around and saw her. She’d been watching
him the whole time, smiling. His mouth flew open. He felt so invaded, so stripped of his privacy.
He thought that she was somewhere in the house ready to leave, but not still in his bedroom.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’ve got the nicest buttocks, not too big or too small, but firm?”

“Jordan…”

She got up from the bed. “Relax, nothing’s going to happen now. I need a rest. A long
rest. I just can’t help telling you how hot you are. It’s no wonder why you’ve got your ex-lovers
and flings pining after you.”
“Please don’t remind me about that. It scares me. It makes me think that…never mind.”
“And what it makes you think, that’s the truth. I mean I finally discovered your secret. I am not
going to tell anyone because it’s just going to make your little situation worse.”

“Thank you, Jordan,” he said, embarrassed.

She hugged him. “You know that, when this little fling we’ve got going on, when it ends, I’m not
going to get out of your life, right?”

“Ah…”

“After we end this, I am not going to touch you ever again, but I am not going to get out of your
life. A promise is a promise, my dear, and you have to keep the promise you made to me, to be
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by my side no matter what, at all times, and always within reach.”

“I don’t forget or break my promises.”

“Just wanted to remind you. I’m not going to let another man turn his back on me. I’ll be
damned.”

“That’s not going to happen with me, Jordan. You can count on me. I have to tell you, that if this
has consequences, even though we won’t be together at the time, I will take full responsibility.”

“Don’t you want me to take the emergency morning-after contraceptive just in case?”

“No way. If you’re meant to have another child, you will have that child. Sometimes those
contraceptives don’t really work, Jordan, it all depends on whether the woman took it in a seventy-two
hour lapse, and whether she took it the right way. Don’t do anything. I’ll man up. That’s like killing
someone and then trying to get away with it. That’s how I see it. If we didn’t protect ourselves at the
moment, then what happens, happens. I don’t believe in that emergency-contraceptive morning-after
nonsense or whatever you just called it. I’m an old-fashioned man. Always have been, still am, and I
always will be.”
“Ok. If I have to have another child, and if I made this mistake, being a
twenty-seven-year-old, mature, experienced woman—then it’ll happen. You’re right, I should’ve
thought about this while we were… ‘partying’. Ok, thank you so, so much. You’re the best.” She
was in her underwear, in her bra, and on the bottom, she was wearing his boxers. This didn’t
bother him in the least.
“Since you’re the first woman to enter this house in a long time, I have no ladies’ clothes. I am
going to get you something to wear, a brand-new bra, a shirt, some pants, socks…”

“I don’t need shoes.”

“Ok. I’m going to get you those clothes right now before going to work. I’ll be right back.”

She watched him leave the room and reflected on what they’d just talked about. Another
baby? Now? Ivan Northwood’s baby, another man who wouldn’t live with her? Eh, maybe it
would be ok. After all, Ivan didn’t have to be her live-in partner to comply with his responsibility
as a father. All he had to do was what Mark never did—be there for her and her child—and her
older child, Jayden, who now saw him as a father, because he was always with Jordan. There
was no noticeable chemistry there, no sign they would be together as a real couple, but they were
the best of friends. Jayden was in school, and happy because he finally had a father that he could
count on. At his very-early age, Jayden learned that anyone could be a daddy, but it would take a
real man to be a father, and he now knew the difference between the two. When he grew up, he
would be careful to choose the right woman for him and only have children with that woman, so
that woman and her child wouldn’t go through what he and his mother were going through right
now.
Ivan was at a store, one of the most-expensive clothing stores, shopping for clothes for
Jordan. He thought Jordan was a wonderful woman and she only deserved the best. Her clothes
weren’t the most-expensive ones, but they weren’t cheap, either. All her wardrobe was in the
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middle of expensive and cheap. She would only get what she could afford. She wasn’t vain,
either. He was at the underwear section, and he was embarrassed because, although he’d seen all
of her, this woman wasn’t his wife. He couldn’t stop clearing his throat, swearing and blushing.
Her bra had to be thirty-two-C. Her breasts were not too big or too small, but they seemed bigger
than they really were because Jordan had a thin frame, and she was in shape. Her panties also
had to be small. He assumed that she liked red underwear more than white, sky-blue or pink,
because that was the color of underwear she was wearing the night before, so he opted for the red
underwear. To match, he went to the shirt aisle and got her a red t-shirt and in the pants and
skirts department, for women, he got her black jeans, with a belt. Jordan was a perfect size six.
He had to give her mad props. She took good care of herself. She must have had a healthy diet
and gotten plenty of exercise to have that body.
When he was paying for the clothes, he encountered Jeffrey Polo, Jordan’s brother.
Jeffrey was in front of him. He turned around. “Are you Ivan or Langston?” He was smiling.
“I’m Ivan.”
“Is it true that you’re dating my sister?”

Scratching his head, and with his head lowered, he said, “Dating? You could say that?”

“Oh. Well, don’t feel bad. It’s not the first casual relationship my sister’s ever had. Only two of
the men she’s been with were real relationships. The other two were friends with benefits.
There’s nothing wrong with that, really. If we do it all the time, why can’t women do it, too? I
mean…”

The cashier replied. “Preach it, brother, and let all the other fellas know.”

He turned to look at her, smiling. “I will, I promise.”

They exited the store and went to their respective cars, and started placing all their clothes in the
trunks of their cars. “So you’re a feminist, sort of?”

“Not exactly. I am what they refer to as an equal-rights supporter, supporter of the equal rights of
men and women when it comes to everything, but I tend to favor the women more, since we’ve
been such assholes, so yeah, in a certain way you can say I am a feminist,” he said, taking the
clothes out of Ivan’s trunk and putting them in his trunk. “I’ll take the clothes to my sister. You
still live at the house you bought a few years ago, right?”

“Yes.”

“I have to pass by that street everyday to go home, and I always see you, arriving home.” They
laughed. “You’re always so elegant and posh. I see you when you get back from your company and I see
you when you get back from your therapy. You’re awesome you know that? It’s a shame you won’t be
my brother in law. I can tell when my sister’s really in love with a man and when she’s just playing with
him.”
“I wouldn’t refer to it as playing with me. The fact that we’re in a commitment-free, very temporary
relationship it doesn’t mean that she’s playing with me. When a woman plays with you, it’s just sex, and
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then she doesn’t see you again until she wants to have sex with you again. We’ve gone a lot farther than
that. In fact our relationship started because of Jayden, your nephew, not because we liked and started
banging each other. That came after we came together for the sake of Jayden, and it happened by
accident, meaning that we didn’t plan it. We were doing it without realizing that we were, like spilling
your hot dog’s mustard or ketchup on your shirt. In reality, we’re friends.”

“Oh, so my nephew is the one that brought you together.”

“Exactly, and he loves me and my whole family.”

“If you show Jayden’s love, he will love you. I mean you do something good for him and you
automatically become his idol. He’s a really sweet kid. He calls me his champion all the time.”
“That’s nice.”
“Yeah. Basically I’ve become a father before conceiving children because that boy is the light of
my eyes. I was beside myself, completely destroyed, when I found out he was taken to the
hospital. I thought I would lose him.” He couldn’t help shedding tears. “It would’ve been like
losing a piece of me, my nephew, dog!” Ivan gave him a hug. “That’s my family, my blood.
That’s my adoration. I don’t think I would’ve ever been able to pull through, to get over that
life-shattering loss.”

“I have one nephew, Bryce, and I would feel exactly the same way if something happened to him.
Of all my brothers, Langston is the only one who’s a dad, and Bryce is just as adorable as Jayden.
If I lost him it would be as horrible as losing my own son.”

“You have a son, too?”

“Yes. His name is Aaron Haynes.”

“He was given up for adoption, too, just like Bryce?”
“No, he wasn’t, fortunately. His mother kept him away from me, gave him to her parents to raise,
and then she died. They’re always telling me that long before she passed, Aaron had lost his
mother already because she was never there for him. She was going out to clubs, partying,
freaking random guys…she didn’t even work. Ever. The most terrible mother a child could ever
have. I was given up for adoption, too, but my birthmother was married. She wasn’t some floozy
spreading herself around like a disease. My birthmother and birthfather gave me up because they
didn’t have enough money to raise their twins. Langston was lucky they didn’t give him up, too.
Then they had their lucky day and acquired their company, became multimillionaires. They
couldn’t reunite with me until a few days ago. But Marissa, Marissa was…man, no man would’ve
wanted her for his wife, and Aaron certainly didn’t want her to be his mother. He preferred
Bloody Mary as a mother over her. He even told me that. You go figure.”

“Wow. You really hated Aaron’s mother, didn’t you?”

“Hell yeah! Who wouldn’t? She ruined our lives, both me and my child’s. She kept my child, my
only child, from me, knowing he was my only child. I didn’t hear Aaron say his first word, I
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didn’t see him crawling, I didn’t get to change his diaper even once…” Aaron was the one to start
crying this time, and this time, Jeffrey hugged him.

“It’s ok, man.”

“I didn’t get to feed him. I didn’t hear him call me daddy. I couldn’t buy him any toys, snacks,
food or candy, no clothes…she decided that although I conceived her child with her, I wouldn’t be a
father! She played God with our lives, man! She made all the decisions. She called all the shots, like she
had gotten pregnant by…like Virgin Mary, basically, you know what I mean?”
“There was only one Virgin Mary, only one woman who got pregnant by the divine grace
of the Holy Spirit. Yet Marissa tried to be just that.”
“Yeah, right? That’s not fucking fair!”

“I know. Look man, this is what you’re going to do. You’re going to go get something to eat that
will calm you down, you know, make you feel better, and then you’re going to go to work while I go take
those clothes to my sister and go to work as well. I know it hurts, man, although I haven’t found out
about a son or daughter I never knew about. I know it hurts like a bitch, but we’ve got to lick our
wounds and move on. Otherwise, they will never really heal.”
“You’re right, man. Thank you. And your first name is?”
“I am Jeffrey Julius Polo. Quite an original name, huh?” He took Ivan’s phone and put his phone
number in Ivan’s phonebook. Then he handed the phone back to Ivan. “You can call me anytime.” He
put the entry in as JEFFREY J. POLO.
“Thanks, man.” They hugged again. They would be very good friends. The best.
“I am just returning the favor for what you’re doing for my sister and my nephew.” Jeffrey got
into his car, closed the door, fastened his seatbelt, turned on the engine, pulled out of the parking
lot, and drove off, leaving Ivan alone and distraught in the parking lot, without knowing it.

Suddenly, a young lady, about twenty-two, approached him and patted him on the back.
She was a prostitute, and she wanted to comfort this man the only way she knew how. She really
needed the money. She would never have unprotected sex, spreading diseases, and she would
never practice sexual acts that would jeopardize her health. She wouldn’t decide the amount the
man would pay her, as long as she got paid. She wanted the amount he thought that she deserved,
depending on her performance and the things she would be willing to do to please her customer,
how far she would go to earn her green. She’d been doing this for three years, and she did it to
pay for her college tuition and pay her mortgage in her apartment. No matter how simple her
performance would be, she would never get less than $3,000 for one sexual encounter, and she
would never work with more than one client per day. She thought she wouldn’t handle it.
However, she had her select list of clients, twenty clients, and she would only service those men.
Ivan would be her first client that she’d just met and all her clients were childhood friends and
former classmates. “Need some company?”
He turned around and looked at her. She didn’t make it obvious. She didn’t dress like a
hooker, and she certainly didn’t service men on the street, only men she knew. “Um, no offense
intended, but I don’t think I can…I mean, I’ve never been with a prostitute before, not because I
am afraid to catch a disease from one or something, but because some people think it’s
degrading.”
“And you’re the kind to go by what people think.”
 134

“Sometimes, I don’t deny it.”

She took off her jacket. She was glorious. Her big breasts were every man’s dream. “I just want
to make you feel better. You like what you see? I apologize, it’s just that this is the only way I
know to make a man feel better when he’s depressed.”

“You’ll be my first prostitute. It wouldn’t hurt.”

“So, you’re in?”

“Yes, I am. Why not? Car is uncomfortable. Wanna go to a hotel?”

“Yes, sir!”

****

They arrived at the hotel shortly after. It was a four-star hotel, and it was only going to be
a few hours, the session, or so he thought. They got to their bedroom and instantly took
each other’s clothes off. There would be no romance. No flowers. No chocolate-covered
strawberries. No words of love. He was going to get on with it, get his, and give her what
she deserved, and then he would go to work and never see her again. So he thought. Her
name was Aurora, Aunt Aurora’s long-lost youngest daughter, the one that got snatched
from her when she was born because her husband didn’t want to have another baby. She
named her Aurora to be able to find her one day, and miraculously, her adopted parents
didn’t change her name, just gave her their last name. In the room, they performed every
sex act that could possibly be imagined. She was taken long and hard, completely
subservient after taking him over. She really wanted to earn her money this time, so she
became a doll he could do anything he wanted with, and he gave her everything that he
could never give any other woman because she wouldn’t let him. When it ended, it had
been exactly forty-eight hours since it started. Ivan freaked out like he never had in his
life, left her twenty thousand dollars that he was carrying with him in cash, both his
paychecks combined, and left. Hours later, Aurora woke up, discovered this money, and
although he wouldn’t become one of her regular, exclusive clients, and the sex, although
not their relationship, would be a one-time thing, but this was her best client yet. She
used that money to pay four months of her mortgage, reducing her mortgage payment by
more than half. Then, she went back to her clients to make her money for the rest of the
things she needed.
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Chapter 11
Nicole is still not ready to start a romantic relationship with anyone because she fears
getting her heart broken and not being able to get over her first love, ever, so she and Ivan, as
much as they love one another, decide to remain friends although they’ve known and loved one
another for over six months. They go their separate ways and convinced that, if there hasn’t been
romance between her and Ivan, there won’t be, for a while, or there may never be, so they give
each other a chance to date other people and experiment this love thing, the many sides of it, and
in the end, if they are meant to be together, they will be, in the future, when she’s no longer
afraid of losing it all. Nicole starts dating Howard Reese’s brother, Holden Reese. Holden
knows that Nicole is officially in love with another man, and after holding feelings for him this
long, there is nothing he can do to change that, so they date the old-fashioned way—they go to the
movies, they go to the club, to dance, they take walks in the park, thus Nicole can walk now, but
she can’t run and she can’t jog just yet, and they have a good time. Meanwhile, Jordan, seeing
that she has a chance with Ivan, although not for a serious relationship, but a chance to have fun
with him until her desire for him comes to an end and she’s finally able to see him as a friend,
jumps right in, not wasting time. They start sleeping together, but Ivan doesn’t know how this
will end because he’s not sure if he’s ever going to have the only woman that he’s ever wanted,
Nicole Ward, so he resigns to having her in his dreams, while Jordan blows his mind. He doesn’t
know who’s really going to get Jordan for keeps in the end, but from the way that she makes
love to him, whoever that guy is, he will be the most fortunate man in the world. But this
relationship is not just about sex. They’re also friends. They share beautiful and unforgettable
times with Jayden, whom, although he’s not as healthy as he was before, he’s a survivor, and he
gets better and better. He will still need a few more operations to get his lungs to work correctly,
but at least he can breathe on his own, during the day, and he uses artificial oxygen when he
sleeps at night. Because running takes a lot of work and can leave him out of breath in a matter
of minutes, he can’t do that, but he can walk and he can play with his little friends—and with
Ivan, who loves him like a son, and always will. All is well until Mark, thinking Jordan’s been
alone all this time, decides to jump back into Jordan’s life. The flings he had after the woman
that broke his heart, they didn’t work out, and he wants another chance with Jordan, like she’s
his back-up woman, or something of that sort.
Ivan was making breakfast that morning. He and Jordan had been together for only two
weeks. He was doing something he'd never done with any woman before. He never expected a
subservient woman because he knew that was way too seventeenth or eighteenth century, and not
even that, but he was a traditional, but not chauvinistic man, who would not serve the woman
outside the bedroom. For the love of Jordan, and to keep her with him for the longest time
possible, he'd become that man, a man willing to do anything for the woman, in and out of the
bedroom, though he knew this relationship was only casual, but he wanted to make it last. Jordan
came into the kitchen to make breakfast for him and here and was awed to see he was almost
done doing the same thing. "What are you doing?"
He knew what she meant so he didn't state the obvious to be a smartass. "I love cooking,"
was his excuse. "I cook for me and Aaron when he's here with me. He says I'm an awesome cook,
that I should've been a chef, but when he told me that I told him that although my favorite place
in the house was always the kitchen, since I was a little boy, I preferred working in healthcare,
doing anything related to healthcare. I had studied to become a nurse because in reality I'd
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studied three professions," he said as he put Jordan's favorite creamer, French vanilla, in her
coffee, one of the most-expensive brands of coffee creamer. The pancakes were done, and the
scrambled eggs, and he'd turned everything off before she came into the kitchen directly from her
room, and he was about to serve them, but not before serving the drinks: orange juice and coffee,
Jordan's favorite, because she preferred the standard breakfast as it would be presented on TV
and other places, with orange juice on the side. "But then I fell, oxygen was depleted in my brain,
and I got cerebral palsy. Being a nurse was out of the question, so I went the other direction and
studied to become a PT. I could be a PT because PT's don't have to lift or carry anyone, just
provide them physical support. I never lost my ability to walk but after the accident in the
bathroom, it became just a little more difficult."
"I hope you don't become my maid because I do ok when it comes to the money I earn
but I don't have money for a maid and if you become my maid I'd have to pay you."
"You can't. Remember what we're doing. That would be prostitution," he said as he
carried some of the food to the dining room and placed it on the table. Jordan helped him with
the other plates full of food. "In reality, I do want to do nice things for you, make you feel good,
make you stay with me for a while. I've tried other things, and none of them worked. Women
treat me like a broken artifact, 'use it once, since it's broken, and then get rid of it', seems to be
their motto when they bump into a disabled man."
She gave him a big hug. "Hey, never mind those so-called women. A real woman loves
and accepts a man just the way he is, and treats him right. If that is what you were looking for,
with me, you've found it. I love the way you get along with my son. Aaron's lucky. You are a
fantastic father, one of the best I've ever met. Jayden knows you're not his father, but he
appreciates you treating him like you are. He tells me so all the time."
"Who wouldn't love your son? He's the sweetest."
"And you're the sweetest man," she replied. "Come on, let's eat."
Jayden got up and went into the kitchen. He took a two-foot ladder that his mom had left
in the corner of the huge kitchen after reaching for the chocolate syrup in the high counter the
night before, placed it right in front of the range, and then took a big black plate from the kitchen
sink. Jordan and Ivan would always leave one plate of each kind and one utensil of each kind so
that Jayden could reach them and use them without having to ask anyone for anything. They
were teaching him to be as independent as he could be when it came to doing everything on his
own--like bathing, serving his own food, getting dressed on his own, organizing his clothes, and
cleaning his room. By now, Jayden knew how to make the bed and everything. Then he placed
the plate right by the range, on the counter, got up on the ladder very carefully and served
himself one regular-sized pancake, not too big, not too small, and a little bit of the scrambled
eggs. He once again placed the plate right by the range, went to the refrigerator and looked for
the syrup in the refrigerator. He said, loud, but not yelling, "Mom, you guys have the syrup?"
"Yes, we do, pumpkin," Jordan said. "Come and eat with us."
Jayden took his plate of food and walked all the way to the dining room. Then he sat
down on one of the four chairs that were available. Whenever she would get married and have
more children, she would buy a bigger dining room and give this one to someone who needed it
because it was only two years old, from when she bought this house, and she took such good care
of it, it seemed brand new.
Jordan got up. "Hold on. I'm going to get you something to drink. I know you couldn't
carry everything over here and I am not going to let you go back to the kitchen, so far away just
to get a drink." She walked out of the dining room and walked all the way back to the kitchen.
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"So, champion," Ivan said, "how was soccer today?"

"Great. Thanks for enrolling me in soccer, Ivan."
"You said you wanted to be a soccer player, and you can't just express what you want,
champ!" Ivan said, smiling. "You gotta make it happen!"
Jayden took Ivan's hand. Half his pancake was already gone. "You're the best, you know
that?"
"I do the best I can, and I think you should, too."
"I will." Jayden would eat small portions of food, but when he hadn't eaten for several
hours, he would eat faster than normal.
"Hey, hey, hey," Ivan said, concerned, holding the hand Jordan was using the fork with,
"eat slow. I don't want you choking and getting full too fast or you're not going to be able to
finish your breakfast."
Jordan would always tell him the same thing, but he didn't think anything of it, so he
would disobey her, but this was the second person to tell him this, so he stopped eating for a few
minutes, while the food got all the way down--and the worst of all was that he hadn't had
anything to drink yet and he was already starting to get full.
Jordan came back to the dining room with Jayden's drink and handed it to him--orange
juice, his favorite, that he would have every morning to keep his immune system healthy.
"Hey, Jordan, you see how fast he eats? I hope you don't mind since we're not married,
but I told him he had to slow down or he would choke or get full too fast. As a matter of fact, I
think he's full right now."
Jayden ate his eggs in five minutes time.
Jordan didn't know how to respond for a minute and then she did. "No, I don't mind. I
told him that a million times, and he didn't listen. Besides it's ok because I didn't hear you
insulting him or yelling. When you see him doing something wrong, call him out on it just the
way you did just now and everything will be fine. I was afraid of getting with another guy before
you for this reason. I didn't want that man to abuse my child in any way."
"You don't have to worry about that with me. My fatherly love is alive and well,
otherwise I wouldn't have planned to conceive Aaron with his mother, Marissa."
"That's sweet, Ivan," said Jayden, finishing his orange juice, and then he got up from the
chair and left the dining room. "I'm satisfied, but I don't feel full anymore."
"Anymore," Ivan repeated when Jayden was too far away to hear him. "You have to
watch that boy to make sure he doesn't eat like that again, and now that he's in kindergarten, you
have to have someone at school secretly keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn't choke or
vomit."
"Thank you, Ivan, for loving my son so much from the moment we met. I think you
deserve a reward."
Done with his food, he asked, "What kind of reward, the super computer I want? Just
kidding."
"No, something much better than that." She said, taking his hand and making him get up
from his chair. "I realized you destroyed your computer because of me, remember, when we had
sex on the sofa and we didn't realize the laptop was there? Yeah...a fifteen-hundred-dollar-laptop,
shattered in a million pieces. Nice. You know a $1500-laptop today is something out of this
world." They were running to her bedroom now, running and running because it was far away in
this one-story but seemingly-endless house. "But then again, so are you, and living things that
are out of this world deserve," they got to the room and she turned the knob and opened the door
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behind her, "to be treated as such." She embraced him and then the door was shut.
Once in the room, they tore each other’s clothes off from the waist down without
realizing what they were doing. Then, Ivan took off his shirt and threw it on the floor.
“I’ve taken over during lovemaking all this time. Now I want you to show me the lover
you are. I want you to do everything for me this time, because from now on it’s going to be an
equal thing, we’ll both get ours. When I say everything, I do mean everything.”
“You’re scaring me. I’ve never done everything at once.”
“Ok, I didn’t know that. Then do some of what you’ve done so far. I can’t take it
anymore, just screw me, damn it!”
All he did now was have intercourse with her and she had to sit up to reach him in order
to kiss him. Without realizing it, it became more and more aggressive for both of them until
they collapsed on the edge of the bed, and despite having all that weight on her, she didn’t feel
any pain on her body. She was used to this. Mark would end up right on top of her every time.
That’s the way he was. He was always the active one and use Jordan only for his pleasure, but
she was so in love and desperate to keep him with her that she couldn’t see what was going on
there, until today. She slept, hating him even more, and dreaming of a thousand ways to kill him.

****

Mark comes over to Jordan’s house and is shocked when Ivan answers the door. Ivan
doesn’t live with Jordan, but still on his own, and he only has fun with Jordan when Cherie and
Merlin, who have survived after a year and a half of invasive treatment for their skin cancer,
have Aaron over at their house, and for now, they have him with them Monday through Friday,
and then he spends the weekends with his dad, so he and Jordan don’t see each other on the
weekends because Ivan doesn’t want to give his son false hope that Jordan Polo will be his new
mother figure. She’s definitely meant for someone else, and so is he, although he doesn’t know
who she’s really meant for, thus they have no feelings for each other. They only saw each other
as friends with benefits, no real love there. They are just letting it out, realizing the fantasies that
deep down they’d always had. Obviously, Mark and Ivan start arguing.
“What do you want?”
“You know what I want. I want my woman back, and you have to get out.”
“Excuse me? Who’s your woman?”
“Jordan.”
“Oh, really? If she’s ‘your woman’, why isn’t she with you? Why does she tell me all
the time, that she’d rather be with Freddie Krueger or Jason Voorhees, than you?”
“You’re a son of a bitch, you know that? She’d never say such bullshit.”
“Oh, watch it or my dead mother’s going to come in your room, pull you by the legs,
and yank you out of your bed. I’ve seen paranormal cases on the news, you know? And today,
they’re more common than ever before, so if I were you, I would never mess with the dearly
departed.”
“Cut the bullshit, Northwood, and get the hell out.”
Now Ivan really lost it. No son of a bitch, or no one for that matter, had talked to him like
that, not even his ex-girlfriends when they got angry with him. Ivan grabbed him by the shirt
with both of his rock-hard hands and threw him out of the foyer and into the walkway. Then, he
grabbed him by the shirt again, right from the floor, and lifted him, like a 200-pound weight. It
turned out that at age twenty-one, Ivan hadn’t stopped growing like he thought. He’d gotten half
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a foot taller, his height soaring to six foot three, and because of all the exercise he’d done and
the weights he’d lifted all this time, he’d gotten much bigger and stronger, and now, since a lot
of people knew that he was a black belt in karate despite his disability, which was waning more
and more as he received more treatment and more physical therapy, no one was afraid to get
close to him and be friendly to him, but no one dared to mess with him, either. He’d never killed
anyone or sent anyone to the hospital, but he’d left several people unable to get out of bed for
days, and if Mark kept on with the bullshit, he’d get his, too, very good. Unbelievably, Langston
had experienced the same changes as Ivan, leaving Diana stunned and hungrier for him than ever
before. God must’ve loved her and considered her pretty special because her worst nightmare
had become her sweetest dream, and it would only get better by the day. “Now, you listen to me,
asshole—“
Mark cut him off. “Hasn’t she ever told you my name? You just met me and you’re
attacking me and calling me names, man! What the fuck is your problem?”
“Oh, like you weren’t disrespectful to me just now, you prick, and just so you know,
Jordan referred to you as ‘asshole’ and ‘prick’ when she met us at the hospital eighteen months
ago, when your son was in danger of dying, before she even told us your name, so guess what,
Casanova, she hates you. She despises you. She’s lucky that Jayden looks much more like her
than you because just saying your name, remembering you, or seeing you on TV, by mere
accident, makes her sick in the stomach. You make her skin crawl. When she’s reminded of your
existence, she goes straight to the bathroom, to puke until she has no more food to puke and you
can see her stomach acids. I know because I’ve seen it, and you know something else? When she
has those episodes, she can’t eat for several hours, and sometimes, not even for the rest of the
day.”
Trying to conceal the tears he was shedding, and finally getting up, Mark said, “You’re just
saying these things to hurt me.”
“And I can see that it’s working like a charm,” said Ivan, arms crossed across his chest.
“You can’t hide your tears no matter how hard you try, you poor excuse of a man. You know,
the only thing that makes you a man is the thing that’s between your legs, and not even that.
That just makes you a chromosome-Y organism.” Ivan couldn’t help laughing at his cruel
comments, and smiling brightly, like he was saying nice things.
“I don’t believe you. I’d have to hear those things from her own mouth.”
“As you wish. I’m going to go get her.” Ivan walked back into the house.
As Ivan walked the entrance hallway to go get Jordan, Mark screamed, “Asshole!
Prick!”
Ivan turned around to face him again, and from afar, to keep from breaking his bones in a fit of
rage, he replied, “Oh, no, no, no, no…that’s your first name and your middle name, remember?
And you know what your last name is? Man-whore.” Then Ivan left.
Mark cried tears of fury and sadness at the same time as he waited for Jordan to come out to see
him and tell him that Ivan was lying, that he was just telling him that she’d said those horrible
things about him, and that he had her so psychologically damaged that anything pertaining to
him would make her literally, physically sick—because he was trying to protect her and Jayden
from him, because he didn’t want him to give them false hope to abandon them again.
Finally, he got his wish, only the first part of it, because Jordan came out, and then she
decided to put on a show in front of him and Ivan. “Ivan, do I need to remind you of your place
in this house for the zillionth time? Need I remind you that you’re nothing but my boy toy, my
adventure, my fuck-buddy? Get the hell away from us and go wash the dishes while Mark and I
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talk this out, ok?”

Ivan left. They’d talked about this before she came out to see Mark because if she had done this
without warning, he’d feel extremely hurt because he was as sensitive and sweet on the inside as
he was big and strong on the outside.
“Come on in, Mark.”
Mark went in and she closed the door behind them.
“I’ve humiliated my blow-up doll over there more than enough today. Let’s go talk out
on the porch.”
They got to the porch, minutes later, because the house was just as big as her hatred for Mark,
and she closed the sliding door behind her. He sat on one of the pretty patio chairs that she had in
there. “Ok, Mark, I am going to listen to every word you have to say, no matter how long it takes,
and I won’t say one single word, because you have a lot of explaining to do. Why did you
abandon me and your son?” She had her arms crossed across her chest, still standing up, leaning
toward the door. “I thought you loved me. I thought you would be my first real love. What
happened?”
He stood up and walked closer to her, and then he held her hand and looked her deeply in
the eyes. “That asshole thinks he can get into your business and mess up your life just because
he was lucky to get in your bed, that crippled freak.”
Although Jordan didn’t love Ivan like she would love her husband, these words hurt her like
repeated strikes of stakes directly in the heart because she adored him like a friend, because of
everything that he, the Northwood, Ainsworth and Thornhart families had done for her son, and
because he was being a true father figure for her son and no matter what happened between
them in the future, he would always be just that and leave his mark in Jayden’s heart, a mark
more permanent than a tattoo because tattoos could be erased. She also hid the tears these
comments caused.
Then Mark continued with his heartless comments. “You got to set him straight. Do you
ever punish him when he misbehaves, when he does something that bothers you?”
“Yes, I do,” she lied. She would never hurt or humiliate any man, especially Ivan
Northwood. When she had a man in her life, whether that relationship was serious or not, she
would dedicate her life to pleasing him in every aspect of life, making him truly happy so he
would stay a little longer than a man usually did, and she was just like Andrew. None of the men
that she’d had in her life had ever and would never get over her. She’d left her mark deep in
their hearts, and their skin, and although they no longer wanted her in their beds because they
knew they couldn’t have her, they would hold her dear in their hearts and remember her with
love, as the best woman the three of them had ever had.
“I’m glad because this time you really have to set him straight. To make a long story
short, he said that you always refer to me as ‘asshole’ and ‘prick’ and you’ve replaced my real
name with those insults, and just being reminded of the fact I exist makes your skin crawl and
makes you sick in the stomach and unable to eat for the rest of the day, even if you haven’t eaten
breakfast in the morning yet, and I’m saying this in my own words. He was much crueler than
that.”
“Don’t listen to him. He’s only doing this because, though he knows I don’t love him,
he adores me. I’m the only woman that has stayed with him for more than a few nights, and I
will stay with him. I won’t leave him until he has real hope with Nicole Ward and goes right
back into her arms. He may love me very much, but Nicole is the only rival I can’t even fight
against. I don’t stand a chance, and I know that. I deserve it because I am using him, but I am
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going to enjoy him while I can and I will be stuck to him like gum every minute of the day, until
I suck the last drop of his blood.”
“But I thought you were willing to give me a chance.”
“I will give you a chance, but I can’t commit to you until you prove to me that you’re
going to do everything in your power to make this work, that you really, really love me.”
“So you’re going to sleep with both of us at the same time?”
She cleared her throat. “I’ve never two-timed anybody before, but if you insist on
interrupting my life you give me no other choice. This time words won’t be enough to get my
heart and keep it forever, Mark. You already had that chance once. I am no longer the woman
you met who was desperate for anyone to love her, the woman that felt unloved, not only by men,
but by her family and her friends at that moment.”
“Ok, you know what? I would never accept this from any woman.”
“Well then, get out of my house the same way you walked in because I am offering you
the only thing I’ve got to give you or any other man because you took everything from me,
Mark. You took my heart, you literally took it. You left me empty inside.” She sounded like a
soap opera, but she meant every word she said. She was this romantic and intense. That was one
of many things about her that would drive them crazy, that, with no intention, just because it
came out of her, she would talk to them, and everyone she interacted with, like no one had talked
to them before. “What do you want me to do? I can’t give you something that you already took,
you understand?”
He cried in front of her like he had few times before, and then he got on his knees,
grabbing on to her like she was going to run away from him. “I love you,” he said, crying on her
leg. I love you like I’ve never loved any other woman, and I’m not like you, I’ve lost count of
all the women I’ve had, even after you, in the few years we’ve been apart!”
“And that doesn’t make you ashamed, to have to say something like that, for that to be
true. You lost count of all the women you had. Wow, Mark, just wow…”
“Jordan, please, I’m begging you, don’t break my heart like this. I’m nothing without
you, please.” Just like her, every word he said came straight from his broken, scarred heart.
“You know why I’ve had so few sex partners? You know why Ivan Northwood is only
my fourth partner?”
Ivan was listening to the conversation behind the glass door now, and he was stunned with what
he just heard. She seemed like such a pro, like she’d explored a lot more, with a lot more men.
Turns out that the incredible things she learned, she only learned from a few of them. Usually a
human being, according to many people that claimed to be open-minded, would need many more
partners or to be with the same partner for decades to have the experience that she had. That
made him love her and care about him a lot more. She was a better woman than he thought.
Whoever turned out to be the true man of her life, the man that would keep her forever, would
catch a star upon catching her, taking a diamond of incalculable value in his hands.
She continued her thought. “Because I don’t make love to a man unless I really love him, unless
I know him. Once I entangle a man in my web, I give him everything I have, I go out of my way
to make him the happiest man alive. I’m not the kind of person to notice someone good looking
at a club, or in a bar, or in any public place, or at someone’s house…and take that person home
and to my bed in a matter of minutes, without knowing his name, because by the way, I am a
rarity. I am straighter than a ruler.”
“Jordan, you don’t have to tell me any of this. I know.”
“I thought you’d forgotten.”
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“No!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “Don’t you get it? I could never forget about
you! No one could! I bet you anything that your men before me and Ivan are still madly in love
with you! I don’t mean to suck up, but you’re one of a kind!”
“I know you are not sucking up. You can’t suck up to me when you’re on the verge of a
freaking heart attack while telling me all these things. There’s just one little problem, Mark, an
itty bitty problem. You’re telling me all this too late.”
“Jordan, no, please!”
“It’s too late, Mark. You should’ve told me all these things, and meant them a long time
ago, when our relationship started! You should’ve cherished our love, water it like your favorite
plant to watch it blossom, maintained it, kept it alive, instead of destroying it like you did!” She
was crying in earnest, too. “We have a son together. There’s no more solid evidence that there
was real love between us at some point. Jayden wouldn’t have even been conceived if what we
had hadn’t been real. We wouldn’t have stayed together long enough to plan having him, to
conceive him! We were happy until you suddenly decided that you weren’t really a one-woman
man, that all the women out there were born for you, and you just had to go get them. You said,
these were your exact words, you said, ‘You know what, Jordan? There are too many women for
me out there, and I have to go get them all before they slip away. We only have one life and we
have to enjoy it. When I am tired of sleeping around and ready to settle down, I will come right
back to you’.”
Ivan thought, Motherfucker! Crying tears of sheer pain. That was it. He just had to put
this phenomenon in his place. He opened the door silently and hid behind the cage of the little
cockatiel that Jordan had in her porch, to which he always gave his love and attention every time
she felt alone and started to scream. The cockatiel started singing lowly to him, acknowledging
and appreciating his mere presence.
“And there still is.”
“Not on my part, no. You took it all away, remember? You ought to know you can never
get back most of the things that people take from you. You can get back material things, but what
about everything else they snatch from you? It doesn’t work like that, Mark. You’re not a
teenager anymore! You’re thirty years old! Wake up and smell the damn coffee already! The
machine is making it and everyone can smell it from a mile away but you! Stop living in that
little fantasy world of yours, where everything’s easy to do, easy to accomplish, and you can
always get what you want easily. You can’t ask me for something you already took! Get that
through your head. I have nothing to offer any man now. I’m empty. Don’t you get that, Mark?
How many times and in how many different ways, and in how many different languages do I
have to tell you that? You’re not retarded! In fact you’re anything but, so don’t act like you are.
Or is it that you don’t understand what I’m saying to you? Do I have to explaining to you like
your Jayden’s age? I mean for the love of God, Mark!”
“Jordan I love you. Please don’t do this to me. You’re killing me.”
Ivan came out from behind the birdcage and approach them. “Oh, no. She hasn’t done anything
to you. You’re the one who took her heart in your hands and squeezed it, leaving behind nothing
of it. I am the one who’s going to kill you and laugh and dance my way to jail, and keep dancing
and singing in jail for the rest of my life, enjoying the pleasure of ridding this world of scum like
you, if you don’t get out of our lives to never come back!” Ivan grabbed him once more, ran
toward the outside door of the porch, dragging him, broke the door with Mark’s body and threw
him right into the pool. “That’s right, you worthless piece of shit!”
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“Don’t mind the door. Ivan’s going to fix it today. Just like his twin brother, he fixes
everything he ruins,” Jordan said, laughing, hands on her hips, once again, and showing a
beautiful, but evil smile. “The fact I was nice to you and defended you to Ivan doesn’t mean I
care about you anymore.”
Mark took his head out the pool, his heart completely shattered and now full of hatred.
“In fact, I didn’t really defend you from Ivan at all. It was all an act. I didn’t want to tell
you straight up that every single word Ivan said to you was one hundred percent true. You are,
and will always be, too weak to handle it. Ivan’s a very sensitive, sweet guy, and he can handle
words similar to those so much better than you. He’s done it many times before! Ivan’s a
wonderful man. He’ll never be my husband and the father of Jayden’s siblings, no, but he is
very important to me, and that little comment you made about the crippled freak…yeah, when you
said that, I wanted to take this bat in my hand,” she said lifting the bat, “and beating the shit out
of you with it, you prick! You don’t deserve the love of a woman. You never did. You never
will. You know who the real blow up doll is? It’s not Ivan. It’s you. Sex is all your good for.
You know, you ought to work as a gigolo. That’s the perfect profession for you!” she yelled
these last few words, excited.
Mark recovered from his injuries enough to get up and out of the pool and when he
approached Jordan and Ivan once again, he said to Ivan, “You just humiliated me and made a
total ass out of me, if you know what I mean.”
“Yes, because that’s what you are,” replied Ivan, smiling.
“This is far from over, son. I am going to hit you where it hurts you the most.” He
walked to the door, opened the inside door and walked out of the porch, back into the house.
“Yeah, right,” said Ivan and he and Jordan laughed their asses off.
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Chapter 12
Just when Jordan and Ivan don’t think that Mark’s a threat to him because he’s too weak to do
anything to retaliate against them, besides talking nonsense to make them lose their jobs, Mark
devises something that will change everyone’s life forever—to kidnap Little Aaron. Aaron went
to school, five days after being admitted to the hospital for the second time, because the doctors
wanted to check on him and make sure that the operation was still helping him, otherwise they
would have to perform another one--and today was just like any other day. He started chatting
with his friends and having a good time, as always. Suddenly, very close to where he and the
boys were, a car pulled up. The car looked just like his father’s car. It was bizarre how Mark and
his men pulled that one out because there were many Kia Rio Cinco station wagons here in the
state of Florida, but not in that peculiar blue-green color. The only reason why Ivan’s car was
that color was because he had had the people at the dealership paint it that color right after he
paid it in full. The car was originally black, and Ivan didn’t like black cars. He didn’t mind riding
one because he couldn’t tell his friends or family members what color car they should have, but
he didn’t like driving a black car. The last time he did, at sixteen, he was parked in front of
Wal-Mart and it was an old car that his father had just bought for him for six hundred dollars, a
car that was valued at $3,500 in the Kelley Blue Book. It was only ten years old, a Toyota
Camry, pretty and somewhat luxurious, but the air conditioner had just broken down, and Jake
didn’t know that. He had to wait for his friends to shop at Wal-Mart for three agonizing hours.
They figured he wasn’t a baby or a toddler, so he’d be all right. They were wrong. Dead wrong.
Next thing they knew, 911 had to be called because Ivan was suffering from severe heatstroke,
and doctors had to pour their hearts and souls out, and paramedics had to do the same, to save his
life. Since then, Ivan’s had a phobia for driving black cars, and when riding a black car, he would
demand that the car’s air conditioner be perfect. Otherwise, his friends would either have to take
the car home and bring another car of a different color, or he wouldn’t go out with them at all.
The men didn’t allow Aaron to see them for a few moments. They succeeded in making him
think that this was his daddy picking him up. Aaron got in the car thinking that his father had
come pick him up to take him to an emergency doctor’s appointment or for a check-up, and he’d
forgotten about that yesterday, and he just remembered, so he returned to pick him up and take
him. The innocent, sweet little boy couldn’t be more wrong. The two men were in the back seat,
and once that Aaron sat in between them, they couldn’t fool him anymore, and Mark was in the
driver’s seat. One of the men lifted Aaron, feeling awkward about having him in the middle of
them, and moved him to be right by the window. Then, the other minion made Mark pull over
and he took the passenger seat as soon as Mark complied. They didn’t intend to hurt Aaron. They
intended to hurt Ivan, by making him think that he’d never see his son again. The men didn’t
even want a ransom. They wanted to break Ivan’s heart, teach him a lesson for disrespecting
Mark the way he did. The men acted friendly with the little boy. He was nice and they didn’t
want to mistreat him. He was an innocent child who hadn’t done anything to them, and he didn’t
deserve to get hurt.
“Who are you? Did my dad send you?”
“No, your dad didn’t send us. It’s time that we quit lying.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re here to get revenge against your dad, and we’re using you to get to him because your
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dad’s a bad man.”

“Why is he a bad man? My dad has never hurt anyone. Quite the contrary, he’s helped people get
back on their feet again, helped them rehabilitate. He’s taken people who were in vegetative state
and had them walking. He makes house calls for those people. He provides medical equipment to
the handicapped. He’s a very good man. He has lots of friends. If he were a bad man like you say
he is, no one would want to be around him.”

The man got next to his ear and whispered, “You’re right?”

When he was about to ask, “What?” the man covered his mouth with his hand and got
next to his ear again to tell him something else. “Be quiet. Don’t talk to us. We’re just telling you
what Mark wants us to say. He wants us to set you against your father. We are going to take you
to a cabin, and then you’ll have a chance to ask all the questions you want there because Mark’s
going to leave so that the police don’t get him into this, but you have to shut up. Otherwise,
Mark’s going to kill both of us and make you disappear. Mark is the bad man. Very bad. Don’t
buy his act when he starts being nice to you.”
Several hours later, the men arrived at the cabin with the boy. From the car, Mark gave
the men explicit instructions on how to deal with Aaron. They weren’t to lay a hand on him
because they were way too big and strong and they could kill him just by slapping him, but they
were to let him starve. This morning’s breakfast was to be his last meal. They were also to let
him dry out with thirst, torturing him by denying him his basic needs as a human being. The men
nodded, and the child hadn’t heard this because he’d already run into the cabin, and Mark left.
Mark didn’t know that his minions would do the exact opposite of what they were just told to do.
The first thing Spaulding, the first accomplice did, was to go out and get Aaron a happy meal
from Mc. Donald’s. One of Mark’s biggest mistakes in this crime was trusting his men
completely, leaving the cabin for the first time, never to return, until the boy would starve to
death, and not even calling his minions to see how the boy was suffering. He thought he was
doing this right because he shouldn’t be in contact with his minions. He thought that Aaron
would hear his voice and recognize him when the police would gather different men and ask him
who his kidnapper was, his true kidnapper, the mastermind, the bad man. The men kept feeding
the little angel until he earned half a pound in a lapse of one day.
Mark knew that Ivan was going crazy at home, wondering what had happened to his son. He
decided to call him and torment him some more.

Ivan picked up the phone, expecting a call from the kidnapper, asking for a ransom, and he’d
even gathered all the money he’d just found out that he had in the bank to pay for such ransom.
Ivan didn’t say hi or anything, he just got to the point. In the meantime, Jordan was composing
him a text message telling him that it was all over between them because she didn’t want him and
his family to keep getting hurt because of her. Besides, she could no longer sleep with a man she
was aware belonged to another woman. Ivan’s body didn’t belong to Nicole in any means, but his
heart did belong to her, and that was something that either Jordan or no other woman could fight
against. She sent the text message, but Ivan wouldn’t get it just yet. He was talking to the
kidnapper on the phone without knowing who he or she was. “Listen, I’ve got the money for the
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ransom. I’ve got 1.5 million dollars in my dining room table, in a black suitcase in front of me
right now, and if you want more, I’ll ask the bank for a loan, or ask a friend for the money, but
please, please, for the love of God, don’t hurt my little angel.”

Mark smiled. He was so wrong-wired it wasn’t even funny. To enjoy someone else’s pain was far
beyond evil. “I don’t want your money. Keep your money, Northwood.”

“So what you want is to kill my child, just like you’ve killed so many others?”

“What are you talking about? That hideous creature would be my first victim,” Mark said,
playing innocent.

“Cut the crap and give me my child back. I will give you all the money in the world, just give
him back!” Ivan felt his heart pounding in his chest. He expected anyone to turn out to be the
kidnapper, anyone but Mark Saunders. This just showed Ivan how weak and wimpy Mark was.
He couldn’t face him and fight like a real man, so he targeted his child.

“I am not giving your child back to you. I instructed my men to keep him in the cabin I took him
to and let him starve to death. You are never going to see him again. You are going to pay for
what you’ve done to me.”

“Doing all this for a couple words I said to you? Are you crazy? Why would you ever hurt a
child because someone hurt your feelings? You are wired wrong, man, you need help!”

A call came in the other line and this was Ivan’s chance to interrupt Mark’s call before Mark
would tell him that now he’d really done it and he was never going to see Aaron again because
he would take him out of this world in a much quicker, but more painful way. Crying, Ivan said,
“Hello.”

“Ivan Northwood?”

“Yes?”

“I’m just going to tell you one thing. Look out your window.”

Puzzled, Ivan hung up the phone, Mark taking this as utter disrespect and looking his cell
phone like he wanted to destroy it to take out on it all the feelings that Ivan caused him to have,
and went to his front door and started looking out the window. Those ten minutes it took him to
get from the dining room, where he’d been sitting, to the front door, were the most dolorous. He
looked out the glass part of the door where he could see the visitor before coming in. The caller
told him to look out the window because he had no idea what Ivan’s house really looked like,
and it was dark outside, so he couldn’t see the house really well. He thought that Ivan lived in the
simplest of houses just because he wasn’t a multimillionaire, and anyone with a good job could
accumulate one and a half million dollars in the bank. Ivan saw nothing but a car in the window
at first, a car that seemed black, but looked just like his. The color of the car that ruined part of
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his life played a big part on his accident because it was said that black cars would let in more
sunlight than other cars and got a lot hotter on the inside. Ivan didn’t know why, but he found out
the hard way that this was true. He didn’t know if it was because of the car or because it was
easier for his body temperature to rise than it was for other people and he would always be hot,
and need the air-conditioner to be higher than normal. However, that wasn’t the case. What
happened was the car’s fault. Black cars did let in more light than others. That’s why, when he
was left in any other color car that didn’t have air conditioner, because he felt too sleepy to walk,
get out, and go into whatever place his friends wanted to go to, he didn’t feel as hot. All it took
was for him to have one of those fans that you had to swing constantly with your hand and he
was good to go. That would keep him cool, along with keeping the windows down at all times.
Nonetheless, his friends would do everything in their power to keep their air conditioners in their
cars functioning correctly. They were the same friends Ivan had when he was younger, and they
did not want to go through that with him again. It had taken them months to get over the guilt.
Then he said, “Man, what’s this all about?” in his cell phone. “I’m not in the mood to look a
black car out the window!”
“This car is blue-green, just like yours! Man, why is this street not well lit? People can’t
go out by foot at night, really if that’s the case! Man, that’s messed up. Anyway, just wait.
Somebody’s getting ready to get out of this car right now, and it’s someone that matters to you.
He’s getting what remained of the food that we gave him.”
“Oh, my…”
“I guess I just gave you a hint. Come on, Aaron, your father’s waiting for you!”
Aaron got out of the car and ran to the front door of his father’s house, while his father opened it,
ran to him at the same time, and wrapped him in his arms, holding him tight, thinking that if he
let him go, he’d be taken away from him again. “Daddy, I love you!”
“Oh, man, I love you, too.”
The child was at home, safe, so the crooks left.
“You can finish that in the house. Come on.” They went in and Ivan closed the door behind
them.
“That’s just it,” Aaron said as they walked through the entrance hallway, “I’m full. That’s why
I didn’t finish it.”
“I don’t think junk food can really be saved for the next day just like other kinds of food can.”
He took the food from his hand. “Bella already ate, but it took her a long time to do so because
she knew you weren’t here or with Mama and Papa, but I’m going to feed this to her. As a
matter of fact,” he gave the food back to Aaron, “why don’t you take it to her?”
A few minutes later, Aaron went out the back of the house to get to Bella. Bella was lying down,
depressed, and she’d been crying since Aaron left for school. She had the feeling, somehow, that
when he left this morning, he’d never come back, and she’d literally die of misery if that had
really happened. Aaron noticed that she didn’t see him, so he called out to her. “Bella! Bella!
It’s me, Aaron! I brought you something to eat! Come on, Bella!” It was a whole whopper meal,
for adults, of which Aaron had only taken one bite. He couldn’t eat anymore because the men
had contradicted Mark’s orders and overdone it, too, feeding him all day. As he walked to Bella,
Bella got up and started running to him. When she got to him, she jumped on him. “Whoa!” he
screamed.
Ivan had to go outside to make sure Bella wouldn’t trample Aaron. He ran, slightly, to get to
them a little faster.
Bella started licking his hands, and the food was in the bag, beside her. Luckily it didn’t wind up
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scattered on the floor, inedible. Laughing, Aaron said, “Come on, let me get up! Your food’s
right there.”
“Take it easy, Bella,” Ivan said, petting her, and undid the wrap from the burger for her, and then
scattered the fries on top of the bag the food came on. Bella calmed down, but deep inside, she
was still thrilled to the point of dying of joy because Aaron was back. This time, Aaron wouldn’t
get away from both his homes until he were eighteen. They all planned to enjoy his company and
everything he had to offer in the meantime.
Bella ate the food in a matter of minutes. The next thing Ivan knew, the whole Northwood,
Ainsworth, Haynes, Garcia, and Thornhart families, they parked their vans on the front of Ivan’s
house. They used their biggest vans so that they didn’t have to use so many cars, carpooling in
different groups, and to those that didn’t have vans, Daniel had bought one for each one of them,
for the whole family, so they could carpool more often, and as always, they didn’t have to pay
Daniel back for the cars. Daniel would spend money when he needed it, and every time he would
do it, it would be anywhere from ten thousand to a hundred thousand dollars in one blow.
Nevertheless, that was chump change for him because his company would only get more
powerful every day that went by, and he would get richer.
Everybody got out of the car and started looking for Ivan and Aaron. One of Ivan’s neighbors
called Langston and told him that his nephew was brought back and that’s how everyone ended
up here. For a minute they thought that something horrible had happened to Aaron and Ivan was
in the hospital with him. They panicked until Langston called Ivan. They even failed to notice
how calm and collected, and happy Langston was. If they had been right about what they thought,
Langston would’ve had a breakdown and would’ve been under a Baker Act. They were shocked
when Langston said, “Hey, man, how are you doing? Ooh, why you sound so close?”
Walking back to the back door of the house, Ivan said, smiling, “Aaron and I are in the backyard
feeding Bella.”
“Feeding Bella? Didn’t you already feed her? I know how careful you are with that.”
Ivan hung up the phone and in a matter of minutes, he approached his brother and hugged him.
“I know, but the bastards that kidnapped my baby boy fed him like there was no tomorrow, and
the last whopper meal they bought for him, Bella had to eat that because he was way too full.
Langston looked down at his nephew while Bryce hugged his cousin and didn’t want to
let go of him. Then he got on his knees and Aaron said, “They were instructed not to give me
anything, absolutely anything, to eat or drink, and from the moment Mark left, they fed me like
there was no tomorrow. I’m tired of feeling full. I never told them I was full because I thought
they’d kill me if I refused to eat all the food.”
“They didn’t lay their hands on you.”
“No, they didn’t. They said that if I was a man, they’d tortured me, but they don’t mess with
women or children. That’s why Mark hates them, because they don’t hurt women…”
Langston cut him off. “I know what you mean.”
“And they don’t beat up children. They say women and children are sacred.”
“If Mark wanted them to do the full Monty to his victims, why doesn’t he just fire their asses?”
“Because he’s stupid.”
“You know, dear nephew, you’re smart.”
“Yes,” said Bryce, “you’re awesome. I love you. My world would’ve been destroyed if we had
lost you. This family would’ve forever been left incomplete.”
The people couldn’t help shedding tears.
The cousins hugged. Then, Bryce asked, “Hey, Dad, would you please ask my parents if I can
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spend the night with my cousin tonight?”

“Actually, they told me that you needed to spend some time with your cousin
because of what happened to him today, so yes, you’re spending the night. I came to
know how everything was going, but overall, I came to leave you here with your cousin.
Your adopted parents, your mother, her cousin lives next door, and they’re coming over
to that house with her cousin, to spend the night and keep an eye on you.”
“Bet you they’re not going to be able to sleep over there and they’ll wind up spending the
night here.”
“No problem,” Ivan said. “There’s more than enough room here. Of the four
bedrooms in this house, only two are occupied.”
“So you’re basically inviting them in, Uncle Ivan.”
“Why not? I’d love to have the people who are raising you as my guests, Bryce!” Ivan said,
holding his nephew’s hand. “As a matter of fact, I am going to call them up right now, tell them
they can spend the night here because Fridda’s got her three kids in the house and they’ll be
kind of uncomfortable. I don’t want Little Fridda, Willow or Omar to have to sleep on the couch
tonight.”
“Oh, God…”
“I know they’re a little overprotective of you, Langston told me, but that will stop when you turn
fifteen or sixteen, trust me. By then, you’ll only depend on them financially.”
“You don’t know my parents.”
“Better yet! I can get to know them and we’ll drink hot chocolate together,
and crackers, and we will have fun.” He opted to send them a text message inviting
him to spend the night at his house instead of Fridda’s so they could be even closer
to Bryce, almost right next to him. “I’ll send you to the room farthest away so you
can sleep without having to put up with our nonsense, ok?”
“I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t like them protecting me and watching
over me all the time,” Bryce said as he followed his uncle to the kitchen. “That’s
what parents are supposed to do, but sometimes it’s a little too much. They want to
know where I am, in the house, and what I’m doing, at all times. They smother me.”
“And it may get worse with what happened to my son,” Ivan replied.
“Oh, God, it’s like you’re putting a curse upon me. Look, Uncle Ivan, before they get here, I am
going to take this chance to let it all out and say all the things that I can’t say in front of them,
not because they get angry or punish me, ‘cause they don’t—but because they feel like cow dung
afterwards, and I don’t like it when they feel sad because of me.”
“So, they don’t ground you or yell at you.”
“Me or my brother. They only get angry when we disobey them or when we hide
things from them, but other than that, they don’t scold us or ground us for speaking
our minds. They actually encourage us to tell them how we feel. My mom kept her anger
in for my dad once and she thought she’d gotten over it, but then one day when they
argued, she started reproaching him for it…”
“…Quite the vocabulary you’ve got there.”
“I read a lot, especially at home. Mom and Dad always rents books for us at
the local library. I love reference books most of all. My mom bought us each a dictionary
and a thesaurus, for kids our ages of course. We could read by age three, and that’s
why we were always ahead of the other kids in class, not because we were smarter, but
because by the time they were just learning to read, we’d read it all, except adult
and teenage books of course.”
“Maybe you are smarter. Have you guys ever gotten an IQ test?”
“Yes, we did when we started kindergarten. We took some kind of test and that was weird
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because we hadn’t even started school yet. A test before starting school? I don’t understand
that.”
“That was some kind of assessment test, to evaluate your skills and exactly where you were.
That was an IQ test I think. Do you remember what you and your brother scored?”
“Brody scored 130 and I scored 132, but we don’t know what that test is. Even so, he got jealous
because I scored better than him.”
“Such IQ tests were quite uncommon, especially when it comes to children your
age. They were measuring your level of intelligence. Maybe in the back of his mind,
Brody knows that you’re a wee bit smarter than him, according to the IQ test, but in
reality, that’s not true. Just because someone scores better than you on a test doesn’t
mean they are smarter or better than you. Remember that. It might mean that they
concentrated more, than…” Bryce was recording Ivan’s words on a voice recording, on
his phone, for Brody to listen to, from the moment they started talking about him.
“Usual or maybe they studied more, you know what I mean? Sometimes a lower score
indicates that you didn’t study, and that’s why you didn’t do well. It doesn’t mean
you’re dumber than anybody else.”
“Thank you, Uncle Ivan.”
“Scores are just scores, and most of the time, they indicate nothing. They only mean something
when you are at school or at the doctor’s office. People stress and get depressed over nothing.
That’s why mental illness is so rampant, because most people drown in a glass of water. Ever
since my son’s life was on the line, I’ve learned not to fuss about the small things.” He was
serving himself a drink of fruit-punch juice. Bryce stopped the recording and sent the voice
message to Brody’s cell phone. Big Brody taught them how to use all the features of the phone
before letting them start to use it. That way they wouldn’t buy something online by accident or
do something that was even worse without knowing it. “If I drop a glass of milk on the floor, do
you think I’ll fret? No. I will pick up all the glass in a dust pan, throw it in the trash, the glass,
and then I will take my mop and clean the floor. I won’t be like, ‘Oh, my god’…” he said the
last thing imitating a little girl.
Bryce laughed.
“No. We have to stop that, you know? That’s called crying over spilled milk.
No one in their right mind cries over spilled milk, not even if they’ve run out of
milk after dropping the glass. They just go to the store and get more milk. Simple
as that. They have no money? Go over to your neighbor’s house and ask for milk.”
“What if your neighbor’s mean or just plain greedy?”
“Well, you tell them thank you very much even if they gave you nothing and you go over to your
next neighbor’s house and ask for milk, and if you have to walk through the whole
neighborhood, do it. You got legs. If your legs don’t work right, you got a wheelchair. There’s
always someone who’s willing to give you some milk, or sugar, or anything you need at the
moment.” They walked back to the dining room and Ivan was drinking his juice. “I think you
should know, little guy, that not everybody’s greedy or mean, or just ill-hearted. There are good
people in this world, and they’re not as hard to find as you might think. Can you imagine what
this world would be like if there were no good people left?”
“It would suck a trashcan.”
Ivan laughed a little. “Exactly.” There was a knock at the door and everyone that was at
the house right now, including Langston, but except Bryce, was ready to leave, and they left
within the next few minutes. Then, Brody and Rebecca Haynes walked in. As much as he
complained about their overprotection toward him, their son, Bryce, walked up to them and gave
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him a hug. When they were not close to him, he felt that he didn´t really need them around, that
he was a big boy and he could do everything on his own, but when they were close to him, he
didn´t mind them overprotecting him at all. They were just so sweet and caring, and the fact that
they treated him like this although he wasn´t their biological son, that made him appreciate them
more. Just like he promised, Ivan invited them to the dining room and they waited for Ivan to
make them some hot chocolate, but he didn´t make it the easy way. He actually broke chocolate
bars, specially made for hot chocolate, into pieces, and then he heated that, added milk, and
made three big-mug servings of hot chocolate. Ivan didn’t make one for his nephew Bryce
because Rebecca and Brody were concerned that it would make the child hyper and unable to
sleep at night, although chocolate had never made him hyper in the near or far past. Brody and
Rebecca were told not too long ago, by the doctor, that chocolate would make their son, Junior,
hyper, and they automatically assumed that this happened to all children. That’s why they forbid
their children to eat or drink chocolate, but they had found a good alternative for this—fruit
candies and fruit snacks, although they didn’t eat much fruit candy. They preferred real fruit. It
was a much healthier, much more delicious snack. Granted, fruit contains starches, but these
children would jog, run, exercise a lot after doing their homework, and they would play
basketball all the time outside their house, on their driveway, and then all the children from the
neighborhood would come and join them. They sat down at the dining room table, big mugs of
chocolate served. Marshmallows on top would make the chocolate sweeter.
“So, you recently reunited with your brother, Langston,” Brody said. “How does that
feel?”
“The only brother I had was Emmanuel, and he couldn’t be there for me most of
the time because he’s always so busy. He can’t take calls at his workplace because
he’d be fired, and when I text him with an emergency he won’t receive it because he
has to turn off the phone, so the other day I fell in the bathroom again, texted him
about it, and he didn’t respond. Then I remembered that the hospital, you know, the
newest phones interfere with their medical equipment, and that’s why my brother,
Emmanuel, he just can’t…you know?”
“Now you have several siblings you can count on at all times.”
“Exactly. My twin, Langston, he works at a company. He’s the founder, creator and head. He
can do anything he wants when he wants to do it, so when I need him, he takes my call and then
he storms out no matter what he’s doing. He’s always got someone to back him up.”
“And that someone is…?”
“My brother Norman.”
“Oh, so Norman takes over when Langston has to leave.”
“Exactly.”
“Did you call him to come and help you that day you fell for the millionth time?” said Rebecca.
“Oh, yes, he did.”
“Did you hit your head?”
“No, but I hurt my foot and my leg pretty fucking bad.”
Rebecca and Brody laughed.
“I’m serious, before that day I hadn’t cursed in years, and that day I said all the
dirty words and repeated them a million times. Man, and then all the neighbors were left saying
what a potty mouth I’d turned out to be. I was so embarrassed, but my injuries were a pain in the
rear end, man! What the heck was I supposed to do?”
“Oh, yes,” Rebecca said, “I remember now. Fridda called me and told me that her
decorated and prissy next-door neighbor turned out to be a real potty mouth when everybody
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thought that he was sweet and charming. She said she thought you lost something important to
you and you couldn’t find it anywhere, or probably one of your visitors stole money from you,
but I never thought you’d fallen that day, and neither did Fridda.”
“I would’ve called her to come help me up if I hadn’t been naked.”
“Yes, I know, I know, no one but your ex-girlfriends has seen you naked, and your parents of
course, when you were a baby, and your biological parents never spent time with you, until your
father did so, recently,” commented Brody, “but you know, shit happens.”
“Yes, tell me about it. Langston is a great guy. His days as a wife-beater are officially over.
Diana says that no matter how heated their arguments are, he never even screams at her. He
never insults her. He tries to prove he’s right because that part of him will never go away, you
know? Langston Ainsworth will never relent, but at the same time, he tries to be as respectful as
he can. Diana’s the one that screams. Any other man would walk away when hitting his
woman’s not an option, but he stands or sits there to listen to what she has to say when he can’t
convince her that he’s right. Then, when she’s done screaming, he tells her what he thinks. If he
can’t convince her she’ll lock herself in her room for hours, and instead of leaving her alone, he
goes after her, tries to calm her down, and that’s because he thinks anger is not good for you.
Look at where his anger has taken him, I mean, it’s turned him into a monster. He doesn’t want
the same thing to happen to his loved ones. It’s never good to hold in anger or sadness.
Eventually your heart will explode.”
“What happens when he goes after her and she doesn’t want to talk to him?” asked Rebecca out
of curiosity.
“Whatever it is you guys do when you are not mad at each other or when you’re just feeling
romantic.”
“Oh, so it always ends…don’t go into the details.”
“I won’t. I don’t like talking about other people’s sex lives, not even my own. I think that what
happens in the bedroom should stay in the bedroom and any private act should stay private,
forever. My friends are always talking to me about their sex lives, but I don’t talk to them about
mine. I really don’t want to hear it but I don’t want to shut them out either because then they’ll
think I can’t be talked to, so I just put up with it, you know? What the heck?”
“What do you do when they ask for advice?” asked Brody, curious, and then turned to look at
Rebecca for a few seconds.
Ivan cleared his throat. “When one of my friends tells me his wife is angry with him, and
he doesn’t know what to do to make her happy again, you know, give way to reconciliation, I say,
‘buy her flowers’, ‘buy her chocolate’, or those that are not middle-class but hang out with
middle-class guys like me, I say to them, ‘buy her some diamonds’. When they ask me for sex
advice, I say, ‘watch a porn movie, I’m not getting into that because we’re talking about your
wife, man!’ Although the man would imagine him and his wife in the dirty dancing and the dirty
acrobatics, I would feel really uncomfortable talking to him about his wife.”
It was then that Rebecca and Brody Haynes figured out what a wonderful man Ivan
Northwood was. He was so moral, rigid, old-fashioned, and strict, so much like them that it
scared them. This was the uncle, the family member that they wanted their son to be around. He
would give them a great example, and the mistakes that he’d made, for the first time in his life,
wouldn’t mess that up.

****
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Cousins Bryce and Aaron were talking in Aaron’s room. They wouldn’t go to sleep in the same
room, but they had to talk. “So, how do you feel after being kidnapped?”
“They didn’t torture me or make me starve, like their boss wanted them to, but
it still feels weird. I mean they went as far as getting a car just like my dad’s to
make me think that it was my dad picking me up, and not a total stranger. When I got
into their car and realized that my dad was nowhere to be found in that car, I felt
so scared. I thought I’d never see my family again.”
“We thought we’d never see you again, either. We cried like never before when we found
out you’d been kidnapped. It was a miracle that we got you back. Since I don’t have a brother
from my dad yet, you’re the only real brother I have. My brother Brody, since we’re not really
related, he can stop loving me and get out of my life whenever he wants to, but the bond between
blood siblings is forever. No matter how hard they try, my future younger siblings will never be
able to get away from me. Like they say, blood calls.”
“Nah, I really don’t think Brody will ever turn his back on you. He loves you too much. I
checked out your phone and saw the text messages he leaves you. He’s sleeping in the family
room and texting you from there.”
“Yes, he’s really sweet, but what if one day, all that changes?”
Aaron went to the doorway to go to his room to sleep. “It won’t, Bryce. Trust me on this.
Brody loves you. He’s not the kind of person who would stop loving somebody in the blink of an
eye. When Brody loves somebody, anybody, it’s for real. We haven’t been introduced yet
because when he and your parents got here, he was drained, but from the text messages he sends
you, he loves you very much. He’s always telling you how awesome you are, and he’s a great
guy. Ok, man, I have to go to sleep. I will see you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow, man, Bryce said, and they laughed their butts off. They sounded like their
dads. Minutes later, everyone went to sleep.

Chapter 13
Fed up with Jordan and Ivan’s humiliation, Mark decided to execute the plan he’d been working
on for days. Seeing that his attempt to destroy little Aaron failed, Mark is at it again, and this
time, he kidnaps Nicole. Nicole is walking out of the computer store after getting a
battery-replacement for her laptop, and she walked to the car and just when she was about to get
in, two men grab her from behind, gagging her with their hands, and force her to get into a blue
van. Since it's dark, eight o'clock at night, the crooks thought that no one saw their tag. They
were wrong. A seventy-seven-year-old, Puerto Rican, adorable lady, who had just been in the
office-supply store right by that computer store, and since there were no parking spots in front of
the office-supply store, she had to park in front of the computer store. She was in this place to
buy some printer paper for her handicapped granddaughter, saw everything, and although she
wasn't very tech-savvy, she picked up her granddaughter's digital camera, which she had turned
on by accident by forcing the box of the paper onto the power button, as the camera sat in the
back seat, she saw the camera was still on, had been on for about five minutes, and just like her
granddaughter had taught her while they were playing with the camera and exploring and using
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its different features, she took a picture of the car, using the flash, and the car's tag was clearly
visible in the picture. As the crooks took Nicole away, to a journey of no return, the woman got
in her car, placed the camera on her passenger's seat, and drove away from the store in a matter
of minutes. She was distraught. She didn't know what to think. She'd just witnessed the
kidnapping of a beautiful, promising, bright young woman, and she was crying. She hated
injustice, and to watch people hurt other innocent people. It broke her heart so bad that suddenly,
she lost focus, didn't know what she was doing, and just when she was about to drive down a
bridge and drown, two more men intercepted her. She heard their voices and noticed they were
men drivers. She thought it was the crooks, driving other cars to fool her and wind up kidnapping
her, too, to kill her eventually. The two men approached her and one of them knocked on her
window. She noticed they looked nothing like those assholes. She let the window down. She
would have trouble telling them what just happened because she didn't speak English.
"Lady," Ethan said, lovingly, a handsome, brawny, black, straight-haired, blue eyed,
thirty-two-year-old, divorced father of three, "didn't you see what you were about to do? You
almost drove your station wagon down the bridge! Where would you be now if we hadn't been in
the area? If you're upset, you probably shouldn't drive. We're young. Yet, when we're upset like
you are right now, we don't drive. We pull over, take a few minutes to calm down, and get back
on the road. What's wrong? You need help?"
Not knowing what else to do, she just handed him the camera, still crying, while Ethan's
brother, Bradley, gave her a big hug. She must've been very well-groomed because she didn't
smell like an old lady. She would always smell nice, always preoccupied with her personal
hygiene, always dressed up, showering twice a day with the best soaps and washing her hair with
the best shampoo. She would also wear the best-smelling perfumes by the world's masters of
fragrances, like Elizabeth Arden. "Awww," Bradley said, saddened, not being able to help crying,
"it's ok, just tell us what's wrong."
"Hey, Brad, check this out," Ethan said, scared to death, and Brad looked at the camera
Ethan had in his hand. She took a perfect picture of a blue van and its tag, and you can see
something going on right beside that van, like people fighting. I can't see the people's faces, but it
seems like someone is struggling with two more people because they're trying to force that
person to get into a van."
Justina didn't notice that while she was taking the picture. She thought she'd just seen the
blue van captured by the camera before taking the shot.
"Someone's being kidnapped in this picture. The photo spoke a thousand words for the
lady, literally. We have to go to the police and take the lady with us. There is always at least one
police officer that speaks Spanish at the station. Come on. Let's put the lady in our car and go."
Bradley spoke the little words in Spanish he'd learned about the specific situation they
were in. Struggling a lot with the language, he managed to say, "La vamos a llevar a la policia
para que haga el reporte, ok?"
"Policia, si, si..." she said, feeling somewhat relieved, but she couldn't help imagining
what Nicole was going through at the hands of those men.

****

Forty=five minutes later, Justina was at the police station, and her report of this crime was almost
finished. She had even submitted the proof she had, the photo that would put Mark's accomplices
in jail for at least the next forty years. When the police found out who was the mastermind of this
crime, Mark would go and make them company, probably, and he would get sixty years in prison,
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just for being the mastermind.

Meanwhile, Nicole was going through the most terrifying moment of her life, even more
terrifying than when Ashley used to beat her. The two men that kidnapped her didn't dare to do
anything to hurt her, so they left her alone in that abandoned cabin with Mark. They didn't do
anything to defend her because Mark told them he would kill them. These wouldn't be Mark's
first murders. In his twenty-seven years of life, Mark had killed over ten people, and every one of
them was interfering with his plans to get things he wanted. After beating her senseless and
causing pain in her entire body, breaking a few bones, but not breaking any ribs or her spine,
otherwise if he raped her, like he planned to do, she wouldn't feel anything, Mark spoke some
words to her. He would've loved to leave her incapacitated for the rest of her life so he could
enslave her, but he wanted her to suffer and feel everything that he was doing to her, and if he
made her paralyzed from the waist down, she would probably lose sensation from the waist
down, too, and that was the last thing he wanted. "Hey, Nicole, I hope you know this is nothing
personal." He'd hit her everywhere but her face because her face was, according to his words,
'too beautiful to be damaged in any way'. "You've never done anything to me, and I know that, at
least on the surface, this is beyond unfair."
Nicole was gagged, but she couldn't stop crying, and she was about to choke on her own
mucus and her own tears because it was building up. He hadn't gagged her with a piece of cloth,
but rather with an artifact that resembled a doctor's surgery mask, and it was tight. He didn't
know he was about to kill her before getting what he wanted from her.
"Your best friend, Ivan Northwood, he messed with me. He took the one thing that I had
always wanted, and had had, and lost. I wanted my girl back. He took her, not because he had
sex with her because when we're separated, she can fuck whoever she wants. Problem was that
when he stopped fucking her, because she was too loyal to Ashley, Aubrey, and you, ok? And
she knew that although you've never touched him, Ivan's really your man, ok? Well, when they
stopped fucking, he made damn sure that I couldn't even come close to her again. He took away
every chance I had to get her back. He proved to her that I was a cheater and I wasn't as loyal to
her as I seemed to be. He PROVED to her that I was sleeping around BEFORE I dumped her to
be able to sleep around and then come back to her when I was tired of doing so."
Nicole shook her head. What an ass.
"She understood that I am completely incapable and unwilling to be faithful and loyal to
any woman and she decided that she would not give me a chance because she's twenty-seven and
sick and tired of casual relations. She wants the real deal. A man who will fall in love with her
deeply enough to take her to the altar, adopt her child, (like I would let that happen), raise the
child as his own, which as badly as I don't want it to happen, is going to happen because after I
beat her up she placed a permanent restraining order against me--and love her and cherish her for
all eternity. Problem is that Jordan is the kind of woman that ANY man would do that for. Any
man, Nicole, no hyperbole. All the men that Jordan Polo's ever had has stayed in love with her.
Although her two ex boyfriends are married now, and they have babies, they still hold her dear in
their hearts. She's unforgettable, the kind of person that would leave a mark on your heart forever,
and if you lose her, that mark is a scar. That's why I am doing this to you."
Nicole's tears couldn't stop flowing.
"I am not doing this to hurt you, but to hurt him. I know it sounds banal, but it's true. You
are never going to be able to forget me. I'm going to leave scars in your heart, too, not physically,
thus I would kill you, and although that would be great, and would hurt Ivan even more, you're
too beautiful to be killed. You're one of those adorable women that should only die of old age. I
 156

love you, Nicole. I really do. I just can't shake this desire of revenge. It overwhelms me. It
consumes me, and it won't stop eating at me until Ivan Northwood is beaten down and destroyed
in a way, that this time, he won't be able to get up. He'll stay down! He just can't stand someone
hurting someone that he loves. I remember the hours of anguish I put him through when I
kidnapped his son. The sons of bitches that kidnapped him and you let him go and they even
took him back home to his daddy. How cute. That's why Ivan decided not to put them behind
bars. Big mistake! He didn't think I'd give them another chance to prove themselves to me!"
But right now the men, sick and tired of being used to hurt innocent people, they'd given
their statements to the police, confessing to the kidnapping, they were incarcerated and waiting
to be transported to prison. They'd told Officer Nieves where they took Nicole and Officer
Nieves and all the police were on their way to that damned cabin. Officer Nieves knew where the
cabin was because the cabin that Nicole and Mark were in wasn't abandoned, like Mark had
thought. The cabin where Officer Nieves and his wife, Mildred Nieves would relax in, every
weekend, was right behind it! And all it took was for the men to describe the physical
appearance of the cabin Mark was using, to a tee. They were only ten minutes from arriving
there because Mark's crooks went to the police as soon as they left the cabin, and that cabin
wasn't very far from the police station. That was the big mistake that Mark made. He was always
talking about how dumb other people were and the stupid mistakes they'd make, but he didn't
realize even for a minute that he wasn't so smart this time. He should've taken her out of the state,
so that by the time that police reached her, it would be way too late.
Mark got tired of talking to his victim and proceeded to rip her clothes off and free her
from her gag because he thought no one would hear her anyway, which no one would, if the
police weren't on their way. Five minutes away, and everything was against Mark because there
was nothing that could stop them. They were going there, not only by car, but also by helicopter,
because the victim was directly connected to Daniel Thornhart and having a friendship with him,
like a father-daughter relationship, and when Daniel Thornhart was involved, everyone in the
police had to take action. Daniel wasn't making any contributions to the city, but he was so loved
and respected that everyone in the country would give an arm and a leg for him if they had to.
Although he tried to hide his good deeds, going by the Bible, which said to try your best not to
do your good deeds in front of anyone, in another form, everyone knew the things he had done
because the people whose lives he'd changed spread the word.
Just when Mark was about to violate Nicole after kissing her on the lips, Nicole couldn't
stand the notion of this man taking her, and that, combined with the disgust she felt after being
forced to swallow her mucus to avoid choking on it, her stomach couldn't take it anymore and
she threw up until only her stomach acids could be seen, just the way that Ivan described Jordan
throwing up at the thought or sight of Mark. Mark remembered Ivan's words and started crying.
He was too sad to get angry at Nicole for throwing up all over him. He thought he would try it
again, because he wouldn't gag her like that again, until...
Three police officers knocked down the door and screamed, "Mark Saunders, you're
under arrest for the kidnapping of Nicole Ward!" and read him his Miranda rights. Instantly, the
other police officers untied Nicole. Ivan was there to see how his friend was doing. and he cried
like he never had when he saw her in this state, naked from the waist up and covered with blood.
He ran up to her and gave her a hug. She was silent, disgusted, and she had absolutely no
strength. She was covered in her own vomit, but he didn't care. She could be covered in any
substance, no matter how sickening, and he'd sick hug her, and never let her go.

****
 157

Ivan thought that Nicole was going to die. The reality was that her injuries weren't horrible
enough to even endanger her life, and all those injuries could cause was incapacitation, rendering
her unable to get out of bed in days. Minutes later, doctors let him know this, and Nicole's entire
family, even Ashley, thus seeing what had happened, and thinking that the three of them would
never be together again, Aubrey lifted the prohibition that she'd been given to contact her and
Nicole. Still, Ivan realized that while he and Nicole were physically separated most of the time,
he couldn't be with her or track her down at all times, and he wouldn't be able to protect her.
They had to live together, but Nicole would only agreed to that if they got married. Granted, Ivan
would never control his woman. He'd never tell her where to go or what to do, or who to be with,
but every time his woman would go out, he would use the GPS on his cell phone or some
program on his computer to localize her and make sure she was at a place where she wouldn't get
hurt. He would tell this to every woman he knew he was going to be romantically-involved with
before the relationship would start, and the woman would always tell him that she didn't care,
and some women would even tell him that they appreciated him doing this because that was what
a real man would do, make sure his woman was all right, and protect her from every possible
threat. In return, they would do this for him, but secretly, because they thought he was
chauvinistic and old-fashi0ned. By the time they found out the truth about Ivan, their
relationships with him had long ended, and all of them would think that they'd lost the best man
they'd ever had, but it was too late to appreciate who he was and overlook what they saw as a
defect. Ivan had only had a few flings, but he'd had several serious relationships, that would
never work out because of his disability, because these women thought they were better off with
a 'healthy' man.
Ivan called a priest to see if he would marry him and Nicole. Nicole had gone too far
away from him, and before this would happen again, and he would lose her, he had to seal the
deal. The priest didn't have any weddings pending for tonight, so he might as well go marry this
couple at the hospital. Nicole also expressed her wish to marry Ivan because she also reckoned
that he'd slipped away from her. With every punch, every smack from Mark, and every kick, she
saw her possibilities of seeing her loved ones again become more and more minimal. This man
was too big, too strong, just as strong as Ivan, and he thought that just touching a woman rough
would cause serious injury, let alone punch and kick her. The angels must've been watching over
her because something gave her the strength to stand the outrageous physical abuse. She knew
she was tougher than she thought, she was a survivor. She'd survived her sister's beatings and
now the beatings of these men, making her think she was invincible. She could still walk, she
could still shine, and only death could finish her. She was shocked when she saw the priest
coming into her room several minutes later.
For a minute there, she thought that doctors had lied to her and she was going to die. She
became scared for the millionth time today.
"Congratulations," said Father Mullen. "I've come to marry you with Ivan Northwood.
No one knew you were really in love."
She gasped.
Ivan came in.
"Are you serious?"
"Yes."
Crying, she said, "...And I wished to be married to him. God must be listening. Now I
know how much He loves me. I also thought that you came here for me to have forgiveness for
 158

my sins before dying."

"Oh, no," Father Mullen said, smiling. "You think I'd be so happy if that were the case?"
She smiled.
"Shall we start?"
The words that were usually said in a wedding were said tonight. The vows of love were
made, and the groom and the bride shared a kiss on the cheek. The ceremony lasted for ninety
minutes, but it could've gone on forever because Nicole and Ivan were so full of joy they thought
their hearts would explode. Nicole recovered in the hospital for the next five days, and when she
no longer felt pain in her insides, and minimal pain on the outside of her body, she was given the
ok to go home, with medication for her pain.

****

A party was thrown to celebrate Nicole's survival and safe return home. Ivan was the one to open
the door for her. Everybody was amazed that Nicole could still walk like she did before she was
kidnapped. They thought that her legs and her spine were broken and that the doctors were
hiding this from them. Nicole hugged everyone, happy to be here, in Ivan's house, but now, she
was here to stay. She was the owner of this house, too. She was his wife. Ivan put her in the title
of his house, below his name, the day after they got married. He knew that they would be
married for the rest of their lives because, just like he'd done with all of the women in his past, he
was going to do anything and everything to keep her forever, and so was she. She always thought
that at this age, she wasn't ready to have any kind of relationship, she’d gotten married. If it
happened now, that meant that she was ready for everything, marriage, children, and everything
else. You couldn’t fight against fate. When you found the one and you had the chance to hold on
to him, you just couldn’t let him go. That’s the realization that Nicole came to. She was tired
tonight. She’d gotten home at eight forty-five, and she needed to sleep. She ate everything they
had, not watching her portions or the kinds of food she was eating, for the first time in her whole
life. She ate pizza, her favorite, supreme, no side dishes, she drank Coca Cola, and had no dessert,
but something way on the back of her mind caused her to reflect on the amount of pizza she was
eating and she only had three small slices, along with one can of Coca Cola, and she didn’t think
she had any room in her stomach for dessert. Not too long ago, she saw a medical reality show
where, in that particular episode, there was a dramatization of a patient that had had a little too
much to eat and filled his stomach to the point where it literally exploded, and the substances in
the food contaminated his system, killing him in a matter of minutes. They showed him at the
morgue, and his stomach had been surgically removed for further examination, to know exactly
how much food a man with this size stomach could hold, and the man’s stomach was not big,
either. In fact, his stomach was smaller than normal compared to a man his age because he was
skinny. This scared the daylights out of Nicole, and caused her to be even more conscious of
what she ate and how much of it. However, tonight was the night to be free from all her fears and
inhibitions. If she’d cheated death days before, it was because she had to enjoy life, before she
would lose it. She’d kept herself from too many things that were great and pleasant, but that
wouldn’t cause her harm or have negative consequences on her life, things like good food,
parties, and romance, old-fashioned romance, of course, something she’d enjoyed with Holden.
When they were together, they did everything except making love. She’d kissed Holden’s lips,
but she didn’t feel the exhilaration and joy a woman would feel when she kissed a man because
it wasn’t Holden’s lips she wanted to kiss, but Ivan’s. In reality, they were testing the waters.
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They didn’t think they would go anywhere together, and they didn’t. Yes, Holden was gorgeous
beyond words, and no woman could resist him. This was really true. Of all the woman he’d
dated, Nicole was the only one who didn’t sleep with him. However, he didn’t intend to
conquer her, just to make her experience the thrill of a man’s company and attention, even if he
didn’t touch her. Holden moved on. He found someone else, but this time, after kissing around
ten different flowers, he’d found the love of his life. It was Amelia Lavigne, the woman that got
into a verbal showdown with Alex Bell not too long ago. Amelia was twenty years old. She was
a natural blonde and had blue eyes. She didn’t exactly have the body of a model, just the body of
your average girl, not to skinny, not too fat, and her belly wasn’t flat by any means, although she
didn’t have that much fat on her mid section either, just enough to make her belly not so firm
anymore. She wasn’t exactly thin-framed either, just normal, but there was something about
Amelia that all the guys loved, her model smile, the same kind of smile Nicole had, mesmerizing.
Amelia’s paternal grandparents were French and that was the reason for her French last name.
Holden and Amelia were out right now, at the movies, watching a horror movie together. Holden
never let these movies scare him since he was a child, but now, the movie was so horrifying that,
as an adult, he was wetting his pants. Soon enough, with sheer fright in his face, he had to go to
the bathroom, leaving Amelia there with no one to ease her fear. Nonetheless, Amelia stayed to
see how much more mental torture she could take, and physical torture, too, because she was
starting to feel sick in the stomach. The horror and the gore were just too much. She had to leave.
She did.

****

The morning after, while Holden and Amelia swore off horror movies, because of the
traumatizing experience they had, Ivan was getting up from bed to make some breakfast. He’d
just slept with his wife in his bed for the first time, slept as in closing his eyes and snoring. When
it came to the other sense of the word, in order for him to do that, he was waiting for her to start
something with him. That way he’d know she was no longer afraid. He would always wait until
the woman initiated something with him. That way, he would be sure that she wanted him, and
there would be no hesitation or confusion. After taking a shower and dressing in his casual
clothes for the day, Ivan stepped out of the room, thinking Nicole was still sleeping. She was
right behind him, right hand on her right hip, leaning to the doorway. “Hi.”
He turned around. He was nervous. He didn’t want to do something that would displease
him, not even something good that wouldn’t turn out like she expected it to. “Ok, I want you to
give me ideas for a healthy breakfast I can make you. I have no clue. All I know for breakfast is
pancakes, hash browns, bacon and eggs, and sausage, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, the good old
cold cereal, hot cereal, coffee…”
“Don’t beat yourself up over something so unimportant,” she said, laughing sweetly and giving
him a hug. I can eat anything for breakfast as long as it’s in small portions, and I can’t be
eating…pancakes every day, for example. Every day, I have to have something different. To give
you an idea of how my meals are, ok: Monday, I eat cold cereal for breakfast, any kind of cold
cereal, with low fat milk, one percent milk fat. Tuesday, I eat hot cereal. I like all kinds of hot
cereal except porridge. Porridge is disgusting. Wednesday, I have bacon, sausage and eggs.
Friday, I have a sandwich, lean meat, like ham, and then cheese, wheat bread. If I ate oatmeal on
Tuesday, I will have cornmeal on Saturday, and on Sunday, I’ll have oatmeal. I just don’t like it
too thick. It makes me gag when it’s too thick.”
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“Got it. It’s not hard to memorize all that,” he said, clearing his throat, and then turned around
to walk the hallway all the way to the kitchen, second attempt of this.
“Wait!” she said, when he was far away from her, almost at the end of the long, wide hallway,
and he turned around and walked right back into the room. “Yes?”
She walked to the bed and sat on the side of it. “Aren’t you going to give me a little kiss?”
He walked closer to her. “What kind of kiss do you want?”
“Always asking for specifics, aren’t you?”
“Sure.”
“Always making sure your loved ones get exactly what they want, huh?” she said, smiling,
looking at him, with sweet, inviting eyes, her eyes brighter than ever. Being close to him was
pure joy, just knowing he was there with her, closer to her than ever. She knew she was the kind
of man a woman could do with him whatever she wanted to, and she wanted to play a game,
simple, but dangerous game. “I like that.”
“You do?” he said, getting on his knees and wrapping his arms around her waist. “Here you
were, always playing the sweet, shy one.”
“People change, you know? It doesn’t mean that I’ve become Jezebel overnight, just that I am
suddenly not so uptight, so rigid and hard on myself anymore. I’m always thinking twice, and
then twice more, and then twice more, before doing something as simple as eating an apple, until
I wind up thinking it over a thousand times, literally, and in the end, I don’t even touch the damn
apple. That’s going to stop. From now on, I am only going to think twice when signing a piece
of paper, or giving something that ‘s important to me for someone, like a car or something, you
know, big life-decisions like that, but doing simple things? No. I am not going to hesitate. From
now on, when I want to do something, and I know it’s not going to hurt me or anybody else, I
am going to get on with it, and to hell with the world.”
They laughed together for a few moments. “That was the woman I wanted to see. You remember
you were always talking to me about, ‘should I eat this bag of potato chips or not?’ and it was a
little one, the smallest bag of potato chips, from our vending machine. I would ask, ‘Do you eat
potato chips every day?’ You’d answer, ‘No.’ and I would reply, ‘Eat it! It’s not going to
make your weight soar to four hundred pounds!’ and finally, you wouldn’t eat it. It would make
me so mad. I always wanted to see you stand up for yourself and do what you want.”
“That day has arrived.” She hugged him. Then, they kissed for the next twenty minutes, losing
track of time, and when he looked at the digital clock on their nightstand he said, “Holy cow, ten
o’clock in the morning! Now you’re not going to eat lunch ‘til like two!”
She laughed again. He was running out of the room and through the hallway. She said, “As long
as I eat dinner before six o’clock in the afternoon today, that won’t be a problem.” He was long
gone and out of her sight, in the kitchen now. She got up, walked to the door, closed it, and went
into the bathroom, took a shower and got dressed in a deep-pink t-shirt and navy-blue jeans, and
sexy underwear. She walked out of the room and closed the door behind her.

****

After breakfast, cold cereal, corn flakes, Ivan and Nicole were sitting in the main living room,
the one closest to the front door of the house, watching some corny movie on TV. There was a
knock on the door. Ivan got up to open the door while Nicole sat there, still watching the movie,
and as stupid as it was, the scene that was on right now made her shed tears. It was the end of the
movie and someone had just killed the man that was supposed to be the main character of this
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story, by shooting him right in the heart, and there would be a sequel because no one knew who
that person was. Son of a bitch.
Nicole gasped when she heard Ivan say, “Hi, Aaron!” and the screams of excitement of
the sweet child. “Hello, Cherie, Merlin, how are you feeling?” She changed the TV to an
all-cartoon channel, got up from the sofa and walked until she got to the front door. She gave her
stepson a big hug. Then she got on her knees to reach his height. “How are you doing, sport?”
He asked her a question that shocked everyone. “Will you adopt me, Nicole?” and then made a
comment just as striking. “I don’t want to continue to be the orphan. It’s true, but I am tired of
the other kids calling me that at school and making cruel remarks reminding me that my
mother’s dead. There’s no better mother than you for me right now, Nicole, and I would be
honored to be your legal and biological son.”
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Chapter 14
“Gee, what do I say to that one? Obi wan Nicole, who always has an answer to everything.”
Everyone stayed silent for a few minutes, Aaron hoping that she would say yes, that she
would love to adopt him.
Then Ivan commented, “This is one of those life-changing decisions you were talking about to
me less than an hour ago.”
“This is one I don’t have to think over. I didn’t know how to react at first precisely because I
didn’t expect this. I never suspected that he wanted me to become his mother. He always told
me how much he loved me, but…I’m shocked.”
He smiled, hoping to convince her.
“This is a big, but easy decision to make.” She wrapped him in her arms again. “What do you
think? Of course I will adopt you!” Then she let him go to look him in the eyes. “In fact, I will
go with your father to start the proceedings tomorrow morning, but we’ll make it so that your
grandparents will still be able to make decisions for your wellbeing. How does that sound?”
“That’s music to our ears,” said Merlin.
She looked up at him.
“That means that when the proceedings start, the four of us have to go together,” Cherie said.
Nicole got up and held Aaron’s hand, walking him into the house. “Come on in, guys.”
Everyone went in and Ivan closed the door. “Did you have breakfast yet?”
“No, not yet,” Merlin said as he walked to the kitchen with Nicole, and Cherie, Ivan and Aaron
settled in the living room and started watching cartoons together. Cherie and Ivan were very
grown, but they would enjoy cartoons, too—some of them.
“Don’t make us anything fancy. Cereal is fine. We ran out of cereal and we were going to go to
the grocery store to get some more. Then, Aaron said he wanted to go to Mom and Dad’s
house.”
As Nicole served Corn Flakes for Merlin and Cherie, with milk, after getting the products out of
the places they were in, in a lapse of one minute, Nicole turned to look at him and asked, stunned
and openmouthed, “Mom and Dad?”
“That’s right,” Merlin said, looking at her like he was his daughter, the daughter he would’ve
loved to have had, instead of the daughter he had and lost before he could work things out with
her and have a parental relationship with her. “My grandson calls you Mom now.”
“Huh,” she said in a non-interrogatory tone, as she carried the bowls of cereal to the living room.
She and Ivan didn’t mind their guests, especially their family members, eating outside the dining
room, even if they made messes. The house had to be cleaned every certain amount of days
anyway, and they opted not to have carpet anywhere in the house but the bedrooms, which were
the rooms their guests would never go into, “I wonder what I did to deserve so much reverence
and love.”
Aaron heard that, and for the first time he got into an adult conversation, to make clear to Nicole
his feelings for her. “Love me,” he replied. “What you did to deserve reverence from me was
love me.”
She had to hug him again. “You are so sweet. I didn’t know that one could still win someone
over by being nice to them, especially a little angel like you!” She squeezed his nose with her
thumb and her index finger and he laughed. “I thought that was impossible to do nowadays.”
“You are a wonderful person, Nicole. That’s all we know.” Ivan had to go to the bathroom. It
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was the perfect opportunity for Cherie to tell Nicole something about Ivan that she didn’t know,
that could change their lives and their marriage forever, something good or bad, depending on
how Nicole would take it in. The bathroom was very far away from the living room, so Cherie
could tell her in the time it would take him to get to the nearest bathroom to that living room.
Meanwhile, Merlin was back in the kitchen, preparing the toast, orange juice and coffee as
compliments to his and Cherie’s cereal. This would only take a few minutes to do. “I hope you
don’t hate Ivan after what I am about to tell you.”
“What could possibly make me hate him, after I married him, knowing him for less than seven
months? I mean, I didn’t just marry the man. I promised to love, honor and respect him in good
times and in bad. I already got myself in the hole, so to speak. There’s no getting me out of the
hole this time because when I make a commitment, a promise, I keep it. No matter what. The
only thing that would stop me from keeping a promise is death, although I appreciate you doing
this.”
“Don’t think that Ivan has been keeping secrets from you all this time. He literally told you
everything: his thoughts, his fears, his desires, his ambitions, you name it. But he left out one
thing, just one, and I am going to tell you what it is he left out, right now. Like I said, I hope this
doesn’t cause a strain in your marriage. They say love conquers all.”
“It sounds horrible.”
“Well, it is, depending on how you look at it.” She cleared her throat. “Because Marissa, my
daughter was always telling him how inadequate and imperfect he was because of his
disability…”
Nicole interrupted her. “Yeah, all that bullshit, I am sick of hearing it. No one’s perfect. Get
over it, bitches. Ok, continue…”
“Well, he once told her that maybe, just maybe, he was better off committing to and marrying a
disabled woman because only a disabled woman would love him and accept him just the way he
was, that he hated her for believing that healthy and normal-looking, or beautiful in her case,
meant perfect, when in reality, we all come from the same ruined mold.”
“And that’s it. That’s what would make me hate Ivan.”
“I thought maybe it would.”
“Actually, with all due respect, you couldn’t be more wrong, Cherie. May I call you Cherie?”
“Of course. You’re the stepmother and future legal mother of my grandson. We’re family. You
can call me anything you want except a bad name, an insult. I am warning you, if you ever do
that, no matter how angry I make you and drive you to it, I will slap you. Hard.”
Nicole laughed, making Cherie laugh, too. “You don’t have to worry about that. The only
people I’ve ever insulted were my older sister, after she hit me, and Mark Saunders, after he
kidnapped and hit me, too, and tried to rape me.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. What an asshole.”
Laughing, Nicole said, “Everybody seems to call him that instead of calling him Mark or Mark
Saunders.”
The women couldn’t stop laughing at the moment. “Maybe because that’s what he is!”
They laughed again. “Well, to finish my thought, I can’t hate Ivan for saying that and for
wanting a disabled woman as his wife, for life…ooh, that rhymed!”
More laughs.
“Because deep down, that’s what I wanted, too, to marry a disabled man, just like me. As a
matter of fact I have searched for websites in which disabled men go to, seeking for a mate, a
companion or just a date. I never created my profile because I knew that thousands of men would
 164

email me, and frankly, I hate hurting people’s feelings, and I would choose only one man and all
the others would be hurt. I know because I’ve turned men down before. Several, and they get
depressed, and obsessed, and you know, I always have to run home to my family and they end up
watching me like I’m a baby or a teenager, making sure no one breaks into our house. That’s
horrifying. Anyway, I decided I wanted a disabled man, too. Funny thing is that Ivan and I are
disabled, and we fell in love and got married, but we didn’t even realize it. It feels like it just
happened before we knew what was happening. We got closer and closer as the days went by,
cared about one another more and more, told each other our thoughts, fears and secrets and
suddenly we fell in love. We overlooked one another’s physiques as well. We fell in love with
the people we were, each other’s personalities, good traits. I don’t think we fell in love with
each other’s physical appearances ‘til this morning.”
“Interesting,” Cherie said. “Merlin and I were the same way.”
Merlin brought the toast, the coffee and the orange juice in a tray, so that it would be easier for
him to carry everything around. “Say what?” He placed the tray on the coffee table.
“I was telling her how you and I fell in love with one another’s personalities before we fell in
love with one another’s physical appearance.”
“Oh,” he said, sitting beside his wife and started eating. Luckily the cereal was just as fresh as
when Nicole served it for him and it was only ten minutes from starting to become soggy. A few
minutes later, his cereal was gone before he finished his thought. “That’s true.”
“It was only this morning when he got up, and I got up right after he did, that I noticed his
beautiful, one of a kind, seemingly custom-made face…”
Ivan got back to the living room sooner than they expected and started listening to the
conversation, unbeknown to them. He stood there in the doorway that led to the first hallway in
the house, the closest one from the main living room and the front door.
“That body…oh, those muscles that would make any woman throw herself at him. And that butt,
oh, my god, that butt! I want to spank it so bad…”
“Oh, we’re getting a little too intimate here,” commented Merlin. “Control those hormones,
woman!”
“He’s so damn fine. So damn fine. There’s nothing about him that I want to change, inside or
out. He’s just perfect. I don’t understand why it would even occur to anyone to call him
‘imperfect’ or ‘defective’ because he’s far from that. He’s the man every woman dreams of.”
“We went from naughty to downright romantic,” Cherie commented.
Walking closer to her, Ivan replied, “And you’re the woman every man dreams of and every
man wants.” He sat beside Nicole. “And if what you’re saying is true, that I am the man every
woman dreams of, then we’ve got it made, because no matter how badly they want us, we can
only have each other. Only I can have you, and only you can have me.”
“And then from romantic to sweet,” said Merlin. “This is nice. I just noted what a wonderful
wife I have.” Merlin took Cherie’s hand in his hand. “She’s always nice to me, even when we
argue, because she never insults me or says things that make me feel like dirt. When we argue,
all she does is defend her current belief and her point of view. She never even points anything at
me.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “I’ve always believed that love means respect. That’s why I treat
my husband this way.”
Nicole and Ivan also held hands. “Ivan and I behave the same way when we have a disagreement,
and that was when we were just friends. Now that we’re husband and wife, we’ll be even more
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careful with the words we say.”

“Well, I have to go back to the bathroom,” Ivan said. “Isn’t that scary?”
“Are you ok?”
“People with my condition are commonly lactose intolerant. I forgot to buy my
lactaid pills. It’s a miserable life, and I can’t avoid dairy because almost everything
we eat has dairy in it.” He went back to the bathroom. I have to take a shower, too. He
didn’t say this out loud because he didn’t want to make anyone more disgusted than they already
were.
While everyone finished eating in the living room, except Merlin, because he rushed to
the pharmacy to get the over-the-counter lactaid pills, Ivan took a shower, embarrassed. He
wasn’t all full of his waste, but he had the odor-eliminating vent in the bathroom in full swing,
and he’d sprayed Lysol disinfectant all over the bathroom. He had also activated that thing that
cleanses the toilet while turning the water bright-blue and he had his clothes apart from all the
other dirty clothes, to take them straight to the laundry room when he got out of the bathroom.
There was only one problem. Ivan got so hysterical with the whole situation that he forgot to get
his change of clothes. Fortunately, his wife had left her figuratively blood-red robe there. It was a
sign that she wanted something from him today, something he couldn’t go get at the store. He
put on the red robe after drying himself with the towel and raced out of the bathroom. When he
closed the door behind him, Aaron was standing there with clothes and underwear for him to
change into. “Were you going to go get this?” Aaron had a great fashion sense. He’d spent a half
an hour in his father’s room, just deciding what clothes looked best on his father and making sure
they would match, like they were part of an outfit. Ivan figured Aaron would grow up to be a
fashion designer, but a very masculine and straight one. Ivan knew his boy’s orientation because
of the way he acted with girls. He’d never get fresh with a girl, but he looked at all of them with
his eyes full of love, drooling, while the guys, he wouldn’t even acknowledge their good looks,
just Aaron’s own good looks. Sometimes girls would be around him and he would be there
smiling like a little clown just because the girls were around him. He’d never touch them, kiss
them or anything, but he couldn’t hide the fact that he thought that girls were God’s very best
creation. “I somehow knew red looked great on you. That’s why I picked out this red shirt with
black pants, and then red socks and black shoes, and just so your pants would match better with
your shirt, I also picked out a black t-shirt for you to wear underneath your jacket-style shirt. Is
that ok?”
“You never cease to impress me.” Ivan took all the clothes in both hands, opened the bathroom
door, and rushed right back in. Even his underwear was black. Amazing. He put everything on in
a matter of minutes, blow-dried and styled his hair and walked back out of the bathroom. Aaron
was still standing there. He worried Ivan wouldn’t like the clothes, and he was wearing them just
so no one would see him naked, with a towel around his waist, or wearing a robe, while he went
to his room to change his clothes again. “Something wrong?”
“No.”
“You need anything?”
“I just need to know if you liked the clothes.”
“Of course I did. Not every garment you put on has to be the same color in order to match. You
put two colors together and they match pretty well.” They walked to Ivan’s room together. “For
instance, red and black and red and white are excellent combinations. Anything with black or
white matches perfectly, I think. I am no fashion designer, but I’ve seen it work pretty well.
Gray matches with black and white, but I think you ought to watch out for combinations like red
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and green, red and yellow, red and orange, you know, uncommon stuff like that. You know. You
picked out the perfect clothes for me to wear.”
Aaron heard someone coming through the door but Ivan didn’t hear that because his voice had
become deeper and louder, just like Langston’s. “Did you hear that?”
“What?”
“They just let that person in like nothing. I hope it’s Papa Merlin,” he said, rushing out of the
room, “because if it’s someone else…”
Aaron and Ivan rushed to the living room. It was Merlin indeed, with Ivan’s OTC medicine…and
Norman Ainsworth. Norman hadn’t had the chance to meet Ivan in person yet because he was a
registered nurse and this week, there were a lot more emergencies and he had to work a lot
harder and many more hours than usual. You could notice the dark circles under his eyes from
his lack of sleep. However, they’d talked on the phone a lot, and since Ivan was a PT, he was
always giving Norman tips on how to handle a patient when he or she had pain in his or her body
or the extremities, while they were being transferred from one place to the other, as to what
exercises to perform to make the patient feel better. Because of that, Norman became everyone’s
favorite nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital. He was gigantic and strong, could carry a patient that
weighed up to 500 pounds without the assistance of a Hoyer lift, without suffering from back
problems or minimal discomfort, only for a few minutes, during a transfer, though, and on top of
that, he was sweet and compassionate. He would always talk to his patients like they were family,
and he would never yell at them or talk rough to them for any reason. Norman and Ivan hugged.
They shook hands. “How are you doing, man?”
“Fine,” said Ivan. “I’m a newlywed, so you can imagine.”
“Yes, I can imagine, all right? I’m nowhere near there because I am the youngest child of
London Ainsworth’s first marriage, but hey, I manage. All of our siblings were born one right
after the other. Mom would give birth and one month later she would be pregnant again. That’s
how you can explain that there are four of us, born right after you and Langston, and the short
age differences.”
“Wow. Mom and Dad were pretty busy weren’t they?”
“Yes, they were, and when Mom died, Dad got married again and had three more children with
his second wife. Three? Man, I don’t know. I’ve lost count.”
Everyone laughed.
“At least our father has only had children with two women and he’s not spreading himself like a
plague, like my wife’s kidnapper is.”
“Oh, yeah, whatever became of that freak.”
They sat down together. It was a gigantic sofa. “He’s in jail now, facing a fifty-year sentence
just for masterminding a kidnapping, and twenty more years for sexual assault, and fifteen more
years for torture, so basically he’s going to spend the rest of his life behind bars, no chance of
parole because of the graveness of his crimes.”
“Unless his attorney comes up with a great defense.”
“Oh, I doubt that. All the proof is there. It all started with an old lady’s photo of my wife,
fighting for her life with Mark’s minions, and it escalated when police saw the condition my
wife was in, when they got to that disgraced cabin. My wife gave her statement and, man, with
all the irrefutable physical evidence, man, that motherfucker is doomed. Just doomed. His only
way out of jail is a pardon from the governor, and I doubt that’s ever going to happen.
Governors may pardon murderers and bank-robbers, but I doubt any governor or major authority
figure in this whole planet would pardon a rapist. There’s just no way. That man is ill in the
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head, anyway. They’re going to figure it out and send him to a loony bin.”
“Man, I know this isn’t funny,” said Ivan, cracking up, “but I can’t help laughing. Ivan, you are
a total son of a gun when you want to be, I swear.”
“Oh, yes I am. I may be nice, according to other people that is, but when someone messes with
my family and tries to take what’s mine, I get up in their ass. I really get up there, causing
indescribable pain.”
The laughs couldn’t stop.
“I get my head that’s above my neck, up in their ass, and I make my way in until my whole
body’s in there. No one messes with mine. Everybody’s got a Dr. Jekyll and a Mr. Hyde inside
them and I really embrace mine and get the most of Mr. Hyde when someone hurts someone I
love. I bet you anything his attorney knows his case is a lost cause, and he either quit already or
is getting ready to quit. Karma’s a bitch, and she doesn’t forgive you when you hurt innocent
people. That’s actually when her bitchiness is at its worst.”
Sure enough, Mark’s attorney, Attorney Kensington, went to the prison to give Mark the news
that no prisoner or anyone with a criminal or civil case pending, wanted to hear: he was quitting.
Mark had told him, when the state assigned him to Mark, that he never tried to rape Nicole, that
he’d never do that, that all he wanted to do was make her suffer by keeping her away from her
family for a while, to hurt Ivan for what Ivan did to him. Attorney Kensington had just gotten
proof of the sexual assault that would’ve been rape if Mark had had intercourse with Nicole. He
was just shown photos of her torn clothes, and although torn clothes weren’t enough proof
because Nicole could’ve torn them herself, DNA tests had done on Nicole to know if Mark had
been stupid enough to leave traces of his DNA on her. He did. He had kissed her cheek and her
neck, and her shoulders, and not just with his lips. Another big mistake. That could’ve been
proof of wanted affection while playing a twisted sexual game of having those things done to
you when you were tied up, except there were bite marks all over Mark’s neck and shoulders,
strong bite marks, like a vampire’s, and those marks wouldn’t fade for a couple weeks. Nicole
couldn’t defend herself with her hands and her nails, so she used her mouth to do so instead.
There was more than enough evidence that Nicole didn’t respond to his advances. Attorney
Kensington would never forgive his clients for lying to him because a lie, just one, no matter
how seemingly insignificant, like saying an attacker was wearing a green shirt and not a gray one
at the time of the attack, when in reality he was wearing a gray shirt, could make him lose the
case, and although a lie like that wasn’t really a lie, but an honest mistake, Attorney Kensington
wouldn’t let that pass, either because he could lose his case, and his squeaky-clean reputation as
one of few lawyers who had never lost a case, would be ruined. Even if it was the client’s fault,
it was still a case lost, and it wouldn’t look good in an attorney’s record because then, people
wouldn’t trust him or her. Kensington sat right in front of Mark, and glass separated them. They
had to communicate through phone receivers.
“Hello.”
“Saunders, I am quitting. I am not working for you anymore. I can’t.”
“Whoa! What the hell…?”
“I can’t do this anymore, Saunders. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, hey, hey, hey, wait a second! Hold up!” Mark got up and the guard grabbed him by the
shoulder and exerted enough force on him to make him sit back down. “Why are you quitting,
man? Why are you doing this to me? Did you know you’re not my first attorney? You know
how many sons of whores have done this to me?”
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“Maybe because you did to them the same thing you did to me.”
“What did I do to you?”
“You lied to me, Mark!”
“What are you talking about?”
“You lied to your former attorneys and you lied to me. I know that now. Your parents were
paying for your other attorneys’ services until they ran out of money and then the state assigned
me to you. I was your last chance, man, and I could’ve gotten your imminent sentence reduced if
you had been honest with me from the very beginning! Why did you lie?”
“Would you please quit yelling and tell me what I lied about?”
“You know what you lied about! You’re not stupid!”
“That’s what you have to quit, the yelling! You don’t have to quit me.”
“I can’t quit the yelling and I have to quit you. I’m too upset. I’m too angry. You know
what you lied about but just so you don’t have to play innocent anymore, and you quit the shit,
you lied about trying to rape Nicole Ward!”
“What? What the hell?”
“I have evidence that you did try to rape her! You left your nasty saliva all over her, and if the
cops hadn’t gotten there in time, you would’ve forced yourself into her! You told me that you
only wanted to cause her and Ivan Northwood psychological and emotional torment, and yes, I
thought that was pretty damn twisted, if you ask me, but…”
“I…”
“Shut up! She didn’t want what you were doing to her. She bit you like a damn vampire, and
those bite marks are sunken in! Those scars won’t heal for a while. Actually, you might end up
with the bites as brown marks for the rest of her life. When you play the game of biting during
sex, you don’t bite that hard, unless you’re trying to defend yourself.”
“Look, Charles, I can explain.”
Kensington was Charlene’s father. “I don’t want explanations anymore. When I needed
an explanation, you lied to me. And if you lied to me about that, who knows? Maybe everything
you told me was a lie! I can’t work for someone I don’t trust. I’m sorry,” he got up from the
chair, “but this is goodbye,” and hung up the phone and left.
“Wait!” Mark screamed, stood up from his chair. “Man, you can’t do this to me! You just
can’t! You are my last hope, man! Don’t abandon me, please!” The guard took him away. “Don’t
quit, please, I’m begging you…!” his screams of pain continued for a while, until he was locked
up again.

****

Nevertheless, Mark hadn’t lost all hope. Another attorney was assigned to him because his
parents could no longer afford the services of an attorney, and it was one of few times the state
would do this. The prosecution was sure that Mark was mentally ill and had been for a long, long
time. He had serious behavioral problems at school, and he even had to be transferred to a
special school for students that were totally out of control. He would hit teachers, punch them out,
throw heavy objects and them, beat up other students for no reason, even the girls, he was peeing
outside all the available toilets just so that no one else could use the bathrooms, he would throw
other students’ textbooks and homework down the toilet and try to flush it…and before he
attacked Nicole, the police didn’t know about any of this. The school staff would never report
him to the police for some reason, and they would try, and succeed, to discipline him on their
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own, when no other school could do the same thing. They thought that they had gotten through
to him, but ADHD was not a mental condition to get over so easily. On top of that, Mark was
borderline. He needed a lot of help, and since this was his first serious crime, maybe he would
have a chance. That new attorney was Attorney Bell, Alex’s father, and handsome Alex looked
just like him. He was sitting down in front of the glass that would divide them at this very
moment.
The guard went to Mark’s cell and hit it time and time again with his baton, until Mark
woke up. “Saunders, your attorney is here.”
Mark got up and walked to the bars. “Charles is back?”
“No, I’m sorry, I left out a very important detail, but don’t get used to this because I am not this
nice to any of these assholes, ok? It’s a new attorney, Esq. Bell I think it is.”
“Bell?”
“Yes.” He unlocked the cell and grabbed Mark by the arm. “Come with me.” They walked the
hall together.
Mark said to the guard, Dante, “Hey, Dante, whatever you do, no matter how mad you are at me,
use any name you want, but don’t call me an asshole again.”
Calmly, Dante said, “I didn’t call you an asshole, just these other assholes. Don’t ask me
why I call ‘em that, though, please.”
“Oh.” They were almost there, at the receiving room. “It’s just that I thought you were
calling me an asshole, everyone calls me that, and it’s got me kind of traumatized, so every time
someone calls me that, I feel like a worthless piece of dung, and I cringe.”
“Oh, well, I’m sorry. From now on, if you get on my nerves, I promise to call you anything but
that, ok?”
“Ok, and also, don’t call me a prick.”
“That’s got you traumatized, too?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, got it. That’s easy to remember. Fair enough, Saunders.” They were there, finally, and
Dante stood right behind Mark.
Mark sat down, and rather than formally introducing himself and greeting Attorney Bell, while
Bell smiled at him, he said, “Please promise me that you’re not going to turn your back on me,
too, no matter how badly I mess up.”
“Saunders…”
“I understand you guys hate being lied to, but you have to understand, also that everyone makes
mistakes, and if every attorney in the world walked out on his or her client for telling a lie, then
no one would have a defense. You know what I’m saying, Attorney Bell.”
“Please call me Alistair.”
“Alistair.”
“Ok, first of all I am not going to walk out on you for telling a lie, although it will jeopardize our
case and push you deeper into the black hole. We found out something about you, even the
prosecution, that’s going to help you get out of here, receive professional help, and go home, on
probation, instead of coming back to jail. I know this would be a better alternative for you. We
learned that you are mentally ill, you have two major mental conditions, ADHD and borderline
personality.”
“Oh. You see I was planning on telling everyone but I thought that you would think I was using
mental illness as an excuse, like most inmates do when their trial date comes.”
“You’ve been officially diagnosed, and you’re going to go to a mental institution straight from
 170

here, tomorrow morning, first thing. You were diagnosed with this at fifteen. That’s right, I
looked up your records. I had to do some research on you before taking your case, and let me tell
you, Charles found out about this, too, and he’s working for you again, only he’s doing it pro
bono. We are flirting with the possibility that perhaps you told your previous attorneys, and
Charles, something that wasn’t true because you thought it was true. You see there’s a
difference between telling something untrue, thinking that it’s true, and telling a flat out lie.
Perhaps you’ve got this whole thing with Nicole Ward twisted. Maybe you thought she wanted
to have sex with you, even tied up, when she didn’t, and that’s why you told everyone that it
wasn’t sexual assault.”
“Man, you guys… how did you know, man? Ok, now I am confused. Sometimes I see things
happen the way Nicole told them and the police told them, and sometimes I remember us starting
something and all of a sudden, the police stop us.” He wasn’t lying! He’d been dreaming about
and remembering the same event in different ways, confused, ever since he got in here,
especially after being sodomized by other inmates. That totally turned his reality upside down.
That’s why he was isolated, and not in solitary confinement, like he thought he was.
“Sometimes I remember her telling me that she doesn’t love Ivan as a man, that she only sees
him like he’s a celebrity and she doesn’t want him, you know, that she has no sexual desire for
him, that he’ll always be her friend and I’m the one she wants. Then we start something and
bam! The police arrive and put a screeching halt to everything. Then I lose her. I don’t know
what’s happening to me. I don’t even know what really happened.”
“Let me tell you what really happened, and I hope it sinks in and doesn’t get twisted around
again. She didn’t want your loving or your affection. I don’t know if she still hates you because
she’s a forgiving person, thus she forgave her sister for battering her, but at that very moment,
when you kidnapped her, she couldn’t stand the sight of you. That means you assaulted her,
ok?”
“So I’m going to a mental ward and then I am going to go on probation.”
“The mental ward thing is for certain. You are going there. There’s no question about
that. The probation thing? Not so certain. It all depends on the judge and if he sees the truth
about all this, how sick you are in the head, like literally sick, and how you see things. If you
don’t acknowledge, if you’re not convinced about what really happened and you believe in your
heart what you just told me you think happened between you and Nicole Ward, I’m sorry,
Northwood, then the judge will give you five years probation, and if you don’t commit another
crime ever again, after the probation period, you will be a free man. That’s what we’re going to
be working on, getting you out of jail, forever, within the next five or six years, depending on
how long you are on the mental ward.”
Mark started crying. “I believe you. You wouldn’t contradict me if what you just told me
happened between her and me weren’t true, and I am sorry for what I did. Man, I wish she would
not only forgive me, but also drop the charges.” He let his head down and cried like a child.
Dante placed his hand on Mark’s back.
“Man, I think that, if that doesn’t take place, probation is your best alternative.”
“I don’t want to be pointed to as a sexual predator for the rest of my life!”
“It’s going to be ok. Trust me. Charles and I will do everything we can to save you from all of
this.”

****
 171

Nicole was in her room, reading a fantasy novel from her favorite fantasy author. It was a big
book, over 800 pages, and she was already halfway through. She had an extensive collection of
books and Ivan was thrilled to let her keep it. He even bought bookcases for her to keep her
books and put them on the walls of his library. He had his section with his own books and she
had her section with her own books. Ivan came into the room, lied down in bed and started using
his laptop there, browsing message boards of help for writers. He didn’t think he could be a PT
anymore, he’d have to talk to his doctor about that, so he was considering a serious career as a
writer, instead of doing it as a hobby. He didn’t know that he could still be a PT and his physical
condition was better than ever. A few minutes later, Ivan had just gotten off the phone with his
doctor. His doctor told him it was ok for him to go right back to doing physical therapy, that he
was fine, but he could no longer carry a patient in full weight, but help him or her up. After
talking to his doctor, Ivan took off all his clothes except for his underwear and went to take a nap.
Nicole lied down beside him. Ivan slept for a few minutes, and then they started kissing. One
thing led to another and the next thing she knew, she was naked, and he was, too. They lied
down there, one beside the other, not knowing what to do next because they didn’t know how to
deal with the intensity of their feelings. He was afraid that if they did anything else, they would
both die because they’d wanted each other for the longest time, ever since they met, and they’d
seen couples die of this because by the time they finally got on with it, their hearts were way too
weak. Suddenly they were devouring him one another and then, when it came right down to it, he
had trouble doing what he was supposed to do. He’d always thought that she and Holden had
made love at least once, but upon realizing that he was wrong, he didn’t know how to act. He’d
never been with a virgin before. It just didn’t matter to him how women were, until now that he
had a wife that was the most inexperienced someone could possibly be, because it wasn’t just
intercourse that she hadn’t done. In reality, she hadn’t done anything but shared a few kisses with
a man.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“I just didn’t know you were still… and I never thought we would even be together, so…”

“It’s ok. Everyone has to have their first time some time, right? Besides, it doesn’t hurt
that much. I am just feeling a little discomfort and that’s it but that will be over soon. You are so
kind that it can’t be missed, but at the same time, it hardly hurts. In fact I am getting used to it as
we speak.”

“I’m sorry, I just don’t…”

“Just do what you’ve always done. It’ll be ok. I promise.”

Just because she asked him to do so, he let her take him into his arms and complied with
his duty like he was doing it with any woman, just normal, to find it didn’t hurt her in the least.
What was more, she started laughing in the middle of it, until she turned him around, and tired,
she bit his neck, but lightly, and then, they collapsed. Nothing had changed in her personality as
she watched the sun rise through her window. Only thing that was different was that a membrane
was missing from her body, but she was still as respectful of men, although no longer shy, and
still as calm and normal, when it came to her sexuality, as she could possibly be, as if she’d never
 172

had sex.
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