Page 15 of You Deserve Good Things

Sure, I was walking. I was eating. I was breathing; I guess. But I wasn’tliving. I wasn’t here. I was floating above everything, watching life move around me while I just . . . existed. It felt like my life stopped that day, and I was stuck on a loop watching everything else steady orbiting around me.

Poor Mama! She tried to hide the way she hovered, but I saw it. I noticed the way her eyes followed me in the hallway. I saw the way she paused at my bedroom door, her hand on the frame like she wanted to come in but didn’t know how. She’d try to act normal—fixing my plate, asking if I wanted to watch TV, suggesting little things like getting my hair done or going shopping—but the worry sat heavy in her throat. Like she was waiting for me to break. Like if she stared long enough, I’d finally crack open and cry or scream or collapse.

But I didn’t.

Daddy was much quieter. He was way quieter than he’d ever been. He used to hum while he worked, used to leave the door cracked when he was sketching plans for a house he dreamed of building one day. But now, he just sat at the kitchen table in silence every night, palms together, eyes down. He looked like he was praying. Like he was talking to God but forgot the words. Guilt looked different on him. It seemed to have aged him overnight.

Of course, he didn’t say it, but I could feel it in him. It was in the way he walked slower; it was in the way he barely spoke when Mama asked him anything now. Silas’s death hollowedhim out too. And that was what this house had become—a hollow shell, with three broken people pretendin’ to be whole.

People said grief looked like crying, like wailing, like tearing your clothes, like throwing yourself at the casket. But grief wasn’t always loud. Sometimes grief wasquiet as a grave. It crept in and settled like dust. Coated your skin, sat on your chest, and made everything taste like ash. Grief was waking up and feeling like you’d been buried too, just without the dirt.

And me? I was buried in silence.

Every day was a copy-paste of the last. Wake up. Go to school. Pretend to care. Come home. Lay in bed. Stare at the ceiling until my eyes burned. Fall asleep. Repeat.

Then one day, she happened. Daniale. Loud as hell. Colorful. Unapologetic. The complete opposite of everything I was.

I didn’t meet her—sheinsertedherself into my life like she’d been assigned the job.

I was sittin’ alone at lunch, like usual, picking at my tray. I hadn’t planned to eat. I never did. I was just waitin’ for the clock to hit that magic number so I could disappear again.

Then,clack.Her tray hit the table like a warning shot. She plopped into the seat across from me, her aura big as a marching band.

“Whew! These chicken tenders look like they’ve been through the struggle, but I’m too damn hungry to care.”

She didn’t ask to sit down—didn’t pause, didn’t hesitate, justenteredlike she belonged in my space.

Her nails were bright red, coffin-shaped, and loud. Her hair was in two space buns with edges laid like magic. Her earrings were hoops big enough to jump through, and she smelled like vanilla, cocoa butter, and a whole lotta confidence.

She squinted at me like I was a riddle.

“Aight. So, what’s your story, girl?”

I blinked.

She waited, leaning in, one perfectly arched brow raised.

Then she sighed. “Oh, okay. So, you are one ofthosemysterious bitches. Bet.”

I stayed quiet, but inside? I was halfway offended. Halfway amused.

She popped open her juice, sipped it like this was a casual meet-cute. “I don’t do quiet people. Makes me nervous. But you? You too pretty to be weird, so I’m gonna give you a pass.”

I nearly laughed. Almost. But it stayed stuck in my throat.

“You might as well get used to me now,” she said, smirking. “I talk a lot. Like,a lot. I’m loud. I’m nosy. I’m petty. But I got a good heart, and I give bomb-ass advice. So, you are in good hands.”

I didn’t say a word. Didn’t have to. She was already locked in. She found me every single day after that. Walkin’ with me to class. Sittin’ with me at lunch. Talkin’atme about everything from her mama’s crazy wigs to her obsession with cinnamon rolls and how she was gon’ fight her chemistry teacher if he gave her another “hating-ass quiz.”

And slowly . . . quietly . . . it started to help.

One day, she walked with me after school, shoulder to shoulder. She was talkin’ about some boy who tried to flirt with her even though he smelled like “sweaty ambition and two missed showers.”

I wasn’t really listening. Not until she stopped.

“Ayo,” she said, and I turned to look at her. “Real talk . . . I know you’ve been through some shit.”

I froze. My breath caught in my throat. She kept walkin’, like she hadn’t just dropped a whole emotional grenade on me.

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