Chapter Nineteen
1307 Words
Chapter Nineteen
Adalia lifted her fist to the door then dropped it to her side again. She didn’t want to knock. The wrinkled disdain on the other side of that door terrified her more than a future without baking.
Why was that?
Sylvester Montclair’s disappointment was a cross she didn’t want to bear, but Adalia would be damned if she went back to Trent’s apartment for more time than it took to pack her bags and get the hell out of there.
She crunched the handle of the bag in palm and slammed it into her thigh.
“Grow a pair, Adalia,” she whispered, then rapped her knuckles against the white wood three times. Her father’s footsteps rang out from the other side of the door.
The bolt scraped back and he opened up. His eyebrows danced in surprise.
“What are you doing here, girl?” Sylvester asked, gripping the jamb with clawed fingers. He hadn’t cut his nails in a while, but they were immaculately clean. The blanket was nowhere to be seen, and he didn’t splutter or cough. He simply stood there, glaring at her.
Fatherly warmth was gone.
“Dad, I need...” she said, then coughed into her fist and slapped the bag into her thigh again.
“You need what, exactly?”
“I need your help.” Man, that hurt like hell. A direct dig to her pride.
“Well, that’s unfortunate, isn’t it?” Sylvester’s expression hardened so much she could hardly find her father behind the anger. What had she done to deserve this kind of reaction? Hadn’t she been a good daughter to him?
“Please, Dad, I have nowhere else to go.”
“That’s all it’s been about,” Sylvester murmured as if he’d spoken more to himself than anyone else.
“What?”
“You,” her father replied through clenched teeth.
“I have no idea what you mean, Dad.”
“You’re selfish, you only care about what’s best for you and not how you affect others. This is the Adalia Show in your eyes,” Sylvester barked.
Cool prickles rose on her scalp. “That’s not true,” she replied. “I tried to help you and pay some of your bills but you wouldn’t let me.”
“You think that’s what this is about? You don’t hear yourself talking or something? Every second word is ‘I’.” Her father shook his head and the anger faded away. He brought out the next best weapon in his arsenal: disappointment.
“This isn’t fair. I did my best to make you comfortable while I was here.”
“You didn’t know I was in financial trouble until your issues cleared up then it was time to check in on Dad and figure out how to ‘help’ him. I don’t need help from you, girl, hence you’re the one begging for my help.” Sylvester hadn’t been cruel growing up, not even when she’d worn her mother’s pearls and broken them by accident.
Those pearls had sat in the silk-lined jewelry box on the dressing table in her father’s room for years. Adalia had thought it a waste of a perfectly good piece of costume jewelry.
Silly girl.
“I wasn’t trying to ignore your issues, Dad. I really do want to help you. I was just so caught up in everything.”
“You were caught up in Adalia Land doing what you do best. Ignoring everyone who truly cares about you. You moved into some billionaire’s apartment and you don’t bother calling to check in on me.” Sylvester nodded at the truth.
“You told me not to contact you.”
“No, I told you not to come back here, but you can’t seem to follow simple instructions.” Her father let go of the doorjamb and shuffled out a few feet, into the light of midafternoon. He seemed older than the last time, the furrows in his brow were deeper and the wisdom in his eyes was sour.
No, it wasn’t wisdom at all, rather cynicism. He’d past the point of hope for the world, maybe he’d seen too much on that damn TV. Maybe she was the reason he’d lost faith. There were too many memories of her childhood, but they were blurred by her need to win where her brothers had lost.
She’d been so focused on doing the right thing that she’d left relationships in her wake. There wasn’t an easy way to repair them. Mike might put her up if she asked real nice. Adalia used her finger to swipe for tears beneath either eye, but her skin was dry.
“I’ll leave,” she said despondently. She spun on her heel, bag flapping against her thigh, carrying the weight of her clothes and shoes, the only possessions she had to her name. The car was gone too.
“Don’t be stupid.” Her father’s words made her fragmented heart ache worse. “You can stay here if you need to, just don’t talk to me. I’ve got no interest in discussing your issues until you realize you’re the sole cause of them.”
He went inside and left her there, but didn’t close the door. Tears welled up from her eyes. She was ‘welcome’ inside until further notice apparently. Icy air gushed from the open doorway, brushing her cheeks and drying out her lips.
There was her father’s threshold, waiting to accept her but not truly embrace her. He’d loved her at the beginning, hadn’t he?
Adalia wasn’t sure who she meant: Trent or Sylvester.
She braced herself for the weeks of hard living. She’d have to find another job, maybe go back to that damn market. A car sped past, bass pumping loud enough to make the windows buzz in their frames.
Stray dogs barked in the distance, nosing through spilled trash on the corner. Children giggled and tripped over a skipping rope. The usual sights she’d seen year after year, but it didn’t comfort her.
Adalia walked into the arctic depths of her father’s home. She went through to the bedroom, which lay open and empty but for the comforter on the bed and a n***d desk in the corner.
She shut the bedroom door and rifled through her handbag for her cell. She needed that old school comfort, that feeling of belonging and she hated herself for it.
Adalia went through her contacts absentmindedly, then exited and dialed his number without real thought for the consequences.
“What the f**k you want, b***h?” DeShawn answered, with his usual elegance.
“I need to talk to you. Things have gotten out of hand and I thought we could talk it out.” Adalia loathed the words that dribbled from her mouth, useless as drool. She was useless. She felt low to call him when she’d backed out of a relationship with him.
She reached into the bag and touched the Taser, flicking the button back and forth, but it didn’t remind her of anger or hatred, only pity. She pitied herself.
“I got nothing to say to you.”
“DeShawn, wait, please don’t hang up on me. I’ve got no one else to talk to right now,” Adalia pleaded.
“What ‘bout your pretty boy?”
“We broke up. It’s over. He cheated on me and I didn’t even see it coming.” Adalia gripped her forehead with her palm to still the trembling. That didn’t help.
“He cheat on you?” DeShawn asked, and she could hear the smile in his voice.
“That’s what I said,” she replied, and he blew out brusque laughter in her ear. That was the soundtrack to her misery.
“You got what you deserve, girl,” DeShawn said. Adalia squished the phone, mashing it into her cheek. “You a fat b***h who can’t do nothin’ right.”
She couldn’t reply to that, but he didn’t leave her the option. The line went dead a second later. Adalia dropped the phone to the bedspread and lay back, stretching her arms above her head then bringing them to rest below her breasts, clasping them in the front as if she were on her way to the grave.
There was no deeper hell than to turn to an ex-boyfriend for help and be rejected. This was her lowest level. She’d hit rock bottom and she didn’t want to sink through to the center of the earth.
- Writer
