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"Okay," she said in a small, quiet voice.
I turned on the car and as I pulled onto the road, I glanced into the rearview mirror. Cassius was standing just where I'd left him, staring after us as we drove away.
TWENTY
CASSIUS
I wasn't sure which feeling was worse, the absolute terror of hanging up my phone and looking around to realize that Makayla was nowhere to be found, or the gut punch I felt when Deira looked at me and told me not to call her. I had felt the briefest of reliefs when I'd looked into the store and seen Deira talking to Makayla. It was a sweet rush that only lasted seconds, because as soon as Deira turned and I saw her expression, I knew there was a chance I had screwed this all up for good.
I answered the questions from the police and drove myself home in a daze. All I could do was relive the events of the day over and over again. An endless string of questions paraded through my mind, each and every one of them starting withwhat if.
What if Makayla had gone into the street and gotten hit by a car?
What if she'd fallen and hurt herself, and I was just cluelessly talking on my phone?
What if while I wasn't looking someone had taken her?
And those were just the questions of regret about earlier that day. The questions about the future were even worse.
What if Deira decided I was unfit to be a father?
What if this had been my only chance, and I just ruined it?
What if I never saw them again?
I tried all my usual tricks to quiet my mind. I went for a long drive, then came home and did a hard workout. Exhausted, I took a hot shower. But still, all I could do was obsessively turn the day over in my mind. Was this what being a parent was like? I was starting to realize why Deira had been so cautious about me. Every moment for her must be about gauging the danger a situation would pose to her daughter. She had been rightly suspicious of me. I had let both of them down.
I was in that state of mind for the next few days. I couldn't concentrate on anything. I avoided going into the office because, while I desperately wanted to see Deira and beg for forgiveness, I was also terrified of what she might say.
Plus, she had told me not to contact her. I didn't want to risk making things any worse than they already were. So, I just waited.
Finally, after about three days, Deira called. I was in a lunch meeting, but I excused myself and went to the patio to answer the phone.
"Hello?" I said, my heart thudded in my chest.
"Cassius, hi," she replied. Her voice sounded strange. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something was different.
"I'm calling because... well, I've been putting off calling."
"That's okay," I said immediately.
"But I shouldn't put it off anymore. I shouldn't just keep you hanging." Some instinct in me sounded alarm bells at that statement, and I tried to head off what she was about to say.
"It's really okay. You should take your time. Call me next week, or..."
"It's going to be longer than next week, Cassius. It's going to be a long time." My heart sank.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I mean, I don't know how I feel about you, and I don't know when I will know. I don't know when I'll trust you around Makayla again, and honestly..." She paused for a long time before finally saying, "I'm really mad at you. So incredibly mad. I don't think I could be in the same room with you without screaming at you."
"That's fine," I said. "You can scream at me."
"No," she replied, sounding exhausted. "I don't need to scream at anyone. It wouldn't help. It would just make me upset all over again. I just need a few months to recover from this."
A few months?
"I'm sorry, Cassius. I know you meant well. And I will get over this eventually. But it's too much right now. All of it. The fighting, the sex, the worrying... We met because we got in a car accident, for Pete's sake. I don't want my life to be like this, as if I'm on a rollercoaster of emotions. So, for right now, I don't want to see you, and I don't want Makayla to see you. We're just going to live our lives for a while. I'm not cutting you out forever. I just think we need a do over. I'll reach out to you in a while, okay?"
