He Listens (Chapter 11)

SERIES SUMMARY:  Kayla is on a quest to move beyond the hurt of her past as she realizes the impact that hurt has on her present and potential future. This is a modern tale of love that accounts the complexities of blending the lives of two thirty-somethings and all of their respective baggage.   Read to see if Kayla will finally share her secret, embrace something new, and most importantly exercise her faith.

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..Continued – 

Kayla re-positions herself with distance between them.  She looks down on at the abstract print on the comforter and then up into his eyes with tears in hers.  “You left me Dre,” she says quietly.  “I needed you and you left me.”  He looks at her and for the first time can see the pain he caused.  He’s hurt because she’s hurt.  They both stare at the wall too afraid to look at one another.  He breaks the silence, “I’m sorry.”  She cries uncontrollably.  He tries to hold her, but she pulls away.

“I was pregnant Andre.”

“What…wait a minute, what?”

“I lost it, I was 18 weeks.  18 weeks pregnant with our child.”

“18 weeks…you never told me.  You were pregnant with our baby…my baby, and you never told me?  So you knew you were pregnant when I left?”

Kayla looks him in the eyes and replies, “Yes.”

“How could you keep this from me all this time?”  He looks at her as if she were a stranger.

She begins to explain, but he wants no part of it.  As she is talking he is holding his head and replaying the last two years in his mind.

“So that time when I couldn’t get you on the phone and you told me that you had the flu…?”

“Yes.”

He puts his head down and shakes it slowly.  “Why?   How could you take that from me?”

“Me, take something from you?  What about what was taken from me, physically Andre.  You weren’t there.  You never heard his heartbeat or felt him move, you have no idea!”

“I couldn’t do those things because you decided what I did and didn’t need to know…because you thought it was better to lie to me than to trust me.”  Andre stands and move to a corner in the room.

Kayla asks, “If I would have told you, would you have come back, or never left to begin with?  You’re telling me you would have given up your scholarship and your dream?”

“Yes, for you and my baby, I would have!”

“What you would have done was resented us both, I didn’t want that.  I knew what that opportunity meant to you.”

“You should have known what you meant to me, baby or not.  You didn’t have the right to make that decision Kay, you just didn’t.  You pretended to be happy for me.  You told me to go.”

And it was at that very moment that Kayla realizes and accepts that she is not the only victim.  She stands up and walks over to him.

“Dre, I really thought I was doing the right thing.  I thought that real love was about real sacrifice.  I didn’t want to come between you and your dream.  I didn’t want that to be the reason why you spent your life with me or proposed that I spend mine with you.  I didn’t want that for you and didn’t want that for me.  I’ll admit that I could have handled it better…I should have told you, but I was alone, scared, and confused.  I did what I thought was right Dre.  Please believe that.”

He stares her dead in her face.  “You thought wrong, I’m can’t believe this, I can’t forgive this.  I thought I was coming to a party, I knew you would be here, but I never thought this, damn.”

To be continued…

© LaRonda Moore

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