Scars (Romola 2)

81: Tell Me Why

"Romola?"

She turned her back to him and shut her eyes. "Go away Jide."

"Listen to me." He tried to hold her hand. She fought him but his grip tightened. She left her hand in his but refused to face him. "It's not your fault."

"You don't know that. Don't say that."

"Maybe if I drove faster?"

"How?" The only other way he could've saved Sunbo's life by driving faster was if his car flew over other cars and that still wasn't guaranteed to have stopped the blood flow.

His hand around her wrist was the only indicator that he was still there. That, and his heavy breathing. "What are we going to do now?"

He dropped her hand and he remained silent. There was no more talk about saving the little girl. No accusations about her part in Sunbo's death. His silence was comforting and when she opened her eyes, all she could see was the pain of loss in his. Nothing more.

She sat up and scratched the length of her left arm. "I don't know. Maybe? I didn't think it through. I didn't think any of this through... I expected that..."

She fell back to the bed and curled up again. It was better to leave the problem for Jide and her mother to solve. Any other thing she tried to do now would just complicate things like her fainting. Now, she had put them in far more debt. "Let Maami do it."

Jide shifted and leaned against the bed. "Maami can’nor do anything. Can't you see?"

"See what?" Romola glanced at the woman whose fist covered her mouth while tears bathed the fist. "I don't even care if she's still alive."

"Moromola, I'm your mother." Their mother rose from kneeling beside one of the chairs and walked to her, trying to hold her.

She turned her head away, swallowing a sob. "Why didn't you just leave him when I asked you to? You didn't. Please just leave me."

"How could I?"

Romola's head twisted in her mother's direction. Even after Sunbo's death, her mother still toted the same anthem. "How could you? Why couldn't you?"

"You were right? Is that what you want me to say?" Their mother tore her scarf off her head and threw it on the floor. She grabbed Romola's fingers and tried to interlace hers with them. "That I killed my own daughter because I was selfish."

The alleviation she'd thought she would find from her mother's admission of guilt did not come. Instead, a sick twisty feeling resided in her stomach. "If I'd known, I would've let Sunbo stay with me."

"Maybe, it would've been different. I just wanted her to go to school. To graduate from University. You failed. Jide failed. I didn't want her to end up like you or me."

"Well," Romola's lips lifted in a small joyless smile. "She won't end up like us anyway."

"Not like this." Their mother screamed. "Not like this..."

"Jide please, just take Maami away from me." Romola pulled her hands free as the doctor came. "She's got what she wanted. First, her husband tried to kill me and she didn't stop him and now he has killed Sunbo. Maybe she'll finally be happy."

Her mother tried to reclaim her hands but Jide held their mother back. "Maami, it's okay. She doesn't mean it. She's angry."

"Are you ready? The little girl is set to receive blood soon." The doctor entered the room again.

"Ready for what? I told you I am not interested." Romola turned to the side and placed her feet on the floor. It was better she started to move, to get away from this place.