Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 97951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
She smiled through her tears.
“Lennox wasn’t ready when he first consulted me, but he wanted to get prepared for his bride. He did what I advised him to do. It took a long time, but he did it. And what do you know? He found his queen. She came back, returned to him, drinking a glass of wine while red and purple lights spun above her head like a halo…” She grabbed another tissue. “…It was the right place, the right time. The Creator saw that he was ready. Nadia, talk to the garden. She can still grow. Write a letter to the sprinkler. He is gone, but you are still here. Then, allow your soulmate to plant a seed in your soil, and he’ll vow to never walk away from the fruits of your labor. The death of evil begins with you. Heal for you, first. Heal for him, second. Healing hurts. It’s ugly, but the results are everlasting. When we heal, we are at our strongest. When we wallow in the past with no plans for recovery, we are at our weakest. We have to feel pain before we can understand and appreciate true pleasure. You and I are here, right now, on purpose.
“Creator, I ask that you help guide this Queen’s steps. I ask that you continue to put the right words in her mouth so she can encourage her King, and for her King to do the same for her. I ask that any evil that comes their way is eradicated, cut off at the knees, and all who wish to cause damage to this union be stopped in their tracks. They are like rocks. They are strong in the face of adversity, but they must conquer their traumas. Lennox and Nadia are stones. They’ve been discarded by people they loved. Trotted upon and thrown away, left to die. But may those two stones remember that when they were thrown in deep water, they rose to the mothafuckin’ top. Straighten up and fly right, Queen. Don’t be afraid of the rain. Dance in it, for you are the garden of life…”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Sam I Am
Lennox sat at his desk, serenaded by the sounds of Foy Vance’s, ‘Make It Rain’. Tilting his bottle of beer to his lips, he took a few good gulps then set it down on the coaster, mouthing the lyrics to the song while running some software to remove the encryption on a file on the USB drive he’d used at his father’s house.
Though he wasn’t surprised with his findings, he was disgusted. He moved the documents off to the left on the desktop, then opened his storage cloud. He clicked on the folder his sister had hand delivered to him and watched as the photos and videos populated. Taking a deep breath, he watched each one. He listened to all that was being said, his emotions a roller coaster. He went from rage to sadness, to repugnance, to feeling nothing at all. It was late. He glanced at the time on the computer. 3:12 A.M. Grabbing his phone, he sent a text message to Nadia:
Baby, are you good? You told me you’d call me afterwards, and it’s been a long while. I’m just checking in on you. Let me know what’s up.
He placed his phone back down, closed his eyes and rubbed his throbbing head. Soon, his life would never be the same. His cellphone rang, dragging him out of his thoughts.
“Hey, sexy,” he answered. No response. “Baby? … damn…”
Nadia was crying softly on the other end. He could tell she kept trying to speak, but whenever she did, nothing but cries broke through. He sighed, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes once again. He remained quiet for several seconds, perhaps even an entire minute. And then, he spoke to her.
“He gets in your mind, and you can’t get him out. You now know that from the moment the session ended, you’ll never be the same. I warned you, baby. He’s ruthless, and they say he handles the ladies a lot nicer than the guys, so that was probably the watered-down version of what I got.” He chuckled. “He ripped me a new asshole, then had the nerve to be all nice at the end after basically tellin’ me I wasn’t shit for like forty-five minutes straight.” He heard her laugh a little. “It’s alright…it’s good for you, like strong medicine. Just process it. You feel bad, but you feel good too, don’t you? You have the tools now to start healing. It’s hard to explain,” he stated with a sad smile.
“Yes… that’s exactly it… but… I feel so, so, so much better,” she stated between sniffs. “It’s like a lot of my pain lifted after we were finished. It was like he’d reached through the screen, and… and made me feel lighter. Cleaner. I don’t know. Something just feels different.” He nodded in understanding. “He stayed on with me for almost two hours, and didn’t ask me to pay more. It only felt like ten or twenty minutes, but we were on that Zoom call a long time.”