Page 4 of Crash: Love in Scrubs
And there it was—the real wound underneath all his attitude and distance. My heart broke for the little boy who still wondered what was wrong with him that made his daddy leave, because I knew that feeling all too well. I’d wondered the same thing about my own mother, Samisa, who’d left me with my daddy when I was just a few weeks old.
“Baby, listen to me.” I reached over and squeezed his hand. “You were always enough. More than enough. His leaving had nothing to do with you and everything to do with him being a coward.”
The same words my daddy had said to me about my mother all those years ago.
“Then why won’t you let me find out for myself?”
Because I was terrified. Terrified that Ashe would break his heart all over again. Terrified that my son might choose a fantasy father over the reality we’d built together.
“Because some questions don’t have answers worth hearing,” I said quietly. There was nothing that would ever separate me from my child. From the second I laid eyes on him, I knew comehell or high water, he would always have me. So no, I didn’t understand how a parent could walk away. I’d never understand.
I wanted to scream Fuck Ashe Lowe but I didn’t. The conversation hurt. It gnawed at me because maybe I should’ve reached out or stayed on him about Samaj, but I wasn’t into begging. A muthafucka had one time to show me who they were for me to believe them. Ashe was a parasite who had no business around my child, deserving or not.
I looked over at him. He was still my baby, but he was growing into a man. And I wasn’t ready.
I turned back to the road, mind spiraling. On everything he’d just laid in my lap, his attitude, his questions, and how he was growing up faster than I could keep up. I wanted to press, to push back, but I was too tired. Not tonight.
It could wait.
I opened my mouth, thinking I might joke about the streaming just to lighten the air. Instead, something else entirely came out.
“Samaj, streaming, really? I wanted you to go to college. I thought you had your schools picked. What’s going on?”
“Ma, you act like streaming ain’t a real job. People make millions doing what I want to do.”
“Some people, Samaj. A few. You know what most people who chase dreams like that end up doing? Working regular jobs anyway. Except now they’re thirty, no degree, and limited options.”
“So, you don’t believe in me?”
“I believe in you having a backup plan. I believe in you not putting all your eggs in one basket or being so impulsive.”
I knew what he heard when I said that. That I didn’t believe in him. That I didn’t see him the way he wanted to be seen. But fear has a way of garbling even the softest truths.
“Impulsive? You run into burning buildings. I just don’t know if I love playing baseball anymore. Dad says…” he trailed off.
Ashe had been in his ear. Feeding him lines. Making promises.
“Whew, I almost blacked out,” I joked to keep from demanding he call his bum assdadright then and there. I needed his location immediately. Samaj didn’t fully know this side of me, but he was going to see the mama bear in me come out like never before. “Let’s finish this later. We’re almost at Sheena’s.”
I wanted to tell him his dreams were valid, that I supported him. But fear had its hands around my throat. Fear that he’d get hurt and not have enough to fall back on. Fear that all my pushing was more about my regrets than his path.
The light ahead turned green. My foot eased off the brake.
The rain came harder now, drumming against the sunroof of my Telluride. The wipers squealed against the windshield—I made a mental note to fix them soon. Taillights ahead blurred into red streaks, and the world outside shimmered in watercolor.
I could smell the rain through the vents; it was a smell that would normally calm me, but nothing about this moment felt calm. My stomach was in knots, and the silence between us swelled again, giving me a headache.
The radio hummed in the background, R&B that wasn’t doing its job calming me down. Even Summer Walker couldn’t take the edge off this conversation or the pain in my heart. I swallowed my pride, my anger, and my confusion. I needed tonight more than ever now, and I wouldn’t let Ashe or his influence on my son ruin it. Dad was turning sixty tomorrow, and it was time to celebrate.
“I just want to know him, Ma. You talk like he’s a ghost. But he’s real. And he’s talking to me.”
He wasn’t just mad—he was mourning something I couldn’t give him.
That look on his face reminded me of the first time he asked about Ashe. I think he was eight, maybe nine, and he’d started noticing his classmates getting picked up by their dads. Back then, I told him the truth in pieces. Just enough to protect his heart.
But now? He was starting to believe the only thing standing between him and his father was me.
I reached for the radio, needing something to calm the rage building in my chest. As far as I was concerned, his father was a ghost, and I never spoke on that man. Ever. I didn’t believe in ghosts.
