He Listens (Chapter 20)

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 – 

“I don’t want to overthink this Kareem, and believe me when I say that I am learning to live in the moment.  You are teaching me that, but I’ve never been serious about a man with a child before.  I feel rotten even saying it out loud because I love Jordan.  He’s such a great kid.  I guess I’m just nervous about it, you know I don’t do kids well.  I used to have a rule about men with children:  never date them.  I made an exception for you because I see the role you play in your son’s life.  I have never been able to understand fathers that just walk out.  Don’t they care at all?  Can’t they see the damage they do?  My father passed from cancer when I was nineteen.  And although some days it is just like yesterday for me, and I wish that we had more time, I can’t deny the impact that he had and still continues to have on my life.  I miss him so.  Our relationship was foundational.  Through it I learned what a man is and how he should treat his wife and kids.  But you know the crazy part about that is, even though my father did not chose to leave us, for a long time I blamed him as if he did.  For a long time after his death, I was mad at him.  Mad at the changes that his absence created.  I was away at school when my father passed.  And after the funeral and all the dust cleared, I felt guilty about going back to school.  I was torn.  I know that he would have wanted me to keep going, but my mother and little sister were a wreck.  I didn’t have time to truly mourn, because I had to take care of them as he did.  Andre was my rock during that time, we hadn’t been together long either. He was great.  He really held me up.  I don’t know what I would have done without him.  Perhaps that’s the reason that I hung onto him even after I knew it was over.  I just didn’t want to loose someone so close again, be it through disease or distance.”

“Don’t be overwhelmed Kay, let it be what it is, and tonight, let me hold you.  I promise, know freaky business, scout’s honor.  And by the way, I was a boy scout for five years.”

They both laugh.

“I noticed that you said that you love Jordan, but what about his father?”

“I love you too Kareem.”

He tries to hold in his smile as she grabs his hand and escorts him to her room.

Later that night, as Kareem sleeps Kayla wiggles her way out of his arms, leans over to her nightstand and pulls out her journal to write:

Dear God,

Today you answered my frequent prayer request.  Every night, I would ask of you to make me complete again and help me to find my way back to you.  When, I prayed for this, I never imagined that my breakthrough would come through my interaction with someone else.  I am embracing new things now.  It’s scary but exciting at the same time.  Most of all, I am no longer broken and  I am no longer lost.  This is not because I now have someone to love.  I am no longer lost or broken because I have learned how to love and what it is.  Thanks for that lesson, thank you for the guidance.  And the next time that I find myself in unfamiliar places without a compass and coming all apart in the seams, I’ll read this and know that in time, you’ll mend me and point me in the right direction.

THE END

© LaRonda Moore

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