Love You As You Are +18

Chapter 22

| Miles |

MILES APARTMENT

The calm before the storm.

The last six years of my life had been the calm before the storm. This storm. It’s happening again. No matter how much I try, I cannot escape my past. It always finds me. Just when I let my guard down, it comes back.

The voices around me are a blur, so are the movements, as I sat on the floor, leaning against the wall opposite my open apartment. The door’s completely knocked off and they’d turned my place upside down. I clutched the family heirloom in my left hand, silently fuming, but also scared. Scared that the demons had followed me here. The demons were back to hunt me.

They found me.

I’d been so scared thinking the worst thing had happened to my best friend, Indra. It was all I could think about, and I couldn’t for the life of me calm myself until she was in my arms. I’d held onto her like my life depended on it until she managed to calm me down.

By the time I’d stepped onto the last set of staircases, I was out of breath, and everything had quietened down. They’d gotten to the men before me. Mr Fernando Lopez, Indra’s biological father. I haven’t seen him since he moved from London, almost eight years ago, right before Indra and I took off. We never got to know why he left but that was the last I heard of him. The last thing I remember was him hugging Indra and I, telling us to be strong and to call us whenever we needed anything. And a little over weeks after we moved to South Africa, he’d called to check up on Indra, asking her where she was and if we were safe. That was it. Indra had never attempted to keep contact with him again.

Outside of my family and Auntie Gen’s husband, the man had been like a father to me. In fact, he’d been the first person to know that I wanted to be…’a boy’ in my words from before. Never did I see him judging or get upset with me. He’d been honest to let me know that he didn’t understand what it is that I wanted, but he’d support me if it made me happy. I’d longed to hear those very same words from my own family.

Instead, they shunned me. They shunned my very existence.

“Son, look at me,” I raised my eyes to stare those strikingly grey eyes I’d known to hold a safe place for me. Mr Lopez’s face softened when he saw the state I was in. He sat down next to, pulling me to him and crushed me in what I could only describe as a bear hug. The man felt like a bear compared to me. He was huge to say the least, packing a good amount of muscles, even at his age. His body was a testimony that he probably didn’t skip the gym. Heck, my hand looked like a child’s resting on his biceps as he hugged me. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault, okay?” he says quietly. That assurance did nothing but pull out a dam worth of tears and within a second, I was bawling my eyes out.

I didn’t only cry for Indra and the fact that I put her in danger. I cried because in this very moment, being in an elder’s arms had me feeling like the child I never got to be. It brought out that sense of security I haven’t felt in a long time. I cried because this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for me, to actually be selfish enough to crumble. For so long, I’d been tense, help upright and constantly looking over my shoulder, knowing very well at the blink of an eye, I could be in danger. I was familiar with this. And while I had to take charge and be hands on, now I feel like I don’t have to. I feel like I have someone who’ll protect me the same way I’d fought to protect Indra and I when we moved.
Clearly I failed at doing so.

And as Mr Lopez cradles me in his arms, rocking us both, I realised that I couldn’t do this on my own. I realised that I’d been going on about this so wrong. I’m helpless and I’m terrified. I’d been so adamant on keeping a façade that everything was alright, but it’s far from it. I’m a wreck and it only took one measly break in to make me realise that.