“Y’all really like him?” I asked.
Amiyah nodded. “We do. Every time we see you with him, you’re smiling. That’s a big improvement to when we first saw you. You looked…well, you looked dead inside.”
I felt dead inside when I first came home. Sure, I was free, but parts of me still felt caged and broken. I felt like I got out and had nothing to live for. Yes, I wanted to live, but I was just existing. I didn’t feel like that anymore.
“Miyah is right,” Adrienne agreed. “Also, I don’t think I ever apologized for how I treated you when you came to the house.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do. You were more of a mother to us than Kennedy ever was, Alayah. Things were so different without you around. We had to grow up fast. It was like our childhood ended when you went away. I was so angry because you weren’t around to protect us. I feel like if you’d been there, you would have stepped in when Kennedy did the most. She would have left us alone.
“Then I realized she only left us alone becauseyoutook care of us. She would call us out of our name or hit us and take away our things. Now I realize you probably went through that, too, on top of being assaulted by that nasty ass…that perverted man. What I’m trying to say is my anger was misdirected, and I’m sorry. I love you.”
I smiled softly. Leaning in, I kissed her cheek. “I love you, too. All is forgiven. We’re just gonna focus on the future.”
She nodded, then looked up at Killian. “You won’t have much of a future if he stays up there any longer. Come on, Killian. Hey, give him a push!”
“They can’t push him,” I exclaimed. “Babe! You have to come down at some point.”
“This ain’t that point,” he yelled back.
I palmed my face. “I’ll be right back.”
I made my way back across the room and climbed up to the platform he stood on with the instructor.
“Killian Lake,” I said, my hands on my hips, “are you really that nervous?”
“Listen, I had a bad experience in collage, okay? Following my friends had me hiking across a rope bridge. Even though I had a harness on, I lost my footing and fell over the side. I was halfway to the other side hanging upside down for like fifteen minutes. My whole life flashed before my eyes, baby.”
I didn’t mean to laugh, but the look on his face was funny.
He kissed his teeth. “See, you and your sisters are gonna be walking home.”
“Awww,baby.” I cupped his face and pecked his lips. “How about I go down with you?”
He peered around me at the instructor. “Can she do that?”
“Sure. We have a tandem zip line that allows two people to go at once.”
“Why didn’t you say that before?”
“I didn’t think you’d be up here this long.”
Killian gave him a side eye as the instructor grabbed the equipment to hook me onto him. Once we were all set, I wrapped my arms around him.
“On three, we go. One…two…”
Before I got to three, I pushed off from the ledge, sending us sliding down the line with him cursing the whole way as my sisters cheered us on. As someone who was usually cool, calm, and collected, it was funny to see him out of character. Once we were on the ground and unhooked, he turned to Adrienne and Amiyah.
“The next time y’all pick an activity for us, pick something less traumatizing.”
They both laughed as they gave him sisterly hugs.
“Poor lil’ tink tink,” Adrienne jested, causing him to playfully mush her forehead.
“Please tell me y’all have had your fix of this and we can move on to the obstacle course.”
“Come on, Courage the Cowardly Dog.”
