She watches me, pondering my words, before giving a very slow shake of her head. “I’m disappointed in you, Anna.”
I blink in surprise. I had thought I’d stopped wanting my mom’s approval a long time ago. I’d even taken very deliberate actions after Jimmy died to prove to myself and the world I could be just fine, could provide for Avery on my own.
And yet, that proclamation of disappointment from my mother hits me deep in the gut, mostly because she’s saying I’m not being true to myself… and I know she’s right. If I were being the brave, independent woman who had no qualms tackling widowhood and single motherhood on my own, I most certainly could push past these current fears. Haven’t I already faced the worst and lived through it?
And therein lies the problem.
I’m not sure losing Jimmy was the worst.
I bounced back from that. It was painful and hard as hell to slog through it. Losing a husband and giving birth to our daughter without him was terrible.
But this connection I have with Malik is different. Deeper, stronger, and more intimate.
If I were to take that plunge and just let myself fall madly in love with him, and he was to die, I’m not sure I could survive it.
?
Much later, after the pep talks with my mom are done and she leaves and Avery is asleep and I’m tucked into my pull-out bed in the living room, I nab my phone to scroll through my texts.
Malik left this morning. I’ve not seen him since our talk in my office yesterday. He said he needed time to think, so I gave him space. In my mind, we were already over so the pain of heartbreak had already settled in, despite my mother confusing me all to hell tonight by making me consider other options.
Like bravery, sacrifice, and risk.
He had sent me a text this morning, though. It was beautiful and simple, and it has confused me even more. He’d simply written, I’ll miss you.
I’m not sure in what context he meant that.
Would he miss me while he was gone to Ft. Bragg for training?
Would he miss me after we’d broken up because I couldn’t handle the fear of loving someone like him?
Was it his way of saying we were actually over as of now?
I hadn’t responded because anything I could say would seem trite, given I was the one who made the bold proclamation I couldn’t handle what he did for a living. He’s also the one who said he needed to think things through.
He’s the one who was torn between his job and me.
Admittedly, that stung a bit, but, deep down, I understood it.
I look at his words.
I’ll miss you.
My fingers move across the screen, a panicky feeling overtaking me. Have I lost him already because I unilaterally decided I couldn’t handle the reality of being with him?
My words are short, but true to my heart.
I miss you.
Not past tense. Not a premonition of how the future will unfold.
But how I feel, right now, in this moment.
I miss you.
I wait a few minutes for him to reply, but he doesn’t. It’s late, and there’s a good chance he’s asleep. He would have had an exhausting day.
Or he could be out with the guys, having some beers to celebrate a day of jumping out of planes.
Which is totally cool, too.
The point being, I don’t take his lack of response to mean he’s done with me. Malik isn’t that type of man. If he said he wants some time to think about our future together, it means he’s going to think about it and then we’re going to talk about it.
I put my phone on the table and turn out the light, accepting my future is still very uncertain as of yet.CHAPTER 27MalikWhen the plane touches down on the runway in Pittsburgh, a curious sensation ripples through me.
A sense of homecoming, and it’s been years since I’ve felt that.
It used to be flying home to visit my folks in Montreal produced that bubbly feeling of excitement, but now it’s the fact Anna lives and makes her home here that has me reveling in it.
Pretty sure the message being spoken through feelings is Anna is my home now.
Kynan helped me to figure it out. Can’t say as I’m surprised as I’ve been told by others he has a known history of meddling in his employees’ love affairs.
It all happened over beers after our first day of jumps in Ft. Bragg. Kynan decided to join our training group, him being former British Special Forces. While he didn’t go out on missions anymore, he wasn’t about to pass up the chance for some thrills, which as owner of the company and the man with congressional connections that made this training mission with government troops possible, it gave him the absolute right to tag along.