Jeremiah

"Here."

I slowly raised my head to the glass of water my mother was stretching in front of me, right before I hesitated, raising my head to her face. She had her eyes glued to me.

"I thought you were thirsty?"

I scoffed. and then let out a smile on my face. It felt good to watch her soften up to me.

"If I had known it would take a stab wound to get to spend so much time with you, I'd have made someone stab me every day."

I stretched my hand to take the glass from her.

"If you don't want the water, I can just take it away."

I grabbed it gently from her hand, and then slowly dropped it on the table. There was no way I was going to let her take it back. It had taken me years to get her to give me anything. I took a quick sip from it.

"It's all I have here for now." Was she kidding me? At that point, I was going to take whatever it was she gave me. Even if it was poison. "Drink slowly." She told me. She must have noticed I was trying to force it all down my throat at once. I exhaled, and then dropped the empty glass back on the table in seconds, wiping the drops of water from my mouth, with the back of my hands.

She clicked her tongue, and then shook her head, right before she pulled out one of the seats from the tiny table.

"How are you feeling?"

I smiled, and then turned to my bandaged belly. She stitched me up really well. I could still feel stings around the area, but it was fine.

"Your skills are top notch." I told her, as I still examined the bandage. "You stitched it perfectly well too, I can barely feel a thing." I turned to her, and l gave her a thumbs up. "I couldn't be prouder."

She turned away from me, and then reached for her phone. The smile on my face turned to a frown quickly, because I knew what it was she was trying to do.

"You've overstayed your welcome." She told me as she pressed a few keys into her phone. "Your parents must be really worried about you. I have to call Emmanuel to come get you, before you get into more troubles than you already have."

I waited for a second as I watched her text some things into her phone. She was probably texting Mannie now. I pursued my lips, and then nodded.

"I guess I don't mind going back to the mansion." I told her. "I'm satisfied already. Seeing you like this is more than enough for me. At least I can sleep well tonight." I turned back to the glass, and began to twirl it around, till she dropped her phone back on the table.

The entire table remained quiet for a short while right before-

"The girl you were talking about." She started. I raised my head to look at her slowly. She was looking at me too. "The one you wanted to protect." She turned back to look at her phone, playing with it like she was trying to distract herself from actually looking at me. "Who is she?"

I smiled.

Was my mother really trying to know about the girl I was trying to protect? Was she trying to know about my personal life now?

"She's just someone. Someone important to me."

"Is she your girlfriend?" She asked me. "The one I always see with you on the internet and on TV?"

I chuckled.

"No. It's not Oma." I told her. I couldn't help myself. Was she really checking up on me? Had she been watching me all along? She even knew I was with Oma? She even had the time to search me up on the internet?

"Did I say anything funny?" She asked me.

"No." I tried to stop laughing, as I took a quick look at her. "I just find it amazing that you've been stalking me all these years, 'on the internet and on TV'. If you really wanted to know how I was doing, you should have just called."

She rolled her eyes.

"Forget I even asked." She told me, and then turned back to her phone. I scoffed.

"How can I forget that you asked?" I asked her. "Anyway, I'm just going to tell you, because you want to know, and because I want to let you in on all the things you've been missing. Plus recently, I've found myself feeling some things I can't explain, and I figured I needed to talk to someone about it. Someone that was going to understand."

She turned around to face me completely. It looked like she was getting really interested now, with the way she placed her elbow on the table, and then her head on it, so she could give me all her attention.

"What kind of feelings?"

"I-I don't know." I was trying to be as honest as I could. "I did something really awful, Mum. At first I thought I was doing it to hurt Dad, and hurt her for lying to me, but recently it hasn't been feeling that way. It feels like I really wanted to do it."

"Is this about what happened at your father's gala? About that girl you kissed? About Kora?"

Scoff.
Of course she knew. Everyone knew.

She dropped her hand from the table.

"Is she the one? The one you have feelings you can't explain for?"

"Yeah." I scoffed. "At first I didn't even think I cared about her." I went further to explain. "And then when I found out who she was, and how she had been lying to me like everyone else did, I got so mad. I was so upset because she was supposed to be better than everyone else, and that anger pushed me into kissing her at the gala, at my engagement party, because I thought if I did, it was going to get her into a lot of trouble, and embarrass Dad too, because I wanted them to feel how hurt I felt. I wanted to punish them for taking advantage of me."

"It was supposed to end from that day on. I was supposed to forget about her and just move on, but I can't. I don't think I can ever move on from her, I don't think I can ever stop thinking about her. I get hurt when I see her hurt, I get so upset when people try to make fun of her, I even jumped in front of a knife, and now I'm hiding the fact that I jumped in front of a knife, because I'm scared of what might happen to her if people found out about it. She makes me worry about her a lot, and I find myself drawn in the middle of making a decision on what to do about the things I feel. A part of me wants to run to her, to embrace her and hold her hand, to apologize and tell her how I feel, but another part of me is scared of what might happen, when I do. Dad is not really popular for overlooking certain things. He's never going to understand. If I choose her, if I take her hand, instead of Oma's, he's going to go after her too. He'd send her far away just like-"

I paused, and then looked at her. It was obvious she knew the rest of what I was about to say. Just like he sent you away. I figured I didn't have to say the rest of it. She looked at me for a long second. Like she was trying to read me. It made me so nervous. She exhaled.

"So you have feelings for Kora." She told me. I smiled a little bit. "Why don't you tell her?"

Tell her? What part of what I said about my father did she not understand?

"You're not listening."

"Oh I listened alright." She told me. "You're scared to admit your feelings, because you think your father might take her away from you, or ask her to leave, just as I left."

Exactly my point.

She exhaled.

"The thing is," she continued. "Your father didn't make me leave. No one made me leave. I left because I wanted to."

I rolled my eyes. Yeah, enough with the bullshit. I knew the story alright. That wasn't the story I knew. Of course I wasn't going to believe her.

"Believe it or not, it's the truth. No one can make you do what you don't want to do." She continued. "I could have easily reported to the police or ran with you, but I chose to leave you behind. To leave you with him. I didn't want you anymore, I was too weak to fight for you. I wanted to get my life back together. To start over. Kora might not be like me. If she fights hard, if the both of you fight hard, not even your father can come in between you both, especially if she chooses not to run, and trust me, she is not the type to run. She's not weak."

I forgot, I heard something about my Mum working as Kora's nanny a few years ago. It was obvious she knew so much about Kora already.

"You honestly don't have to live your life for anyone anymore. You're not a prisoner in that house. I didn't leave you back then for them to treat you like one. I mean, your father probably wants the best for you. and I would not encourage you to disobey him, but sometimes, it's healthy to stand your ground and fight for what you believe in, especially when what you're fighting for, the person you're fighting for is ready to fight with you. You're old enough now. You've lived with them for so long. They can't throw you away even if they wanted to. The chance for them to do that was a long time ago. There's a lot that would be at stake for them if they do. The worst that could happen is you'd be taken out of your father's will. I'd have been worried about that, if you already didn't have a great future ahead of you, with or without your father. Or you could just listen to your father. and do what he wants. Get married to that pretty popular girl and help him grow his legacy, that way, you could also be a part of that legacy, do what he wants and get him to treat you like the rest of his sons, let Kora go."

I scoffed. What was that? Was she playing mind games with me now?

"What?" She asked me.

"You didn't mean any of the things you just said, did you?" I asked her.

"I just gave you two options to choose from, and the possible outcome of choosing those options. Whatever option you choose has nothing to do with me."

She got up slowly, and then reached for the glass.

"I washed off the blood stains from your shirt, and ironed it dry. The stains aren't perfectly gone, but they are almost unnoticeable. Get your Jacket." She told me. "Emmanuel is at the front door."