Pearla winked. “You.”
I felt my cheeks flush with warmth. “You just said boys third, Pearla. And I’m nobody’s wife, especially Shio’s.”
“Boysare third, but Shio is a man. And you will be his wife.”
I had no reply, so I lay there, holding her hand via pinky, while silence settled again. After a few seconds, we both erupted into a fit of giggles. We laughed so hard that it turned into tears.
“Pearla, I have to grab a water. I’m thirsty.”
She let my pinky go, and I stood. I hadn’t been able to do that with such ease days ago. Grabbing the bottle of water off the dresser, I looked at the painting above the TV while I sipped. There was a black dot that I hadn’t seen before. Standing on my tippy toes, I tried getting a better look, but it was no use because it was too high up.
“Solanaaaaa…”
Taking another swig of the water, I placed it back on the dresser and looked back at the painting. It was covered in swirls of white textured paint, which was why the black dot above it stood out. Shrugging it off when Pearla called my name again, I walked back to the door. Taking my place back on the ground, I lay down like Pearla and stared at the white ceiling. It wasn’t an uncomfortable white anymore. Pearla went back to talking abouther upcoming senior year, and I listened with glee, admiring the lives of these younger humans.
Today had been the first good day since I’d been in the room. No pain. No mental battle. No yearning for Shio. No cocaine craving. Just Pearla and me having some good girl talk that I never had before coming to the States. I wouldn’t even be opening the journal today. I wanted to relish this feeling. I knew if I read Sandro’s writing, I would probably revert back to summertime sadness.
I will overcome this addiction. This addiction will not get the best of me. I am bigger than my addiction. I am in control.
Chapter 22
Shio Cuppacio
Three hundred sixteen… seventeen… eighteen… nineteen… three hundred twenty.
Three hundred twenty bricks, stacked in piles of twenty, sat in front of me. The pure white cocaine that had been making us richer every day lined the back wall. I’d counted the kilos at least a hundred times, and no matter how many times I repeated my count, the number hadn’t changed. The numbers wouldn’t change. It had been three hundred twenty when they were delivered personally by Goal himself a few hours ago, and it would be three hundred twenty even if I counted it a hundred and one times.
There was a long list of shit weighing on me. My body was craving rest, but my mind was telling me I could do that when I was dead. This count was accurate, but nothing else in my life was aligned in the same way. For starters, bringing the product to this cabin was wrong. It was bad enough that I had a prisoner in the basement, and adding enough white to send me to the chair was a bad judgment call. However, that was all I had to work with. I was so against the shit that Goal himself insisted on delivering it. Don had been anal about us keeping shit tight withthe police sniffing around about the missing women and kids, but money still had to be made. I knew better than to store the product in our stash houses. They were reserved for money only, and having both in the same places was a recipe for disaster, so the cabin was the only option.
Pulling my burner phone from my pocket, I sent a text to Ezio letting him know all was well. He responded immediately, which meant my work here was done. Nel would come to collect the product for distribution tomorrow. It would take him a span of a week, so he’d probably do it every other day, but again, we were pivoting from our usual routines to safeguard our freedom.
I adjusted the mask on my face. Goal’s cocaine was straight from Colombia, and handling so many kilos of this shit, even sealed tightly, was risky. The masks we wore weren’t that COVID-19 shit that was always out of stock on the pharmacy shelves a few years ago. I insisted we get specialty masks that filtered the air before it reached our nostrils when handling this shit. With this type of mask, I could be in the presence of a nuclear bomb and still breathe in fresh oxygen.
Solana’s phone buzzed, and going against my instincts, I removed my gloves and swiped the screen.
Solana
I feel okay today. The last time I felt okay was when I was with you, Shio. I know it’s not right, to want you. I shouldn’t replace it with you. Not healthy, but it’s the truth.
Like clockwork,Solana’s text message came through, following the pattern she’d created over the last few days. She’d been sending texts, sometimes expressing her feelings, other timesrevealing her past. She was so much bigger than the drugs. The texts she sent me were heavy. They were so fucking heavy with the spiraling and learning how she became what she was. She’d broken a part of herself, all for cocaine. A drug. The same drug that I’d counted a hundred times today alone. The same drug that had made my family and me rich. It had a fucking hold on her. Every day that she sent a text, it further proved that she wasn’t ready to be any man’s wife. She wouldn’t have lasted a day with the Rodríguezes. Knowing what I know now about them, I don’t think he ever had intentions of truly marrying her. Beauty like Solana’s was a rare occurrence. God only sprinkled one of her every few hundred years. They were going to make a killing off of her, and her being addicted to drugs would’ve only made it easier for them.
The camera app had been my worst fucking enemy. I’d seen Solana nearly die at least twice, tweak out every single day, pray until her knees bled, and scream like her lungs were just as pure as her pussy. She was fighting demons. Shit, she might’ve been fighting the Devil himself.
Picking up the brick of cocaine, I held it in one hand and the phone with the text message displayed on the screen in the other.
I shouldn’t replace it with you. Not healthy, but it’s the truth.
This fucking cocaine.
Why couldn’t she just shake this shit? Why did God have to place a woman in my path who was fighting more demons than all of us Cuppacios combined? Feeling my hand tense, the brick cracked down the center, not breaking through the Saran Wrap.
With my thumb hovering over the screen, I typed out a reply.
You letting this shit consume you Solana. You letting this shit get the best of you. If you not willing to let it go then what the fuck you want me to do? I can’t shake it for you. Stop fucking texting and start praying.
The same thumbthat had typed the message now hovered over the send button. But instead of sending it, I deleted the entire message. This girl—this fucking girl—she wasn’t good for me. She wasn’t good for no nigga.Yet, here she was on my fucking brain like a tumor. The same way she couldn’t shake the drugs was the same way I couldn’t shake her ass.
I had some pussy lying up in my home, willing and ready, but I wouldn’t even touch it. I knew part of the reason was because Bahati wasn’ther.But I refused to admit that shit aloud, and that plagued me more.
