We've Met Before

34 - Pearls

KAIA

    I straighten out the dress on my body. It's hot pink, and doesn't have nearly enough fabric to cover my boobs. 

    As beautiful as the dress is, and as much as I should be jumping off the walls of the fitting room right now, my mind is stuck on one thing.

    Cade. 

    Being in love is almost like having an innate sixth sense, like life is no longer just yours, but their's too. You breathe, eat, and sleep for them. 

    I knock sounds at the door and I startle. "Kaia, are you done? Get out of there and let me see the dress!"

    "I'll be right out!" I shout back, opening the door and prancing out, covering the cleavage with the palm of my hands. 

    Dahlia stands outside, a shocked look on her face before her lips exhale a quick whistle. "You look so good. You've looked for the last seven dresses, what's going on Kaia?" Her expression turns from joyful to mom-ish. Her hands move to her hips and she looks at me expectantly.

    I'll never escape Dahlia Sanchez.

    I sigh out, throwing my face into my hands. "He wants me to leave with him. He's going to Georgia and he wants me to leave with him. He wants me to leave my dying mother and be happy with him, and I don't know what the hell to do!" 

    Dahlia's concerned expression looks back at me, her eyes falling at my confession. "Your mother's dying?"

    I nod, sitting down on the carpet of Dillard's, my hands clamming at the hem of the dress. "I went to my house a couple nights ago to ask her for money for college and she told me she's dying. We fought and I left." I stare at my hands, picking at my cuticles as shame fills my body. I felt secure in my decision of leaving. I chose myself, but all of a sudden I'm starting to break. I'm starting to think that I should've stood my ground on getting her treatment.

    Everyone would tell me she's not worth saving, but she's my mother. She's the woman I've held since I was seven. 

    Dahlia closes in on me, wrapping her arms around me. "Don't cry, you'll be okay. I know what's spinning inside that head of yours and I'm telling you now that you're wrong. You did good on leaving, and nobody will hold you accountable for that."  

    I lift my head, wiping the tears I didn't know were on my face off. "Would you be upset if I left?"

    Dahlia smiles before laughing softly. "I think I'll die without you. I'll be upset as ever, and I might burn half of Houston while I'm at it, but if it's what you need to do then I'll be okay living with that." She tangles her hand with mine, leaning against the wall with a sigh. "I've never seen you happy, you know? I've known you for more than four years now and I've always seen you staring off into space, or sitting quietly near the corner of a room. You know when that changed?"

    "When?" I whisper.

    "When that loser Cade Steele pranced into the room. I swear you lit up like a firework. Your entire body shifted, and a light smile would fall onto your face as if you were a giggling child. I hated him for what he did to you, and I hate him even more for taking so long to make it right, but Kaia --it's love." She looks at me as if she knows better than anyone, as if she's understood everything that's happened till now.

    "It is love, but for how long? I trust he loves me now, I can feel it in his laugh, and his hugs, but it'll end eventually. My own mother couldn't love me, I can't even love myself. How the hell can I expect him to? When will he realize that I carry too much baggage for the both of us? He has so much on his plate--"