Alpha Hero - Hope Ford Page 0,17

good woman and I hate to speak ill of the dead, but she didn’t deserve the treatment he gave her.

I look at my watch again. Ten minutes since she ran in there. I look around and when I don’t see any women coming this way, I knock on the door, open it and call her name.

“April? You okay?” I swing the door open and she’s sitting on a chair in the corner. Looking around the room, I can’t help but compare the ladies’ room to the men’s. They are nothing alike.

She’s sitting with her head in her hands. My first instinct is to walk over to her, pick her up, and then hold her in my lap, soothing her and making her forget everything that’s happened in the last month and a half. Her husband dying, moving out of her home and back into her mother’s. If anyone deserves a break, she does.

I squat down in front of her and brush her hair from her face. “April, talk to me, honey.”

She looks up at me then, the first time she’s even acknowledged that I walked into the bathroom. Her blue eyes are pooled in tears and my heart breaks just looking at her. “I’m a horrible person, Terry.”

Her words catch me off guard. Staring into her eyes, wanting her to know I’m sincere, I tell her, “I can honestly tell you that I know you’re not a horrible person.”

She shakes her head side to side. “You don’t know, you, uh, really don’t know.”

She stands up and walks around me and stands at the sink, her hands locked on the counter and she’s staring back at her reflection in the mirror. She’s looking at herself in disgust.

I walk up behind her and our eyes meet. “Then explain it to me. Make me understand.”

She starts to talk, but then closes her mouth. “You’re the last person I should be saying this to. You’re his friend, his ‘brother.’”

She sniffs and I hand her a tissue from beside the chair she just left. I watch as she wipes her nose. “You can talk to me. I won’t judge you. I won’t think bad of you. I’m sure whatever you’re feeling or whatever you think you’ve done is not that bad.”

She turns to face me and leans back against the counter. She’s looking straight at me, and I know whatever she’s about to say is torturing her. I don’t want to think the worst, but I brace myself for what’s coming.

“We, uh, Allen and I have had problems the last few years. I knew about the drinking--of course I didn’t know he was doing it on fire calls – and I knew about the women. I confronted him many times and he would tell me it would never happen again. We had one last ditch effort to save our marriage around two months ago. I told him it was his last chance. I put everything into that weekend, trying to reignite our relationship. It lasted one weekend and then he was back to his drinking and back to the women. We’d been fighting since. Fighting about the divorce, fighting about the money, God, fighting about everything. When I heard he died, God, I was upset. I still don’t know how to process all of it.” She’s looking at me and I know she’s waiting for a reaction, but I don’t give her one. I stand here silently letting her talk. It’s obvious that she hasn’t had anyone to talk to about this.

When she doesn’t continue, I tell her, “Go on.”

She looks down at her hands then. “Well, it’s not like I was happy he died or anything, there’s a part of me that still misses him, but I’m not mourning him like a wife should be.”

She finishes then and no matter how much I want her to, she doesn’t raise her eyes to mine.

I reach out and lift her head with my finger on her chin. “And you feel guilty?”

Her eyes well again and she nods her head.

I can’t stop myself then. Nothing could stop me. I take her in my arms and hold her tightly against me. This woman has the biggest heart and she’s hurting so bad right now. I couldn’t turn her away even if I wanted to.

We stand there for I don’t know how long, her generous curves pressed against me. Her closeness makes my thoughts go wayward. If she was anyone else, fuck if I was anyone else and it