right back. So I waited for her all night. I didn’t sleep that night. Finally I dozed off around dawn on the front stoop of that church. I was at that hell hole of an orphanage for three years. I don’t know how many times I was raped by the Father Simeon or smacked around by the Sisters there. Finally I ran away.”
“How did you survive?”
“I was resourceful. It was either live by human trafficking or die by the crime lord that was disgusted by that particular crime. I was pick pocket. Sleeping in the park. Pan handled. Wondered from homeless shelter to homeless shelter. I was a skilled con artist by the time I was nine years old. A smart mouth and an even smarter answer for every question asked of me. Then I got a little too big for my own britches and targeted the biggest mark in the city. Tony Cotalano. I tried to pick pocket him. He busted me in the act. I was completely unrepentant. I was a smart ass and really think if I’d been an adult I would have been a grease spot. But because I was a kid he was charmed. He and his wife didn’t have any kids. Couldn’t have any kids. So he took under his wing.”
I know, as I sat there, I should have been horrified by what it was he was confessing to a life of. But all I could think of was that four year old little boy being left behind by the only mother he ever knew. To a world completely alien to him only to be abused by people he was supposed to trust to treat him right. I knew I should scream and run. But I found his story drawing me in like the proverbial moth to a flame. I needed something in him. To fix him maybe? I couldn’t fix him. I knew that. God I knew that. God knew he couldn’t fix me. However I could comfort him. In his vulnerability I could be there for him. In some way I had a special understanding of what had led him out onto that bridge. I knew the pain of abuse. It could consume you in its horrible fire. It left scars on your soul and psyche if left unattended could and would wreck your life in ways you couldn’t possible imagine, unless you had been through it too.
“James, the past is the past. As long as you want a life with me I don’t have to know what it is you’ve done. All I have to know is that your life was never easy and you made choices based on what life was handing to you. You survived. Maybe cracked and chipped with the pieces glued back together in ways a child would put you back together. But that’s okay I’ve experienced that too. Just because I confess my sins doesn’t mean you have to confess yours. You’re welcome to, but rest assured I’m in no position to judge anyone. My sins are what they are and they have eaten my insides up and left me raw. Being HIV Positive is no cake walk and most days are hard to get up live the day through. It’s like I’m walking around with a scarlet letter on my chest. But with you? It feels like it doesn’t matter like the world could fall apart and I could be the darkest of hearts and it wouldn’t matter.”
He sighed and tilted my chin up. “Rayna, nothing you do could ever say would make me believe you have the evil of a dark heart beating within you. You have this light that just seems to glow from within and seems upon first glance impossible to extinguish. You are the real deal. You are authentic and an angel sent from God into my life. I don’t know how else to explain you getting underneath that table in Denny’s and talking me down from the ledge. No matter what has come your way you’ve just patiently taken my hand and walked through these fires anyone else would have run screaming from.”
He was right. People who didn’t know pain often failed to recognize it in others. A lot of times people in pain often lashed out at others. Pushing less seasoned emotional warriors away. I had been through worse. I
“How did you survive?”
“I was resourceful. It was either live by human trafficking or die by the crime lord that was disgusted by that particular crime. I was pick pocket. Sleeping in the park. Pan handled. Wondered from homeless shelter to homeless shelter. I was a skilled con artist by the time I was nine years old. A smart mouth and an even smarter answer for every question asked of me. Then I got a little too big for my own britches and targeted the biggest mark in the city. Tony Cotalano. I tried to pick pocket him. He busted me in the act. I was completely unrepentant. I was a smart ass and really think if I’d been an adult I would have been a grease spot. But because I was a kid he was charmed. He and his wife didn’t have any kids. Couldn’t have any kids. So he took under his wing.”
I know, as I sat there, I should have been horrified by what it was he was confessing to a life of. But all I could think of was that four year old little boy being left behind by the only mother he ever knew. To a world completely alien to him only to be abused by people he was supposed to trust to treat him right. I knew I should scream and run. But I found his story drawing me in like the proverbial moth to a flame. I needed something in him. To fix him maybe? I couldn’t fix him. I knew that. God I knew that. God knew he couldn’t fix me. However I could comfort him. In his vulnerability I could be there for him. In some way I had a special understanding of what had led him out onto that bridge. I knew the pain of abuse. It could consume you in its horrible fire. It left scars on your soul and psyche if left unattended could and would wreck your life in ways you couldn’t possible imagine, unless you had been through it too.
“James, the past is the past. As long as you want a life with me I don’t have to know what it is you’ve done. All I have to know is that your life was never easy and you made choices based on what life was handing to you. You survived. Maybe cracked and chipped with the pieces glued back together in ways a child would put you back together. But that’s okay I’ve experienced that too. Just because I confess my sins doesn’t mean you have to confess yours. You’re welcome to, but rest assured I’m in no position to judge anyone. My sins are what they are and they have eaten my insides up and left me raw. Being HIV Positive is no cake walk and most days are hard to get up live the day through. It’s like I’m walking around with a scarlet letter on my chest. But with you? It feels like it doesn’t matter like the world could fall apart and I could be the darkest of hearts and it wouldn’t matter.”
He sighed and tilted my chin up. “Rayna, nothing you do could ever say would make me believe you have the evil of a dark heart beating within you. You have this light that just seems to glow from within and seems upon first glance impossible to extinguish. You are the real deal. You are authentic and an angel sent from God into my life. I don’t know how else to explain you getting underneath that table in Denny’s and talking me down from the ledge. No matter what has come your way you’ve just patiently taken my hand and walked through these fires anyone else would have run screaming from.”
He was right. People who didn’t know pain often failed to recognize it in others. A lot of times people in pain often lashed out at others. Pushing less seasoned emotional warriors away. I had been through worse. I
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