For a moment, he just stared at me quietly. Then unexpectedly, he laughed. I mean, a deep gut-wrenching laugh.
“You stole my ID picture because you thought I was fine?” he asked, amused.
“Oh my God. Please don’t say it out loud. It really does sound crazy.” I covered my face.
He chuckled. “Nah, that’s kinda cute.” I looked over at him.
“Cute?”
“Yeah. A lil stalkerish, but cute.”
I grabbed a pillow and threw it at him instantly while he laughed harder.
“I’m not a stalker.” I pouted.
“Oh, baby. You got a few stalker tendencies in you. But luckily, I like ’em a lil possessive and crazy. Just keeping it real.” I couldn’t even stop myself from laughing with him. I’m not sure if it was the wine, the laughter, or the rain, but I felt so comfortable with this man.
“So, does this mean you’re not going to report me to my job and call the cops?” I asked him.
“What? Hell no.”
“Whew. Thank you so much, because I need my job. I don’t get help from her dad, so I need my job. I need every penny I can get to save for her, after paying my bills. We’re not in a bad place, but I have to strategically plan. My goal is to have money saved for her to go to college, and to put her first down payment down on a house. I do have a life insurance policy of five hundred thousand, so when I do transition, she will have that as well.” Speaking about this has definitely changed the mood. My eyes burned, and I tried hard as hell to not let the tears fall. But I failed and they just flowed. ‘Peace Is Goal’started playing, and he moved closer to me, wrapping his arms around me. The moment he touched me, I completely broke.
I cried so hard my body rocked, and he just held me close, and I swear this is the first time since hearing that I had cancer that I’ve broken down like this. I mean, I’ve cried, but nothing of this magnitude. He continued holding me and rubbing my back.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Don’t apologize. You don’t gotta apologize for feeling shit. This is your life that we’re talking about.” He was so calm. But it was when I looked leaned up to look at him did, I see the tears in his eyes. I’ve never seen a man cry for me and my wellbeing before.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
“I will be just as long as you’re ok. On some real shit those letters connected me to you. Now I feel like if you’re hurting, I’m hurting. It’s fucked up that you have to go through this. It’s gotta be something that they can do.” His eyes instantly met mine again, filled with so much emotion it almost took my breath away.
“I’ve tried everything.” I sighed.
“Well, we’re going to keep looking. Tell me, what is your biggest wish? I know you have things on your bucket list, but what’s that ultimate thing that you wanted for your life?” He asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. There’s so many things that I wanted out of life, and my daughter is my biggest blessing that I could’ve ever hoped for. But I always wanted to fall in love and get married. I think being married is every girl’s dream. And to live a soft life. I’m not afraid of hard work because I do that shit every day, and I love being independent. But just living in my soft girl era. That’s really it,” I told him.
“Hmmm. Okay,” was all he said. We sat back and talked for the next few hours, and I was so excited about him being here, that I forgot all about me being tired earlier.
“I think it’s time for me to head back to the hotel. I’m staying over at The Luxe. If you’re not busy tomorrow, I would love to take you out to lunch and maybe spend some time with you and baby girl.”
“Okay. Tomorrow is Sunday so I’m off, and we will be here. I can have my friend watch Hanii for a little while.” I smiled. He ordered an Uber, and it was about five minutes away. He stood from the couch, and I stood with him to walk him to the door.
“Oh, yeah. Just because I’m here and everything is out in the open, doesn’t mean you get to stop writing. I want my next letter, and make sure it’s on time. I don’t like not getting one. Now that I know who you are, I can respond. Now I haven’t written a letter like this since I was in the fourth grade. I think it was when Vanessa Crenshaw asked me to be her boyfriend and I had to check yes or no. Well I checked no and called her ugly.” He shrugged, and we both fell out laughing.
“My God! You are so damn funny. Why would you say that?” I laughed so hard.
“Because she bothered me.” He shrugged. We stood on the porch, and even though it was raining, the breeze felt amazing. We exchanged numbers and he pulled me in for a hug.
“I’ll call you when I make it back to the hotel,” he said, just as the Uber pulled into my driveway.
“Okay. Talk to you soon.” I smiled, and he leaned in to kiss my forehead. He did a light jog to the car, and as promised, an hour later he called me. We sat on that phone for the next three hours talking up a storm.
Beingwith Legacy felt unreal as hell. It felt like one long dream that I didn’t want to wake up from. I was still shocked that things turned out the way they did, and the fact that it didn’t seem as bad as I thought it would. I was nervous, but the longer I sat there, the easier it became. It was as if we just kind of fell into the comfortable space tonight. My doorbell sounding off scared the hell out of me for some reason. I looked over at the clock, and it was a little after eight in the morning. It’s the weekend, and normally, Hanii and I will sleep in, if we’re not in church. I try my best to go to church three times a month and the fourth Sunday, I’ll go online. I got out of the bed, ran into the bathroom, and quickly washed my face and brushed my teeth. Once I was finished, I slipped my slippers on and went down to answer the door. We never got company this early, so I assumed it was just a delivery, which is why I took my time.
I peeped out the peephole, and my heart started beating fast. I opened the door with a surprised expression on my face.
