I close the pad and look over at my woman, my wife my everything, and smile when she beams at me. She makes me read that to her every night before we turn the lights out and either sleep or make love; mostly make love then sleep. I wrote to her while she slept in a coma for three weeks and four days. I needed her to come back to me; dying wasn’t an option. I never left her side. Ruth was amazing and took Cereus to stay with her while I was staying at the hospital. I felt like an asshole for shutting her and the rest of my family out but Ryan threw me for a loop and I reverted to being the standalone man I was before Mel before them. I thought it would be safer for them if I cut contact. I was still confused about Ryan’s motives with Cereus. She really cared about him and that scared me to death because that was how I felt about him too and he used my emotions against me. He saved her but he stabbed Mel, albeit accidentally. He still nearly took her from me. She was so angry with me for keeping secrets and she still mourns for Sean but if your deathbed teaches you anything, it’s that life’s too short to be angry and bitter. She loved me and she needed me. We were, are and forever will be soul mates.
Jenna’s house was too burnt up to determine how many bodies were in there but Ryan is presumed dead. I’m not sure how I’m meant to feel, but all I feel is torn. I’m not supposed to mourn him but I do. I mourn the kid who I adored and saw as my baby brother.
“Six more months left of practicing,” she giggles. The surgeons advised us to wait twelve months before trying to conceive after the injuries to Mel’s internal organs and the scarring on her abdomen and we were fine with waiting and being as active as possible while we did. I nuzzle into her neck and slip my hand between her thighs “I’ll never be through practicing with you Baby.” And I meant it.
I spent the night loving her and practicing in every way possible.
A year after that
I FLIP THROUGH AGAIN AND look at the image of me in color, reaching out for her in black and white, and everything around us is in shadow.
First year student Cereus Braxton takes first prize in Art competition
I read the quote accompanying the image and breathe in deep.
I place the note I have written for her in an envelope and give it to the teenager I paid to take it over to her as she sits on the grass of her college, drawing on a piece of paper.
I watch him run across the road and hand it to her, she looks around and cautiously up at him. I leave before she can see me.
I open the file given to me by Jenna’s dim receptionist and look over the documents that were not supposed to be inside. I look at the name again and roll my shoulders.
Joseph Steller, forty-four years old.
I step out of the car flexing my hand that now hosted a small burn scar and look up at the mansion sitting on a hillside and smirk.
“Can I help you?” someone asks through an intercom
“Is this the owner, Joseph Steller?”
“Yes it is how can I help you?”
This was going to be so much fun, a whole new game to play. Turns out I was Daddy’s second attempt at a son.
“Yes you can. I’m Ryan, your brother.”
THE END.