The great escape....chapter 24

Kym talked about Kendra like she was her daughter, in her mind she had this unbreakable bond with her granddaughter and we were going to live there forever and she was going to help raise her.....apparently she forgot Kendra had a dad and I had a fiance. I knew there wasn't a chance in hell that Kym was going to take me to the airport so Richard and I decided I was going to need a cab to pick us up and take us to the airport. Over the next few weeks I slowly packed up everything that I could and hid the luggage in my closet. On the morning of the 26th, the day after my 18th birthday, at 3am I started quietly carrying out my luggage to the end of the driveway, the cab company was told NOT to honk the horn that I would be out there waiting, they were to be there no later than 3:45 am because my step dad got up at 4:30 for work and I wanted to make sure I was long gone before he got up. Kendra and I are standing out at the end of the driveway when the cab showed up at 3:30, the driver helped me get all the bags in the car and we were off.....I felt this HUGE weight lift off me once we hit the freeway. I got to the airport in Memphis extremely early but I didn't care, I would gladly sit around the airport for a few hours. I checked my luggage, everything except for Kendra's diaper bag and we walked around the airport for a bit, at 7 am I headed over to my gate and waited for boarding. When it was my turn to board the plane I couldn't stop myself from crying, not because I was sad to leave but because I was so happy I was finally getting out of this place. 

My plane landed and I couldn't wait to get off and see Richard, it had been 9 months since I had laid eyes on my man and I just wanted to melt into him. I was one of the last to get off the plane and there he was.....I again burst into tears, I full on blubbered, I'm talking the ugly cry. We just stood there holding each other with poor Kendra being squished in the middle of us. Richard took his daughter into his arms for the first time and it was magical, you could literally see the love for her radiate from him.

we left LAX and we were on our way to our home, a sweet little two bedroom apartment in Riverside California. When we got to the apartment and he opened the door it was like I was looking into a mansion....no joke! It was clean and smelled good and I could lay Kendra down in her bed in her room and not have to worry about her, I was happier than I had been in a very long time. 

Richard gave me the grand tour, the kitchen which he stocked with all my favorite foods, the living room that he laid out in such a way that the light from the window would fill the living room but I could lay Kendra on the floor and the sun wouldn't be in her eyes, out bedroom and bathroom, and then Kendra's room.....a beautiful white crib with matching dresser and the whole thing was done up with old school Winnie the Pooh Bear......my absolute favorite! He opened up Kendra's closet and he had filled it with clothes for her.....this man did an amazing job and I knew right that second that I was going to be happy. 

THEN.....he says.....I told my mom and grandma that you were pregnant but I didn't tell them you were coming home.....they don't think Kendra is mine........