I looked down at her, naked and beautiful and dangerous to my heart. It took everything in me not to drop my face between her legs and eat her pussy like I used to, not to bury myself inside her and remind her how much she meant to me. My body wanted her, my soul wanted her, but my pride wouldn’t let me.
She sat up, pullin’ the towel from her hair. “Is it because you’re in love with somebody else?”
I shook my head, laughin’ without humor. “If that’s what you think this is, then that’s even more reason we don’t need to be together.”
Her mouth opened like she wanted to argue, but her pride snapped it shut. She got up, pulled her clothes on, and grabbed her bag. She ain’t look at me when she said, “Take me back to the hospital.”
The ride there was worse than the ride before. She was in her corner, and I was in mine, but the weight of everything we wasn’t sayin’ filled the car up until it was hard to breathe.
When we got to the hospital and walked back into Zurie’s room, it was like a reset button. She was still asleep in the same position, bandages wrapped around her head, and monitors beepin’ soft in the background. Pluto went straight to her side, grabbin’ her hand like it was the only thing holdin’ her up. I stood at the other side of the bed, slid my fingers around her little hand too, and rubbed it until I felt that peace I been waitin’ for. She was alive. She was safe. That’s what mattered.
After a while, I stepped around the bed, slid behind Pluto, and wrapped her in my arms. She leaned into me without thinkin’, like her body knew I was her anchor even if her mind kept fightin’ it. I kissed her cheek and whispered, “I gotta go.”
She stiffened. “Already?”
“Yeah.” My voice was low.
She turned her head just enough that I saw the tear slide down her cheek. I wiped it with my thumb before it could fall anyfurther, pressed my lips against her skin one last time, and then let go.
Walkin’ out that room felt like walkin’ out of myself, but I had to. I couldn’t keep lettin’ her pull me back just to watch her run off again. I loved her, more than I ever loved anyone, but love wasn’t enough when I was the only one fightin’ for it.
I left the hospital, slid into my rental, and gripped the wheel like it was the only thing holdin’ me together. My phone lit up again, and this time it was Kashmere.
It was time to go back home and focus on what I built…
St. Mercy General Hospital
Seeing Pressure walk away hurt me in ways I couldn’t even describe.
He had just left the hospital, and I was still sitting in this small room, trying to focus on Zurie, but my mind kept pulling me right back to him. It was crazy because he’d been here through everything. He sent me forty thousand dollars like it was nothing, and then dropped everything to sit by my side while Zurie was in surgery. He held me, kissed me, kept me close the whole time, but even through all of that I felt this space between us. His voice wasn’t the same. The way he used to talk to me wasn’t there anymore. He didn’t ask me to come with him, didn’t even try to act like he wanted me in that way, and that part cut me more than I wanted to admit.
I watched my little sister’s chest rise and fall as she slept, the machines around her soft, and I told myself to focus on her. She was the reason I was even still standing. She was the reason I could put one foot in front of the other when everything else in my life felt like it was falling apart. But the truth was, I couldn’t stop thinking about Pressure. I couldn’t shake the way he turned me down when I tried to give myself to him, and the way he held back even when his hands were still on me.
It had me asking myself questions I didn’t want to ask. Had I pushed him away so many times that he finally stopped wanting me? Was he finally seeing me as somebody who wasn’t worth his time? The thought of that alone had me sick.
I pulled my phone out my bag and stared at the black screen for a long time before I unlocked it. My uncle Lionel was the only person I could think to call. I couldn’t let Zurie go back to that apartment after what happened. My father had already shown me who he was and there was no way I was risking her being in his reach again.
The phone rang twice before he answered, his voice groggy like I’d pulled him out of sleep.
“Unc, it’s me. I need to ask you for something important,” I said, my throat tight but my words clear.
“Talk to me,” he said.
I explained everything, telling him how Zurie had just come out of surgery and that I needed somebody I could trust to be here for her. I didn’t want to sound like I was running, and I didn’t want to make it seem like she wasn’t my first priority, but I had something heavy on me that I had to deal with.
“Can you or Aunt Dee come up here and be with her? And when they discharge her, can you take her home with y’all? At least for a while?”
There was a pause on the line. My uncle was a man who thought before he spoke, and for a second I was scared he was going to tell me no.
“I’ll take her back in,” he said finally. “But Dee will have to come sit with her for now until she’s discharged. I can’t make it up there tonight.”
Relief washed over me and I closed my eyes for a second. “Thank you, Unc. That means everything.”
“You know we got her,” he said. “Don’t worry about nothing.”
I thanked him again before hanging up. My chest loosened a little because at least now I knew Zurie wasn’t going back to that chaos.
I sat in the stiff hospital chair with my phone in my hand and opened a browser. My fingers hovered before I typed “Jungle Estate.” I didn’t even know what I expected to see, but when the address popped up, my heart sank and jumped at the same time. It was real. It wasn’t just some place only I knew about. I sat there staring at the directions.
