Chapter Twenty-Six
By the time the sleepy cab driver dropped me off, I was feeling like a classic fool.
Why did I keep doing this to myself? To him.
When Mason had been nothing but patient and understanding and kind. Hell, I hadn’t even done anything for him to uphold my end of the bargain yet, while he had done so much for me. Already he had thawed out a part of me that had been frozen over for far too long; had gotten me to open up, face my trauma; relax a little inside myself. He had gotten me to trust him, when I had thought I might never trust again.
Just in terms of riding in that cab tonight; the driver had been male, yet I hadn’t felt the need to spend the entire ride tense, with my hand locked around the can of mace inside my purse. The guy had been harmless, and I was able to discern that. There had been a time when I hadn’t been able to. Everyone had seemed like an equal threat.
Now I had a new sense of independence and strength.
It might just be the first step, but you had to start somewhere, like he had said; baby steps. Anything was better than feeling afraid all the time.
He had given me that. Hope that I could work to be stronger and that a new and better day would dawn for me.
That was priceless.
And what had I given him but a bad case of the blue ones? I wondered wearily to myself as I let myself into the apartment building where I lived.
“Oh, hey, Harris.” I said to my neighbor, as the old black man shuffled along with his laundry basket from the facilities in the back.
“Why, hello, Miss Annie.” He said to me flirtatiously. “What a time this is to be comin’ or goin’!”
I blinked at him in mild surprise as he shuffled past me to the elevator, blocking my path to the stairs.
“You’re awake! Funny time to be doing laundry, I’d say.” I teased him back as I normally did, but I couldn’t help it if there was a slight edge to my voice.
I suppose Mason wasn’t the only one who was left frustrated tonight by my sudden decision to flee the scene.
“You always runnin’.” Harris cackled to himself on his way into the elevator. He remained unperturbed by my prickly attitude. “What you even runnin’ from, girl? Do you even know?” He showed me a few of his missing teeth as he smiled at me and the elevator door dinged shut between us.
I sighed and cracked my back, then I trudged up the stairs as if to punish myself, all the way up to the fourth floor where I lived.
A part of me couldn’t help but wonder how much I might’ve messed things up with Mason at this point. The poor guy was only that, after all, a guy. Surely he would get tired of waiting eventually and...and leave me.
I slumped onto the couch and Sniffles inevitably came out from the back closet where he liked to nap, and curled up in my lap.
I stroked his long white fur as I cried softly, out of sheer emotional exhaustion.
He purred in a comforting fashion, needling my thigh all the while.
“Oh, Sniffles.” I sighed, and he looked up at me with wise emerald eyes. “What have I done?”
He had no answer for me, of course, but he made me feel better, all the same.