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“Your parents’ house… and I don’t believe you!” she screamed at me, still having her moment.

“My parents house, where I had to rush to get to because my mom sent some wild shit to the group chat that has me, and my brothers in it. She went through my pops phone and found out that not only has he been cheating, but he has a fourteen-year-old son, and a baby girl that’s due next month. She shot that nigga multiple times, trying to kill him. You smell perfume on me because I was at her crib, consoling her. If you knew you smelled perfume on me, you should have asked that, instead of making accusations. All that storming off, catching attitudes, expecting me to read your mind is not it. You acting like a little ass girl. Be a grown woman about your shit!” that’s when I snapped on her.

I don’t know if she started crying harder because I yelled at her, or because it hit her that she accused me of some shit that I really wasn’t out here doing.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” she said, looking up at me, while wiping her eyes.

You know when a kid throws tantrums, and everyone keeps saying that they need a nap? That’s how I felt right now looking at Deja. She was looking up at me with tired eyes. She needed a fuckin nap.

I went ahead and sat down next to her on the bench. The second I sat down, she used that as her cue to climb in my lap. I swear I wanted to move her ass off me, especially since she just sat here and accused me of being with a bitch, when I had real life shit going on with my parents. I didn’t do that though. I allowed her to sit sideways on my lap, while laying her head on my chest.

“Wolf, I’m sorry,” she said to me, after she calmed down.

“You good,” was all I said to her.

“I feel like I’m being selfish for having you here with me. Go be with your mom,” she said, about to stand up from my lap, but I pulled her arm, not letting her get up.

“My mom is sleep. She fell asleep a little bit before you called me. My brother over there with her. Chill out,” I told her.

“I feel like I’m going to lose you,” she said, turning her head, so that she could look at me.

“You need to take a fuckin nap. You tired. You irrational, and you just saying shit,” I said, my elbows propped up behind me on the bench, looking at this beautiful woman that I had in my lap. She was showing me that her tear ducts worked perfectly fine because she kept crying. She was spewing out shit that I wasn’t even thinking about. She was all over the fuckin place. That’s how I knew she needed a nap.

“I’m serious though. Hitta left a mark on me. I don’t believe shit that a man tells me. I don’t trust anything, either. I feel like that makes me insecure in a sense. You may get tired of that and leave me. That’s why I said that,” she went on to tell me.

“I knew what I was dealing with already, Deja. That fuck nigga played with your head, now you think every nigga after him is out here to get you. You got trust issues like a motha fucka. Everything I say to you, you overthink it. Ima break your ass out of that shit. You trying to crash out, and self-sabotage before our shit even get started. I keep telling you that I’m one of one. I’m not shit like that loser ass nigga. I thought we had an understanding of that,” I got on her, and she didn’t say anything.

“You understand?” I asked. She just nodded her head.

“Nah. Use your words. Same way you just sat here and accused me of smelling like a bitch, use your words to tell me that you understand me,” I was still on her ass. I could have gone a little harder but with everything that she had going on mentally right now with her sister, I chose to ease up a little bit.

“I understand. I’m sorry of accusing you of something that you weren’t doing,” she said.

“Aight. Come on. Ima walk you back up there so that you can sit with your sister,” I said, tapping her on her hip, so that she could stand up.

She stood up and reached her hand out for me. Deja knew that she had me fucked up because she kept apologizing for the shit that she did.

Before we walked back into the hospital, she wrapped her arms around me and kissed me on my lips just one time. After that, she pulled away, leading the way back inside. We took the elevator up together and made it back into the waiting room area. Her people were still inside, waiting around. I sat with Deja for about twenty minutes before I stood up, letting her know that I was going to take off for a little bit.

Even with her people in the room, she kissed me, apologized again, and told me to text her when I got wherever I was going. I assured her that I would, also telling her to take a nap if she could. She needed one. Her ass was on ten tonight.

As much as I wanted to stay with her, and be there for her, I felt like I was being pulled, so I was going to head back to my parents’ crib. I’m sure I will be back over here tomorrow to check on Deja. However it went, I would make myself available to both women in my life, making it where they didn’t have to endure any of the things that they were going through right now on their own.

CHAPTER 3

ANARI JOSEPH

Ilay here, struggling to open my eyes. They felt so heavy. Opening my eyes shouldn’t have taken this much effort, but somehow, it did. I’m not sure if the lighting in the room was just that bright, or if my eyes were super sensitive today, but every time I tried to open them, and I got a little bit of that brightness, my eyes would close back. This went on for a while.

I could hear beeping going on around me. I wasn’t sure where the beeping was coming from, or what it was for that matter. There was a figure beside me, close enough for me to feel their presence. Since I couldn’t open my eyes, I wasn’t sure who was lying next to me. There was a huge lump in my throat, so I swallowed. The second I swallowed, I wanted to break down and cry. My mouth was dry, and my throat was sore, causing me so much pain. I lay here, fighting again to open my eyes, and eventually, I was able to do so.

I was in a hospital room. My eyes weren’t fully focused, so my vision was blurry. Even with that, I was able to make out what was going on around me. It was my mom, and auntie Twan off in the distance. They were sitting on a couch, talking amongst themselves. My grandma wasn’t sitting too far away from them. She was in a chair, with what looked to be a magazine in her lap that she was flipping through. That’s when my eyes dropped, looking at the figure in the bed with me, and it was my sister.

This hospital bed wasn’t very big, but Deja was lying in bed with me. She was lying down on her stomach, with her right hand balled into a fist, sleeping peacefully. Seeing my sister’s face, that’s when everything started coming back to me. The more the events started coming back to me, it caused my head to hurt. I wasn’t sure if my brain was trying to process too much information at one time, but the more it started making sense to me, the more my head began to throb.

My hand felt so weak, as I lifted it, placing it on my sister’s hair. I tried to smooth it down. Something that she would often do to me if I fell asleep around her and woke up. I would find her smoothing my hair, and it was typically followed by her telling me that she loved me. Knowing how much my sister loved me and knowing that I tried to take the selfish way out, and possibly leave her, caused me to shed tears. My sobs were loud enough for my family to hear because before I knew it, my mom, aunt, and grandma all rushed over, coming to the bed.

“Nari, what the fuck, girl!” it was my mom’s voice that caused my head to throb even more, and my ears to ring.