"Don't you dare tell anyone about our past." Mia glared angrily. "I've moved on and I don't want my co-workers to know about the stupid mistakes I made in my past."
"So, that's what I am to you? A stupid mistake?"
"No, of course not." She softened. "Just what we did that night." Tori stared, but she knew she didn't judge and wouldn't tell another soul. "Randy, please, just let these people help you. I can't come in here every time you want me to because I have ten people of my own to take care of."
"I won't let anyone else touch me." he threatened.
"You're stubborn and your violent. Is that really what you want to be. Don't you want to get back to your life? Do you really want to spend the rest of your life in a place like this sitting in a dark room like it's your coffin?"
"It's not like I have anything to live for, now do I? My own wife doesn't even want me!"
"Stop being a child, Randy."
"IF they send anyone else in, I'll throw them out, literally throw them out."
"you're willing to hurt people just to get what you want? We really are strangers, Randy."
"Mia!" he screamed. "Mia!" But she left, closing his door behind her.
"Okay, I'm guessing this guy has a screw loose and you're just going along with him?" Tori asked in a pleasant, quiet tone. It was true, she often dealt with forgetful patients by going along with what ever period of their lives they thought they were in. It kept them calm for the most part because they would become violent if you tried to correct them and she didn't think that was the best way to handle their mental disability. It wouldn't fix their disease and there was no reason to upset them unnecessarily.
"I wish." she looked at her shoes. "he's my husband." she sighed.
"And you're just telling me this now? I thought we were best friends?"
"I didn't know that he was in that room. He's supposed to be in jail." Tori glanced around at the eyes that always seemed to watch them constantly. They didn't like how close the two had become and they really didn't like that neither of them liked to hang around chatting. Instead they helped each other and spent the time on their residents. They took their job seriously and it made the others look bad. Tori pulled her into a room whose occupants were in the therapy gym. "Is he dangerous? What did he do?"
"He killed two people." she admitted meekly.
"We have a murderer on our floor? Are you kidding me?"
"It's not like that. It was self defense. Actually, he was defending me. I was robbed at work one night. Randy had found me and he was angry and they cam back to do Lord only knows what, he shot them."
"then why did he go to jail."
"Because the cops thought he went overboard. The first bullet didn't kill one of them and Randy made sure the guy would only leave in a body bag. The jury believed he didn't have the right to take the men's lives. He should have never been arrested. It's crazy that people like those men can do whatever they want and walk out with a slap on the wrist and honest people spend years in prison for protecting themselves." She wiped a tear from her eye.
"Or maybe you just don't want to see what the cops seen. That guy acts pretty violent, Mia."
"I've never seen him like that. Well, except for that once. Actually, we were pretty close once. We went to Vegas and had too many drinks and woke up married." she laughed. "it was a really confusing morning. "If he was so great, why aren't' you with him?" "Because, Tori. I was his best friend's girlfriend. Staying there, being with Randy. It would destroy them. They have been friends forever, I can't come between that."
"Well, I don't need to ask you if you slept with him. I know the answer to that question by looking at him."
"Oh, really? What makes you so sure me and Randy slept together?"
"That man is hot, Mia. And then there's the fact that Cheyenne looks just like him."
"He doesn't know about her, Tori."
"Wait, what does the other guy look like? Are you sure Cheyenne is Randy's?"
"Without a doubt. It was over with Roman for a while before he found out that Randy and I had married during that trip to Vegas. I don't know what it was, but I just didn't want to be with him. I hadn't slept with any man for nearly three months when Randy and I hooked up."
"And you haven't been with a man since. I think that means something, Mia."
"it means the same thing I've been telling you since we met. Relationships are too complicated. It's not worth the pain that comes when its all over."
"Yours or his?"
"can we go now? I have to pick Cheyenne up. It's not easy to find a babysitter I can afford and I don't want to piss off the nice old lady next door." she laughed because Mrs. Parnam would never stop watching Cheyenne. She loved her so much and her daughter even called her Grandma. She was the closest to one the child would ever know and Mrs. Parnam had only had one child of her own and he had been killed in Vietnam and Cheyenne had brought happiness to the woman who had not found happiness since her husband had died three years before Cheyenne's birth.
"You know I'll keep your secret. You're the only one who can make those kind of decisions, but from what I have seen myself – you're doing the right thing."
But Mia wasn't so sure. She hadn't been running away from the men in her life so much as her own feelings. She did love Randy. She hadn't realized how long she had been in love with him until he was no longer in her life. She had managed to get over him, managed to stop thinking about him every moment of the day and now he was back in her life. She just wanted to pretend he wasn't there. That he wasn't in that room in her workplace. Her life was working and that man really wasn't the man she had loved. He was a monster, a livid, cruel monster and that wasn't the father she wanted her daughter to know. She had told her daughter about a wonderful man who was nothing short of a hero. She wouldn't let that image be destroyed.
