Page 25 of Blinded By Hate

“I’m happy I made it too. I’m ready for food.” I chuckle and let her go. “You guys have such a nice home.”

“Thank you. Chris and I tried really hard to make this feel super welcoming and homey.” Natalia smiles.

“I’m going to go finish up in the kitchen,” Chris says before kissing Natalia on the forehead which makes me smile.

Natalia grabs my hand and pulls me towards Lilah who is on the floor. “Lilah, baby. I want you to meet someone,” Natalia says as she makes me sit down. I rest my bag on the couch and scoot towards Natalia and Lilah. Lilah is playing with two Barbies and it looks like they are having a conversation. Junior sometimes does that with his animal figurines. He always makes the lion and tiger fight. Lilah looks up at me and smiles. Her smile is just like her mother’s and she has bright blue eyes just like her father. She is a perfect combination of Chris and Natalia. “Lilah, this is Jaclyn. I went to college with her. She was my best friend.”

Lilah smiles at me and she wraps her arms around me. “I love new friends!” she cheers and lets go of me. She admires the features on my face. “You’re so pretty like mommy.”

I smile down at her. “Thank you. You’re pretty just like your mama.”

Lilah blushes and then gets off my lap to go back to playing with her dolls.

“So you barely told me about what’s going on with you. Talk to me.” Natalia pulls her knees to her chest and rests against the side of the couch.

I smile nervously. “Well like I said I’ve just been busy with work.”

“How have you been after the whole thing happened?”

Time freezes, as I think about that answer.

I don’t want anyone knowing what a mess I was. Crying to my mom every night until I moved out. Waking up to horrible nightmares. Looking in the mirror and hating what I saw. Tracing the scars with my nails, wishing it would just go away.

My mom said she never saw me like that and she hopes never to see me like that ever again. My mom worries about me a lot and after that whole situation it just made her worry more.

I had a seizure from how low my blood sugar was one time because I was so stressed out about everything else and it didn’t help that I had Junior in my belly.

“Things were rough in the beginning but I’m doing better now,” I say.

It’s not really a lie because I am doing better than before. I’m just trying to continue to work on myself.

Yea but taking pills every goddamn day.

“Hayden told me everything,” Natalia says, tears threatening to appear in her eyes. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. He told me that you guys broke up the night he saved you. He didn’t come home that night and didn’t answer anyone’s calls for two days. I thought he was with you but then when he wasn’t answering anyone I knew something was wrong. He came home two days later with a busted lip and a bruised eye. His knuckles were bruised and cut and when I looked in his eyes I couldn’t see anything there. I was so scared for my brother but I also couldn’t help but wonder what happened to you. Hayden has never been like this with anyone so I was worried as hell.”

I never knew how Hayden was after I broke up with him. I knew he was mad but I didn’t know to what extent. “So you know why I had to leave?” She nods her head. “I’m sorry, Nat. I just had to leave. I wasn’t myself. I felt horrible but I couldn’t love Hayden and deal with everything at the time. I wanted to be alone.”

Natalia gives me a sad smile. “I know, but you look better and are hopefully doing better so that’s all that matters.”

I nod my head. “What do you mean by ‘there was nothing there’? When you mentioned how Hayden looked when he came back?”

Natalia sighs and licks her bottom lip. “When he came back, I looked in his eyes and they looked dead. It looked like his soul left his body and there was nothing behind his eyes. He looked like that for a few months. Coming in and out of the apartment with bruises and cuts everywhere. Sometimes he wouldn’t even come home. He barely talked to anyone. But then he met his brother and things changed.”

I furrow my eyebrows.

Brother?

“Brother?”

Natalia was about to answer but then the doorbell rings. Natalia gets up. “I’ll be back. Chris, I’m getting the door,” she yells as she walks out of the living room.

I look at Lilah, playing with her dolls, furrowing her eyebrows every few seconds when one doll does something to the other doll.

My mind goes back to Hayden and his brother.

Hayden never mentioned a brother to me.

All he told me about his biological parents is that his mom died from drugs and then his dad died from a gunshot. He never met either of them but he never wanted to either.