weeks? Didn't you want me to return? Please, tell me
the truth. I need to hear it."
I hesitated.
In the back of my mind I heard Mama's voice, I
heard all the warnings. I saw myself heading toward a
precipice, in danger of a great fall. All that was
sensible and logical in me told me to leave, and as
quickly as possible; but my feet were nailed to the
floor by a love that rippled through my body as firmly
as he claimed his did.
"I thought of nothing else," I admitted. "I, too,
saw your face everywhere, heard your voice in every
sound. Every day you didn't return was an empty day,
no matter how much work I filled it with," I said. His
face brightened.
"Gabriel . . . I love you," he said, and took me
into his arms. Then he scooped me up and carried me
to the bedroom that would be our love nest.
After what Octavious Tate had done to me and
what Virgil Atkins had said to me, I thought I would
never taste love on my lips nor ever know what a soft,
gentle caress of affection was like. I thought I would
die resembling a wild rose, never seen, never smelled,
never touched, a flower that would be kissed by the
sun and the rain until it bloomed radiantly, but then
would eventually wither and decompose, its petals
floating sadly to the earth, its stem bending until the next rain pounded it into dust to be forgotten, to be
treated as if it had never existed.
But in Pierre's arms, I felt myself blossoming,
exploding with color and vibrancy. His kind and