“Yes?”
“Whatever you do, don’t let her walk out of your life. She needs you.”
“Okay, Amani.”
I immediately dialed Sevyn, getting her voicemail again. There was something that my sister wasn’t saying, and I wasn’t sure what it was.
I pulledup a half hour later, thanked Amani, dropped my keys in the bowl on the foyer table, and headed to Sevyn’s bedroom.
I knocked on the door lightly. The sound of her moving around in the room filtered to me through the closed door. I could hear her soft voice right on the other side of the door.
“What?”
“May I come in?”
“No.”
I pressed my forehead against the door between my hands and closed my eyes. “Please, Sevyn. Just let me explain everything.”
“Deuce, please leave.”
“Not until you let me explain.”
“You had months. I always said that there had to be a reason why you were hanging around. You wanted to keep an eye on me to see what I remembered.”
“That’s not true. I stayed in the beginning because you’re right, I felt guilty, and then I just fell in love with you.”
“Would you please leave me alone, Deuce? I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I can’t leave you alone, baby. I’m so sorry that I hurt you.”
“I wish that you would just walk out of my life as easily as you walked in.”
“It was never easy walking into your life because it came on the heels of devastation.”
“That’s fine, but it’s easy as hell for me to close the door on that part of my life I shared with you. Just give me a couple of days to work something out, and I promise you that you won’t have to worry about me in your space anymore.”
“I don’t want you to go, Sevyn.”
“If I had someplace to go right now, I would be gone.”
I thought about Amani’s warning again, and I wondered what it was all about. I needed to get to the bottom of things before Sevyn slipped through my fingers.
“Sevyn, baby, please let me in.”
“No. Go away, or I swear that I will leave. I don’t give a damn if I have to sleep on the streets. I don’t trust you.”
She could have told me that she hated me, and it wouldn’t hurt nearly as bad as hearing her say that she didn’t trust me. But I hadn’t given her a reason to.
I sighed and pushed away from the door and headed to my room to shower.
With everything that happened,I was tired as hell, but I couldn’t sleep. I had a feeling that Sevyn might find a way to get away from me, and I couldn’t let that happen until we discussed what happened.
I needed to know that I had given my all, even if I hadn’t done that when I had a chance to. But I knew that if I allowed her to walk out of my life, she would never come back. I heard the front door click close a little after seven in the morning. She knew that I would probably be sleeping in because I didn’t have a shift to work, and there was no court since today was Saturday.
I jumped out of bed and peered out the front window. She climbed into the back seat of a maroon Toyota. I was already dressed and prepared for this. Sevyn had forgotten that she had her shared rides set up to automatically send me a link to track her rides. We had done that no sooner than she moved in, as a safety feature so I could keep track of her whenever she was out and about.
I grabbed my gym shoes and put them on before I rushed to the front foyer and grabbed my keys from the bowl. Within two minutes of Sevyn leaving my house, I was in my truck, following her. I kept a reasonable distance so that she wouldn’t spot me.
