What was it to her? Why did she care?
Lynx nodded. “Yeah, maybe. I’ll see what happens. How about you? How are you doing?” She could at least try to be nice—this chick had put her life on the line for her.
Marta reached out and ran her palm down the length of Lynx’s arm and back up again, leaving it on her shoulder. With their skin together, they could pass for sisters. It made sense why Mike gravitated toward her, but their personalities were polar opposites. For every ounce of Marta’s optimism, Lynx oozed buckets of pessimism.
“I’m good, really. I was only in that sick place for a minute, but you? You lived there a long time. A year, right? Sometimes, late at night, I worry about you.”
Really?
Lynx stepped back, granting herself some much-needed personal space and freeing her arm as she went on the defensive. She’d made a choice and now she was moving on—or so she convinced herself. There was no reason for her to keep reliving her choices, yet she did.
“It was my choice. My doing.”
Marta cocked her slight hip to the side, the bone protruding through her hot pink yoga pants, her messy bun flopping to the opposite side. “You should come down to the club, have a cocktail or something.”
“I’m really trying to get my shit together, but thanks for the offer.”
“Shit, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just I had to go back to work ... I didn’t mean you.”
Lynx frowned. The conversation was getting increasingly more disjointed.
“It’s cool, Marta. Let it go, okay? I gotta go. See you around.”
Lynx tossed her yoga block and water bottle into her bag and headed toward the door.
“He’s not doing so well, you know,” Marta called after her. “Puts on a good face and all that, but he’s a wreck. If you could just let him see you, see you’re doing okay ... please, Lynx? Let him cast his eyes on you.”
Why, oh why, does she have to be so nice?
Lynx didn’t answer or even bother turning around. If there was one person she didn’t want to see, it was Mike.
She was dirty, tainted goods, not deserving of all the beauty that man brought with him.
Why couldn’t he watch Marta dance and fall for her all over again?
SAMARA WASon the love seat when Lynx arrived home from yoga, her legs tossed over the armrest, her hands moving briskly across her drawing pad.
She was making slow progress in healing like Lynx, but better.
Apparently, life on the other side of the fence hadn’t been as great as Lynx had always believed. While Lynx nursed daddy issues her whole life, Samara had dealt with self-esteem blows. One after the other, their dad had thrown emotional punches.
Samara has evil eyes. She needs more curves. She’ll never make a man happy. She’s a stupid white girl in a black woman’s body.
Lynx learned of all this after the two had been rescued. Landon had dropped Samara off with Lynx after picking her up from spending time with a friend of his.
Apparently, Samara had been pretty hopped up on pills toward the end of her stay with Zayid, a fringe benefit of blowing your security detail on the side, so she’d spent some time drying out once they made it back to the States. Going above and beyond, Landon had set her up with a friend of his—a woman named Mariah—who helped get Samara somewhat straight.
Mariah had comforted Samara, but she craved family, something she’d never had. Shacking up with Lynx had been a dream come true for her.
It was mutual. It was all Lynx had ever dreamed of too ...
THE NIGHTshe’d arrived, Samara had come clean, explaining how their dad had been just another prick in a long lineup of pricks they’d come to know. She told Lynx about all the awful things he used to say.
“I wish I would’ve looked for you sooner. When my mom told me, I was mad for so long,” Lynx had muttered into Samara’s shoulder as the two embraced on the couch.
Too many tears were shed that evening, but it had to be done.
“I’m sorry,” Lynx told her sister. “I was jealous. You had our dad and I didn’t. My mom told me your name, Samara Bennett, and I couldn’t help but dream about the man with the last name Bennett.”
