275 Shopping for baby clothes (1)
Long chapter
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“You are joking, right?” Zaria waited to him to burst into laughter for successfully pranking her. When his expression didn’t change in the slightest, she realized that he was serious.
“Why would you think yourself capable of hurting the woman you care the most about? You would even die in her stead if anything were to threaten her life!”
Now that she said it out aloud, he felt a little silly for believing the possibility. His lips moved but he did not say a word. Zaria was easy to trust and talk to but he wasn’t willing to tell her more than he already had. He brushed her off. “I just know.”
“Fine.” She stood up, grabbing their empty cups to throw in the trash bin at the side of the street.
“Look. I don’t care why you think you might hurt Natalie but think about it. She is hurting now more than ever because of what you did. Are you willing to let her and yourself hurt for the rest of your lives because it is possible that you might hurt her? Is it worth it, Devonte?”
He watched her ditch the empty cups and then hook her arm around Desmond, then the two of them walked away and disappeared into a villa.
He stood on the same spot for a long time until a cat ran over and circled his legs. He crouched to pick the big, white ball of fluff up. “She’s right. It’s not worth it.”
.....
“Meow.” Was all the cat could respond with.
“Right. I didn’t see you earlier. Have you had anything to eat?”
Since the cat couldn’t answer, he took its silence as a no. It was the very cat that would get bullied most of the time and wouldn’t eat much, so he often kept some extra food for her to eat later. He took her back to the car, fed her, and let her down to go. However, she jumped back onto his lap.
He smiled. “You don’t want to part ways either, do you? Then I’ll keep you.”
The cat purred as he rubbed her ears.
“Hey, do you think Natalie will forgive me? I broke her heart really badly.” He sighed. “You females understand each other best. What do you think I can do to make it up to her?”
He earned a purr and for some reason, it felt as though the cat was scorning him.
“Right. You wouldn’t know because you’re a cat.” He sighed deeply. “I’m going to try my best anyways. And if this blows in my face, I’ll blame it on you for not telling me what to do.”
He laughed at his ridiculous stance. Now he was talking to a cat and getting her to take the blame if he failed. Just great.
___
In the morning, he took the cat to the vet for a check up. He was to pick her in the afternoon so he took the chance to meet up with Natalie.
When he arrived at her apartment, she was cleaning the living room and looked horrified to see him.
“Devonte. Uhm... I wasn’t expecting you?”
He frowned. Wasn’t her reaction over the top?
Her hand that was holding the feather duster trembled. “You must have found out. I’m sorry I snooped into your personal life. I just couldn’t keep it in knowing... wait. No. I’m not sorry. I suspected Dr. Stanley was trying to hurt you so I stole two pills from you for a lab test and he really is trying to hurt you!” She blurted out.
“What?”
She threw the duster aside and made a dash for her bedroom, returning with an envelope which she handed to him. “Grand View Hospital. They would never lie about a lab test.”
He grabbed the envelope in disbelief and sure enough, there was an explanation about the pills she had stolen from his room, whose absence he had not noticed. It turned out, the two were drugs whose production was stopped for being harmful to the brain.
“You have to trust me. Kara Williams personally did the test and she is certain that Dr. Stanley deliberately gave these pills to you. He is bitter for being excluded from medical experiments and hurts everyone to get back at life for being unfair to him. He is a psychopath, I swear.” She rambled on all the details she had gotten from Kara, worry seeping in when he didn’t react.
“If you don’t trust me, you can take the pills to another lab for a test. Though I must warn you, you will need to explain their origin if you do.”
When he finally opened his mouth, he expressed his disbelief. “He said I would hurt you and I believed him.”
She was relieved that he trusted her but her brows knitted. “Why would he say such a thing? Never mind. He probably did it to keep you away from everyone who could find out his lies. But why did you believe him? Don’t you trust yourself?”
He was ashamed of himself for believing a sham. He sat down, placing the envelope on the coffee table. “He said the more I loved someone, the more I would want to hurt them. Then that night we had a disagreement and I yelled at you. So no. I don’t trust myself, Natalie.”
He was talking about the night before they broke up. She really wanted to dig into his brain and find out how it functioned. But again, she knew that he wouldn’t think up such crap on his own. His mental health made him exaggerate everything.
“How does yelling at me prove you would hurt me?” She asked gently.
“I had never been so angry with you before.” He was still in disbelief thinking about it. He’d had the urge to flip a table, throw a glass at a wall or outright punch it. “It was too much when all you had done was express your worry that I would be sea-sick if I went on a cruise trip.” He explained.
Her eyes stung. “That’s because you were in your low, silly. And I have to admit that I nagged you a hell lot about that trip.” She slotted herself between his legs and held his shoulders. “I didn’t know what you were going through at the time.”
“It’s no excuse for hurting you.” He admitted.
She slammed her fist against his chest.
“I deserve that.” He laughed and held her waist to support her. “I’m sorry.”
She blinked rapidly to stop the tears that were threatening to fall. “It’s normal to yell when you are frustrated. I’m not saying it’s the right thing to do but it happens when you are angry, and anger is part of being human.”
Their gazes collided as she continued. “So don’t feel bad if you yell at me. I understand.”
“I’m not going to use you for my healing process. That’s not happening.” He frowned.
“That’s alright. I have looked up several psychologists. You can check them out later and decide who you want to go to.”
“That can wait. Let’s spend the morning together. Once I pick Molly up, I’ll check out the psychologists.”
“Molly?” Her heart sank. He had moved on already? Then what was he doing, holding her like he wanted her?
He tipped his head back laughing at her reaction.
“Are you jealous? Molly is a cat. I picked her up from the street last night.”
“Oh.” She was relieved but confused at the same time. “A cat? I thought you were a dog person.”
“I still am. I just couldn’t watch her suffer anymore.”
She couldn’t make head or tail of what he was saying. She grabbed the duster and shoved it into his hands. “If you want to spend the morning with me, then get busy. Because that’s what I’m doing all morning.”
He was amused. He had thought that after his apology, she would either kick him out or ask for some time to process everything. Having him help her clean her apartment was not any of the things he thought they would do in the slightest chance that they got back together but he did it with a satisfied grin.
He snaked his arms around her as she organized the bookshelf. “You are so lovely. I was a fool to think I could ever live without you.”
She placed the book on its shelf and ran her hand over his. “Are you finding an excuse to get me into bed?”
“What if I am?” He asked.
Her response was to turn around and jump onto him with her legs around his waist. “Then I’ll slide into bed with you.”
___
Desmond took Rosaly back but over the weekend, she insisted on going back to spend time with Zaria. Since she was going to shop for some clothes, she decided to take Rosaly along and the girl was excited to go.
She watched as Zaria did her makeup and blinked curiously.
“Zaria, why did your lips turn red when you rubbed that stick on?”
She was slightly taken aback by the question. “That’s because it’s used to color lips. Is it pretty?” She closed it and gave it to Rosaly, who was excited to examine it.
“Can I rub it on my lips too?” She asked, her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm.
“Of course, sweetie.” She picked a pastel pink lip gloss from the set and uncapped it. “However, red is not good for a little girl. Let’s try pink, okay?”
Having only ever had colorless gloss on before, she nodded excitedly and pursed her lips for Zaria to rub the lip gloss on.
“I look like a princess!” She yelled excitedly when she saw her reflection in the mirror.
“You are a princess.” Zaria kissed her cheek. “Let’s go buy some clothes, shall we?”
“Rosaly happily skipped out of the room, showing off her lips to Theodore and Des as soon as she saw them.
They then went to the mall where they entered a children’s clothes store first.
Rosaly couldn’t help laughing at the size of babie’s onesies.
“They are so tiny.” She giggled.
Zaria grabbed an even smaller onesie to tease her. “When you were little, you probably wore one smaller than this.”
Rosaly scrunched her face. “But I’m so big.”
Zaria laughed at her reaction of disbelief. Their moment was interrupted by a loud gasp.
“Good heavens! How dare you!”
“Angela.” Zaria scoffed in annoyance while Rosaly was still distracted checking out tiny dresses.
Angela grabbed her hand while staring at Zaria angrily. “How dare you apply makeup on my daughter?”
Zaria swatted her hand away from the scared Rosaly’s and pulled her back, glaring daggers at Angela. “It’s just a lip gloss and it’s safe for kids. I’m not as careless as you, Angela.”
The woman screamed hysterically. “Help! This woman is trying to kidnap my daughter!”
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