Blurred Lines |COMPLETE|

Epilogue

A Year Later

"You got it. Just focus on me." They encouraged. I nodded and sighed heavily as I stood up or if the wheelchair.

I don't know what felt worse; Living without the one you love or loving without wanting to live.

"I'm trying to. I can't do this shit. It's hard. It hurts." I complained. About to give up and just take a seat where I was in the grass.

I could say raising four awesome little kids alone humbled me, but I'm past humble when I know I have someone to count on for that extra push.

"I swear you're like... Half way to me. You know what? Put these on." I was instructed. I stopped and watched them walk up to me with ease to put a blindfold on me. Then kissed my lips. I smiled and chuckled as I grabbed her waist. Feeling blindly for something stable to hold on to as we began to walk an unknown path.

I'm happy we settled our differences and we're seeing eye to eye now. Took a hella long time, but I'm grateful for the journey of getting to be honest with myself. Somebody being honest back feels like a weight being lifted.

"Where are you taking me? I'm gonna fall." I said unnerved as I stumbled slightly.

"I have your wheelchair right here with me. You're fine. Trust me." The nerve of the words had me a bit uneasy without sight and I began to get irritated as I stopped to pull off the bandana. I looked at those eyes I slowly grew to love again and took a seat in the wheelchair after I found it beside her.

Perfect. She was perfect.

Even with her mistakes she'd made, she had my heart. All of it. I didn't care that she had taken my son away from me so long ago. I didn't care that she left her own for a time either because I knew now that she needed that time to herself to cope. To find her.

"You're cheating I want my fifty bucks." She said pushing up against me before sitting down in my lap. I smiled. I was so happy I had help to learn how to walk without that brace. So glad I knew how to walk straight just a bit without feeling like I was falling, but getting impatient with each wrong lopsided turn I took before my left leg wanted to give out on me.

"What fifty bucks Ona? I didn't bet anything!" I whined. She chuckled and kissed my lips again wrapping her arms around me tight before she laid against me.

I missed when I used to do the same thing with Candy. Just sit and cuddle before I got in jail. Even after I was out, we had our moments, but honestly nothing that good lasts forever. All of the feelings I thought I had for her just vanished after I found out about her complications on the operating table or maybe it was after the initial shock of her shooting me that fucked me up. I remember the same look of shock on her face after she'd done it and went down after me.

I don't know how I missed the shouting police officers behind her shorter frame, but I know it was too late for me to warn her once she was down.

All I could think about were the kids if I died or she died. They'd be devistated. If I would have left this world, I would have left lying to my son about promising not to leave him ever again.

After I was out of surgery myself, they'd told me about how her body wasn't accepting of any of the donor blood and asked if I knew about that. I did. I told them that she had a rare blood type and not everybody had it or something like that.

Moral of the story, they couldn't save her because of that and even after; if they did, she'd be in a vegetable state right now due to the fact that the cop had hit her dead in her spine. She wasn't gonna be responsive she wouldn't be able to help my handicapped ass any more than I could have helped her.

I cried when she flatlined. Damn near died when they buried her, but I had family around me to support me like they always have been. I just couldn't leave my kids with my brother like I used to because he had twins to deal with now and they took a lot out of him.

"Right here." She said jokingly rubbing her belly as she sat up off of me. I looked down and caressed her stomach. A warm feeling ran down my spine and I couldn't help, but smile. She was carrying my baby.

I'd asked her to after about a year or so that we'd been talking, knowing damn well the possibilities of the procedure for her. She was more excited than I was when she got the news over the phone that she was pregnant.

She cried a river and that made me tear up a bit too because I knew every horrible detail of her past. How much she loves the hell out of kids and couldn't have any after Angelo. The beatings she endured from Leon just before he'd have his way with her. She told me about the day that she'd slit her wrists. How she wanted so badly to cut his throat while he was asleep, but realized everything was her fault when she heard me over the phone with her son.

"Remember when you told me about those things happening to you with Leon?" I asked her. She nodded slowly and looked away from me feeling bad. I pulled her face back around to look at me and looked her dead in her eyes.

"I'm glad you're away from all that stress. Probably why you couldn't get pregnant. Why you kept having miscarriage after miscarriage. He was pushing you to do something your body couldn't take at the time, pushing you in general." I said to her softly as I caressed her cheek. She reached and grabbed my hand in hers before she kissed it, looking at me without a word as her eyes welled up with tears.

"I know." She said to me as her voice cracked. I was the one to look away this time. Something about her tears hurt me to look at, but she had to let them fall. Release all that hurt and pain. She deserved everything she didn't have before. "Thank you. For forgiving me even when I felt like you shouldn't have." She sobbed to me. I rubbed her back

"I forgave you the night I found you in the tub. Apologized a million times to you in my head for not actually seeing the bigger picture then. I didn't know you were going through shit Ona." I said to her in her face as I shook my head. "I promised myself I wouldn't let nothing bad happen to you ever again even if I was still with Candice til this day." I told her honestly. She chuckled slightly and hiccuped a sob.

"Candice is cussing you out in her grave." She said to me. I chuckled.

"Right. I better stop mentioning her before she come up and beat my ass." I laughed nervously and shook my head. I always tried to make light of her death but inside I was aching. That was my best friend since diapers. My everything at one point, but to see that fire dancing in her eyes when she thought she shot the right person only to have got me, did something to my mind. Every good memory of me with her turned sour.

Aleah wasn't ever gonna remember what her real mommy was like. Tristan will remember her for a good while, but then as he gets older, he won't have a trace of her in his head either. Angelo is old enough to remember, but he doesn't comprehend that well.

"Here comes your kids." She said looking past me. I grabbed a hold of the wheels on my chair and turned around swiftly. I watched Angelo push Aleah in her stroller towards me all serious like a big brother while Tristan was tryna make small talk with him, but Angelo was ignoring me.

"Angel, you hear him talking to you boy." I said to him as he pulled up in front of me signing quickly to his mom as he squinted his eyes from the sun. That's when I noticed he was mad and he had a red mark on the side of his face like sombody had thrown something at him.

"Daddy, he can't they being mean to him. Throwing and calling him names. They took him ear." Tristan spoke up. I looked at Aleah to see if she would add her two cents in, but she looked tired. I looked up at Aréona and she just nodded in agreement to what Tristan had already said. We were in ASL classes before all the stuff went down with me and Candice. I guess it actually paid off for Pooh.

"His ear?" I asked him. He nodded.

"Ear piece baby." Aréona cleared up as she grabbed my wheelchair and huffed in frustration. I nodded in understanding this time. I guess that was a better way to put it.

"Wait, where we going?" I asked her as she sped up.

"To get my baby stuff back." She said as a matter of fact. I sighed heavily. I should get used to this.