"What?!" Bianca asked no less terrified then she had been prior to discovering that her assailant was Tyler.
Tyler set her down and turned her body to face him. His face was drawn dark circles surrounding his seemingly sunken eyes that appeared to glow like blue neon against the contrast. Tylers body was thin and his hair and facial hair was uncut and ungroomed. He stared into her eyes with intensity unmatched by any he had exhibited in her presence before. He looked frightening. Holding both of her arms against her body and bending his tall body down so that he could be exactly eye level with her he asked again "is the baby mine, Bianca. Is it my baby?" For a moment she considered lying, telling him that it wasn't his then begging him to go away without further discussion, but she didn't...she couldn't, do that. As foreign as he appeared, and as menacing as his presence seemed she had missed his blue eyes. She had missed all of him so much.
"Yes...yes Tyler of course it is." She said looking sadly into his eyes. Without a word he collapsed to his knees sobbing both of his hands covering his face. Bianca didn't know what to do or say. Comforting him seemed appropriate but she had no idea if it really was anymore, she didn't know what they were anymore. Her head was still pounding, and she could still feel the blood trickling down her cheek. She just stood there and waited for whatever was going to be next.
He sobbed for what felt like an hour, but in actuality it was only a few moments before he lifted his head and threw his arms around her pressing his lips to the belly holding his baby. Instinctively Bianca placed her hands on his head signaling her acceptance of his behavior.
Without lifting his head or moving his body he spoke in a soft choked voice. "Why would you leave me then? Why would you run away with our baby and leave me? I didn't even know you were pregnant, i didn't know anything accept you didn't want me. Why, Bianca? Why didn't you want me? Did you even, ever love me?"
Bianca's heart was broken staring into his familiar, abandoned, and forbidden eyes. He looked desperate and mortally injured, he looked the way she felt. Her isolation had obviously devastated him, how had she successfully convinced herself her would feel any differently. How had she managed to make him disposable. She was recognizing now that all of this strength that she thought she possessed was no more than a monumental personality flaw. First Shane and June, now Tyler. People cannot be tossed out of one's heart so simply, it was just a lie Bianca had become an expert at telling herself. Fate wouldn't allow her to continue this way, disconnected and cold. Her love kept returning to her, a true testiment to the greatness of God. Love is so much greater than a silly girls perception of how to behave when life treats her unfairly. Love continues long after we decide to leave it. She may have left love, but love had not left her. Life was unfair to Bianca she accepted that long ago,but life in this application had, nothing to do with salvation and this revelation was one she would spend the rest of her life accepting. This new perspective that had shone divinely apon her in the wee small hours of morning would finally result in Bianca's new beginning. She felt all of her angst and resentment melt away from her. She felt unafraid of her secrets and wanted to strip herself bare of them, to uncover the girl she was beneath them all and let the truth of that discovery allow her to feel happiness and embrace her fate with joy, regardless of how everything would find it's self resolved. If cancer were to take her, let it. If her baby was not meant to walk the surface this cruel earth, so be it. Bianca was simply passing through mortality anyway on her way to something greater, she was done letting her simple mind keep her from loving every moment. She wanted love and all of its undefined graces. She wanted Tyler.
"Tyler, I always loved you, I still love you. That's why I left."
"My mother, she knew about the baby?" Tyler asked fury boiling up in his question. Bianca didn't know where to begin it was a question that required so much explanation and her head...she couldn't even clearly recall the order in which the ordeal had unfolded. Her head was full of pain and revelation.
"Tyler, I want to tell you everything, but my head is..." It was as if Tyler suddenly snapped back into the present and noticed Bianca's injury for the first time.
"Oh my God Bianca, your bleeding baby. Sit down, let me get a towel and see what's going on." Tyler helped ease her onto the sofa gently. As he turned to scurry into the kitchen Bianca noticed the envelope from the from the doctors office opened and hanging half way out of the back pocket of his blue jeans. How ironic, she thought, that Tyler would see the photograph and learn the sex of their baby before she had, Bianca's scale of secrets was no longer tipped only in her favor. Fate was trying fervently to restore some inkling of balance to her life, rewarding her for listening to God's voice and quieting the mind of her own. How bizarre that all of those prayers for protection she had been reciting in her head during the events of that morning had actually been answered. How funny, she thought, that her own mind was truly her assailant all along.
No comments:
Post a Comment