Until Sage (Until Him 2)

When I first found out that information, I knew I completely fucked up. I should have trusted my gut when I saw the look on Kim’s face as I confronted her. I didn’t do what I should have done, and I not only hurt Kim, I messed up beyond repair.

“I know you’re a man now. I know you don’t need my advice. But I’m gonna give it to you anyway,” he warns, taking a seat on one of my folding chairs at the card table set up in my kitchen. I’ve been using it since I moved into this dump, because I’ve been saving almost every penny I make and putting it into my house.

“Dad—”

“No, you’ll hear me out. Sit.” He nods to the chair across from him as he stretches out his legs. “Who’s this girl to you?” he questions, nodding to the envelope on the table.

I don’t even know how to answer that question. I thought for a moment she could be my future, but then shit went down and I thought she was a liar and just as fake as the rest of the women who’ve come into my life. I should have known better. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know, or you’re afraid to find out?” His eyes search mine, and he shakes his head, running his hand over his cropped hair. “I get that you want to experience life, experience women. I was young once, so I understand that shit. But, son…” He holds my gaze and drops his voice. “You’re never going to find someone if you don’t give anyone a chance, if you’re always searching, never stopping to see what’s in front of you.”

“I fucked up,” I tell him the truth, and he moves, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in the chair.

“How?”

Taking a seat across from him, I look at the envelope and tell him what went down. I fill him in about meeting Kim, about the time we spent together, and then I explain about Kim’s sister and what happened at the bar. Last, I spill what occurred after, when I corned Kim outside the salon. “I fucked up,” I repeat my earlier statement when I finish, and he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees studying me.

“Did you apologize?”

“Yeah.” I did apologize, but I knew the second I did that it was too late. The sadness I left her with had changed into anger, leaving me no shot at fixing what I broke.

“If she’s important to you, do it again, and again, and again, until she understands you’re sorry. Really fucking sorry,” he says, and I lift my chin, letting him know I heard him. But also knowing that ship has sailed, because not only is she still pissed at me, she now has a man, and even though I might be fucked up in a lot of ways, I won’t go there with her tied to someone else.

“Now, we need to talk about Nalia,” he adds, bringing my attention back to him, and that tightness in my chest changes to something even more uncomfortable. I hate the look on his face right now, hate that he and my mom both have the same expressions every time Nalia is brought up. I love my sister. I love her with all the love I have inside of me. But I’m pissed off at her. “She’s your sister, and as much as you and I don’t like what she’s doing, she still needs us right now.”

“I’ll be here for her, but I don’t want anything to do with Sharon,” I state, referring to the woman who gave birth to me.

I don’t understand Nalia’s reasoning for wanting a relationship with our birth mother. She tried to explain it to me once. Tried to describe how she feels it’s the loss of us that turned our mother’s life upside down. But as far as I know, her life was shit before she was forced to give us up when we were only two, because she had gone out partying, left us alone, and hadn’t come back for two days. No one even knew she was gone until they heard Nalia and me crying, and by that point, we were both in need of medical attention.

“I know you don’t, but you still need to be there for your sister. She thinks she can help Sharon. So as much as you and I may not like it, we still need to let her try,” he says, and I feel my face go hard and my muscles tense.

“The only person that bitch needs help from is the devil. What she did to me and Nalia…” I shake my head. “What she did to the two of us was wrong. I don’t care how she tries to twist it or what reasoning she has for what happened. It was fucked.”