She gets up from kneeling and picks up her daughter onto the her hip. I follow them into the kitchen and she sets Gwen in her chair. she gets her fruit juice and puts it into a sippy cup and hands it to her daughter. She starts eating and we go to the living room to sit down. 
"How was your morning so far?" She ask. 
"It's been good, before y'all came in I was eating but I ate it all before y'all got here" I say and laugh. 
"I can tell, you cleaned the plate" She laugh. 
"I couldn't help it, it was delicious. Ms.Celeste made breakfast for me the other day when I stayed over but before that I haven't had a meal like that in a long time" 
"How Come?" She ask. 
"I used to live in London with my mother but things happened and I ended up down here. Now when I have the money I try to bye a coffee or breakfast sandwich from the bodega that I lived behind, it also helped that I was friends with owners but I haven't a real breakfast before that day with Ms.Celeste" 
"I can always make you breakfast and we can cook dinner one of these days" 
"You don't have to trouble yourself, I'll live" I say.
"It's not troubling myself if I'm offering" she says and surprisingly grabs my hand. This the first time shes done that willingly. She realizes what she did and Try's to pull away, I won't let her. I grab her hand and hold it in mine. She blushes. 
"Can I please have my hand back" She says after a couple of minutes. 
"What's the magic word" 
"Please Hardin" She whispers and I slowly let it go, letting our fingers linger together before I let it go, completely giving it to her. We go quiet for a few minutes and we hear her daughter get off of her chair, coming to us and sits into her mothers lap to bury her head into her blond hair. She rubs her back in comfort. Gwen lifts her face and locks eyes with me before blushing and hiding again. I just chuckle. 
"How long have you known Ms.Celeste?" She ask. 
"A while now actually, I met her a year or two after I got down to New York. I moved around a lot and eventually I settled behind the bodega and I met her then" I say and it seems like a long time ago.
"Oh okay, how old are you?"
"I'm 23, turning 24 in February, how about you? I ask.
"I actually turn 22 in a week" She says. She looks young which means...
"YOU HAD HER AT 19" I exclaim and the child comes out of her mother's curls to look at me shocked by my outburst. Tessa doesn't know how to react either equally as shocked. 
"YES, I DID, I was a teenager in fucking love with someone I thought would be here forever." She says and looks straight into my eyes then continued talking. "I'm sorry that I ruined whatever image you had of me in your own mind but I'm not so fuck off with that" She says, getting up hitching Gwen on her hip to go into her room and leaving me in the living room. 
I'm not judging her at all. I'm actually really proud of her, I was just shocked. She has come so far with her life since her lover left here wherever he went. She's now a nurse at an amazing hospital and shes raising that beautiful baby girl all by herself without any help. I didn't have my life together when I was 19, I was heaving I'm all types of drugs. Cocaine being my favorite. I was High everyday. The days and nights blended for me and I couldn't sleep for shit, I was walking on cloud 9 everyday at the age of 19. When I got down to New York I was still floating but I've come down and I'm better now but that don't mean the itch to do something I know would take me back isn't there. 
Tessa is an amazing mother from what I can see, she's about to be 22 years old and is loving, caring and sweet, it's doesn't get no better than that... than her. 
I get up off the couch and go to her bedroom to knock on the door. She doesn't respond. 
"Tessa, please answer the door, I'm sorry for my outburst earlier I was just shocked" I say and she still Doesn't respond. "I was shocked because you've came so far in life since losing your partner. I wish I was like you. You're inspiring to me. I fucked up in my life but you didn't in yours and even though I'm just now knowing you I'm really proud of you for all you've accomplished in life. With a beautiful baby girl and being a nurse at an amazing hospital that takes care of people, you take care of people. Your taking care of me by taking me in to your loving home, I know it seems like I was upset but I'm not, I'm just really fucking proud" I whisper to the door Hoping she heard. "I'll just get my things and leave, thanks for letting me stay" I walk away from her door and go back into the living room to pack my stuff. 
I go into her kitchen and grab my cans of food to put in my backpack. Since I literally have nothing I can just go perks of being homeless. I get up and make my way towards the door without looking back but then I hear a small voice whisper my name and turn around. Tessa stands there standing without Gwen in her arms but she standing with a purpose. Me and her look at each other quietly. I'm getting ready to hear the words "Please leave".
"Tessa" I say.
She does the last I would think she would doing after what just happened. She burst into tears and speed walks towards me and grabs my head to smash my lips against her.