He stared up at me.
“It might not be normal, but it’s what you need,” I stated.
That did it.
He couldn’t have me doing that for him.
I should have known.
He made a move to stand.
I shifted my hands to his shoulders and put all my weightinto keeping him where he was.
He gave up pushing, I knew, because he knew I didn’t wanthim to.
“I’m not asking for that from you,” he growled.
“You don’t have to ask.”
“You’re wasting your life on me.”
“We disagree on that, so much, I’m not discussing it.I knowwhat I’m doing.”
“Malia—”
“Darius, you were right.”
His expression turned guarded.“About what?”
“I didn’t try hard enough to tell you I was pregnant.”
He shook his head.Firmly.
“Don’t buy my shit, babe.I was full of it, lashing out.”
“You were correct in everything you said.I was young andflipped out and feeling a lot of feelings, about me, for you, what happenedwith your dad.”
He flinched.
Oh yes.
As suspected, he hadn’t worked through the pain of losinghis dad.
That was not for now.
I kept at him about what was for now.
“I made the wrong decision.If I couldn’t get to you, Ishould have told Miss Dorothea.She would have gotten to you.”
“What I made of myself isn’t about what you didn’t tell me.”
“I’m not taking on what you made of yourself, even though Idon’t know what that is.I just knowyou.And I messed up.It’s amistake I’m not going to make again.”
“We’re never going to be a happy family.”
We’ll see, I did not say.
He saw it anyway, which was why he said, “I’m wrong.Toniisn’t crazier than you.You are definitely the craziest of that crew.”
