Page 66 of Raising Love
“Dammit, Leo,” my mother said, shaking her head really slowly.
I ran a hand down my face.
“You act like you have no self-control,” she said, placing her knife on the counter. “You couldn’t have just co-parented with Ivy and not slept with her?”
“I didn’t intend to.”
“Oh, so did she trip and fall on your?—”
“Mama, please,” I interjected, holding out a hand. “Please don’t finish your question.”
“I’m just really trying to wrap my mind around why you would complicate things with meaningless sex when you two have a huge responsibility now that depends on you working as a team. Why would you do such a foolish thing without considering the consequences of your actions?”
“It wasn’t meaningless, though,” I said low. “I really wish it were because maybe if it were meaningless, I wouldn’t feel this damn conflicted.”
My mother jerked her head back. “What? What do you mean?”
I exhaled all the air in me through my mouth. “I felt something different with her that I’ve never felt with any other woman. I don’t know what it was because I’m not familiar with it, but it felt… different.”
My mother left the counter altogether, reaching for the island stool. “Child, I need to sit.”
I dropped my head to scratch the back of it.
“So, what are you saying, Leo?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“Do you…” She lowered her chin to look at me under her lashes. “…love her?”
“I don’t know.” I met her eyes. “Maybe?”
My mother’s hand was at her mouth. “Oh my God, Leo.”
I released a stuttered exhale as soon as I said the words.
Because maybe I did love Ivy. And although I’ve had love for her as a friend, this just felt different.
“Okay, then, tell her,” my mother said next, gesturing with her hands. “Go home and tell her how you feel. Don’t avoid talking about it by moving out, thinking that’s a solution.”
“Nah.” I shook my head. “We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because doing something like that, giving in to something like that, would change the relationship and possibly ruin our friendship and the co-parenting we have to do for the baby. And I just… I know I’mma fuck it up, Mama.”
She pointed at me. “First, watch your mouth.”
I snorted a laugh. “My bad.”
“Second, have more faith in yourself, Leo.” She nodded. “Be more confident with this. Why on earth would you mess things up?”
“Because that’s what I do, and that’s why I don’t do relationships.” I shrugged. “I don’t have them, and I don’t want them. I don’t like the restrictions they place on me, and I don’t like putting those restrictions on the women I deal with. I do me, and I want them to do them.”
“So you’d be okay with Ivy doing what y’all did with someone else?”
“Hell no,” I was quick to reply. “And… that’s the other reason I just know we can’t do this.”
My mother sighed.
