Better Safe Than Sorry

When tragedy strikes the last thing you want to do is be reminded of what happened. Especially if you don't have anything to cover the wound. But, this couldn't be avoided so I closed my heart while at the part typing away on my laptop.

"You okay?" I looked up to see my ex, Rider, standing in front of me looking down at me. His hands where shoved in his pockets and he stared at me with no emotion. I narrow my eyes at the so called man in front me. He was only a man by law. His actions proved he was nothing more than a teen. I rolled my eyes than looked back down at my laptop and typed a few more words. "Louise?" Still I refused to answer him as I continued to work. He didn't deserve an answer. In all reality, he didn't deserve anything from me. He sighed than sat down next to me.

I glared at him this time. Did this fool really have the nerve to sit next to me after all he had put me through? Had he really lost his mind? "What do you want, Rider? I'm trying to work on one of my projects."

"What's that." He leaned over and looked at my laptop. I closed it because my work was private to me towards him and I had a thing about people watching me while I was working. Something about it made me nervous and took me from my process and made me think of the person sitting there just watching me at hand. Plus he was just nosy. I couldn't figure out if I still had feelings for him or not. He made it hard to figure out my feelings for him seeing as we had been on and off for five years and some of it being completely hell if not almost all the time.

"I'm writing a project," I said keeping it as private as I could knowing he didn't really care. "What are you really here for, Rider?" He looked me right in the eyes as if thinking of an answer before looking away at the kids that were playing.

"I just wanted to see if you're were okay. I mean I haven't heard from you in about a month and yesterday you looked pretty happy when you came to the park to work." I raised a questioning eyebrow. Was he following me? He must of read my expression because he says, "I saw you when I brought Daisy to the park to play with the other kids."

I rolled my eyes. "Okay and your point is?" He shrugged. I sighed heavily as I got up from the ground. "You know what, Rider? Leave me the hell alone. Unless it's about Daisy, please do not talk to me. I have no time for your lies or your hurtful words."

He took a deep breath as he looked at the ground as if to stop himself from saying certain words. He paused as if to think about what to say before actually saying more. I started to walk away and that's when he said "I told you that we just had a misunderstanding. A mixed communication per say."

I scoffed and turned around looked at him with a sarcastic smile. "Oh really? For five years? Off and on? Every freaking time? A misunderstanding AND a mixed communication? A whole month and that's all you came up with?" I paused giving myself a second to breath and he looked up at me waiting for me to continue. It took everything in me not to punch him in the face. I started to walk away but only got two steps before turning around and pointing my finger at the jerk. "You know what? I don't have time for this! I need to get home and get back to work. So why don't you stay away from me. We go are separate ways. And you go straight to hell while you're at it."

"Louise please," he whispered trying to grab my hand I had pointed at him. I quickly withdrew it though before he could grab it.

I chuckled sarcastically throwing my hands in the air because I was sick of his story he was telling me. It was a fake fairytale he couldn't provide me and fairytales were far from reality. I didn't want a fairytale I wanted something real. "Oh, please. Did you ever listen to me when I tried to save us." He looked away as no sign of guilt showed in his face. It was rather a shaken realization that I had caught on to his game. "Well let me refresh your memory. No you didn't."

"Louise," he whispered again looking at me. I walked away from him leaving him in the park. I jumped into my car and drove home. I did my best to not let any tears escape my eyes as more memories surfaced.

"Fuck him and his lies. I don't need them or him to survive," I mumbled to myself as I walked up to my door grabbing my keys connected to my bag and unlocking my door. I slammed the door shut making sure to lock it. I fell into the chair at my desk and fished out my laptop from my backpack and placed it on my desk and threw my bag aside.

I sighed feeling that the best thing to cool me down was a shower. My clothes were quickly peeled off me and I jumped into the shower as the water fell on me. I cleared my mind before I climbed out and threw on a t-shirt and some shorts on figuring I had no plans on going anywhere else today. I did my best to dry my hair with a towel but did a poor job because it still dripped down all over my shirt. I silently cursed.

A knock came upon the door. "Coming," I said. Through the peep hole I could see, who at first I thought was a stranger, but realized after a little bit it was my neighbor. We never really talked. He would just tell me to have a good day beautiful from a far when he saw me off to go do my job. I opened the door and there he stood. He seemed to stare for like forever before I cleared my throat. "Can I help you Mister?"

He looked up to me as if he had been taken out of trance. "I'm sorry. Did I interrupt you in the shower. I can come back later. You can call me Ace Miss -" He paused.

"You can call me Louise and no. I just finished. My hair is just still a bit soaked is all." I smiled. He was sexy. His tattoo on his right hand saying "Hope" and his silverish dirty blonde hair slicked back with a matching mustache and short beard trimmed down to close to his face. He looked to be out of my reaching age seeing as I was twenty-one and my cut off fantasy age was ten years older than me. He looked no older than thirty-six and was to be no more than eye candy because I was through with guys.

"Well Louise," He hesitated and looked to the side.

"Yes? Don't be shy. I don't bite." I smiled gently at him and he returned it.

"I need your help."

I drew my eyebrows together in confusion. "Help with?"

"These two," he said nodding his head in the direction of two girls who played in the yard with nothing but their two toys.

I swallowed hard knowing that this would tear me up if I did help him. I had to let him down gently. He spoke before I could though and said, "Give me five minutes to explain and if you say no I will not ask again." I hesitated but nodded.

"Come in."

"Come on girls. We are going in," he said in a higher tone for the girls. They looked up and came running into the house where they ran around the home. I closed the door behind him making sure to lock it and walked toward the couch and sat which he did the same.

"You wanna play," the older one said standing next to me with the little one right on her tail.

I swallowed hard and Ace answered for me, "Not right now Jess and Izzy. We need to talk right now. Why don't you two go play with each other right now and don't break anything. Here." He handed the older one the bag which I assumed where full of toys and the girls went to play.

"I'm sorry did you want anything to drink?" I felt like a horrible house guest for not offering it before I sat down but in my defense he had caught me off guard. It wasn't like I was expecting him or anything.

He smiled and shook his head. "No but thank you for your gesture." I nodded. "OK here's the story. My ex fling, Linda, has two kids. As you probably guessed these are her kids and I'm pretty sure you heard of Linda off the news." I shook my head because I didn't watch the news. "Oh. Well she ran off leaving the kids with the grandmother because she's underground after killing her baby daddy. Or at least she's presumed a suspect at the moment because according to everyone she was the last to see him alive. I don't know If I believe the news or if I believe in Linda. Anyway, I guess the grandmother, Sandra, decided she didn't want to raise them either and she abandons them with me. I just need help with them and I promise I'm not going to abandon them with you like they did."

I looked at him slowly swallowing all the information. On one hand, I wanted to help because the girls didn't deserve this. But, on the other hand, something deep down was trying to hold me back. "I guess I can help," I slowly said with more hesitation.

"Thank you so much," he said breathing with relief. "I thought you would say no for sure after hearing they already been left twice."

His face filled with genuine gratefulness. This Linda and Sandra sounded as if they were not only putting him through hell, but also these innocent little girls. In all honesty, I felt like they should be ashamed of what they were doing.