Dallas
Because I added you back.
Yesterday 12: 16 AM
Tristan has left the conversation.
Bliss
I’m sorry, Asa. [sad face emoji]
Each of my siblings had reached out separately yesterday to check on me. All of them offered support in some way, even if it was listening to me breathe over the line. I appreciated them for that.
Shit hit the fan sometime during the night, though. More than one hundred text messages were waiting for me when I woke up. I didn’t have time for this shit.
I felt pain in every muscle, every nerve, and every bone. Almost like someone had drilled holes through my body.
It didn’t feel real.
Last night, I checked my phone countless times, hoping to see a text from Gemma, knowing I never would again. Next to me, Ezra stirred, kicked his little legs out of the blanket.
When I looked at him, his eyes popped open and he smiled, kicking vigorously. He looked like her. Brown skin, expressive eyes, contagious smile . . .
The truth was I willingly agreed to be Gemma’s donor.
I knew I would be seeing Ezra often throughout his life, and I did it anyway.
For her.
We’d set boundaries. Separate legal counsel, a signed contract before the donation establishing intent, parental rights and responsibilities, confidentiality, future disclosure expectations, and other things. And we used a licensed fertility clinic.
She trusted me to be myself at all times, which meant she believed that I could detach myself from him.
And I did.
After Ezra was born, I felt the same way I did for my nieces and nephews. Like an uncle. Like a person watching someone else’s child grow up. I was in the room with her when she gave birth, too. Not as his father, but as her person. I’d seen him countless times since then. But I never expected to have to take care of him. I never even wanted to. In my wildest dreams, in all the potential scenarios, Ineverthought Gemma would die at thirty-five and leave him without a mother.
She left me, too.
Over the last twenty-four hours, I alternated between complete despair and anger at her for not taking her health seriously. She was notoriously behind on her physicals. She made excuses for not taking her medications. She joked about being allergic to working out.
Now, she was dead.
Gone because she didn’t listen to me when I told her to go to the emergency room. Instead, she went home. To die.
Ezra rolled onto his stomach, and lifted himself on his arms. When he saw me, he let out a delighted squeal and fell against the mattress.
Paityn had offered to take him with her when she left, but I couldn’t let him go. Before she left, though, I gave her permission to tell my parents because I didn’t want them to find out another way. I knew Ma would tell Ana, because my godmother had already made it clear that she wanted Ezra to live with them. Then Dallas’s ass couldn’t wait to spill the news in the family group chat.
And Rissa . . .
When the truth came out, she pulled back. Physically and mentally. Moments before that, we’d been wrapped in each other. Things had seemingly shifted between us. So much so that I was two seconds from telling her I wanted more than hook ups every few months, that I was falling for her.
Or that I loved her.
I glanced over at my phone, noticing the new text from my mother. My parents had checked on me every other hour. Sometimes quick texts letting me know they loved me. And other times, they’d forwarded scriptures that should’ve comforted me during trying times.
Ma
