Nel was the only other person on earth who knew exactly what that felt like. We had survived it together. Now he was ready to move on, and I didn’t know how to follow him there without feeling like I was abandoning the little girl who was still waiting by that phone.
I washed my face, changed my dress, and sat on the edge of the bed staring at nothing for a while.
Eventually I picked up my phone and called Kel. She had stepped out to give us space to do our cousin thing. I needed her voice to calm me like it usually did. Unfortunately, the call went to voicemail.
I checked her location out of habit.
Tresses by Trisha.
I stared at the screen. Trisha was her ex. Kel still got her hair braided there and I had never said anything about it because I trusted her. I wasn’t going to bethatwoman. The shop was closed on Sundays. I knew that for a fact, and Kel not answering her phone made my stomach turn in a way I didn’t like.
I picked up my keys off the nightstand.
I was already cracked open from one kind of loss today. I prayed to God I wasn’t about to walk into another one.
Chapter six
Low Tide
I took my time chalking the tip of my cue, turning it slow and steady until it was dusted just right. Then I leaned over the pool table and lined up the bank shot on the eight ball, tracing the angle like I could already see the path it would take.
We were in Eli’s basement, a space I’d helped design with the same precision I put into everything else. Plush charcoal carpet, recessed lighting, a custom built bar. Our company Elidex had built this house from the ground up, but London had turned it into a home.
In the lounge area their daughter Heavyn was glued to the TV. Bluey was playing, the bright colors reflecting in her wide eyes. She was turning two in July, just a couple months after Demi’s birthday in May.
Watching Eli glance over at his daughter with that easy natural pride always twisted something in my gut. He had done it the right way. He had impregnated the woman he actually loved and been present for every ultrasound, every midnight craving, every contraction.
I had been a ghost.
I avoided Amina like she was a plague during her entire pregnancy. At first I convinced myself she was lying to keep me on a leash. When the bump started showing I told myself the math didn’t add up. I demanded a prenatal paternity test, and when she refused, saying she wasn’t about to turn her pregnancy into a spectacle, I doubled down on my coldness. I missed the appointments. I skipped the baby shower. I wasn’t even in the room when Demi took her first breath.
I showed up at the hospital with a heart full of ice and paperwork requesting a DNA test, acting like a lab result was the only thing that could make it real. They handled the swabs right there, clinical and quick, while my daughter lay in the bassinet a few feet away. I didn’t hold her that day. I was too busy waiting on results to tell me what her face already was. I feel like a piece of shit about it every single day. Demi is a carbon copy of me and the guilt of those early months eats at me in ways I can’t explain. I’m trying to make up for lost time, but you can’t recover time you spent wishing your own child didn’t exist.
“Your shot, man,” Eli said, pulling me out of my head.
I shook it off and leaned back over the table. Before I could line up the cue again the basement steps groaned. London came down and the vibe shifted immediately. She wasn’t the glowingbride to be who had been floating around lately. Her eyes were red and her face was puffy.
Heavyn squealed and launched herself off the couch toward her mama, completely unbothered by the cloud hanging over the room. London forced a smile and scooped her up, but the mask was slipping.
Eli clocked it before she hit the bottom step. He set his cue down and moved toward her.
“London, what’s wrong baby?”
She took a shaky breath. “Just had an argument with Nique. She dropped out of the wedding.”
The room went dead silent. The poolstick suddenly felt like a lead weight in my hand.
Nique was the backbone of that family. She wouldn’t bail on London’s biggest day without a reason that cut deep.
“What happened at brunch?” I asked.
London looked at me, a fresh tear tracking down her cheek. “Nel asked me to invite Stella. We told Nique about it today and she took it worse than we expected. She said she’s not coming.”
Heat crawled up the back of my neck. Stella was a landmine Nique had spent her whole life trying not to step on.
“She’s serious?” Eli asked softly.
“She kicked us out of her house,” London said. “It doesn’t get more serious than that.”