If Only

C H A P T E R 38

REALIZE

MIRANDA

Ruen came knocking and entered my room, asking what happened. I just burrowed my face into the pillow as I felt her sat beside me. Brushing my hair to the side, she started to tell me a story.

"The first night you came into my empty house, I stayed up all night camped out of the room where you slept." She sighed. "Lying in a fetal position at the foot of the door, I was so scared."

"The horror of having a knife held at your throat caught up to you that night?" I asked. She was scared of me. Of what I can do while she slept.

"If that was the case, I could have just called the cops on you. I kept sleeping out there for the next nights that month, you know so no. That was not it." She continued brushing her hand on my hair. "I was scared that you would leave and that I'd be alone again."

What she said made me stop and look at her. There were tears brimming in her eyes.

"I have been living there for two years before you came. I got used to the idea of being alone. I managed." A tear fell then another, "I started being afraid the day you stayed."

I reached up to dry a tear and saw her smile. "That came out wrong," she swallowed before continuing. "I started to feel the moment you came. Before you, I was merely existing, same as the house that I lived in – empty, cold and solitary."

"I am forever thankful for the day you took me in," I told her.

While I was jumping from different homes, I thought I was the most wretched girl in the world, an orphan. But Ruen, she was no orphan. Her parents just didn't want her. At least I could have made up scenarios why my parents could not keep me; I found solace in the uncertainty.

She could not. Her own family left her there. A child alone, I imagined her living there by herself, the sadness–the melancholy of the girl in a golden cage, forgotten. The long quiet days wondering why she was thrown away.

"Maybe just as thankful as I was." She smiled and wiped at her tears. "I was more than happy to have you. I wanted to give you the best."

"You did," I said. "You always did. More than a homeless nobody like me was entitled to."

"Who was to say what was or what isn't for you?" She asked. "You are Miranda, the one who needed my love when nobody wanted it. It made me more than happy to give."

"In a way, we were so much alike. Maybe I saw myself in you." She smiled. "But you were stronger than I was. You did not seem to want the same affection I so desperately desired. Self-sufficient but you were detached."

Detached?

"The woman who told me that it was ok to hurt, to feel, was scared to do the same," She pinched my nose.

"Hey!" I lightly tapped her hand away. "That hurt. I was not scared."

She chuckled. "You always smiled, laughed and thanked me for what I gave. Sometimes I wondered if you truly wanted them."

"I did," I assured her.

"I wanted you to show emotion. Tell me 'no, thank you' if you did not want it. You were so afraid of offending me." She sat up straight. "I wanted a companion, not a complacent doll. You were not a toy that I bought, Miranda."

"I appreciated everything you gave." She rolled her eyes at that. "Ok, maybe not the party you threw for me when I turned thirteen. Heck, Rue. I don't even know more than half of the fucking kids you have invited!"

"They were your schoolmates!" She laughed. "You spent the day trying to get them to leave you alone."

"For strangers, they were too clingy." I shivered at the memory of me hiding under the table, scared of the fucking children that could pop in at any time. "I would have been happy to celebrate with just the two of us, Rue."

"See! You should have said so when I asked you." She said. "You just said, 'Anything you say goes, Rue. I'd love it anyway.' So I decided on a big party."

I hit her with the pillow, "Because I trusted you. I wasn't expecting that horror-themed party you put me through."

"So you weren't trying to let me have my way?" She looked at me like she didn't believe me, "All the time?"

"Sometimes," I confessed. "Ok, most of the time. But I am no doll. It made me happy to see you so involved even if it mostly was for me. I am not a programmed robot."

"I realized that only after more than a year of living together." These hands that threatened to end her life, she took them in hers. She was no longer cold because Amelia always kept them warm. She keeps her warm.

Raven did that for me too.

"You told me you wanted to learn to play the instrument." She marveled at my fingers as if her talented playing hands were not as great, "'Ah! There was something she wanted. For once, Miranda voiced out the very first thing she wanted.' I even jotted the date and time for that special day."

That was the time–the only time, I asked her something for myself.

"You had us immediately driven to a music learning center with the music teachers standing at attention." It was quite a sight.

"I didn't want you to change your mind. I knew that you have been holding back because you were scared that if you asked for too much, I would have thrown you away."

Like some of my foster parents did.

"You could have asked for the moon for all I care, Mim. I would have booked us a tour of the outer space." She grinned. Now, I know for sure she was pulling my leg. "But as much as I wanted you to open up and act more freely, you would only hide back in the mask of contentment." She sighed.

"I was content to be by your side." I was. I kissed her cheek. "You were the family I never had."

"But you are not an extension of my life, Mim. Your world should not just revolve around me. You are your own person. You have got to have your own dreams and aspirations." Ruen leaned against my arm and hugged me sideways. "I know you wanted to be loved and to love too, Miranda."

"You love me and I love you," I said. Romantic relationships were not for me. I have admired a few people in college but didn't feel compelled to be in a relationship if that was what she was trying to get to–my lack of boyfriends–or girlfriends thereof.

I didn't even think I like women that way. Not even men in general.

"I love you too. Always will. But it won't always be just the two of us." She made me look at her. "I hope that you would not hold yourself back from loving someone else. Other people too."

I am not.

"I love Amelia like my own sister, Tessa, John, Rachel. I have come to care for the people working in the café. Harriette, Galvin, even Aaron too. My sister's daughter Ai."

Most definitely!

See, I was not closed off.

"What about Raven?" I refused to look at her. "How do you feel about her?"

What do I feel for her?

"Do you love your unborn child?" She gently touched my belly.

No child should feel unloved.

"Yes. Definitely!"

Especially not mine.

I love her.

"You love Raven."

"Yes!" I blurted out.

She smiled at that. The cunning woman tricked me into admitting how I feel. There was no hiding from her. "That wasn't so hard to admit. Was it?"