Kenney, as always, was true to his word. He had my face back down to normal size by the following week. I didn't know how or why he knew to do the hot/cold thing, or where he picked up his "salting the face" trick from. Honestly, I was just glad I finally stopped fighting him on it. I stopped fighting him on a lot of things. Like Collin. After that first time looking in the mirror and literally not recognizing myself, I was done.

I mean...damn...

My first few weeks with Kenney were perfect. We got along just like we used to. It was like no time had passed between us. If anything, we were stronger and wiser with time, now knowing how to deal with each other's up and down moods a lot better. Around the second trimester I started going to Lamaze classes. Of course Kenney automatically assumed that he was my coach. I think he just liked being a part of the process. I've never seen anyone so excited about someone else's baby. As time went on, the less I thought about Collin and the more I thought about Kenney. It was like God had sent him to me at exactly the right time.

After that brawl with Collin I was messed up for a long time. Not only was my self-esteem nonexistent, but so was my outlook on life. I mean, like, there was nothing there. It's really hard to explain how I felt after that. It was like I was completely empty...a void. Everything in the present was so surreal and nonexistent to me that naturally, as far as I was concerned, there was no such thing as a future.

It only got worse every time I looked in the mirror. The swelling went down in about a week and a half, but the cuts and the busted lip and the black eyes stayed forever. I was so hard to look at. And I know it wasn't just me. Kenney, and I'll love him every day from now on for doing this, used to make me go on walks with him around his neighborhood. At the time I didn't understand it - and I was kind of hurt by it, actually, because it felt like he was displaying this freak of nature for the whole world to see, trying to shame me into never going back to Collin. Of course, I knew deep down, even then, that he wasn't doing that. He had never been that kind of guy. And it was probably just as hard for him as it was for me, since every time anyone saw my face they immediately looked at him like he should never be free. But every single day at 4 o'clock he would come home from work and say "Get your shoes Tashi. We're going for a walk." No asking how I felt or if I even wanted to go. He would just be waiting for me at the door.

The whole thing started when I sat down across from him at the kitchen table one morning and asked him if he wanted to hear something.

"Of course." He put down his paper and I fell out when I saw that he was wearing those fake glasses that he used to rock back in college. "I knew I'd get you," he laughed, taking off the glasses and rubbing his eyes. Briefly I wondered if so many years of wearing fake glasses had really messed his eyes up.

Kenney was the best. He was always doing something to make me laugh or putting on some kind of show for me and/or the baby. It was like he couldn't wait to get home and make us smile. I looked at him, with his tailored olive suit and tie and for a brief second felt weird, like we were a family and I should kiss him when he got up to leave for work. I think he knew what I was thinking because he suddenly blushed and looked away.

Awkward.

"So um..." I fiddled with a page in my notebook. "I read this thing that said it's a good writing exercise to write letters to inanimate objects..."

"Hotness." He nodded his approval.

I smiled. "Dear Reflection,"

"Tashi..." he said it like he already knew where this was going.

I looked at him, but he didn't say anything else so I continued. "One single thorn/ That's all I see./ It hurts to look at you,/ As strong as I may be."

"Tashi..."

I went on like I didn't hear him. "Destiny Doll,/ Yep, that's the key./ Destined to what?/ Be a loner like me."

"You know I'm right here, right?"

"I know. Can I finish please?" He made a "carry on" gesture, reminding me of the first time I read him my kissing poem and he just knew I was talking about him. I chuckled and shook my head.

"What's so funny?"

"Oh...nothing. One single thorn/ On a beautiful rose./ Where does it take us?/ Nobody knows./ What did I do wrong?/ Please help me see/ Why a world that was once so friendly/ Has suddenly turned on me./ Everything that I feel/ Has to be pain./ Dear Reflection, please tell me/ Am I going insane?"

Kenney reached across the table and covered my hand with his. "You didn't do anything." He looked at me for a minute, then stood up and put on his jacket. "Collin's ass." Then he kissed me on the top of my head, grabbed his portfolio and walked out the door.

When he got home that afternoon he went straight to his room, then came back out five minutes later in sweats and sneakers. "Get your shoes Tashi. We're going for a walk."

And that was that.

I guess he figured I was getting cabin fever or something. Maybe he was right. I had always been the type to like being outside more than being inside and now all of a sudden the thought of being in the presence of sunshine and other people was just...unbearable.

I think I scared him a little, too. But not as much as I scared him with the next letter that I wrote to Society. Obviously "Society" was Collin, just like he was "the world" in my Reflection letter. Kenney was quick so I know he peeped that, and I think the range of emotions from one day to the next, coupled with the dark undertones of my letters had him thinking that I was going down a road that he wasn't about to let me walk alone.

"Dear Society," I began as Kenney pulled my feet onto his lap one night and began to rub. He started doing that as an incentive for me to tolerate his nightly parades around the neighborhood. But by then, my third trimester balloon feet were more than appreciative to my second trimester self for setting that little amenity up. "...I hate you. You're scum..."

"Damn Tashi," Kenney chuckled. "Tell 'em how you really feel."

I pointed to my feet. "Keep rubbing." Then I went back to reading. "You thought I didn't see?/ You can't be that dumb./ I know I don't belong,/ That, I can tell./ Well, I really don't care./ You can all go to hell./ The whispers I hear/ They're no surprise to me./ Never will I fear/ Something that doesn't matter, you see?/ It's no use trying to fit in./ Being different is society's only true sin/ At a game like this, who would want to win?/ Well, farewell, Dear Society,/ It's been real./ And I hope one day/ You can feel what I feel."

"Natasha. Um...are you trying to tell me something?"

"Tell you something like what?" I pointed at my feet again when he stopped rubbing. Hey...that was part of the deal.

"Like...are you...are you thinking about something?"

"Something like what?"

"Something like killing yourself." He looked at me point blank.

"What?" I took my feet away and sat up. "Kenney, are you serious?"

"Yes."

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Ok then."

"Ok then," I threw back at him, trying to get a laugh, but apparently he saw absolutely nothing funny...most likely from the day he picked me up from Newport News.

The next three days after that he didn't go to work. Finally after the third morning of wandering into the kitchen and finding him in his pj's at the kitchen table doing crossword puzzles or some other old man thing that he was prone to do, I confronted him.

"Kenney. What do you think you're doing?"

"Mindin' my bid'ness. Whatchu doin' Tashi?"

We grinned at each other for a minute before I asked him, "Are you babysitting me? Is that what this," I made a wide gesture to him and everything he had going on at the table, "is?"

"This," he made the same gesture that I made around his table mess, "is me. Chillin'."

"Uh-huh..." I gave him the stink eye and walked over to grab a bowl from the cabinet.

"Natasha, at some point you're going to have to give that baby something other than cereal to eat."

"Since when do you tell me what to do?" I asked, my back still to him.

I silently took note that he had moved all of the bowls to the bottom shelf so I no longer had to reach above my head to get to them. Kenney was killing me reading every baby and what to expect during pregnancy book that he could get his hands on. He didn't even watch TV anymore. It was like "babies" was his new obsession.

He was so funny with it, though. He just really didn't seem like the type of dude to be reading about anything that wasn't going to make him any money, but everywhere he went he had his little baby book of the week tucked under his arm. It was ironic that I had the perfect father for my baby, one that did everything voluntarily that women usually had to beg their men to even care about, only he wasn't my baby's father.

When the time came for him to have his own, though, he would certainly be well prepared.

"So, Bud...what's really going on?" I turned to him. He may have been able to dodge my questions to my back, but he had never been able to lie to my face.

"I just thought you might want to hang out with me for a few days. You sayin' you need your space?"

"No I just..."

"I'm messin' wit' you Tashi. Honestly I just wanted to be home wit' my peeps. That alright with you?"

"Yeah." I grinned as I turned my back on him again and grabbed an unopened box of Coco Puffs. Kenney brought a new box home like every three days. The baby was going through them like crazy.

It briefly resonated with me how ironic it was that Kenney kept me laced with cereal the same way that Collin had kept me laced with cocaine and weed. An unexpected wave of missing Collin hit me so hard that I had to put the box down. I grabbed my stomach and willed myself not to break down and cry.

"Tashi, you ok?" Kenney was suddenly beside me rubbing my back. I hadn't even heard him get up from his chair. Dude was truly a ninja.

"I'm fine, I'm fine." I dismissed my heart and mentally threw it at that bitch of a sun that insisted on shining blindingly through the kitchen window every. single. morning.

"Natasha," Kenney put his hands on my shoulders and turned me around to face him. "Are you alright?"

I gave him the same steady gaze that he was giving me. "Yes."

"Ok," and he went back to his old man table activities.

"Kenney, can I ask you something?"

"Anything." He put his pen down and gave me is undivided attention.

"What are you afraid of? Why do you keep circling around me like that?"

"I'm afraid..." he kind of looked around the room, possibly searching for a comprehensible answer, then cast his brown-grey eyes back toward me. "I'm afraid that you have more on you than you can bear."

The fact that he was dropping church speak on me made me think that he may have taken it upon himself to bring my problems to God. I wanted to tell him to mind his effing business, that if I thought God gave half a piece a crap about me, then I would have involved Him in this hot mess myself.

But I didn't say any of that.

I just nodded, grabbed my bowl of cereal and vegged out in front of the TV for the rest of the morning.

That was one thing that I could never get entirely with Kenney on. Every Sunday morning he was up way too early in his fresh to def suit, blasting all this gospel noise, and then skipping out the door in an unnecessarily good mood to take his Aunt Jasmine to church. I just couldn't deal. I mean...I just couldn't. And every Sunday he would come home saying that his aunt had asked about me, like that was the only day she did ask, and like the promise of a free after church meal from Jasmine could get me off of my extra comfy spot on the couch to go sit on some hard pew listening to some preacher ramble for three to four hours about how I wasn't shit because I was pregnant and not married.

I think not.

Thinking about Jasmine and church, I briefly wondered if he had been telling Aunt Jasmine all of my business. Then I wondered if, even worse, he had been up there testifying about me all up on stage. I shook my head and was so deep in the thought that I shot Kenney a dirty look when he walked back through the living room toward his office. He paused for a minute, but then decided to just let it roll and kept walking. Probably best. Kenney knew how to deal with me like no one else. It was like he was the one that I had grown up with, not Collin. Again a twang of longing pierced my heart – as I wondered how that bitch got back in my chest after I had just thrown it at the sun – and this time I couldn't stop the tears. Luckily Kenney wasn't there to see it, but it was like he somehow telepathically knew that something was wrong because all of a sudden I heard New Kids on the Block blasting from the back room.

"Please don't go giiiirrllll..." he sock skated out into the living room like he had a whole line of show tunes planned for my musical afternoon snack. "You would ruin...my whole... worlllld..."

"Kenney," I laughed as he danced toward me and tried to take my hands.

"Tell me you'll staaaay..."

"I don't feel like dancing Kenney." I tried to pull away.

"Never, ever go awaaaay..." He wouldn't let go and I eventually gave in and stood up in front of him. He put his arm around my waist and danced me around the room. "I need you...I need you. I guess I...a-a-always will. Giiiirl!" He hugged me close to him and then leaned back to look deep into my eyes. "You're my best friend...Girrrl!" He killed me closing his eyes every time he hit a high note. "You're my love within. I just want you to know...that I will a-a-lways, love youuu..."

The thing was, when he sang that part, he got hella serious. I mean hella serious. So serious, in fact, that I...wanted to kiss him. Because I knew he meant it. He meant every single word. We both pulled away at the same time and I went back to the couch to try and figure out what the hell had just happened. He stayed where he was and watched me, I guess waiting to see if he had just effed everything up.

I pulled on my lip thoughtfully and tried my best not to show him that he had done the exact opposite.

"Kenney," I turned to him, "why in the hell do you have a New Kids on the Block CD?"

"I know those ya homeboys, son. Na'mean, ked?"

"Aaaaw damn...!" I threw my head back and let out a sigh that clearly stated here we go. "Ok. One, do not start that again." Kenney chuckled at his own brilliance in bringing his freshman year jokes back. "Two, they are from Boston. Not Baltimore, smart ass."

"Ay, why I gotta be a smartass Natasha? Just tryna make you feel at home. I know them's your dudes." He flashed a Billy Dee smile that he must have picked up from so many years of being around Drama.

I blushed and looked away. He wasn't just saying that. He actually remembered me telling him that like fifty years ago.

"Kenney," I bypassed the effect that he was having on me that particular day and blamed it on pregnancy horniness. "Why do you have that CD, Foolio Iglesias?" He cracked up, like he always did anytime I ever called anybody Foolio Iglesias, and flopped down next to me.

"I confiscated it from my sister's collection last time I went home. Knew at some point I'd probably see you again and surprise you with it." He shook his head like he thought both she and I were super lame. Then he bragged, "Annnd...it's a tape." He grinned at me, fully aware that he had just made my whole day.

Well, he was grinning until I said, "You went home?"

"Yeah."

"How was it?"

"It was cool."

"Ok..."

He always went straight to one to three word answers when I started asking him about things that he didn't want to talk about.

"Got my stuff."

"You got your stuff?"

"Yup."

"Ok..." I waited for him to volunteer more information, but of course he didn't, so I asked "Because?"

"Because I'm never going back." He looked at me and I knew right away to drop it. The pain in his eyes was something that I hated to see and always saw whenever his family came up.

I just left it alone and hugged him tight. "I love you, Kenney. So much."

"Love you, too, Tashi." He put his arm around me. "More than I know what to do with." I put my head on his shoulder and he flipped channels until we got to the Wilderness Channel. Kenney was forever watching that foolishness. He had some kind of weird fascination with lions. I got up and left.

I realized that day that Kenney needed me there with him just as much as I needed to be there with him. I snapped out of my funk after that and started trying to be a better houseguest and a better friend. Since I decided not to renew my teaching contract that year and try my hand at freelance writing – Kenney was so down – I had plenty of time to make sure that the house stayed clean and even started getting up early to make him breakfast before he went to work. I also started cooking dinner for us more and more nights a week until it got to the point where four out of five times he would have a hot plate waiting for him on the table by the time he got home. After dinner we would always drag ourselves around the neighborhood at least once and then come home and watch a few movies or play some games before he went to bed.

I had turned into somewhat of an insomniac after that first time Collin dragged me out of the bed, so I usually didn't go to sleep until hours after Kenney did. He never asked me why I stayed up so late, but my guess is that he probably already knew why, or at least had a really good idea. Kenney seemed to know everything without me having to say it.

Kenney never brought his work home with him, unlike Collin, so it was like as soon as he walked through the door that became my time. I also made an extra effort to create stopping points in my writing around the time that I knew he would be coming home so that he could have my undivided attention, too. After our talk about his family, I started thinking about his breakup with Deidra - and like a hundred other things that he had heavy on his mind, but never wanted to talk about - and realized that Kenney needed way more hugs than he had been getting.

So I gave them to him.

I hugged him as much as I could every time I was with him. Looking back at it now, it was sort of like we became a couple...without benefits. I started telling him that I loved him a lot more, too, because I did.

I really, really did.